Northern Ocean Ltd's semi-submersible drilling rig, Deepsea Bollsta, has arrived in Namibia and started its contract with Shell.
The contract for the 2019-built offshore drilling rig has a firm duration of twelve months. Shell will have the option to extend it for another six months.
The drilling rig is managed by the Norwegian drilling contractor Odfjell Drilling, which also prepared the rig for the contract. The rig was previously managed by Seadrill, under the name West Bollsta.
Scott McReaken, CEO of Northern Ocean Ltd. said:"We commend the crews and the management of Odfjell, as they delivered this project and transit on-time, within budget and most importantly, without incident. We look forward to delivering more significant milestones for Shell as we embark on this drilling campaign, and expect to continue strengthening the relationship with the manager and the client."
Back in August, when it first announced it had secured the contract with Shell, Northern Ocean said the deal would add around $124 million of firm revenue backlog to Northern Ocean, excluding the option.
Namibia is where Shell earlier this year made a large oil discovery at the Graff-1 well.
The Graff-1 well, located in the Orange Basin, offshore Namibia, 270 km from the town of Oranjemun, was drilled using the Valaris DS-10 drillship. The well was drilled to a total depth of 5,376 meters in water depths of approximately 2,000 meters in the PEL-39 license area, which covers a total area of 12,299 km2. Drilling operations started in early December 2021 and were completed in early February 2022. Wood Mackenzie has described the discovery as Shell's "largest discovery in Sub-Saharan Africa since Bonga in 1996."