Northern Offshore International Drilling Co. is in the midst of filing a US$50 million claim against Camac Energy for canceling the Energy Searcher drilling contract earlier this month.
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The Energy Searcher. From Northern. |
Northern Offshore issued the notice of contract termination to Camac’s subsidiary, Oceanic Consultants Nigeria on 2 January. In Northern Offshore’s statement, the company said it “believes that Oceanic breached various terms of the drilling contract and will be filing a claim for in excess of $50 million associated with this matter pursuant to the arbitration provisions of the contract.”
On 7 January, Camac notified Northern Offshore in a statement saying that the company “elected to terminate the contract with immediate effect for Northern’s repudiatory breach of contract and other material breaches of the drilling contract by Northern. These breaches have caused significant damages and loss, including delay damages and wasted spread costs to the company (Camac). Camac is considering all legal options to enforce its rights under the contract.”
As of late December, the Energy Searcher was working on the plugging and abandonment operations on Camac’s Oyo-5 and Oyo-6 wells.
While Northern Offshore plans to have the Energy Searcher demobilized out of Nigeria by the end of the month, Camac has moved forward on its drilling and completion operations of its Oyo field using Transocean’s Sedoc Express semisubmersible drilling rig.
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The Sedco Express. From Transocean. |
The Sedco Express arrived at the Oyo field at the end of December, in oil mining lease (OML) 120 under a contract to expedite timing of production tie-in from the Oyo-7 and Oyo-8 development wells. The rig will also be used on up to three wells to complete the Oyo-7 and Oyo-8 wells horizontally. Camac is considering using the ultra deepwater rig to drill the company’s first Miocene-target exploration well.
In late September, Camac reported that its four offshore Nigeria prospects in OML 120 and 121 had increased the company’s unrisked P50 recoverable resources to about 3 billion boe. The company had identified drilling locations for all four prospects and planned for the first exploration well in 1H 2015. Camac was expecting to use the Energy Searcher to drill the exploration program and at that time, was using the rig to drill the Oyo-7 and Oyo-8 wells offshore Nigeria.
In mid-September, Camac temporarily stopped drilling on the Energy Searcher in mid-September at the Oyo-8 well due to leaks in some control system hoses of the well's blow out preventer. According to Northern Offshore, operations resumed on 23 September.
Camac is the operator and owns 100% interest in OMLs 120 and 121.
Read more:
Sedco Express arrives at Oyo field
Camac gets additional rig offshore Nigeria
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