North Sea operators EnQuest (LON:ENQ) and Repsol Sinopec Resources UK have set out a series of upcoming decom contracts for nearly 200 oil and gas wells.
Speaking at an event in Aberdeen on Wednesday, Teresa Munro, decommissioning manager at Repsol Sinopec, said the operator currently plans to “fully abandon 140 wells by the end of 2025”.
She said most of these wells are associated with four fields whose platforms are now post-cessation of production: Beatrice, Buchan, Saltire and Tartan.
A 32-well campaign is also planned at the Fulmar and Halley fields, with three main contractors currently in the running in a design competition after tenders were submitted in June.
Contract award is expected in the first quarter of next year, Ms Munro said, which is expected to last 2.5 years.
Four main fields
Ms Munro highlighted a series of specific opportunities ahead at the event, organised by the NSTA and Decom North Sea.
Fitting into the same timeline as Fulmar is Beatrice; a 30-well campaign with contract award expected in the third quarter of next year.
Ms Munro said a jackup rig is the methodology being worked up, though Repsol Sinopec has asked the market for other solutions. Bids are due back in October.
Elsewhere proposals are being sought for a P&A campaign for an unspecified number of wells at the Tartan platform, with proposed method being a modular rig.
Ms Munro said the preference would then be for that rig to be used for a further 14 wells at the Saltire field.
She added that Repsol Sinopec will go into the tender phase for that at the end of 2022.
A contract is also being planned for 30 “high-risk wells” within the RSRUK portfolio.
A 14-well campaign has already been awarded to Well-Safe Solutions on the Buchan and Hannay fields, using the Well-Safe Guardian rig.
Repsol Sinopec also highlighted a contract award expected next month for a small five-well exploration and appraisal P&A campaign.
Other ongoing jobs that Repsol Sinopec is carrying out include a six-month, six-well campaign at Montrose, due to start next month, and four-wells at the Piper field in mid-2023.
Elsewhere, a four-well campaign is planned at Auk North, due to be carried out in 2024.
Repsol Sinopec also highlighted a series of other smaller projects coming up: plugging at Clyde (2022/23), and the Auk platform (2024), and decommissioning at Enoch (a programme is being prepared in 2023).
EnQuest
Repsol Sinopec, a joint venture between the namesake Spanish and Chinese firms, was joined at the event by John Davey, project manager at EnQuest who also gave some visibility on his company’s decom plans.
London-listed EnQuest has 33 suspended wells and four E&A wells to be decommissioned.
The suspended wells are all within the Alma Galia, Broom and Dons fields.
“We’re looking to have integrated execution across all three fields for this.
“Currently we’re engaging supply chain around this and looking to place a contract towards the end of Q1 2023.
“At that point we’re going to performed detailed engineering such that we can be ready to execute in Q3 2023.”
The four E&A wells are, meanwhile, intended to be included within a multi-operator campaign so timings will be dictated by that.
Shares in EnQuest are trading at 26.5 pence.
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