Askeladden Seeking its Fortune on Gullfaks
Thursday 5 April 2018
The new Cat J jackup rig Askeladden started drilling on the Gullfaks field on 26 March, with the goal of providing new production from old wells and exploring to create new value.
Askeladden has been bought by the Gullfaks licence to carry out production and exploration drilling on Gullfaks Satellites. For several months the rig had to wait on weather, both on its way from the yard in South Korea and when it met the Norwegian winter weather. It arrived at the field on February 19th and on 5 March the legs were firmly placed on the seabed at its final location by the subsea template.
Plugging first
Plugging of two wells starts now before they are going to reuse the wells, so-called slot recovery, and drill to new well targets. The second well will have a sidetrack to the Rimfaks Lomvi prospect at 4200 metres depth to explore for new hydrocarbon deposits.
So far, 11 wells are planned for the first two years of operation, however, the rig is to meet a long-term need. New plans reaching beyond 2020 are continuously being developed. The KCA Deutag drilling contractor was awarded an 8-year contract.