A contract worth roughly NOK 300 million to drill production wells on Statoil's Kvitebjørn development has been awarded to Procon Drilling Services.
This assignment covers drilling and completion of nine producers and one well for injecting drill cuttings.
Procon, which is a subsidiary of Prosafe, will also handle maintenance of the rig on the North Sea field's platform during the work.
An option is included for further requirements which might arise from a scheduled update of the reservoir model this year, reports Trond Røsbak, drilling operations manager for Kvitebjørn. In addition come options for downhole work.
Drilling is due to begin on 1 August 2003 and should take two and a half years to complete. If the options are exercised, this period could be extended by a maximum of three years.
Mr Røsbak says that the contract is being awarded so far in advance because Statoil wants to involve the drilling contractor in engineering and construction of the platform rig.
Involving the contractor at an early stage in planning the actual work is also important.
The contract to build the rig was awarded earlier this summer to Heerema Tønsberg in cooperation with Rig Design Services (RDS) and Hydralift.
Plans call for the Kvitebjørn platform to be installed on the field in the spring of 2003, with gas and condensate starting to flow in the autumn of 2004.
Statoil's partners in the development are Norsk Hydro and Elf Petroleum Norge.