Equinor keeping Island Drilling, Archer, and Baker Hughes busy with multi-well P&A gigs

Norwegian state-owned energy giant Equinor has awarded compatriot Island Drilling with a well plugging contract on the fields it operates on the Norwegian continental shelf (NCS), while Archer and Baker Hughes Norge have won framework agreements for full-range delivery of plugging services.

The three-year contract with Island Drilling, worth an estimated $30 million, also entails five one-year options, Equinor reported. The work will be carried out using the Island Innovator semi-submersible rig.

The Norwegian rig company will now be on assignment for Equinor for several years, with start-up scheduled for early 2026.

The scope of work under the new contract includes mobilization, planned upgrading, and certain integrated drilling services aimed at permanently plugging 15 to 20 wells annually for a total of nine licences. Subsea wells at Heidrun, Snorre, and Norne, among others, will be plugged and no longer be used for oil or gas production.

“We will drill 600 improved oil recovery wells and about 250 exploration wells to maintain our production on the NCS towards 2035. At the same time, many wells will be permanently securely plugged. This rig provides us with a tool specially designed for plugging operations. The initial plan is a three-year work programme, but we do not rule out utilising the rig for operations also in the longer term,” noted Erik G. Kirkemo, Equinor’s Senior Vice President for Drilling & Well.

The 2012-built Island Innovator is a sixth-generation rig for drilling and heavy well intervention. The rig is purposely built for production drilling on subsea templates, with large designated areas for storage, and a skidding system to bring XMTs in position for the moonpool elevator.

The rig completed a P&A assignment offshore Mauritania in October 2024, after which it made a stop at a shipyard in Las Palmas.

The Norwegian major has also handed out framework agreements to Archer and Baker Hughes Norge for full-range delivery of plugging services. Their duration is three years, including two two-year options.

Equinor estimates the combined cost of total work related to integrated plugging services over the next seven years to be about NOK 3.5 billion, or approximately $31.45 million.

Archer has been put in charge of planning plugging operations for 26 wells to be plugged from Island Innovator, in addition to options to perform the work. According to Archer, this includes Snorre UPA and Heidrun B&C templates.

“Through these contracts the suppliers are involved at an early stage and get a greater responsibility for planning the plugging operations, closely monitored by Equinor, who has the overall responsibility. We facilitate the industrialisation of safe and efficient plugging operations, ensuring continuous improvements together. This is about ensuring quality and reducing costs for work that will gradually increase on the NCS in the future,” said Mette H. Ottøy, Equinor’s Chief Procurement Officer.

Earlier this week, Equinor handed out an integrated engineering, procurement, construction, and installation (iEPCI) contract to TechnipFMC for the third phase of Johan Sverdrup Phase 3 development. The oil field is said to be the third largest on the NCS.