Norway’s state-owned energy giant Equinor has received clearance to deploy a ten-year-old jack-up rig at its offshore field on the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS).

The Norwegian Ocean Industry Authority has given Equinor consent to use the Shelf Drilling Barsk rig for temporary plugging on the Sleipner B field. The rig, previously known as the Noble Lloyd Noble jack-up rig, was bought by Shelf Drilling, now part of ADES, due to Noble’s efforts to remedy competition concerns related to its merger with Maersk Drilling, which was concluded in 2022.

The 2016-built Shelf Drilling Barsk jack-up rig is of GustoMSC CJ70-X150-ST design and can accommodate 140 people. The rig secured a contract with Equinor in April 2023 for operations at the Sleipner Vest field offshore Norway. While the initial contract is for two wells, the deal entailed options for two additional wells.

A two-well extension with an estimated duration of 254 days and options for three wells at the Gudrun field was handed to the jack-up by Equinor in April 2024. The Sleipner area spans three gas and condensate fields, encompassing Sleipner Øst, Gungne, and Sleipner Vest, and processes hydrocarbons from several tie-in fields: Sigyn, Volve, Gudrun and gas from Gina Krog.

Hydrocarbons flow through offshore installations for the processing, drilling, and living quarter platform (Sleipner A), the unmanned production platform (Sleipner B), and the processing and CO2 removal platform (Sleipner T).

The Sleipner B platform is situated in the Sleipner Vest area in the North Sea. The Norwegian operator already embarked on a power-from-shore quest with the partial electrification of assets on Utsira High, including the Sleipner field center, to slash the carbon emissions footprint.

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