Lagos – 7 March 2023: The Caverton Offshore Support Group (COSG) Plc is pleased to release today its Offshore Rigs Tracker for Q1 2023, developed in partnership with Hawilti Ltd. The Offshore Rigs Tracker offers the African petroleum industry the opportunity to track rigs’ movements and drilling campaigns offshore sub-Saharan Africa and is an important tool and business barometer for the African upstream oil & gas industry and its suppliers.
Offshore drilling activity will be strong in sub-Saharan Africa this year, with over 30 rigs confirmed to be active so far. However, offshore rig supply is getting tighter amidst rising demand for both jack ups and floaters globally, which has the potential of delaying future drilling campaigns on the continent.
Angola will continue to dominate the market like it has for a couple of years. The country has six floaters already contracted until at least 2024. Based on its pipeline of brownfield and greenfield projects, it will continue to drive deep-water drilling activity until at least 2026. All international oil companies (IOCs) have active rigs in the country, especially TotalEnergies (3), Azule Energy (2), Chevron (1), and ExxonMobil (1). They are actively pursuing infill drilling campaigns and subsea tie-back schemes on their producing FPSO units, while targeting infrastructure-led exploration opportunities.
Nigeria’s offshore industry is also maintaining the momentum of drilling activity it saw in 2022 with at least five offshore rigs scheduled to be active in the country this year. Shell’s subsidiary SNEPCO and TotalEnergies both have floaters mobilized for most of the year on their respective deep-water blocks, OML 118 and OML 130. However, most of Nigeria’s demand is for jack-ups in shallow water, driven by key players such as Chevron, First E&P, General Hydrocarbons, and Damas E&P.
The Chevron Nigeria JV is expected to be particularly active over the coming years as it executes Project Panther offshore Escravos. The scope includes 37 development infill wells and four well reactivations across eight offshore fields and one onshore field, according to NNPC.
“We continue to witness an upsurge in drilling activity offshore West Africa despite the offshore rigs supply getting tight,” said Capt. Ibrahim Bello, Managing Director of Caverton Helicopters. “More drilling contracts are currently in negotiations across the region for both exploratory and development drilling, which could make 2023 one of the biggest years for offshore drilling activity on the continent since the crisis of 2014.”
After Angola and Nigeria, the Republic of Congo and Gabon are the next most active offshore drilling destinations in sub-Saharan Africa. Both countries are seeking to mitigate their production decline with additional infill drilling, development drilling, and exploratory drilling. Several campaigns are currently taking place there, including exploratory drilling by Eni in Congo and CNOOC in Gabon.
Across the rest of the continent, significant development and exploratory drilling campaigns are also on the table this year, including in Senegal and Namibia. While the former is drilling to start producing oil and export LNG, the latter has all the industry’s attention as both Shell and TotalEnergies seek to confirm significant oil and gas discoveries made in the Orange Basin
The Offshore Rigs Tracker Q1 2023 can be downloaded for free below
Contact:
Ese Obukonise
ese.obukonise@caverton-helicopters.com
About Caverton Offshore Support Group Plc.
Caverton Offshore Support Group Plc (COSG) is an integrated provider of logistics, aviation, and marine services in Africa, listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) and operating out of Lagos, Nigeria.
The group’s flagship company, Caverton Helicopters, is the largest indigenous aviation logistics support company in Nigeria, with two decades of experience providing services to the oil and gas industry. Since 2021, our aviation business is also offering third party training and maintenance services via a recently commissioned Maintenance Repair and Overhaul (MRO) facility and the Caverton Aviation Training Centre (CATC), both in Lagos.
Our marine subsidiary, Caverton Marine, is one of Nigeria’s oldest shipping companies and has been repositioned for growth through a foray into the local manufacturing of Glass Reinforced Plastic (GRP) boats servicing the growth of Nigeria’s mass transit ferry transportation.
