Brunei Shell Petroleum (BSP) has launched a rig tender for a drilling campaign in Brunei that will cover a firm charter term of six years with two additional two-year options beginning in June 2020.

Sources said that the operator invited tender rig specialists such as Singapore-based drilling contractor Energy Drilling and its rivals, including Seadrill and Sapura Drilling, to bid for the work.

They added that Sapura will likely offer Sapura Pelaut, which is already on contract with BSP for a 150-day development drilling campaign in the shallow-water South West Ampa area that BSP has said is set to start on 13 June.

The Sapura Pelaut vessel has been working for BSP since delivery in 1994.

However, sources said that BSP wants a more modern unit, and has specified in its new tender that a rig with less than 15 years of employment will be preferred.

Meanwhile, tender rig specialists can bid for another job as Thailand’s PTTEP is seeking either a tender assist rig or a jack-up for a campaign at the Bongkot field for one year, with seven months of options, beginning in the first quarter of 2020.

Sources said only contractors that have worked for PTTEP in the past have been invited to participate in the tender, which possibly includes Energy Drilling, Seadrill and Sapura Drilling for the tender rig and EnscoRowan, Vantage and China Oilfield Service Ltd for the jack-up.

Just recently, London-listed operator EnQuest handed an award to Energy Drilling to use its tender-assist barge EDrill-2 for a drilling campaign in at the PM8/ Seligi field off Malaysia, the first such award in Malaysia for the rig company.

Edrill-2 will operate alongside the Seligi platform off Peninsular Malaysia for two firm wells with two option wells, starting in early July.

Energy Drilling will soon start mobilizing the Edrill-2, which is currently stacked in Kim Heng shipyard in Singapore after having completed a programme for PTTEP in Myanmar that ran from December 2015 till the end of March 2019.

Just two months ago, Energy Drilling agreed a deal to merge with Houston-based Atlantica Tender Drilling (formerly BassDrill).

Assuming the merger is concluded, the new company will become the second-largest tender drilling contractor in the world after Malaysia’s Sapura Energy, operating five rigs.

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Shell launches rig tender off Brunei