AGR Petroleum Services bags 400th well
AGR Petroleum Services, part of AGR Group, has announced that it has successfully drilled its 400th well in ten years. The significant milestone was confirmed during a presentation to senior oil and gas players in London yesterday (Tuesday 6 April).The exploration and well management company held its annual market update in the capital where it discussed recent challenges facing the oil and gas industry and outlined what it believes the future holds for the sector.
AGR’s landmark achievement underlines its position as one of the world’s most prolific drilling companies and means that, on average, it has drilled a new well every 9 days over the last decade.
Sjur Talstad, CEO of AGR Petroleum Services said: “There are very few companies or operators out there who have come close to drilling this number of wells in the same timescale and it’s testament to our teams around the globe that we have been able to deliver such a consistently high level of activity.
“We’ve had the opportunity over the last decade to work on many groundbreaking projects and these have enabled us to build extensive expertise of working in all types of challenging environments around the world.”
The company told analysts that signs in the market are encouraging and that 2010 is beginning to pick up compared to this time last year. With demand for deep water jack ups remaining strong and demand for semi submersibles also expected to increase, AGR has urged operators to plan well in advance of any scheduled activity.
Ian Burdis, Vice President of Well Management at AGR, said: “Having a clear understanding of all the necessary requirements and risks well in advance of any activity commencing is absolutely vital. Operators should assess their rig requirements early on so that they don’t encounter expensive delays. Taking seasonality into consideration is also important.”
Analysts also heard that while exploration activity is beginning to recover, securing finance remains a key concern for many companies. The perceived decline of the North Sea is causing investors to be much more cautious about backing projects. In contrast, more high risk projects such as the current drilling programmes off the Falklands Islands have attracted significant investment.
Among the groundbreaking work AGR has been involved with is drilling the world’s deepest well below the mud line to a total depth of 32, 997 feet with McMoRan as part of the operator’s exploration activity in the Davy Jones field in the Gulf of Mexico. This was one of more than 35 wells the company has drilled that are deeper than 18,000ft with mud weights higher than 18.4ppg.
It also pioneered the concept of multi client multi well Rig Campaigns in the North Sea and has seen demand for this service grown in recent years. Elsewhere in the North Sea, AGR’s work on the Bredford Dolphin off the Norwegian coast has seen almost half of all wells drilled strike oil.
