Further to the announcement issued on February 18, global drilling and engineering contractor KCA Deutag (“KCAD”) has announced the award of new contracts on the back of strong tendering activity in its land drilling business. These contracts, with a combined value of approximately $54M, are for drilling operations in the Middle East, Russia, Europe and Africa.
Tendering activity in the Middle East in particular continues to increase, with a high level of demand for rigs.
A KCA Deutag client has contracted three 2000hp desert rigs for an option period to reserve them for a future project. These high performance rigs were originally manufactured by Bentec, KCAD’s drilling rig and oilfield equipment manufacturer, at its production facilities in Germany. Bentec’s rigs are built to operate in the world’s most challenging environments, and are ideally suited to the extreme heat of the desert.
In Iraq, the company has also been awarded a new contract for a 2000hp land rig to drill seven wells for a global provider of products and services to the energy industry. This drilling programme is expected to commence in April and last until early next year.
In Russia one of its 1000hp land rigs has been awarded a new five year drilling contract, including options, by one of the country’s leading oil and gas companies. KCAD has been operating in Russia since 2002 and it is one of the group’s largest areas of operation.
KCA Deutag has also had recent success in Algeria, where it has won a new drilling contract for one of Bentec’s fast moving 1500hp Speed Rigs which will commence in June. The rig will carry out a short term plug and abandonment programme.
In Germany, KCAD has won two short term contracts, both of which will commence in September. The first is for a Bentec built 2,000hp EURO rig to drill one well and the other is for a 1,500hp EURO rig to drill a sidetrack well.
Commenting on activity levels in the global land drilling market, Simon Drew, president of land, said: “It is good to see activity picking up in the international drilling industry once again across various markets, and whilst pricing remains very competitive, we are pleased to see this feeding through to an increase in utilisation across our land drilling fleet.”
The Bentec EURO rig