Key milestone hailed as drilling gets under way at ‘core’ project

Independent Oil and Gas (IOG) is welcoming a “key milestone” after drilling got underway on its “core” project North Sea fields.

Noble’s Hans Deul jack-up rig mobilised from the Cromarty Firth on April 1 and reached the Elgood field location three days later.

IOG has now confirmed that the Elgood development well, 48/22c-H1, was spudded on April 9.

Elgood is the first of five planned development wells in IOG’s phase one project and is expected to take about three months to drill and finish.

After completion, the rig will move on to the Blythe field in early Q3.

Last year, Petrofac was awarded a five-well contract for the first phase of the “core” project, which is a development made up of six fields in the Southern North Sea containing about 410 billion cubic feet of gas, which will be transported onshore via the Thames pipeline.

Andrew Hockey, CEO of IOG, said: “We are very pleased to have kicked off the phase one drilling campaign, another key milestone for the company as we continue to progress towards commercialisation of our core project.

“This drilling campaign has been planned meticulously by the IOG drilling, subsurface, subsea and HSE teams since early last year, in collaboration with our main drilling contractors Noble Corporation, Petrofac and Schlumberger and our partner CalEnergy.

“We have a very clear collective focus on ensuring safe and efficient performance leading successfully to First Gas in Q3 2021 at the Blythe Hub before continuing into 2022 at Southwark.”

“Drilling campaign has been planned meticulously

Andrew Hockey.