Vår Energi selects SLB for four-year integrated drilling services

A four-year SLB services selection covers continuous drilling with two harsh-environment semisubmersible rigs on the Norwegian Continental Shelf, with four additional one-year options that could extend the scope through 2034.

By Olivia Hart

Vår Energi said SLB will serve as its "main integrated drilling services supplier" for the Transocean Barents and Deepsea Bergen. Integrated drilling services (coordinated support for delivering a well) sit at the center of the award. The selection expands the companies’ relationship across drilling, digital well and field development planning, and subsea production systems.

What does the four-year term cover?

The initial service period runs for four years. Four extension options follow, each lasting one year. If Vår Energi exercises all four, the scope could continue through 2034. The release does not state a commencement date, contract value, well count or option-decision deadlines.

The structure separates a four-year base period from four conditional extension years, preserving a firm initial scope while leaving the follow-on program dependent on future decisions that the announcement does not schedule. It could support up to eight years of scope in total, with 2034 as the outside endpoint.

Takeaway: The four-year base is firm, while the extension path to 2034 remains conditional.

What will the two rigs deliver?

Vår Energi said the two harsh-environment semisubmersibles (floating drilling units designed for severe offshore conditions) will "continuously drill exploration and development wells" during the contracted period. The program assigns the Transocean Barents and Deepsea Bergen to that work.

Continuity across the term makes the selection a recurring rig program, while the release identifies no specific prospect, field or development to which the wells are tied. The selection therefore covers recurring rig work rather than a disclosed sequence of named well locations.

The announcement does not quantify drilling activity. It gives no wells-per-rig allocation, well start dates, rig arrival timing, crew plan, maintenance cycle or availability target. It also supplies no production-capacity figure. The release identifies no producing project.

Exploration and development appear only as service categories. No final investment decision (FID), the formal approval to proceed with a development, appears for a named field in the release. No appraisal campaign is specified. The selection should not be read as sanction for any individual development.

Takeaway: Continuous two-rig drilling is confirmed; project locations, sanction status and operating rates are not.

How far does the supplier relationship extend?

The selection broadens SLB’s role across three workstreams: drilling, digital well and field development planning, and subsea production systems. Digital well and field development planning covers the engineering used to design wells and plan fields. Subsea production systems are the equipment and infrastructure used below the sea surface.

The expanded scope links well delivery with digital planning and production-system work, placing SLB’s services alongside the drilling program and the engineering used for field development and subsea production. The release does not say that any particular subsea system has been ordered or installed.

Digital planning and subsea production support remain less defined than the rig commitment. The announcement names no digital tool, engineering package, subsea equipment award, installation date or project milestone. It also gives no production forecast or economic estimate for a named development.

Takeaway: The relationship spans three workstreams, but the release defines only the rig commitment in operational terms.

What remains unconfirmed?

The confirmed package covers supplier status, initial contract duration, four extension options, two named rigs, continuous exploration and development drilling, and three broader technical workstreams. The announcement does not establish project-level economics, schedule or capacity for any specific project.

Key details not disclosed in the announcement:

• The service commencement date and contract value.
• The number, sequence and allocation of wells.
• The prospects or fields that will receive drilling.
• The scope and timing of subsea production-system work.
• Criteria for exercising the four extension options.

The immediate watch item is the exercise, or non-exercise, of the four one-year options after the initial term. Those choices would determine whether the SLB scope extends beyond four years and toward 2034. Any later disclosure of a start date, named wells or an FID would further define the program.

Takeaway: The watch item is the first extension decision, because it sets the operating duration of the two-rig arrangement.