Operator Shell Todd Oil Services, on behalf of the Pohokura joint venturers Shell NZ, OMV NZ and Todd Energy, said Ensco planned to use its Ensco 56 rig, currently operating in Australia. The drilling contract is scheduled to start in the third quarter of this year.

The Encso 50 jack-up drilled the field’s first discovery well Pohokura-1 and follow-up well Pohokura-2 early this decade.

Plans for offshore development drilling, outlined by STOS in the Pohokura mining permit PMP 38154 documents, will involve the use of four conductors for the production wells which will also serve as piles for the platform.

Each conductor can hold two wells allowing up to eight wells slots for the platform. Under the base case, six production wells would be drilled from the offshore unmanned wellhead platform.

Technip Singapore Pte late last year won the fourth major Pohokura contract, for the supply and installation of the offshore flexible pipeline, and the installation of the wellhead platform; with Technip’s Perth engineering centre carrying out the contract, though the pipeline and its umbilical will be manufactured at Technip facilities in Le Trait, France, and Newcastle, England.

Fletcher Construction has won the design-construction contract for the Motunui onshore production station; while Perth’s Ausclad group of companies and New Plymouth’s Fitzroy Engineering Group have picked up the design-construction contract for the Pohokura offshore platform. Oil Drilling and Exploration (Borneo) Pty won the contract to drill the three onshore production wells and water-disposal well at Motunui.

The only major Pohokura contract still to be awarded is for onshore pipelines.