Adnoc Drilling has landed a $412 million contract to provide integrated drilling services (IDS) for Abu Dhabi National Oil Company’s huge Upper Zakum oilfield.

The emirati drilling giant said in a statement on Thursday that the five-year IDS contract has been awarded by Adnoc Offshore and work is expected to commence during the second quarter of 2023.

“Adnoc Drilling will provide IDS for the development of the Upper Zakum field, the largest producing field in Adnoc’s offshore portfolio,” it stated.

Adnoc is greatly expanding the capacity of some of its largest offshore oilfields, as it aims to achieve a 5 million barrels per day production capacity by 2027, up from the existing 4 million bpd.

Upper Zakum in the Persian Gulf is Abu Dhabi’s largest producing offshore oilfield and its recent expansion phase is aimed at expanding the field’s production to 1.2 million bpd, Upstream recently reported.

While Adnoc does not disclose the individual production profiles of its offshore oilfields, Upper Zakum’s production capacity is already thought to stand at more than 900,000 bpd.

Significant cost savings

The Abu Dhabi drilling player said the IDS contract “will add to the efficiency of production at the project, deliver significant cost savings and contribute to Adnoc’s plans to responsibly accelerate production capacity growth”.

Abdulrahman Abdullah Al Seiari, chief executive of Adnoc Drilling, noted that the IDS contract will “contribute to the effective development of the Upper Zakum field”.

Adnoc Drilling stated the value of awards won by the company “for oilfield services, including IDS, stands at a total of $5.1 billion since 1 January 2022″.

IDS contracts won last year included a $1.3 billion award for the Ghasha Mega-project, a $1.6 billion award for integrated drilling fluid services and a $777 million award for wireline and perforation services, it added.

Upper Zakum

Upper Zakum is the largest offshore oilfield in the United Arab Emirates and is also said to be the second-largest offshore oilfield in the world, just behind Saudi Aramco’s giant Safaniyah oilfield.

Upper Zakum’s previous development comprised four new artificial islands, processing facilities and infrastructure required to handle the production capacity growth, effectively creating an onshore environment offshore.

In addition to Adnoc, which has a majority stake, other partners in the Upper Zakum asset include US supermajor ExxonMobil and Japan’s Inpex.