Velesto Secures 7-well Drilling Deal with Shell in Malaysia

Oil major Shell has awarded an offshore drilling contract to Malaysian drilling company Velesto, for operations offshore Malaysia.

Velesto will, for Shell's subsidiaries Sabah Shell Petroleum (based in Miri, Malaysia) and Sarawk Shell (in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia), provide the NAGA-4 jack-up drilling rig, under a contract valued $17.68 million. 

Under the contract, for 2021-2022 work, the jack-up unit will drill seven firm wells with an expected start date between August 15, 2021 to October 15, 2021. 

The NAGA 4, delivered by Singapore's Keppel in 2013, to UMW - which later changed name to Velesto - is able to operate in water depths of up to 400 ft (121.92 m) with a drilling depth of 30,000 ft (9144m).

Velesto has, in the past few weeks, been on a roll, as the company late in March also announced new drilling rig contracts with Petronas Carigali and (two rigs) and ConocoPhillips (one rig).