BP Hands Halliburton Integrated Contract for Bumerangue Appraisal

BP has awarded Halliburton an integrated drilling services contract for the first appraisal campaign at its Bumerangue deepwater discovery offshore Brazil, covering reservoir evaluation, automation and remote operations.

The scope combines multiple Halliburton drilling and evaluation services under a single execution model, running from well planning through drilling and formation evaluation. Halliburton will also deploy its LOGIX automation and remote operations technology during the campaign.

Bumerangue is the largest discovery BP has made in 25 years. The company estimates about 8bn barrels of liquids in place, and appraisal drilling is expected to begin late this year or in early 2027. The campaign will supply the additional subsurface data BP needs to evaluate the discovery and inform future development planning.

The integrated model is the notable element of the award. Bundling drilling, evaluation and remote operations under one contractor removes the interface risk that arises when a well programme is split across separate service companies, and shortens the decision loop between what the formation evaluation shows and what the drilling programme does next. On an appraisal campaign, where each well is designed partly on the basis of the last one, that responsiveness is worth more than it would be on a development drilling sequence with a fixed well plan.

Halliburton did not disclose the value or duration of the contract.

The award adds to a busy period for offshore service contracting in Brazil, where operators are running appraisal and development programmes in parallel across the pre-salt and adjacent plays, and where demand for deepwater rigs and the associated offshore vessel support fleet has tightened sharply over the past two years. A campaign of this scale typically pulls a drillship, a supply chain of platform supply vessels and a subsea construction spread into the same basin for the duration.