Jain backs IADC against DGS
Oil secretary Pankaj Jain is said to have assured the Houston-based lobby group IADC (International Association of Drilling Contractors) that the oil ministry will support it against controversial rules put in place by shipping regulator Directorate General of Shipping (DGS).
According to a source, IADC vice-president for international development Mike DuBose led a delegation comprising Dynamic Drilling, Jagson Drilling, Shelf Drilling and Aban Offshore to meet Jain at the oil ministry on April 24 (2023) to seek his intervention against the DGS rules.
"Jain has agreed that offshore drilling rigs shouldn't be included in the definition of vessels in the Merchant Shipping Bill, 2016 (now pending in parliament)," we hear.
Drillers don't want drilling rigs to be treated as vessels, as was the case with the (old) Merchant Shipping Act, 1958, now being amended. Jain also apparently agreed with the drillers that including offshore rigs in the definition of vessels would severely affect India's domestic oil and gas production.
Referring to the DGS's October 2022 demand that all 1979 design offshore rigs must be upgraded to 1989 design within two years, Jain is understood to have told the IADC delegation that the oil ministry has already written to the shipping ministry that the window for conversion should be five years and not two. "We had a very positive meeting with the oil secretary (Jain)," adds our source.
"He suggested that we also meet the DG Shipping to explain why offshore rigs should not be treated as vessels (in the new Merchant Shipping Act)." ONGC chairman Arun Singh had also raised these two points in a letter to oil secretary Jain on March 24 (2023).
Singh said offshore rigs shouldn't be treated as vessels, and rig owners (including ONGC) should be given five and not two years to upgrade 1979 design rigs to 1989 design.