ONGC to receive Chinese workover rigs
ONGC will add four Chinese workover rigs to its fleet by April, among them one rig from controversial China Petroleum Technology & Development Corporation (CPTDC), already embroiled in controversy over defective rigs sold to junior explorer Oil India.
ONGC will take a 150-tonne CPTDC rig to deploy at its Ankleshwar asset in Gujarat. It will also take delivery of one 150-tonne rig from China’s Hongwa in addition to two 100-tonne rigs.
“We will deploy one of the 100-tonne rigs at our Tripura asset and the second 100-tonne rig at our Rajahmundry asset,” says an ONGC source. “We will also deploy the 150-tonne Hongwa rig at Rajahmundry.
” Adding these four rigs to its fleet will take ONGC’s total tally of workover rigs from 57 to 61. ONGC has another 31 workover rigs on hire from various drillers.
“There will be no fresh ONGC tenders to buy or hire workover rigs for a while,” adds ONGC. CPTDC stands accused of supplying defective drilling rigs to Oil India.