Mahawar sings Make in India song for China rig
In what can only be described as a hugely embarrassing faux pas, guests attending a well spudding ceremony carried out by ONGC director onshore VP Mahawar on April 23 had to restrain themselves from laughing.
Part of the purpose of the ceremony to spud well #MYDQ at the Ahmedabad asset's Nawagam field was to commission a new Deep Industries rig into ONGC's fleet of hired rigs. Mahawar gleefully used the occasion to boast about how ONGC is realising the goals of Narendra Modi's Make in India campaign with the new rig.
Sadly nobody seems to have told him the 1000-hp rig in question, named DIL-12, was sourced from SJ-Petroleum Machinery Company - in China! "Mahawar seems to have mixed up the Make in India campaign," admits an amused ONGC officer in attendance. "It's a Chinese rig not an Indian rig!" ONGC hired DIL-12 at an EDR of Rs9.50 lakhs ($14,000) to continue its 406 well development campaign in Area-II and Area-IV fields in Kheda, Gandhinagar and Ahmedabad districts.
So far ONGC has completed around 60 wells. Mahawar told onlookers at the ceremony that Deep's new rig DIL-12 would give oil and gas production at the Ahmedabad asset a major boost.
He also complimented Deep managing director Paras Savla for adding this state of the art drilling rig to ONGC's fleet. DIL-12 will drill well #MYDQ to 1733 metres TD with directional drilling from 800 metres.