Schlumberger on a 'winning streak' with Cairn
Schlumberger looks like it's on a winning streak with Cairn India as reports emerge that it is the likely victor in a tender to drill 81 development wells at the Aishwariya-Barmer Hill and Raageshwari Deep Gas fields at RJ-ON-90/1.
Schlumberger, GE with Baker Hughes and Halliburton all bid by the extended August 21 deadline with some saying the contract could be awarded as early as this week. "Cairn evaluated offers and opened price bids," reports a source.
"Schlumberger was the lowest (L1) bidder." Cairn and Schlumberger are presently believed to be negotiating the price but this could not be independently confirmed. If Schlumberger does indeed win it will be the second time in the recent past that it has beaten Halliburton in a Cairn tender after winning an end-to-end services contract to explore eastern offshore shallow water block KG-OSN-2009/3 in August.
In a separate Rajasthan tender, the same three companies plus Weatherford bid by the extended September 29 deadline for a job to drill 87 development wells over two years at the Mangala, Bhagyam and Aishwariya (MBA) fields, also at RJ-ON-90/1. Each of these wells must be drilled to around 1200 metres below surface, completed, and multi-phase 'fracked' to extract oil from tight reservoirs in an estimated $200m contract.
Expect the same four bidders to take part in yet another tender for integrated exploration services where Cairn has extended the deadline again from October 3 to October 10.