ONGC preparing new tenders for 12 jack-ups

Vol 22, PW 11 (21 Mar 19) Exploration & Production

ONGC is poised to issue fresh tenders to hire or re-hire a total of 12 jack-ups.

"We were expecting the tender to come out today," said a driller on March 18. "It will definitely be uploaded (on ONGC's website) this week."

Included in the tender will be an invitation to bid three Friede & Goldman design rigs outstanding from Category-II of ONGC's last nine-rig tender after Jagson was disqualified for offering Deepsea Fortune while sister company Deepsea Blue Global offered Deepsea Fossil in breach of Section 2 of ONGC's rules banning bidders from undisclosed agreements with one another. ONGC also chose not to hire Dynamic Drilling's KS Java Star on technical grounds leaving it with no option but to re-issue the tender.

After the tender for three Friede & Goldman rigs, ONGC is expected to issue another tender to hire five rigs for development drilling and one mat-supported rig, followed by another tender for three rigs needed for exploration drilling. Among the rigs likely to be offered for re-hire are Jindal Drilling's Virtue-1, coming off its ONGC contract on May 5 (2019) and Jindal rig L-1112, formerly Noble Ed Holt, Shelf Drilling's CE Thornton which came off its ONGC contract on December 13 (2018) stacked in Indian waters, Trident-II which came off its last contract on October 22 (2018), Parameswara which came off its last contract on February 22 (2019) and FG McClintock, ready-stacked in Indian waters.

Under present rules, a rig working with ONGC can be offered for re-hire only if it has less than 300 days remaining on its present contract. Other jack-ups likely to be offered in the upcoming tenders are Foresight Drilling's Vivekanand-1 and Vivekanand-2 which come off their ONGC contracts in October 2019 and Greatship's Greatdrill Chaaru, expected to come off its ONGC contract in April 2020. "Chaaru will be eligible if the bids are accepted by ONGC after July 6 (2019)," we hear. Jagson's Deepsea Matdrill, which comes off its present ONGC contract between May and June (2019) and is currently idle on the west coast, and Aban Offshore-owned Aban-II which came off its last ONGC contract on January 25 (2019), are the only two mat-supported jack-up rigs in Indian waters that can drill wells in ultra-shallow locations. But ONGC wants the mat-supported rig equipped to also drill HP/HT wells which means Jagson would need to spend money to upgrade Matdrill if it wants the contract.

ONGC preparing new tenders for 12 jack-ups

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