SunPetro jack-up reaches Mumbai offshore
SunPetro believes spending nearly $35m on buying a jack-up is a better idea in the long term than paying expensive hire rates.
A well-placed source tells us SunPetro's rig, now called SAM-1 but yet to be renamed by the company, arrived offshore Mumbai on November 24 (2023) from UAE's Mina Khalifa port from where she was wet-towed out on November 7 (2023). SAM-1 was wet-towed to Mumbai port's outer anchorage by tugboats Thanos II and Priya Twenty-Ninety.
Our source adds that SunPetro had to navigate a complicated ownership maze before it could buy SAM-1 from UAE-based Delta Group, which, in turn, bought the rig from UAE-based Selective Marine Services. But this could not be independently confirmed.
SAM-1 is a Marathon LeTourneau 116C design rig built in 1980 at Vicksburg in the US by LeTourneau Technologies and can operate in water depths of 91 metres (300-feet), making her suitable for most drilling locations offshore western India. She was originally named Rowan Paris but was renamed Teras Titanium by the company that bought the rig from Rowan Drilling.
After SunPetro bought SAM-1, it hired Goa-based Chowgule Group to upgrade and refurbish the rig and get her 'class-certified' in the UAE. Chowgule is upgrading the rig to MODU-89 (Mobile Offshore Drilling Unit-1989) specifications in line with the Directorate General of Shipping's guidelines calling for these specifications to be in place for all rigs operating off India by 2027.
More than half of the MODU-89 upgrade of SAM-1 has been completed, and the remaining work will be done in the Mumbai offshore anchorage, not in Chowgule's Goa or Mangalore yards. Drilling equipment on board must be re-certified, and the 'consent to operate' certificate must be obtained from the oil ministry's Oil Industry Safety Directorate (OISD), which will likely take three to four months.
SunPetro has insured SAM-1 with Norway-based marine protection and indemnity insurer Skuld.