John rig ready for Umatara
After nearly a year of waiting, John Energy is finally preparing to mobilise its 2000-hp rig for IndianOil to the DSF-2 field AA/ONDSF/Umatara/2018 in upper Assam.
"We received a call from them (IndianOil) last week," confirms a John source. "They wanted to check how soon we can mobilise the rig."
John will mobilise its Rig-17 to drill two, possibly three wells at an estimated cost of $22.69m under the contract won from IndianOil on January 4 (2023). Rig-17 is currently idle at John's workshop in Jagudan village in Gujarat's Mehsana district.
"Our rig is ready to mobilise," adds our source. He expects the drilling campaign to begin in another four to five months.
"More than a year and a half has passed since this tender came out, but IndianOil has still not sent us a mobilisation notice," we hear. IndianOil invited offers to hire the rig on April 12 (2022) with an initial May 10 (2022) bid deadline, extended to May 31 (2022).
By the May 31 (2022) deadline, only John and Quippo bid. On June 1 (2022), IndianOil extended the bid deadline to June 14 (2022), then scrapped the tender and invited fresh offers with a July 1 (2022) deadline.
John and Quippo bid again. IndianOil is currently finalising other tenders for the drilling campaign.
On October 30 (2023), IndianOil published a tender to hire casing and floating equipment and received bids on November 25 (2023). But it is yet to open technical bids.
Another tender to hire well-completion equipment was published on October 9 (2023), with bids received on November 10 (2023). IndianOil has opened technical proposals here but has yet to open financial offers.
A third tender to hire wireline logging services, published on October 7 (2023), has a December 1 (2023) bid deadline. IndianOil also wants to hire a third-party inspection service and received bids on October 21 (2023) from NDT Laboratories and Tubestar Oil & Gas Services.
Financial offers are yet to be opened.