HAL or Carlton for ONGC work
Mumbai-based HAL Offshore and Carlton Industrial Engineers are tipped as the main competitors in ONGC's project to add clamp-on structures to unmanned wellhead platforms in the offshore Mumbai High fields.
On November 24 (2023), ONGC received bids for this estimated $40m project from HAL, Carlton, Mumbai-based Mathew Associates and Navi Mumbai-based Das Offshore. ONGC adds these steel clamp-on structures to existing unmanned wellhead platforms to position jack-ups to drill additional wells.
"This is a low-skilled job involving the construction of these steel structures and attaching them to the wellhead platforms to allow more risers (special pipes that deliver fluid from subsea equipment to platforms) to be accepted," says a source. ONGC has divided the assignment into Groups A and B because it wants to award each group to a different contractor in light of the offshore construction vessel shortage.
Both groups should be completed in the upcoming western offshore construction season from October 2024 to May 2025. HAL and Mathew have bid for Group A.
Das and Carlton have bid for both groups. Only HAL and Carlton have offshore construction vessels meeting the current DGS safety specifications.
These demand that each offshore construction vessel in Indian waters have enough lifeboats to carry twice as many workers onboard. They have come into effect since May 2021, when 86 workers drowned off Mumbai when their vessels capsized during Cyclone Tauktae at an ONGC project executed by Afcons.
"HAL and Carlton's bids will likely be the most competitive," we hear. According to its website, HAL's previous EPC assignments for ONGC include revamping gas dehydration facilities at the Heera and Neelam platforms, completed in February 2017, and the design, supply, construction, installation, testing and commissioning of fire protection systems on 21 wellhead platforms, completed in May 2017.