Saipem 10000 in March
Italian explorer Eni is hoping against hope that it can deploy its company-owned deepwater drillship Saipem 10000 to the Andaman Islands by March next year.
PETROWATCH learns the beleaguered Italian explorer (45%) has written to its joint venture partners ONGC (45%) and GAIL (15%) that it is trying its best to ensure that Saipem 10000 can begin a one firm and two optional wells drilling programme at NELP-V ultra deepwater Andaman block AN-DWN-2003/2. Sceptics, however, are not so sure.
“The programme for this rig has changed 100 times in the last two years,” we hear. “Who can say it won’t change again” After reaching Indonesian waters east of Kalimantan in February this year, Saipem 10000 underwent re-certification in Singapore in May from where she was originally expected in India before the end of this year.
Those plans changed, and the rig was re-deployed to Indonesia, from where it seems most likely she will sail to India, if plans don’t change again.
