Platinum Explorer
Price and price alone will be the deciding factor in who wins ONGC’s services tender for the soon-to-arrive deepwater drillship Platinum Explorer.
PETROWATCH learns that contractors Baker Hughes, Schlumberger and Halliburton bid on November 11 for a contract to provide boats, helicopters, cementing, mud services, drilling fluids, wireline logging and other services needed to operate the drillship, hired from US-based Vantage Drilling for five years. “All three will qualify technically,” predicts an ONGC source.
“The only deciding factor is price.” ONGC reckons it will take under a month to evaluate the technical bids, after which it will open price bids.
Weatherford, surprisingly, chose not to bid. After leaving the Daewoo Shipyard, the rig is expected to spend 10 days in Singapore to load the ‘riser’ before leaving for Kakinada, her offshore base in India, to begin the ONGC contract.
Platinum Explorer can operate in water depths of 12,000 feet and drill up to 40,000 feet.