Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) is in exploratory talks with domestic shipyards to build two offshore jack-up drilling rigs worth about $500-550 million, said a senior executive at the state-run explorer.
ONGC’s board recently approved the plan to build the offshore drilling rigs.
These rigs will replace some of the company’s ageing rigs operational for more than 4 decades, which will be retired over the next few years, said Om Prakash Singh, director, technology & field services at ONGC.
ONGC’s move will also help Indian shipyards develop capabilities for manufacturing advanced offshore rigs, he added.
Offshore drilling rigs have not been built in India since 1990. Prior to that, two jack-up rigs and one floater were built at local shipyards for use by ONGC.
ONGC currently has 113 drilling rigs, including 38 offshore rigs with more being added. It also has about 90 workover rigs.
The company owns about a fifth of the drilling rigs it currently uses offshore with the rest charter-hired. For onshore drilling, only about a fifth is hired while the remainder is owned.
Singh said company-owned rigs are also a training ground for ONGC executives, who eventually use these skills to manage chartered rigs. It takes about 3-3.5 years to build a jack-up rig.