By OGJ editors
HOUSTON, Aug. 12 -- Oil & Natural Gas Corp. Ltd. (ONGC) awarded a $137 million, 3-year contract to Houston-based Transocean Inc. Aug. 6 for its deepwater drillship Discoverer Seven Seas to drill off India.
ONGC said last month that it planned to commence a $390 million deepwater exploration campaign shortly and expects to spend about $1.2 billion/year in exploration activities to increase its crude oil production from deepwater fields (OGJ Online, July 14, 2003). The program includes opening its oil and gas fields in India to other companies for exploration.
Discoverer Seven Seas, a dynamically positioned drillship capable of drilling in water as deep as 7,000 ft., recently completed a drilling project for Petróleo Brasileiro SA off Brazil after undergoing servicing and an extensive multiphase upgrade to its DP system in January.
Transocean's contract includes comprehensive services such as well-planning, operations support, and logistics-management. The integrated services contract is expected to commence in first quarter 2004, following the mobilization of the rig to India from a Brazilian shipyard.
