As many as 10 international offshore drilling contractors including Trans ocean Inc have offered best-in-class deep sea drilling rigs to Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) for its KG-D5 gas field developments.

 

ONGC had floated a tender to charter hire two deep water drilling rigs and one anchor moored rig for bringing gas in Bay of Bengal block KG-DWN-98/2 or KG-D5, which sits next to Reliance Industries' flagging KG-D6 fields, to production.

 

"We have received tremendous response to the tender. International drilling contractors have bid very aggressively," an official said.  

 

ONGC is among the very few explorers around the world who are actually going ahead with the development campaign despite low oil prices. "And naturally, contractors have no new job outside and so they are queueing up here," he said.

 

Transocean Offshore International Ventures Ltd offered Deepwater Millenium, Discoverer India and Discoverer Luanda deepwater rigs while Ensco Maritime Ltd offered two of its rigs, Ensco 8500 and Ensco 8501.

 

Other bidders include Seadrill Orion Ltd, Drillship Kythnos Owners Inc, Dupont Maritime LLC, Dynamic Drilling & Services, Ensco Maritime Ltd, Queiroz Galvano Leo Gas, Seadrill Orion, Universial Energy Resources Ind, Vantage International management Co and Japan Drilling Co.

 

The 7,294.6-sq-km deepsea KG-D5 block has been broadly categorised into Northern Discovery Area (NDA - 3,800.6 sq km) and Southern Discovery Area (SDA - 3,494 sq km).

 

The NDA has 11 oil and gas discoveries while SDA has the nation's only ultra-deep sea gas find of UD-1. These finds have been clubbed in three groups - Cluster-1, Cluster-II and Cluster-III.

 

Gas discovery in Cluster-I is to be tied up with finds in neighbouring G-4 block for production but this is not being taken up currently because of a dispute with RIL over migration of gas from ONGC blocks, the official said.

 

From Cluster-II, a peak oil output of 77,305 barrels per day is envisaged within two years of start of production. Gas output is slated to peak to 16.56 million standard cubic meters per day by end-2021.

 

Cluster-2A mainly comprises of oil finds of A2, P1, M3, M1 and G-2-2 in NDA, which can produce 77,305 bpd (3.86 million tonnes per annum) and 3.81 mmscmd of gas.

 

Cluster-2B, which is made up of four gas finds - R1, U3, U1, and A1 in NDA - envisages a peak output of 12.75 mmscmd of gas, the official said, adding that peak output is likely to last 7 years.

 

Cluster-III is the UD-1 gas discovery in SDA in ultra-deep sea that poses technological challenges.