The rig will be shipped to its first drill site off the west coast, after inspection and loading,. We will use the rig to drill an exploration well in a deep-sea block in Kerala-Konkan basin, a senior company official said.
The rig will do an appraisal well on the KG basin UD-1 gas discovery in 2007. RIL hired the rig for $0.5 million to $0.51 million from Transocean Ltd.
In all, we plan to drill 20 wells using the rig during the four-year period. It will also be used at Mahanadi and Andaman deep sea, the official said.
Presently, ONGC runs 37 deep water and ultra deep water acreages and it needs three ultra deep water rigs which will drill in water depth of around 10,000 feet, 12,000 feet and 7500 feet.
