In a bid to tide over the acute shortage in availability of offshore supply vessels (OSVs), ONGC has, last week, finalised tenders and awarded contracts for hiring 11 vessels in a record time of about one month, as part of its preparations for the forthcoming bidding for NELP-8.
The oil explorer floated tenders on February 10, inviting bids from Indian and foreign OSV owners, opened the bids on February 26 and completed awarding of the contracts last week. The vessels will be under contract with ONGC for a three-year period. ONGC had also introduced some stringent clauses in the bidding process this time, insisting that all the bidders should have their vessels ready for mobilisation. It has made it clear to the winning bidders to ensure that they mobilise their OSVs before April 30. Earlier, the oil company had faced delays in getting the vessels from the winning bidders even after awarding the contracts. Interestingly, this time Indian shipping companies totally edged out their foreign competitors, bagging all the 11 contracts for a total of $200 million. While Great Ship India and Great Offshore bagged the contracts for three vessels each, Garware got two and Tag Offshore, Sadhav Shipping and Hind Offshore got one each. *Charter hire charges * ONGC got a decent rate for the 11 OSVs in this round of tenders, with the daily hire charges ranging from $11,000 to $21,000, depending on the size of the vessel, industry sources said. Only a few months ago, the charter prices had peaked to between $34,000 and $43,000 a day a few months ago. A bulk of the 37 companies that showed interest in the tenders were foreign companies, including Tidewater, Nordic Maritime Singapore, Swiber, Halul Offshore and Emas Offshore — but none of them could bag any of the contracts. OSVs play a crucial role in offshore oil and gas production activities, as these are used to ferry men, material, equipment and food to distant offshore installations. *ONGC’s fleet * ONGC has been facing shortage in availability of these vessels, accentuated by the increased number of its own vessels going to the dockyard and delays in finalising global tenders. It owns a fleet of 30 offshore vessels, which are being operated by Shipping Corporation of India (16 vessels) and Hal Offshore (14 vessels). At present, however, only six to seven are in operation, the remaining being in the dry dock undergoing repairs or refurbishment. The explorer requires some 62 vessels to meet its exploration and production commitments, with private shipping companies giving on hire some 32 vessels. *Preparations for NELP * ONGC has launched intense preparations for the forthcoming bidding for NELP VIII, which is likely to be conducted under an open acreage system that allows companies to identify the blocks or areas they want to explore, instead of bidding for pre-assigned blocks offered by the Government. According to reports, under the NELP regime, there have been about 70 discoveries of oil and gas so far, which, however, represent only the tip of the iceberg. India, according to industry sources, has about 25 sedimentary basins with a total acreage of about 3.15 million sq miles, out of which hardly 20 per cent is well explored. According to data of the Directorate General of Hydrocarbon (DGH), India has a total gas resource base of 400 TCF (trillion cubic feet) in 15 basins where exploration has been initiated. DGH has estimated that a little over 20 per cent of these reserves have been established, which indicates that there is a high probability of future gas discoveries. Clearly, ONGC, as also other explorers in the private sector, is gearing up by expanding its infrastructure to cash in on this enormous potential. B.KARTHICK RESEARCH ANALYST WWW.KENCES1.BLOGSPOT.COM <http://www.kences1.blogspot.com/> --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Kences1" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/kences1?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
