Page 12 - AsianOil Week 20 2022

AsianOil SOUTH ASIA AsianOil

ONGC weighs more bids for Russian

assets despite rejection of first bid

INVESTMENT INDIA’S Oil and Natural Gas Corp. (ONGC) the Russian assets IOCs are abandoning. Along
is reportedly considering placing more bids for with ONGC, Bharat Petroleum, Indian Oil
oil and gas assets in Russia that are being aban- Corp. (IOC) and Oil India Ltd (OIL) have also
doned by international oil companies (IOCs) in held preliminary discussions among themselves
the wake of the war in Ukraine and sanctions on whether to consider buying BP’s 20% stake
against Russia. This comes despite the fact that in Russia’s Rosneft, according to the Economic
the Indian company recently put in its first bid Times’ sources.
for such an asset – Shell’s 50% stake in the Salym As well as securing new sources of energy
fields in Siberia. That offer was rejected, accord- supply, the companies are interested in picking
The company is ing to sources familiar with the matter that were up Russian assets at bargain prices as IOCs rush
reportedly considering cited by the Economic Times of India on May 19. to offload them. However, as the rejection of
bidding for stakes in the The sources said ONGC was evaluating the ONGC’s bid for Shell’s Salym interest illustrates,
Sakhalin projects that possibility of bidding for ExxonMobil’s 30% the fact that Western companies are exiting Rus-
IOCs are abandoning, stake in the Sakhalin-1 project and Shell’s 27.5% sia does not guarantee that offers will be accepted.
among others. interest in the Sakhalin-2 development. How- The Economic Times said that instead of
ever, the newspaper noted that potential bids offering any immediate cash payment to Shell,
were still only being discussed and had not yet the Indian company had proposed paying in the
been considered by ONGC’s board. form of future oil revenues from the Salym fields.
“The war will not last forever, nor will the However, according to the newspaper, Shell
sanctions. We must move to secure our energy reportedly conveyed to ONGC that it could not
supplies,” one of the sources was quoted as say- accept that offer.
ing. “We understand the risk and we are willing If further bids are made by Indian companies,
to take the risk.” they could also face competition from Chinese
ONGC is not the only company to be eyeing firms, among others.™
SOUTHEAST ASIA

Transocean holds naming ceremony for

Deepwater Atlas drillship in Singapore

PROJECTS & TRANSOCEAN recently held a naming cere- Transocean ordered the two drillships from
COMPANIES mony for its Deepwater Atlas drillship in Singa- Jurong in 2014 and they were initially scheduled
pore. The company posted about the ceremony for delivery in 2017 and 2018, but ran into several
on LinkedIn this week, noting that the Deepwa- delays in the subsequent years. Most recently,
ter Atlas was the world’s first eight-generation it was agreed that the first of the two drillships
drillship. would be delivered in December 2021, with the
The Deepwater Atlas is one of two newbuild second following in May 2022.
eight-generation drillships – along with the Deep- Both rigs are due to be deployed in the US
water Titan – built by Sembcorp Marine’s Jurong Gulf of Mexico once they are ready to enter ser-
Shipyard. The rigs are equipped to handle pres- vice. The Deepwater Atlas has been contracted
sures of 20,000 psi and 3mn pound (1,360-tonne) to Beacon Offshore Energy for its high-pressure,
hookloads – both representing industry firsts. high-temperature (HP/HT) Shenandoah devel-
In a video also posted to LinkedIn this week, opment. That work had been due to begin in the
Transocean’s CEO, Jeremy Thigpen, said the two third quarter of 2022 but according to Transo-
rigs had “all kinds of bells and whistles that the cean’s April fleet status report, it has been pushed
industry’s never seen” that were going to enable back to the fourth quarter.
the company to access previously inaccessible Meanwhile, the Deepwater Titan has been
oil reservoirs. Also speaking in the video, Trans- contracted to Chevron for work in the Gulf.
ocean’s president and chief operating officer, Transocean said, also in a LinkedIn post around
Keelan Adamson, added that the features on three months ago, that drydocking of the Deep-
the rigs would result in a reduction in the time water Titan had been completed. That rig is due
required to drill deepwater wells, thus helping to to begin operations in the first quarter of 2023,
bring down total offshore well costs. according to the latest fleet status report.™

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