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Donald Urquhart
The Shipping Times
English
(c) 2006 Singapore Press Holdings Limited
The US$182m rig is scheduled for delivery by end '09
(SINGAPORE) Keppel Fels has secured its fourth Indian jack-up rig order from Great Eastern Shipping Co Ltd - India's largest private-sector shipping and offshore company - as the country's exploration and production sector begins to heat up.
The KFELS B Class jack-up rig worth US$182 million is the first newbuild drilling rig for the Mumbai-listed Great Eastern and is scheduled for delivery by the fourth quarter of 2009.
This brings Keppel Offshore & Marine's total orderbook to over $10 billion, comprising 28 jack-up rigs and five semi-submersible rigs.
Speaking to reporters recently, Keppel Offshore and Marine chairman and CEO Choo Chiau Beng said that India was a growth area for the group due to rising exploration and production activity combined with a shortage of good rigs.
'The exploration and production sector is developing rapidly,' said Great Eastern executive chairman K M Seth. '
We want to be able to meet this growth, both in the Indian market as well as globally.
'We are confident that the KFELS B Class, a field-proven design, will meet our drilling requirements in serving the offshore oil and gas industry,' he added.
The jack-up rig will be customised to meet Great Eastern's operational requirements for water depths of up to 350 feet and upgradable to 400 feet, Keppel said in a statement.
The rig will be capable of drilling up to 30,000 feet deep in water and can accommodate 112 men.
India's national oil company, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Ltd, has said it aims to double exploration and production reserves to six billion tonnes by 2020, out of which four billion tonnes are located in deep water.
Keppel has undertaken the repair of tankers, bulk carriers and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) carriers for Great Eastern since 2002.
The company has two main business divisions: shipping and offshore oil field services.
The shipping division is involved in transportation of crude oil, petroleum products, gas and dry bulk commodities. The offshore oil field service division offers exploration and production services to the oil companies.
Document SHIPTI0020060615e26g00001
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