Semisub rig owner Dolphin Drilling has won a drilling contract for one of its rigs from oil and gas player Oil India Limited.
Under the terms of the contract, Dolphin Drilling will deploy the 1974-built Blackford Dolphin semi-submersible drilling rig to support Oil India’s exploration and development activities with operations planned to begin in the second half of 2024.
The contract duration spans a drilling campaign for three wells over 14 months representing a firm value of $154m for the rig and associated services, plus an optional extension period of seven months.
Negotiations over the contract between Dolphin Drilling and Oil India started back in October last year. Initially, the work was supposed to start as early as the second quarter of 2024 using the 1977-built Borgland Dolphin since the Blackford Dolphin was under contract with General Hydrocarbons until the end of March this year.
The rig was also later contracted by Peak Petroleum to work off Nigeria. However, the $325,000 per day contract was terminated soon after the award. The Øystein Stray Spetalen-backed company said at the time that the move followed a continued breach of the contract between the companies.
After the contract termination, there were indications that Dolphin could send the Blackford instead of the Borgland to work in India but there were no formal confirmations until this contract announcement.
At the end of last week, the semisub owner sold its Bideford Dolphin rig for scrap. Now, the driller owns four 4th and 5th generation enhanced Aker H3 and H4 units, the already mentioned Borgland Dolphin and Blackford Dolphin as well as the two rigs bought from Transocean in a $61.5m deal – the Paul B. Loyd, Jr, and Dolphin Leader.
