ONGC’s Offering Two Tendering Packages for Key Offshore Projects

September 3, 2018

Photo: Bloomberg

India’s state-controlled Oil & Natural Gas Corporation has offered two key offshore engineering, procurement and construction contracts for projects off India’s west coast. The two EPC packages are worth upwards of US $500 million in total and bids are expected to be submitted during October.  The first package has a deadline on the 26^th and the second package on the 31^st of October. Both offshore contracts are expected to be awarded by ONGC before year-end.

The first of the two projects involve the development of ONGC’s Cluster-7 field. The work scope for this EPC package contains three new wellhead platforms, one new wellhead riser platform and almost 90 kilometres of subsea pipelines across multiple offshore segments.

The Cluster-7 field consists of a deep water and a shallow water oilfield. The Cluster-7 shallow-water oilfield off India’s west coast is already producing with the help of a floating, production, storage and offloading vessel chartered from Malaysia’s Bumi Armanda in 2013.

In addition to the Cluster-7 project a second package comprises the Heera redevelopment project. The Heera oilfield is among ONGC’s key offshore fields in the Arabian Sea, and is located about 70 kilometres south-west of Mumbai. The field became operational in the 1980s and has more than a dozen offshore platforms.

The Heera work scope is thought to be worth upwards of $250 million and is among the key strategic offshore west coast projects being taken up by ONGC this year. The scope includes two 12-slot wellhead platforms. It also includes the laying of at least nine segments of subsea pipelines, totalling up to 50 kilometres. According to sources close to the project it is suggested that the work scope will include topside modifications at several offshore platforms, and work on the massive Heera process complex. Installation of a gas dehydration unit and several other associated facilities is also outlined in the work-scope.

Interest in both the Cluster-7 project and the Heera redevelopment project has been immense domestically and internationally. Contractors expected to be interested in the two projects are Malaysia’s Sapura Energy, Italian Saipem, Abu Dhabi’s National Petroleum Construction Company, Vietnam’s PTSC, Indian Engineering giant Larsen & Toubro and others.

In addition to the Cluster-7 project and the Heera redevelopment, ONGC is expected to start a tendering process for at least two further key offshore contracts of the country’s west coast. It is likely that these contracts will include the development of its GK-28/42 field and the sixth phase of its pipeline replacement project. These tenders are expected to be released before the end of the year.