Oil India and ONGC face 'Megha' rig delays
Hyderabad-based Megha Engineering has missed a deadline to deliver two rigs to Oil India amid speculation that the company has overextended.
Megha failed to deliver two rigs to Oil India by October 30 (2023) as scheduled and has been granted an extension until February 2024. "That deadline, too, is likely to be missed," claims an Oil India source.
He points out that Megha has yet to invite Oil India engineers to inspect the rigs, a critical pre-delivery procedure. "Perhaps they are missing deadlines because of a lack of focus," speculates a source.
"They are into CGD and pipelines and several other businesses." Oil India awarded Megha a LoA on July 28 (2022) to supply five new 2000-hp Variable Frequency Drive (VFD) rigs to replace five ageing 1400-hp rigs over three to four years.
Two rigs were due by October 30 (2023), another two by October 30 (2024) and the last by August 31 (2025). Oil India agreed to pay $143.6m when awarding the contract.
But because of the dollar's appreciation against the rupee, the rupee value of the contract has since increased from Rs 1138cr at the time of award to Rs1196cr. An ONGC source at its Tripura asset also complains that three Megha rigs delivered there in stages since March 2022 have been facing problems because of delays in sourcing spare parts: rigs NG-2000-1, NG-2000-2 and NG-2000-3, formerly known as C3A-R1, C3A-R2 and C3A-R3.
"In one of the rigs, there was a problem with a part in the automated pipe racking system, and the part had to be ordered from Italy," claims a Tripura asset source. "When it arrived, it was cracked and unusable."
Megha's top drives are manufactured by Drillmec, a company Megha acquired from Milan-based Trevi Group in 2019. Another ONGC source claims these automated rigs use a lot of fuel.
Attempts to contact senior Megha officers were unsuccessful.