PetroVietnam to make its own jack-up rigs

An offshore oil-drilling platform in southern Vung Tau Province
State-run oil and gas PetroVietnam will start to produce its own jack-up rigs to meet increased oil and gas exploration demand, Vietnam’s government said Wednesday.

It said in a directive that this was one of the country’s “priority engineering projects.”

Initially the project will make jack-up rigs for water depth of up to 60 meters, an official from the state oil group’s drilling arm PV Drilling said.

Petro Vietnam’s subsidiary, OilRigs Manufacturing JSC, will implement the project, the government directive said.

Until now PetroVietnam has had to rent or purchase rigs from foreign companies such as Singapore’s Keppel Corp. to meet its offshore exploration requirement.

PetroVietnam has been stepping up efforts to explore for oil and gas both in Vietnam and abroad with projects underway in Algeria, Tunisia, Mongolia, Laos and Indonesia.

Source: Reuters