Medco Antareja plans to add offshore drilling rigs

Medco Antareja, a wholly owned subsidiary of local oil and gas company Medco Energi Tbk., plans to add one or two jack-up drilling rigs to its existing fleet within the next two years, according to a company executive.

Bambang Purwohadi, the company?s marketing director told petromindo.com in an interview over the week end that currently Medco Antareja owned 13 onshore drilling rigs and three offshore drilling rigs, which consist of two swamp barge rigs and one jack-up rig.

?Medco is currently the biggest rig provider in Indonesia by controlling 40 percent of the market share. All our rigs have been contracted for the next two years,? said Bambang.

?Two of our onshore rigs are now in Texas, while the offshore jack-up rig is contracted by TotalFinaElf for exploration in Abu Dhabi,? he said

He said, the rig operations contributed roughly US$ 3 million per month to the company?s coffer.

According to Bambang, the company had been contacted by several shipbuilders, offering their services to build the rigs. He also said several local and foreign financial institution had also approached the company to arrange the financing.

?But we haven?t make any decision yet,? he said.

He said in the short term, the company did not plan to add onshore rig citing market saturation and increasing competition as reason. (alex/godang)