Reliance Industries (RIL) has sought a three year drilling holiday from exploring in nine deep-sea blocks it had won in NELP auctions, saying it has been hit by the acute paucity in supply of drilling rigs worldwide."Global scarcity (of deepwater drilling rigs) has had a significant impact on RIL's drilling operations," P M S Prasad, CEO (Petroleum), RIL wrote to the oil secretary last month.Prasad said the oil regulator Directorate General of Hydrocarbons' (DGH) policy of merging exploration phases to tide over shortage of drilling rigs was inadequate."Merging of the exploration phase proposes only a short term solution as it amasses the work commitment into the second and fourth phase and does not provide respite to the contractor over the long term," he said.RIL has committed to drill 73 wells in the three NELP-I blocks, five NELP-III blocks and one pre-NELP block, requiring more than 12 dig years to accomplish the programme. Against this, it currently has two deep-water rigs - C Kirk Rhine and Deep Water Frontier.It had contracted three more rigs - Expedition, D534 and Neptune for mobilisation by June 2006, August 2006 and January 2007 respectively, with an additional rig Blackford Dolphin slated to join the fleet in October 2007."Unfortunately, despite having executed the required contracts, which are always subject to availability, the rigs are still not being made available to RIL," Prasad said.While D534 is expected to reach RIL in November, Expedition would not be there before October 2008 and Neptune and Blackford Dolphin would not come before May 2008.
