Indonesian drilling contractor Apexindo has secured a contract for one of its offshore drilling rigs from a subsidiary of Pertamina, Indonesia's state-owned oil and gas company.

The award is a two-year firm contract, with an optional one-year extension. Valued at around $74.3m, the contract has been awarded to Yani, a semisubmersible drilling barge built in 1982.

According to Jeanne Watulo, director of PT Apexindo Pratama Duta, the rig will be deployed in the Mahakam Delta region of East Kalimantan. The Mahakam Delta, located on the Indonesian portion of Borneo, is a long-established hydrocarbon-producing area and one of the country's most mature oil and gas regions. Output from the delta has long been anchored by the Mahakam block, which TotalEnergies operated for around half a century before Pertamina's upstream arm took over as operator in 2018, making the area a cornerstone of the state company's domestic production base.

PT Apexindo Pratama Duta, operating as Apexindo, is an Indonesian offshore drilling contractor majority-owned by energy group Medco Energi Internasional. Semisubmersible drilling units such as Yani float on submerged pontoons and remain positioned above the well by ballast and anchoring systems, a design commonly used for offshore drilling in open waters.

With the new contract in place, the company expects this year's performance to benefit from higher rig utilisation and operating revenue. Sustained drilling activity of this kind also carries weight for Indonesia's wider upstream sector, where national oil and gas production has declined from its late-1970s peak and mature producing provinces such as the Mahakam Delta depend on continuous drilling and well maintenance to maintain output levels.

Source: Splash247