India, Aug. 31 -- State-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) is exploring the acquisition of deepwater drillships or formation of a Joint Venture (JV) to secure dedicated drilling capacity as it steps up efforts to accelerate offshore exploration to find oil and gas reserves under its Mission Samudra Manthan programme. ONGC has issued an Expression of Interest (EOI) to engage a specialist global offshore rig-broking consultant to identify potential drillship owners or counterparties, assess assets and valuations, and support the state explorer in negotiating a possible ownership or joint venture arrangement.

The initiative is aimed at creating dedicated, priority-access deepwater drillship capacity, according to the EOI issued by...