Vietnamese drilling contractor PetroVietnam Drilling & Well Services (PV Drilling) has secured a significant new contract in Brunei for its only semi-submersible tender assist drilling rig.

The contract term covers a fixed period of six years with options for an additional four years, beginning in June 2020.

Sources said previously that Brunei Shell Petroleum (BSP) had invited tender rig specialists such as Singapore-based Energy Drilling and rivals including Seadrill and Sapura Drilling to bid for the work.

BSP wanted a modern unit for the six-year contract, and had specified in its tender that a rig with less than 15 years of employment would be preferred, sources said.

For PV Drilling, the new contract represents a major success.

Its tender assist rig PVD V was built in 2011 by Keppel Fels to fulfil a contract at the Hai Thach-Moc Tinh project, but that contract came to an end prematurely in September 2016 and the rig has been stacked ever since, mostly at PV Shipyard in Vung Tau.

Sources said PV Drilling has been working hard to find work for the unit.

Negotiations were held with the Bien Dong Petroleum Operating Company and with the Phu Quoc Petroleum Operating Company about using the rig for development drilling and well repairs.

Sources said there was a concrete plan in place to use the tender assist rig in early 2020 as a production unit at PetroVietnam’s Dai Hung oilfield.

It is understood the old platform currently operating at Dai Hung has reached the end of its operational life.

PV Drilling had even examined the possibility of selling the tender assist rig, as it did not see many opportunities on the horizon in Vietnam.

The major offshore field developments that were expected to come to fruition, like Block B, are on hold indefinitely.

Sources said PV Drilling would have bid quite low for the Brunei project, and seeing as the charter is so long it will enable the Vietnamese contractor to invest in a new derrick set and have time to do so before start-up in June 2020.

Becoming a regional player has long been an ambition of PV Drilling, which now has three of its four jack-up drilling rigs working off Malaysia. A Vietnamese security analyst estimated recently that PV Drilling’s average dayrate in 2018 for its jack-ups was US$55,000.

The Ho Chi Minh City-based company recently appointed new chief executive Nguyen Xuan Cuong, replacing Pham Tien Dung who led the company through the difficult recent years when work at home dried up.

Pham Tien Dung is now PV Drilling’s chairman. Nguyen Xuan Cuong has 27 years of experience in the oil and gas industry, and was PV Drilling’s deputy chief executive from 2010 to April 2019.

Before that, he was deputy chief executive of PetroVietnam Exploration & Production.