Hyderabad-headquartered Megha Engineering and Infrastructure (Meil) unveiled the country’s first indigenously developed hydraulic rigs for the oil and gas sector on Wednesday. These rigs, designed with advanced hydraulic technology to drill oil wells to a depth of up to 6 km from the surface, began operations in the Kalol oilfield near Ahmedabad in Gujarat. The rig deployed at Kalol oilfield has a capacity of 1,500 horsepower that can drill up to a depth of 4 km, said Meil vice-president P Rajesh Reddy, adding that the indigenous rig comes with the most modern technology in terms of security standards.
He said he hoped that the indigenously developed and manufactured drilling rigs would help the country increase domestic oil production and reduce oil import burden, thereby helping the domestic economy.
The launch was part of the 6,000 crore order involving 47 drilling rigs that Meil secured from the state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) in 2019.
The remaining 46 rigs that are known to rig oil wells faster and operate with minimal power are at various stages of manufacturing and are to be supplied to ONGC-related oilfields in Assam, Tripura and Tamil Nadu. Of these, two rigs are in the assembly stage in the Rajahmundry oilfields in Andhra Pradesh.
