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Informist, Wednesday, Apr. 22, 2026

 

--ONGC: Cancelled jack-up rig tender on competitive integrity concerns 

--ONGC: Cancelled jack-up rig tender on pricing anomalies 

 

MUMBAI – Oil and Natural Gas Corp. Ltd. on Wednesday clarified that it cancelled a recent tender for hiring jack-up rigs after it noticed an "unusually" steep escalation in pricing levels., of around 60% over nine months, which was termed as being significantly beyond the bounds of reasonable and competitive market behaviour. "When assessed in conjunction with the overall bidding pattern and prevailing global conditions, these factors raised legitimate concerns regarding potential collusive practices," the company said in a press release, adding that these concerns ultimately led to the decision to cancel the tender.

 

"The organisation expects all participants to engage in fair competition and submit genuinely competitive bids, while firmly discouraging any form of unfair trade practices, including predatory pricing, collusive bidding, or coordinated actions aimed at distorting market dynamics," ONGC said in the release. 

 

The tender was cancelled after considering pricing reasonableness, competitive integrity, and alignment with established procurement norms without any extraneous influence, ONGC said. The clarification was in response to a newspaper report which claimed that executives flagged that repeated tender cancellations and aggressive cost-cutting by ONGC could prompt rig operators to look at markets outside India.

 

For the December quarter, the company had reported a net profit of INR 83.72 billion on revenues of INR 315.47 billion. At 1132 IST, its shares traded largely flat at INR 283.15 on the National Stock Exchange.   End

 

IST, or Indian Standard Time, is five-and-a-half hours ahead of GMT

 

Reported by Anand JC

Edited by Tanima Banerjee

 

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