Dolphin Drilling wins fresh extension for veteran semisub off India

Dolphin Drilling has been granted extra time for one of its rigs working off India, extending the run of a unit that has already seen a drawn-out path to the job.

The company said the 1974-built semisubmersible Blackford Dolphin will stay on its drilling contract for Oil India Limited. The assignment has now been pushed out to at least 28 August 2026 to allow drilling, testing and abandonment work at sites east of India to be completed, on the same terms and scope as the current deal.

The original agreement with Oil India, worth $154m over a planned 14 months, was signed in March 2024 but did not begin on schedule. Progress stalled after an arrest order was placed on the rig in the wake of a terminated contract with General Hydrocarbons Limited, which had fallen behind on payments to the driller.

The rig eventually started work for Oil India in November 2024. The Indian company has since lengthened the contract twice, first by 120 days in November 2025 and then through a short-term extension that ran to the end of July 2026, with the latest award carrying the campaign further still.