ADES ONGC contracts: SAR439.6m award for two India rigs

ADES Holding has secured two contracts worth about SAR439.6m ($117.2m) from India’s Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), the Saudi driller said on Sunday. The ADES ONGC contracts cover two jack-up rigs for three years each.

What the ADES ONGC contracts cover

The awards are for the Key Singapore and Admarine 10 rigs, both standard jack-up units, according to the company’s statement to the Saudi Exchange (Tadawul). Each contract has a firm term of three years, and the stated value covers that firm period and includes mobilisation fees.

The rigs’ current contracts are due to finish by the end of the fourth quarter of 2026. Work under the new agreements is expected to begin by the end of the first quarter of 2027, ADES said.

ADES, led by chief executive Mohamed Farouk, said the awards strengthen its relationships with national oil companies, Oil & Gas Middle East reported. The company also pointed to continued demand for jack-up rigs and to improving market conditions in the region, where higher utilisation is supporting better contract terms, according to Argaam.

A growing international order book

The Indian awards follow a series of contract wins outside Saudi Arabia. On 27 October, ADES announced a contract worth about SAR173.14m ($46.2m) with PT Pertamina Hulu Mahakam for the Shelf Drilling Perseverance jack-up in Indonesia, Arab News reported. That deal has a firm term of 406 days.

In July, the group secured a UK North Sea deal for the Shelf Drilling Fortress with a total potential value of SAR483m. It also signed a SAR375.3m contract with Seplat Energy Producing Nigeria for the Shelf Drilling Odyssey.

In October 2024, ADES completed the $190m purchase of two jack-ups from Vantage Drilling International, the Topaz and the Sohanah, which took its jack-up count across India and South-east Asia to seven, Attaqa reported at the time.

Headquartered in Al Khobar and listed on the Saudi Exchange, ADES operates in 20 countries. Its fleet stands at 128 units, of which 88 are offshore, a footprint enlarged by the acquisition of Shelf Drilling. Company announcements are published on the ADES investor relations website.

In the first half of 2026, revenue rose 49% to SAR4.54bn (about $1.21bn) and EBITDA increased 29.2% to SAR2.16bn, while net profit slipped 3.7% to SAR374.1m. The company attributed the lower profit to one-off insurance costs and lower-margin contributions from Shelf Drilling, Baird Maritime reported.

Backlog stood at SAR34.67bn at 30 June, with fleet utilisation of 97.6% and a weighted average remaining contract tenor of 4.54 years. Management has guided for full-year EBITDA of between SAR4.5bn and SAR4.87bn.

Why it matters for Gulf energy services

The ADES ONGC contracts add three years of committed work for two rigs outside the Gulf. In the Gulf itself, regional conflict led to temporary rig suspensions earlier this year, and ADES said in August that operations in Qatar and two offshore rigs in Saudi Arabia had received notices to resume.

With contracts now spread across India, South-east Asia, Africa and the North Sea, the group’s order book is not tied to a single market. For shareholders, multi-year contracts with national oil companies such as ONGC also make future revenue easier to forecast.

Investors following the sector can set the awards alongside other recent results from the region’s oil and gas companies, including ADNOC Drilling’s nine-month results and Aramco’s third-quarter profit.

The next milestones are the completion of the two rigs’ current contracts by the end of December and the start of operations under the new terms by the end of March 2027. Separately, the Shelf Drilling Perseverance is expected to begin its Indonesian campaign around the end of December 2026.