OREANDA-NEWS. June 3, 2008. Machine building corporation Uralmash and LLC Industrial Drilling Rigs made a master agreement on establishment of "URALMASH - Industrial Drilling Rigs" Consortium. The purpose of Consortium is to develop, design and manufacture state-of-art drilling rigs of various design with further maintenance and training.

The Consortium plans to manufacture 12-15 heavy duty drilling rigs with hook load capacity of 250-400 tons and 15-20 mobile drilling rigs with hook load capacity of 125-220 tons per year. Considering the growing demand of domestic drilling service companies for such rigs the plan is to increase production of both heavy duty and mobile rigs to 50-60 rigs per year by the year 2015.

The first joint project will be development of new design of drilling rig with load capacity of 320-400 tons for JSC GAZPROM.

Consortium's priority activities are:
• development of modern drilling rigs designs;
• design and implementation of new units, components and assemblies for onshore and offshore drilling rigs;
• design and manufacturing of semi-submersible drilling rigs for shallow water;
• joint participation in tenders for supply of drilling rigs both in Russia and abroad;
• establishment of guarantee and post-guarantee maintenance of drilling rigs produced by the Consortium;
• upgrade of drilling rigs manufactured both by the Consortium and other manufacturers.

Nazim Efendiev, URALMASH General Director noted: "Using innovative technologies, state-of-art designs offered by our foreign colleagues, supported by production capacities of our Corporation, experience and proficiency of our staff, URALMASH within the framework of Consortium can reach the objective of becoming a major manufacturer of equipment for Russia's oil and gas industry and reinforcing the position of domestic manufacturer at this market of extreme importance for Russian economy".