Cairn Energy Plc, the U.K.-listed explorer focused on India, wants to hire two offshore drilling rigs as it seeks new oil and gas deposits in South Asia.

The explorer called for bids for one rig each in Sri Lanka and India, according to an advertisement in the Economic Times newspaper. Cairn plans to drill in Sri Lanka by January 2011 and off India’s east coast by October 2010.

The explorer wants to hire a drillship or a semi- submersible rig in Sri Lanka. A drillship currently costs about $250,000 a day and a semi-submersible rig about $280,000, reported the Bloomberg according to rigzone.com.

Cairn plans to drill three wells with an option to drill two more in a deepwater block in the Gulf of Mannar in Sri Lanka.