Parachute – On this drilling rig, the roughnecks are jokingly called “soft necks.” The driller sits in a cushy chair with a joystick and touch-screen computers at his fingertips. And the whole operation is monitored for any trouble from an air-conditioned office in Tulsa, Okla.
But the increased safety and decreased labor on rig H&P 274 in the natural-gas fields east of Parachute are not the only reasons that a gang of Wil liams and Helmerich & Payne International Drilling Co. managers collected Tuesday in hard hats and steel-toed boots to show off the operation.
The $11 million rig represents a first, and a future, in an oil patch scrambling to keep up with demand using mostly patched-together rigs from an earlier boom.
The new rig, manufactured and assembled in Oklahoma and Texas by H&P, is the first to bring offshore drilling technology to land. The entire Flex- Rig three-story drilling platform and 125-foot-high derrick can be skidded in four directions so that as many as 22 wells can be drilled from one pad.
Well pads are the bulldozed areas on which drilling rigs and gas-recovery systems are placed.
On land, that means up to 75 percent fewer pads, not as many roads and fewer days spent drilling each well.
“It’s our understanding that this is the only rig in the world that will do this onshore,” said Steve Soychak, district manager for Williams.
The rig runs on two diesel engines that power an electrical system, so it is quieter than conventional wells that might have as many as eight diesel engines. The rig uses less fuel and cuts emissions by about 35 percent, Williams drilling supervisor Scott Brady said.
The real testimonials come from on- the-ground operators like Curtis Vickers of Hattiesburg, Miss., who has spent the past three months on the new rig.
“It’s a totally different experience. It’s a lot safer and cleaner. There’s no throwing tongs. You don’t even have to touch the pipe,” the former Marine military policeman said.
The “tongs” – giant pincers that swing on chains and are manually moved to connect and disconnect pipe on conventional rigs – have been replaced by an “iron roughneck” on the new rig. The hydraulic device is manipulated by levers.
Inside the drilling cabin, the automation is even more pronounced.
Driller Lonnie Pitts, who came to the Piceance Basin from Waynesboro, Miss., after Hurricane Katrina, keeps a constant eye on screens that show depth, pressure and all other facets of drilling.
“It’s like playing a big video game,” he said as he moved his joystick to control the 90-foot lengths of pipe being pulled from a drilling hole.
Williams is leasing five of the rigs from H&P and has five more on order.
The rigs don’t come cheaper than their conventional counterparts. They cost upward of $20,000 a day to operate. On the plus side, completed wells can be producing while other wells on the same pad are still being drilled, so Williams officials estimate the wells will ultimately be more cost-effective.
Environmentalists who have been pushing for less-damaging ways of drilling in the Piceance Basin haven’t had a chance to check out Williams’ new rigs.
Matt Sura with the Western Colorado Congress said the key to whether Williams’ new rigs really will be more environmentally friendly will be in how many drilling pads the company chooses to locate on the surface.
Williams spokeswoman Susan Alvillar said the number of pads will vary depending on terrain and mineral rights and government spacing rules.
“The idea behind it,” she said, “is that it will ultimately decrease the number of pads you need by 75 percent.”
Staff writer Nancy Lofholm can be reached at 970-256-1957 or nlofholm@denverpost.com.
