From the May 2010 issue of The Land Rig Newsletter:

The State Pioneer 1-3 well was drilled by Pollister Rig #2, a new rig that was built last year to drill Prairie Du Chien (PdC) wells to around 12,000 ft. The rig had been working in Osceola County, Florida, for BreitBurn Operating before returning to Michigan for the Petoskey well. According to rig owner Ed Pollister, the Michigan well posed no problems. Once the vertical section was drilled, the well was plugged back and kicked off without a whipstock.

Standard rotary steerable technology was used for the lateral drill. Liner setting went smoothly, as did the multistage frac. The rig is a diesel-electrical unit with 750 hp drawworks, a 131 ft mast, and dual 1,000-hp Triplex mud pumps. It is rated to 14,000 ft, uses a standard hoist and traveling block system, and racks back three-joint stands of 4½-in. drill pipe along with 9-in. drill collars. Pollister says he is already booked through yearend with PdC wells and hopes to finalize additional drilling commitments that will secure work into mid-2011. With a limited number of larger rigs available in Michigan, more and larger rigs will need to be shipped ...

A significant shift in drilling depth is seen in a range of metrics provided in the latest issue of The Land Rig Newsletter’s Biweekly Report: a trend toward greater depths.

 

Rigs drilling to 10,000-14,999 ft rose to 641, a 47-unit increase from the previous Biweekly Report. The expansion was broadly based, as the top five companies added only 5 rigs to the overall increase.  An offsetting downward trend was seen in rigs drilling to 5,000-9,999 ft. This class dropped 13 to 383 rigs. The trend to deeper drilling in the 10,000-14,999 ft depth range was expressed most strongly in two regions, the Rockies and Permian. In the Rockies this category’s tally rose to 144, 69% of the regional total. In the Permian, this depth range count rose to 183, 52% of the regional total.

 

The move to deeper drilling is also reflected in the horsepower tallies. Rigs with ratings of 500-1,999 hp now represent 84% of all active rigs. At the upper end of that range, the 1,000-1,999 hp group holds sway at 70% of the total active fleet.

Oceaneering International, Inc. was the high bidder to acquire the DMT Sapphire from an affiliate of Deep Marine Technology, Inc., under a bankruptcy-sponsored auction proceeding.  The bid was $16.5 million.

 

Technip has been awarded a contract by Eni for the Kitan field development project in the Timor Sea off the Australian coast.

ENSCO has received contract extensions from Apache that will keep jackups ENSCO 86 and ENSCO 87 with the operator thru 2010.  The new term for ENSCO 86 is effective from July 31, while the new period for ENSCO 87 began May 23.  ENSCO 86 is currently working in Vermilion 78, and ENSCO 87 just began work in Main Pass 296. The rig likely will also have work in Main Pass 140 and in the West Delta area later in the year.  The two extensions now give ENSCO five of seven marketed jackups in the Gulf with contracts that run through 2010. ENSCO 75, also with Apache, and ENSCO 82 and ENSCO 68, both with Chevron are the other three.

 

Seahawk Drilling reports jackup Seahawk 2504 will finish its contract with Mariner Energy around the end of May.  At present, no follow-up work is in place, but Seahawk intends to take the rig to West Cameron 38 for seven to ten days of surveys and repairs.  After that, the company expects to have work for the rig.  Seahawk also will likely have multiple contracts signed possibly this week for idle jackup Seahawk 3000.  Repairs to the rig have been pushed ...

Crimson Exploration, Inc. announced that Carl Isaac has been appointed Senior Vice President of Operations.

 

Saratoga Resources, Inc. has entered into a 20-year seismic licensing agreement with Seismic Exchange, Inc. for 42.88 blocks of 3-D seismic data, located in the state waters of Louisiana.

Work continues on BP’s oil spill leak coming from well MC 252 in the Gulf of Mexico that occurred more than a month ago.  Latest technology to contain the well includes the plan to use a “top kill” operation, in addition to subsea efforts focused on well intervention techniques via a blow out preventer.  The “top kill” method involves the injection of heavy drilling fluids into the well to stem the flow of oil and gas.