The North American drilling industry is looking more seriously at weaning itself from diesel-electric rotary rigs—the staple of oilfields around the world for the past 60 years or more—in favour of punching holes (for oil, of course, hardly anyone is actually looking for dry gas these days) using cheaper, cleaner and quieter natural gas.Might be nice for rigs drilling inside city limits.
Ensign Energy Services Inc. has been building gas-powered rigs for clients in the United States for about five years now, and the units are quite popular in some of the more densely -populated shale plays—the Marcellus in the northeast, the Barnett in Texas—and in parts of Colorado and Wyoming where prevailing air pollution laws restrict the use of diesel generators.
Ensign is now running a total of 15 dedicated gas-powered rigs in the United States, but hasn’t yet targeted the Canadian market, although it does have one dual fuel (diesel and natural gas) in its Canadian fleet. Nor does it anticipate building any for the Canadian market, although it is in the process of adding two more dedicated gas-powered rigs to its American fleet, according to Will Matthews, vice- president, marketing in Ensign’s Denver office.
Friday, December 23, 2011
Industry Looking at Natural Gas Powered Rigs
Link here.
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"We also intend to take full advantage of the associated cost savings and emissions reductions by accelerating the conversion of all 4,500 of Chesapeake’s light duty and 400 of our heavy duty fleet vehicles to run on CNG, which will reduce our fuel costs by an estimated $15-20 million per year. In addition, we are converting at least 100 of our drilling rigs and all of our planned hydraulic fracturing equipment to run on LNG. Just converting our rigs and hydraulic fracturing equipment will cut the company’s diesel fuel consumption by approximately 350,000 gallons a day and save the company approximately $230 million annually, bringing our overall CNG and LNG fuel savings to approximately $250 million.”"
ReplyDeletehttp://www.chk.com/independence/media/pdf/CHK_Release_2011071101.pdf
anon 1
From the original link, I wanted to "cut and paste" additional information, but I have to limit how much I can copy.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate you adding this -- just to give folks an idea of how much cost savings there is by going this route. I was quite amazed at how much savings could be generated, as well as the aesthetic results (quieter rigs).
CENTRAL CALIFORNIA POWER IN BAKERSFIELD, CALIFORNIA SERVICES DRILLING RIGS OILFIELD EQUIPMENT THROUGHOUT CALIFORNIA DIESEL AND NATURAL GAS ALSO INDUSTRIAL/GENERATORS/REFRIDGERATION, ENGINES ETC.... THEY ARE A GREAT COMPANY TO WORK WITH. THEY HAVE A NEW SYSTEM THAT CONVERTS THE RIGS TO NATURAL GAS THAT WILL SAVE THE COMPANIES A TREMENDOUS AMOUNT OF MONEY CONTACT THERE IS DENA 661-747-8554
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