Natural Gas, Bi-Fuel Drilling Rigs In The Bakken

The Bismarck Tribuine is reporting:

With a new liquefied natural gas plant in the works in Tioga, North Dakota LNG Chief Executive Officer Pat Hughes predicts 50 percent of North Dakota oil drilling rigs will run on natural gas in the next 12 months.

Hughes is hopeful that 100 percent will use natural gas to supplement diesel fuel by the end of 2015, he said Tuesday during the Williston Basin Petroleum Conference.

Though most rigs run on a mixture of diesel and natural gas, Hughes told conference-goers Ensign Resource Service Group has some full liquefied natural gas.

Those units tend to have less torque than their bi-fuel counterparts. Adding natural gas also makes the rigs’ engines last longer and lowers emissions.

Sixty to 70 rigs in the U.S. now use liquefied natural gas, said Kirt Montague of North Dakota LNG parent company Prairie Companies.

“There are bi-fuel rigs coming into North Dakota,” he said “There are more coming in all the time.”

Nabors, apparently, is taking the lead on natural-gas bi-fuel rigs.