Barges deliver monster Liberty rig early

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Barges hauling an enormous new drilling rig for BP’s ultraextended-reach Liberty project in the Beaufort Sea arrived well ahead of schedule.

Both barges were off Endicott Island, where the Liberty drilling will occur, by July 29, BP spokesman Steve Rinehart said.

The rig, which BP calls “the most powerful, most capable land-based drilling rig in the world,” was built by Parker Drilling Co. at Vancouver, Wash.

The two Crowley Maritime Corp. barges departed the Columbia River in early July and weren’t due off the North Slope until August. But they made it sooner.

Rig assembly, testing and training are planned for this fall, Rinehart said. Drilling is expected to start next spring with first oil production in 2011.

Recovery from Liberty is estimated at 100 million barrels, Rinehart said.

The Parker rig is truly a monster. It weighs 8,500 tons with drilling pipe and supplies, has eight 2,640-horsepower engines producing 16 megawatts of power, and will stand 240 feet tall when assembled.

“The top drive is rated at 105,000 foot-pounds of torque. It needs that muscle to safely turn a drill string that will reach two miles deep and six to eight miles out from the Endicott Satellite Drilling Island,” Rinehart said in an e-mail to Petroleum News.

—Wesley Loy