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Arctic Fox exceeds expectations
Pioneer Natural Resources Alaska is “very, very pleased” with the performance of the new Arctic Fox Rig No. 1 drilling rig, designed and built at its request by joint venture partners Doyon Drilling Inc. and Akita Drilling Ltd., Pioneer’s drilling superintendent told Petroleum News in a March 8 interview.
“It’s running very well and doing a good job,” Vance Hazzard said, noting that any new piece of equipment is bound to have a few kinks to work out.
The lightweight, truckable rig was designed to drill several exploration wells in a single North Slope off-road drilling season, which generally spans a December-January to April time-frame. Three to four wells this winter “It’s different than any of the other North Slope rigs, so it was new to any crew we put to work on it. We expected a learning curve. If anything, we’ve had a lot less equipment start-up issues than we thought we would have and we’ve had some pretty cold weather” to contend with on the North Slope this winter, he said.
In public statements about the Arctic Fox, Alaska subsidiary President Ken Sheffield has said Pioneer hoped to drill three to four wells this winter with the rig, but he always added a cautionary note about the possibility of the new rig not being up to full performance in its first year.
Hazzard said the Arctic Fox is expected to drill three wells this season and — depending on weather and the length of the season, not the rig — possibly a fourth for another company (see Feb. 5 PN article, BP applies to drill gas hydrate strat test).
“I am very pleased with it. Pioneer is very pleased. It’s the tool that we wanted to bring to the North Slope,” Hazzard said.
The other rigs on the North Slope are “development, not exploration, rigs. The Arctic Fox was designed for exploration. … It’s smaller than the development rigs. That’s the big difference. You can see it in the size of the components on the rig and the quarters where people work. To date Doyon’s people have done a great job,” adjusting to the differences, he said.
The rig, built by Akita in Alberta, is similar to rigs used for Arctic exploration in Canada, but the Arctic Fox was designed specifically for North Slope wells.
Sheffield said the company wanted to be able to “drill more wells per season and spend time drilling wells and less time moving and building ice.”
Hazzard, who communicated what Pioneer needed in a rig to Doyon and Akita, said the design team had to “make tradeoffs between exploration and a highly efficient development rig that works 12 months a year” to find the “balance you’re looking for.” Akita personnel were on hand on the North Slope for rig start-up earlier this year in an advisory role, but the rig is completely operated by Doyon crews, he said. Kudos for Cruz and others contractors “This season it will operate fairly close to infrastructure,” Hazzard said. “But where it’s really going to shine is when it gets farther away from infrastructure.”
The Arctic Fox’s first well was Hailstorm No. 1 in the Hailstorm prospect within the newly formed NE Storm unit (see related story on page 4). Currently, the Arctic Fox is drilling an exploration well in the newly formed Cronus unit.
Depending on results of the first Cronus well, the Arctic Fox might drill more wells at Cronus or move to the Antigua prospect, and then onto BP’s hydrate stratigraphic test well. Hazzard also gave kudos to Pioneer’s “exploration rig team,” which includes Doyon, Cruz Construction, Halliburton, Kuukpik and VECO.
“Cruz has done an outstanding job for us; really all our subcontractors have done excellent work,” he said noting there was a lot of cooperation between the contractors and Pioneer.
“People are not necessarily working only on their stuff, but keeping the big picture in mind. We have an excellent team.”
—Kay Cashman
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