Big oil rig sets up shop in the N.D. Badlands

BELFIELD (AP) – It’s a long, bumpy drive from Williston to the site of 257, nestled in the Badlands some 30 miles west of Belfield. But once you get there, it’s definitely something to see.

Seemingly jutting out of the rock in this wild patch of land, the rig is near Theodore Roosevelt’s Elkhorn Ranch. And it’s big.

It has to be, explains Scott Shackelford the area manager for Key Energy, because it’s going deep.
Rig 257 can go up to 12,000 feet laterally, while other rigs tend to top out at 9,000 feet. Because more pipe is going in the ground, more derrick capacity is needed to hold up to the pressure. “It takes a lot of horsepower to pull that,” Shackelford said.

The rig currently is the largest re-entry rig in the Williston Basin, he said.

Nearby sits Rig No. 233, now 10 years old. At the time 233 was built, it was also the largest horizontal rig in the region. The older rig is now dwarfed by the new.

There’s no sitting still for a rig this big, especially now that the price of oil has breathed new life into the Williston Basin oil world.

A team of reservoir engineers is in place to decide when and where 257 should drill, and moves take place every 30 to 90 days. From there, directional drillers come in to determine which direction to drill.

“They plan out what zone they want to be drilling in,” Shackelford said. Then, they make decisions on where to drill and how.

Bismarck Tribune