Saudi Aramco to double drill rig Fleet
Posted: 29 September 2005
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Saudi Aramco, is doubling its drilling rig fleet over a two-year period, to a planned 110 in 2006 from 55 in 2004. The increase is to meet plans to drill several hundred wells as part of an expansion of the company's crude oil and gas programme.
"This is the most aggressive ramp-up of drilling activity in the history of the oil industry", a Saudi Aramco report said.
It said one of the recently contracted rigs is the massive 3,000- horsepower Ensco 76 deep gas exploration rig. It will be used to conduct deep gas exploration drilling operations in several locations throughout the Gulf. The first well Ensco will drill is Karan-6, east of Tanajib, off the north eastern coast of Saudi Arabia .
Saudi Aramco has overhauled and brought back in service rig SAR-102 after it was retired and dismantled in 1999. It said the reactivation of the rig was done in order to help manage increasing operational activities. "SAR-102 is now back in action, drilling and working over oil wells in the Ghawar field", the report said.
Mansour al-Hammad, a superintendent in Northern Area Oil Drilling Operations, said in the report that strong outlook for energy makes it necessary for Saudi Aramco to invest in exploration.
Saudi Arabia currently has 11 million barrels a day of crude oil production capacity and working to expand it to 12.5 million b/d by 2009.
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