courtesy BP

U.S. drill-rig contractor Parker Drilling has been awarded a two-year operations and maintenance contract for the BP Liberty rig at the Liberty field on Alaska’s North Slope oil province.

The liberty is a land-based rig designed to drill and reach ultra-extended-reach wells to offshore targets in the Liberty field.

The O&M contract is the third phase of the Liberty field development project awarded to Parker. Phase one was a technical service project awarded in 2006 by BP to provide a conceptual design for the purpose-built rig, and phase two was the construction and commissioning contract, awarded in 2008.

Work under the O&M contract has already begun. The Liberty rig arrived at the drilling site in July after being transported via barge.

The Liberty rig's ultra-extended-reach wells, guided by 3-D seismic imagery, will extend nearly two miles deep and as far as eight miles out, some with measured depths exceeding the current record of over seven and a half miles.

Parker is doing similar design studies for the Arkutun-Dagi offshore platform the O&M contracts for the Orlan platform and the Yastreb extended-reach drilling rig for the Sakhalin-1 consortium.

Tags: BP PLC, Parker Drilling Company