Did you know that drilling rigs can walk? At least this one can. It's the ECO-Pad being used by Continental Resources Inc. to drill for oil in North Dakota.

The 800,000-pound rig walks on hydraulic feet between drill sites up to 100 feet apart. Rather than creating a four-acre drilling pad for each well, the rig's portability makes it possible to drill four wells from the same drill pad. That greatly reduces the amount of land that must be disturbed for drilling.

It also saves time. Usually it takes about one week to dismantle and move a rig to the next drill site. With the ECO-Pad, the rig can walk to the next drill site in about two hours.

A few years ago, many drilling companies began setting rigs on rails to slide them to the next hole. This practice ha... more »

After a months-long investigation, the Department of the Interior made the right decision and ended the deepwater drilling moratorium. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said it was "appropriate" to end the ban because safety measures have been strengthened and spill response capabilities have been improved.

But as API President and CEO Jack Gerard points out, lifting the moratorium is not likely to put oil and natural gas workers back to work immediately. The process to obtain drilling permits in both deepwater and shallow-water is time-consuming and difficult. API hopes the Interior Department is given the resources it needs to process permits quickly and efficiently.

In the meantime, the moratorium continues to have a negative impact on U.S. jobs as well as U.S. energy security. Consider th... more »

A few days after the Deepwater Horizon explosions and fire, Interior Sec. Ken Salazar ordered Minerals Management Service (MMS) personnel to inspect 30 deepwater drilling rigs and their blowout preventers (BOPs).

Specifically, they were instructed to:

• Perform a thorough inspection of each rig

• Pay particular attention to the BOP tests, leaks and resolution, discrepancies and repairs

• Ensure that well-control drills were being performed in accord with regulations

The findings demonstrated the fitness-for-duty of the deepwater drilling rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. According to the inspectors' report, only one Incident of Non-Compliance (INC) citation and three warnings were issued:

• The Development Driller II received an INC because it had not tested its BOP from both the rig floor and a... more »

A number of prominent voices in the energy debate are discussing the need for continued safe, environmentally responsible offshore oil and natural gas development. EIA estimates demonstrate that the United States will consume 14 percent more energy in 25 years, including alternatives, renewables and oil and natural gas.

A USA TODAY editorial from yesterday explains that limiting or banning offshore drilling would deny our nation access to 40 to 60 billion barrels of recoverable oil--about six to eight years of current U.S. consumption.

With about one-third of U.S. oil production coming from the Gulf, the editorial makes the point that we need oil, but we also need to find out what went wrong in the Deepwater Horizon tragedy and apply the lessons learned. We couldn't agree more.

A Maritime... more »

One of the most reliable barometers of drilling activity is the Baker Hughes rig count. Since 1944, Baker Hughes, an oil services company that produces drill bits, has been issuing weekly counts of U.S. and Canadian rotary drilling rigs that are actively drilling for oil and natural gas. The weekly figures are released at noon on the last day of the work week and are regular features in many energy industry magazines and newsletters.

Last Friday, Oct. 16, the rig count in the United States totaled 1,040. Compared to the previous week, the count was down by one. In Canada last week, the rig count totaled 250, which was 11 higher than the previous week. In both cases, last week's rig counts were significantly lower than at the same time in 2008.

During the past several years, the rig count h... more »