One of the biggest problems we’re having now is not enough drilling rigs, fracing crews and oil haulers. It’s been 2 months since we drilled out last well and still haven’t fraced it. With the depths were going to now allot of the old rigs just can’t take the weight, they’ve collapsed two derricks in the last two months just in this county alone. I used to get my oil hauled within 24 hours of a call in, now it may go as long as 5 days. Several times I’ve had to shut in wells due to my tanks being full.
We have had our oil hauling problems, too, but with more rail loading facilities built, those are diminishing. Just about every trucking outfit up here is looking for drivers with tankers and hazmat to haul everything from crude to fresh water, fuel, and salt water.
We have a lot of good rigs, and many are walkers, made for pad drilling that can walk from one wellhead to the next. Smaller rigs have been sent to drill and set surface casing on the pads, then bring in the walking rigs to drill the vertical, curve, and the lateral.
Pad wells have cut the need for infrastructure and make the feeder pipeline backlog shorter.
There are good big rigs which have been let go up here for lack of ability to be refit as walking rigs.
As always, experienced personnel are in short supply.