So far, initial trials have pointed to several gains. "We're still in the development stage, but we expect mobilization will be about 30-35% faster," says Wood. "A retrofitted, standard rig takes about 18 hours to mobilize Ð ours should be around 12 hours." The rig is highly automated, so there are also fewer workers on site. "A standard rig takes about six days and 3,600 man hours to drill and complete a well in northern British Columbia. Our system can do it in 2,500 man hours. We estimate a total cost per well savings of around 20%. That means an AFE of $750,000 for drilling and completion of an underbalanced well falls to around $600,000."

Several operators are working with High Arctic to achieve the rig's potential. "We have one rig; we've been using it for a year," says Richard Rice, a completion superintendent for EnCana Corporation. "The saving is in time and labour when you don't have to wait for the snubbing unit. There's less need for manpower. You don't have the need for a rig crew and snub crew."

High Arctic expects to expand its 250K fleet to 10 units in 2006. In the short term, the underbalanced drilling division's primary focus will be to supply full-service systems for the drilling of horizontal wells in northern B.C., where operators are currently completing about 300 wells annually in tight sands.

While the first generation of rigs is weighted toward the workover and snubbing features, High Arctic intends to beef up the drilling component to increase its appeal to a more general audience, "Canada has around 800 drill rigs and 900 workover rigs, approximately 1,700 in total," says Wood. "It's logical to build 10% [of the total], around 170 rigs; there's lots of room for us.

High Arctic also has plans to make the design heli-portable. "The heaviest sections of a rig are the mud pumps and the drawworks; we don't have drawworks," says Wood. "We estimate that we can break it down into 20 sections weighing no more than 8,000 pounds each. A customer has commissioned us for a delivery in the fourth quarter of 2006. The rig can be used for pad drilling year round, and in remote locations like Pap New Guinea."

EnCana, which has an extensive drilling program for tight sands in the Cutbank and Jean Marie regions of northeast B.C., is waiting delivery of a second 250K rig. "I'd recommend it; once you get the bugs out and speed it up, it maintains safety," says Rice. "It's the way of the future. Nobody wants to kill the wells anymore, but it's still safe."