Location: British Columbia & Alberta | Precision Drilling Partnership
The Montney formation — long known for its stacked resource potential — is now becoming equally famous for technological innovation. At the forefront is PD 868, North America’s first land-based drilling rig equipped with modular robotics to automate pipe handling.
This system eliminates the need for traditional floor and derrick hands during connections, relying instead on a three-armed robotic system that performs tasks with precision, speed, and safety.
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📊 Western Canada Drilling Activity Snapshot (ConocoPhillips)
Tracking recent development in Western Canada, ConocoPhillips has maintained a strong drilling program throughout the current and previous year:
🧾 Fast Stats (Based on Dataset)
- Total wells drilled: 88
- Timeframe covered: 2023–2024
- Top drilling rigs used:
- Precision 140 – 53 wells
- Precision 117 – 30 wells
- Preditor 140 – 3 wells
- PD 868 (robotic rig) – 2 wells
📅 Monthly Drilling Trend (Recent Pads)
| Month | Wells Drilled |
|---|---|
| 2024-02 | 23 |
| 2024-01 | 16 |
| 2023-12 | 12 |
| 2023-11 | 12 |
| 2023-10 | 8 |
| 2023-09 | 5 |
| 2023-08 | 4 |
| Others | 8 |
(Drilling activity peaked in early 2024 with a focus on highly automated rigs.)
🌍 Key Fields Developed
ConocoPhillips’ drilling concentrated in several strategic Montney fields:
- RESDELN – 43 wells
- NEWBY – 28 wells
- INGA / INGA NORTH – 10 wells
- BLUEBERRY – 3 wells
These locations are part of the Montney and adjacent resource corridors, which offer multi-zone development potential and are suitable for continuous pad drilling.
🤖 PD 868 – Robotic Innovation in Action
🚧 Field Performance
- 105,000m drilled without manual pipe connections
- 400,000m of tubulars handled hands-free
- ~8,400 personnel hours removed from the rig floor
- Robotic pipe handling eliminates high-risk manual tasks
🧠 How It Works
PD 868 is part of a multi-year ConocoPhillips–Precision Drilling collaboration. The robotics system is trained via coded movement sequences and continuously optimized for speed and precision. While current implementations rely on manually programmed coordinates, future upgrades aim to use image-based spatial recognition — enabling rigs to “see” and respond autonomously.
🛤️ Why It Matters: A Glimpse of Shale 2.0
As Permian operators focus on continuous drilling and AI-assisted optimization, ConocoPhillips is bringing similar momentum to Canada’s unconventional plays. Robotic rigs like PD 868 not only reduce exposure and improve consistency — they set a new benchmark for efficiency, ESG performance, and digital transformation in shale drilling.
