DOYON DRILLING WORKERS TO BE SEVERELY IMPACTED
ConocoPhillips announced Tuesday that due to the heightened COVID-19 risk to its North Slope workforce, the company will significantly reduce the number of personnel on the Slope in a managed fashion.
“To do this, we are making the difficult decision to demobilize our rig fleet. Given the high degree of uncertainty on how the situation plays out, we can’t say how long these measures will be in place,” said the official statement from ConocoPhillips.
Impacted will be the rig fleet, including exploration and development drilling rigs, and most likely will not impact production in 2020.
The announcement will impact many of oil field contractors, and a memo was issued by Doyon Drilling Inc., describing major impacts to the company.
“Today we were informed that CPA has made a decision to demobilize their rig fleet. This decision was made to protect the health and wellbeing of the workforce and their families to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. This impact will be severely felt by DDI Employees and Alaskans,” said a memo from Ron Wilson, president and general manager of Doyon Drilling.
“We understand that this volatile environment and our Operator’s directive is very concerning to our employees. We are unable to predict how long it will take for the COVID-19 virus or the low prices to pass. In the meantime, we will demobilize our rigs in a safe and effective manner to ensure we are in position to resume drilling operations upon CPAI directive,” he wrote.
ConocoPhillips is one of the big three oil producers in Alaska, along with BP and ExxonMobil.
