I guess Slippy might know something about this, or perhaps someone here is in the gas/oil business. There is a lot of horizontal drilling going on in my area, with exploratory rigs all over the place looking for natural gas in the Barnett Shale. This one location that I drive past every morning has had rigs up and down at least 6 times over the last 18 months. The most recent one is a little different in appearance, however, and I wonder if there is something unique about it.
Most of the rigs look similar to this one:
This new one is kind of different, especially that semicircle of panels that appears to be enclosing a crane.
That's what I thought, except this is next to a busy freeway, and just south of D/FW airport under the takeoff path. There are some offices about a 1/4 mile south across the field. In areas where there are residences nearby, they have been having to erect soundproofing walls around the drill site. (I need to get some pics of those)
Shot in the dark here but.... could it be just for construction? Maybe they are doing something to the rig itself that safety barriers were set up. Just a thought.
