Parker Drilling Co History

A Company Committed to Innovation Since 1934

The following year, the new company pioneered the use of diesel electric powered drilling rigs and by 1945 was branching out into the international market.

When he was elected company president in 1953, Parker, 30, became the youngest president of a major drilling company in the world.

In 1969, the year Parker went public with shares sold on the over-the-counter market, the company landed a major contract with the United States Atomic Energy Commission to drill a series of holes up to 120 inches in diameter and 6,500 feet in depth in Alaska and Nevada for nuclear testing.

Robert L. Parker, Gifford's son, purchased the company and became its president, a role he retained until 1977 when he was elected chief executive officer.

In 1978 Parker Drilling pioneered arctic drilling technology using a winterized rig on wheels, designed and manufactured for an ARCO Alaska, Inc. drilling program in the Prudhoe Bay Field.

In 1980 Parker was awarded a contract in the People's Republic of China to work in Xinjiang province, becoming the first American land drilling company to work in that nation.

Robert Parker was a recognized leader in his industry and once served as chairman of the United States Energy Policy Task Force, appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1981.

In 1992 it traveled to the Congo where it was hired to design hybrid rigs combining the drilling technologies of both the petroleum and solid minerals industries and to wireline core several holes for oil and gas exploration.

In 1995 Parker agreed to manage China's state-owned Great Wall Drilling Co.'s rigs as well as to train its crews, and to drill two wells south of Hanoi, Viet Nam, for an Australian company.

In July 1997 Parker acquired Bolifor S.A., a Bolivian drilling contractor.

Parker closed out 1998 as one of the New York Stock Exchange's four worst-performing stocks.

During the first quarter of fiscal 1999, Parker experienced a net loss of $7.7 million.