workover rig tripping pipe price

This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks. The action you just performed triggered the security solution. There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase, a SQL command or malformed data.

Wedge-shaped pieces of metal with teeth or other gripping elements that are used to prevent pipe from slipping down into the hole or to hold pipe in place. Rotary slips fit around the drill pipe and wedge against the master bushing to support the pipe. Power slips are pneumatically or hydraulically actuated devices that allow the crew to dispense with the manual handling of slips when making a connection. Packers and other down hole equipment are secured in position by slips that engage the pipe by action directed at the surface.†

The heavy square or hexagonal steel member suspended from the swivel through the rotary table. It is connected to the topmost joint of drill pipe to turn the drill stem as the rotary table turns.†

A hole in the rig floor 30 to 35 feet deep, lined with casing that projects above the floor. The kelly is placed in the rathole when hoisting operations are in progress.†

The top drive rotates the drill string end bit without the use of a kelly and rotary table. The top drive is operated from a control console on the rig floor.†

The derrickman"s working platform. Double board, tribble board, fourable board; a monkey board located at a height in the derrick or mast equal to two, three, or four lengths of pipe respectively.†

The large wrenches used for turning when making up or breaking out drill pipe, casing, tubing, or other pipe; variously called casing tongs, rotary tongs, and so forth according to the specific use. Power tongs are pneumatically or hydraulically operated tools that spin the pipe up and, in some instances, apply the final makeup torque.†

The heavy seamless tubing used to rotate the bit and circulate the drilling fluid. Joints of pipe 30 feet long are coupled together with tool joints.†

This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks. The action you just performed triggered the security solution. There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase, a SQL command or malformed data.

Tripping pipe (or "Making a round trip" or simply "Making a trip") is the physical act of pulling the drill string out of the wellbore and then running it back in. This is done by physically breaking out or disconnecting (when pulling out of the hole) every other 2 or 3 joints of drill pipe at a time (called a stand) and racking them vertically in the derrick. When feasible the driller will start each successive trip on a different "break" so that after several trips fresh pipe dope will have been applied (when running back in the hole) to every segment of the drill string.

The most typical reason for tripping pipe is to replace a worn-out drill bit. Though there are many problems that occur to warrant the tripping of pipe. Downhole tools such as MWD (measurement while drilling), LWD (logging while drilling) or mud motors break down quite often. Another common reason for tripping is to replace damaged drill pipe. It is important to get the pipe out of the wellbore quickly and safely before it can snap.

A fishing trip is when a crew is forced to trip pipe to retrieve loose items in the wellbore. This can result from something being dropped in the hole, i.e. a tool, that would cause damage to the bit if the crew attempted to drill with it on bottom.

Another major cause is known as a "twist off". Twisting off is when the drill string parts by failing catastrophically under the torsional stress. This may happen if the drill string below is pinched in the wellbore, or as the result of a structural weakening of the pipe caused by a washout or a crack in a threaded connection member.

When pipe snaps or a part of the bit breaks off, the crew has to recover all of the separated items from the wellbore. Recovering snapped pipe usually involves placing a specialized tool (an "overshot") with grips set inside of it over the broken pipe in an attempt to capture it. The grip works in a manner similar to Chinese fingercuffs. Sometimes the jagged top of the fish must be milled back to a round outside shape before the overshot can slip over it. The overshot contains a packoff device to make a pressure seal so circulation can be reestablished through the bit to facilitate recovery of the fish. For a broken bit, a magnet is commonly used to remove all of the broken parts.

A cracked pipe can lead to a broken string. Extra care is taken when tripping for one so that too much pull does not cause the cracked pipe to snap. Cracked pipes (i.e., washouts) are usually noticed by a sudden drop in pressure. The crew will usually pump "fastline" (small lengths of manila rope taken from unraveled catline) down the drill string to make a temporary plug and time the pressure to see when it rises back to normal. This enables the crew to know how far down to expect the cracked pipe to be within a few stands; also strands of these rope segments may be seen at the point of washout. Most trips for a cracked pipe are not complete trips like a fishing trip or a bit trip. These can be as simple as only going a few stands down, to pulling the drill collars.

These trips are routinely expected by the crew. Setting surface occurs after the wellbore is drilled to the predetermined surface depth (e.g., after drilling below fresh water strata). The crew will remove the entire drill string to allow surface casing to be emplaced. The procedure is similar for setting intermediate, only that it typically involves a much longer drill string to be removed. Setting longstring is usually a one time operation combining both surface and intermediate casing. This saves the time of only having to undertake one pipe trip as opposed to two pipe trips.

Offshore drilling services provider Ensco has rolled out a new proprietary solution engineered to provide greater pipe tripping safety and efficiency.

When used in concert with other key equipment, sensors and process controls, Ensco’s patented Continuous Tripping Technology (CTT) can fully automate the movement of the drill string into or out of the well at a constant controlled speed.

According to Trowell, “Tripping pipe is on the critical path for all drilling and workover activities and, as a result, meaningful time is spent performing this process over the life cycle of every offshore well.

“Continuous Tripping Technology significantly reduces the amount of time spent tripping pipe, and the faster tripping time that this technology offers is expected to lead to cost savings for customers regardless of water depth or well type,” he said.

Ensco claims CTT enables pipe-accelerated tripping speeds of up to 9,000 feet per hour when deployed during offshore activities. The constant tripping speed minimizes surge and swab pressure on the wellbore by eliminating intermittent stopping and starting as well as excessive peak speeds.

“Continuous Tripping Technology is another example of our ongoing investments in innovation that are focused on developing systems, processes and technologies to make the drilling process more efficient and lower offshore project costs for customers,” Trowell said.

“We continue to see better utilization for rigs that deliver the greatest efficiencies for customers’ offshore well programs and, given the proprietary nature of Continuous Tripping Technology, we expect that it will help to further differentiate Ensco’s assets from the competition and position us well for future contracting opportunities.”

Ensco said the CTT system was recently installed and is being commissioned on the 2016-built jack-up ENSCO 123. The rig is expected for delivery in March 2019 following system commissioning and rig acceptance trials.

Using memory-based logging tools positioned within the drill string, GR Energy Services offers logging-while-tripping (LWT†) services to obtain openhole logs quickly and with lower risk than using conventional wireline or logging-while-drilling techniques. Log data are recorded during the pipe trip out of the well, and tools and sources are always retrievable.

The LWT collar, which is inserted into the drill string on the last bit trip or on the planned reamer run, does not require any change in drilling plans or extra rig time to change to a specialized BHA. LWT tools are deployed (pumped down) at the well TD stage and log untethered in memory during the normal pipe trip out. Virtually no additional rig time is needed.

During the operation the logging tools reside at all times inside the drill pipe and can be fished, eliminating the risk of damaging or losing the tools and radioactive sources in the hole. While deploying the tools and measuring, the operator has full well control.

The LWT collars are positioned as close to TD as possible, and the BHA configuration is carefully reviewed by the GR technical team before rig-up. After reaching TD with the LWT collars in the bottomhole assembly, the tools are deployed in the drill pipe and pumped down. Once landed, the rig pumps a mud pill, if required, and trips out at logging speed. The rig can circulate, rotate or reciprocate pipe with the tools landed in the collar.

In oil and gas recovery operations, tubular members are usually run or pulled using a workover rig or a snubbing unit. Workover rigs are basically small drilling rigs having a derrick and drawworks, and although they are less expensive to employ than full-sized rigs, their use can still be quite costly.

Snubbing units are smaller, easier to transport and less expensive to operate than workover rigs and are often employed when working a pressurized well that requires tubular members to be forced into the wellbore.

Like coiled tubing techniques, snubbing allows a tubular to be run with a check valve on the end into a live well by means of specialized handling and sealing systems. However, instead of pipe coiled up on a reel, it uses tubing-type pipe lengths run in hole and made up to each other by conventional threaded connections. This means that larger-diameter pipe can be used than in the coiled tubing method.

The snubbing unit therefore offers better flow capacity, breaking load and rotation capacity and is able to put weight on the downhole tool. In contrast, tripping takes longer because the lengths of pipe have to be screwed together and the procedure for running the connections through the safety stack on the wellhead may be slow and represents a high risk for personnel if not done properly.

A snubbing unit consists basically of a pipe-handling system, a wellhead safety system, a hydraulic power unit and the downhole accessories incorporated into the snubbing string.

The pipe-handling system must be able to push the pipe into the well during the snubbing phase (also called light pipe phase), which occurs every time the pipe weight is lower than the wellbore pressure force against it.

The mobile system usually consists of only one set of single acting slips while the stationary system consists of two sets of opposing slips that keep the pipe in place, whatever the phase of the operation, and it is located below the low position of the traveling slips.

With the traveling slips closed and the stationary ones open, the pipe can be tripped over a length corresponding to the stroke of the jacks. Then, all that is required to bring the jack back to its original position is to close the stationary slips and open the traveling slips. After the traveling slips have been closed again and the stationary slips have been opened, the operation can continue.

The pipe is brought up from the pipe rack by a set of elevators, sheaves and a handling cable attached to the gin pole, and the connections are made by using a set of power tongs that remain hanging by cable at the height of the work area. The tong may also be attached to a tong arm fixed to the basket.

Operating in this manner requires specialized people, usually consisting of a foreman and three or four people per shift. The space in the snubbing basket is usually very limited and unstable, which magnifies the hazards associated with the manipulation of pipe, elevators and power tongs.

No tong pole and no pushing or pulling of the tong on and off the pipe is necessary, which eliminates nagging injuries (broken or mashed fingers, twisted or strained backs, shoulder damage) and significantly improves the efficiency of the operation.

The jack head tong carries the provision of having a three-section cage plate system that can be removed to allow the jack head tong to be open for full wellbore capabilities, matching the BOP’s bore. This is the fastest and safest way to trip pipe with a snubbing unit.

The snubbing power tong introduced in this article is a viable alternative, making operations safer by eliminating movement of the tong on and off the pipe. This eliminates nagging injuries and increases the operational efficiency, which ultimately impacts the overall costs of well servicing programs in benefit of operator and drilling contractors.

Operators working in shallow resource plays, such as shallow oil, unconventional shale gas and coalbed methane (CBM), just can’t get enough of a good thing. At their request, rig manufacturers are expanding the operating and mobility features of the industry’s rigs to a new level of sophistication – the highly or ultra-mobile rig. Highly mobile drilling rigs bring increased agility, automation, safety focus and cost savings, and are being used in deeper oil plays to perform top-hole work. Additionally, highly mobile rigs are carving niches for themselves in workover operations from offshore platforms, as well as geothermal applications.

Mobile and highly mobile rigs are different from their predecessor, the heliportable rig, which is used to access locations where no infrastructure exists, such as Siberia and the Amazon region. Heliportable rigs, which first appeared about 30 years ago, are capable of being broken down into a minimum number of loads, with each load weighing three tons, depending on the type of rig.

“Ironically, the helirig concept has not evolved very much, I suppose due to low-volume demand for these units. However, modular highly portable rigs have taken off, and the demand is very high for the foreseeable future,” Ray Pereira, vice president of North America sales for Drillmec, said.

For the purpose of this article, highly or ultra-mobile rigs are defined as small or medium-size self-driving rigs with wheels, mounted on either a substructure or trailer, and quite often their substructure and mast are self-erecting. How is this different from mobile rigs? According to rig manufacturers, features such as a heightened ability to be broken down and reassembled and still retain full functionality, increased use of automation for added safety and operational ability, and a reduction in crew size all set highly mobile rigs apart from mobile rigs.

“A fully engineered drilling system is even more important in highly mobile rigs given the trend toward more factory-styled well construction and automated drilling,” Eric Quinlan, LOC product manager for Huisman, commented. “The complete integration of third-party equipment into the rig design will further reduce the number of loads required, the rig-up and rig-down times, as well as improve on automation.”

“High mobility allows more wells to be drilled in a year,” he continued. Particularly for pad drilling in the shale plays, rigs must not only be able to skid or walk but also move quickly and safely to the next pad.

“There is a stronger focus on self-erecting components in highly mobile designs, for instance slingshot-type substructure and self-elevating or self-erecting masts,” Thomas Janowski, sales manager for Herrenknecht Vertical, said. The advent of portable top drives, iron roughnecks, as well as casing-running tools, have added to efficiencies of highly mobile rigs, he noted.

The design and construction of these highly mobile rigs have become very sophisticated, as with the case of the Drillmec HH Series rig, where the main rig components, such as the mast and part of the drill floor, are fused to the specially designed trailer. This allows the top drive and iron roughneck to be transported without being removed from the mast. The trailer concept has improved the mobility of mud pumps, mud tanks, variable frequency drive houses and pipe bins for the automatic racking system.

“A key limitation to current rigs is the available resources (people, trucks, etc) that enable the rig move. Location of the wells also plays a role and adds constraints, both geographic and regulatory,” Mr Quinlan said.

Therefore, there is a major push to reduce load weights and dimensions of all modules that are required to erect a highly mobile rig on location while at the same time reducing the number of loads required to fully assemble the rig on site, according to Mr Pereira.

Equipment advances have brought challenges to highly mobile rig designs as well. “We are seeing a lot more wires and sensors being installed along with measurement equipment and video cameras,” Mr Quinlan remarked.

According to Atlas Copco, mobile rigs got their start in the energy industry when operators started using water-well rigs to drill for oil and gas. “The industry sort of evolved into using mobile rigs for oil and gas drilling rather than actually beginning at a definitive time. The Atlas Copco RD20 rig was borne out of the need for a mobile rig designed specifically for oil and gas drilling,” Alex Grant, well drilling product line manager for Atlas Copco, recalled. The rig was conceived from the T4 water-well rig and has received several technology upgrades since it was introduced in 1986.

The 120,000-lb hookload RD20 rig now has a sister rig, the highly mobile 200,000-lb hookload Predator, which took five years to develop and is just now finishing field trials. The first production unit is expected to begin work in September this year in a Texas shale play.

“We saw a definite need to get into the bigger fields with the bigger players. That’s where Predator came in. We took a clean sheet of paper and asked the question, ‘What does the oil and gas market need?’ ” Mr Grant said. “Because we desired to have an API 4F rating, we probably spent about two years getting our suppliers lined up…. Structures are designed to three times the loading capacity; that’s something you can’t just evolve from a rig that you already have. In 2010, we built two prototypes and put them in the field in an extensive testing program.”

Recognizing that more operators are performing directional drilling, Atlas Copco also added more pullback capacity to the Predator design. The RD20 rig had a pullback capacity of about 5,500 ft; the Predator has about 8,000 ft to 10,000 ft of pullback capacity.

For Drillmec, the Drillmec HH Series rig saw its evolution from a simple hydraulic rig for water wells upgraded to oil well standards in 1990. The first built-for-purpose HH rig was delivered to Eni in 1994. Since then, each generation of the rig has been improved to include enhanced automatic controls for the pipe handler using programmable logic controllers (PLCs) and advances to the hoisting and hydraulic systems. The latest generations include joystick controls and cyber control touchscreen features. The company offers up to 375-ton HH Series rigs for land applications and up to 600-ton rigs for offshore platforms.

Also on the HH Series rig, the vertical pipe-racking system is assembled in a semi-circular array around the rig floor to contribute to quick rig-up and rig-down. Further, containers can be transported and handled full of drill pipe to save time and to reduce risks associated with pipe handling.

“For us, the challenge in the beginning was to develop a rig that provided very safe working conditions for the crew, a small environmental footprint and a high level of operating efficiency,” Mr Pereira said. “Our extensive knowledge of hydraulics enabled us to effectively use a purpose-made cylinder for the hoisting aspect of the rig, thereby eliminating the need for mechanical drawworks and the operational and transport complexities that it brings. The rigs do not have a conventional mast structure nor drawworks and long wires or traveling equipment as the hydraulic cylinder replaces those items and is the main hoisting element of the rig.”

Safety has become a paramount driver alongside economics for highly mobile rigs. “Try to remove personnel from unsafe areas is what we’ve done,” Atlas Copco’s Mr Grant said.

“From a mechanical standpoint to achieve safety, we’re getting into more computer-controlled systems, such as a wireless pipe-handling system where the operator can stand away from the whole operation, observe from a distance and still control the unit. We’re bringing computers more into it. It’s the same with the driller; with the use of electronics, we’re able to stand away from the drill table, stand back in the doghouse even and operate the rig from back there, out of the area where injuries typically occur,” Mr Grant said.

“Drillmec uses single 45-ft joints of range 3 drill pipe that is transported in pipe bins and ready to be used,” Mr Pereira said. “There are no delays waiting to make up stands and set them in fingerboards. Stand-building operations can take days. With the HH Series rig, there is no need to touch the pipe, thereby increasing safety parameters.”

The LOC 250, Huisman’s first highly mobile rig, is a containerized rig, meaning that all elements of the rig fit into standard ISO containers, and has casing-while-drilling capabilities. Since introducing the LOC 250 in 2005, the company has upgraded its design to include AC drive, a higher hookload and an expanded mud system, and the LOC 400 was introduced in 2009. The next generation of the LOC 400, to be introduced in late 2012 or early 2013, will feature a higher level of automation, even quicker rig moves and enhanced skidding capabilities.

“We’re conducting a study on rig moves, finding the weak links and engineering the process to improve it, and preparing recommendations for field personnel to accomplish rig moves quicker,” Mr Quinlan said.

Increased rig safety features desired by operators have brought about another benefit – a reduction in the number of crews needed to run the rig. “The more features you have, such as self-erecting masts, self-erecting substructures and highly mobile components, the less the risk of accidents related to these activities. In Herrenknecht Vertical’s case, a high level of automation, together with the concept of mobility, eliminates almost all of the dangerous jobs on the rig,” Mr Janowski explained. “The number of people involved in tripping pipe in and out is limited to two persons.”

The Drillmec HH Series rig advanced automation concept requires few crew members as well. The concept “allows it to perform most of the routine drilling operations, including tripping in and out the drill string, with an almost unmanned drill floor where worker presence is basically limited to thread doping and handling the bottomhole assembly,” Mr Pereira said. “No one is exposed to direct contact with rotating tubulars, tongs and wrenches or to falling objects.”

“With the latest Atlas Copco rig, the Predator, we’ve got it down to the minimum amount where we can have three people operating a rig as opposed to the six or seven people that would be on a conventional rig,” Mr Grant said.

With Herrenknecht Vertical’s Terra Invader rig, only two people are involved in tripping pipe in and out. The rig came onto the work scene in a geothermal application in Germany in 2006, just one year after the company was established. This rig, which has a box-on-box substructure, is tailored to the Western European market, where cranes are readily available.

“The design criteria are different in that the situation regarding cranes and heavy trucks in Europe is slightly different from the rest of the world,” Mr Janowski noted. “It’s cheaper to install a crane because it’s available and you can rig-up in two days with a crane.”

An economic boost has been a huge plus for operators choosing highly mobile rigs. In addition to the shale plays in North America, key markets are North Africa and the Middle East. “In the Middle East, you have only to drill 700 to 900 meters (2,297 to 2,953 ft) to access resources. Drilling takes only five or six days,” Mr Janowski commented. “There must be a relation between the drilling time and the moving time. When you drill five days, no one would accept a rig move time of five days.”

“It is not just the rig design that enables high portability,” Mr Quinlan remarked. “The contractor must also have the right procedures and systems in place and have a dedicated rig-moving team that knows the rig and how to move it. It’s no use having a rig that can move in two days and be waiting for trucks for three days before it can move.”

“With the Huisman LOC rigs, we wanted a rig that could be moved anywhere on the planet with the same ease as moving a few miles on the road. In this regard, we have been very successful. To move the LOC rigs overseas is very cost effective and can be cheaper than rig moves over land.”

Also regarding improved economics, Mr Grant pointed out that “in addition to the rig’s ability to be broken down into manageable pieces that can be rolled down the road to the next site, the pieces are smaller and the capital outlay is a lot less to achieve the same result as that achieved by drilling with a conventional rig. We run less crew; staff overhead is a lot less. Ultimately, if you’re going for the shallower stuff, the overall cost of ownership is a lot less … roughly two-thirds of the cost of a big conventional rig.”

Rig manufacturers believe there is savings to be realized from use of a highly mobile rig to drill the top-hole section when an operator is targeting deeper reserves. The conventional rig doesn’t need to stay on-site as long. There’s also savings to be realized from reducing nonproductive time.

“It’s about decreasing nonproductive time and increasing safety,” Mr Pereira remarked. “The correct application of a fast-moving or portable rig can save the operator days in mobilization and demobilization between wells. Depending on the distance to the next well location, the Drillmec HH Series rig can be ready for drilling within 72 hours. A well-trained crew can do it in less than 48 hours.”

According to Drillmec, one of its expanded rig capabilities as a result of the design was for the rig to become an integral part of the substructure. “We figured, wouldn’t it be great if you could run the hydraulics of the substructure from the rig itself and offer connections on the substructure to quickly connect an air or mud pump system and reduce the downtime for setup,” Mr Grant said. “The other part was to have the pipe-handling on the back of that.” The Drillmec rigs have the main rig components fused to the specially designed trailer.

With Atlas Copco, Mr Grant said they’re expanding the operational ability of their highly mobile rigs by taking manual labor out of the scenario where possible. For example, “with the Predator rig, the driller has the more accurate ability to dial-in to a computer what he is trying to accomplish; for instance, establish weight on bit by dialing it in,” Mr Grant said. “Before, the driller had to watch the pressure gauge and dial-in weight-on-bit information as the formation changed.”

Highly mobile rigs are meeting diverse global drilling requirements as well. Drillmec’s HH Series rigs are currently operating in shale plays in North America, in the deserts of Egypt and the Middle East, in remote locations in Peru, Colombia, Venezuela and Australia, as well as in geothermal projects in Iceland and Chile. Further, the company recently announced the sale of 25 hydraulic rigs, with an option for an additional 125 rigs, to Chinese drilling company Greka Drilling. The units will work in CBM and shale-gas applications in China’s Shanxi Province.

Huisman’s LOC rigs have drilled oil, gas and geothermal wells in the US and Europe. Although the LOC rigs were designed for onshore drilling, the company has developed a concept and performed basic engineering on a LOC rig for offshore application.

“We have worked on a very interesting concept for using our LOC rig as a modular platform rig with a unique installation procedure onto the platform. This solution would see platform installation in a few days as compared with the several weeks required for similar modular rigs,” Mr Quinlan said.

In addition to shallow-resource development, Atlas Copco has found success using its highly mobile units to do top-hole drilling and set the casing so that conventional double or triple rigs can go in later to drill the deeper sections.

“We can use a top head drive to push the head down onto the drill bit to create weight on bit,” Mr Grant said. “The conventional rigs are not top head drive; they’re relying on collars and sticks of steel to give them weight on bit, making it harder there at the top of the hole.”

As operators expand their search for resources across the globe, rig manufacturers are keeping pace, delivering innovations in operation and transportability.

With more advances already on the drawing board, rig manufacturers are confident that the next generation of highly mobile rigs will continue to meet operator expectations.

This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks. The action you just performed triggered the security solution. There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase, a SQL command or malformed data.

The complete operation of removing the drillstring from the wellbore and running it back in the hole. This operation is typically undertaken when the bit becomes dull or broken, and no longer drills the rock efficiently. After some preliminary preparations for the trip, the rig crew removes the drillstring 90 ft [27 m] at a time, by unscrewing every third drillpipe or drill collar connection. When the three joints are unscrewed from the rest of the drillstring, they are carefully stored upright in the derrick by the fingerboards at the top and careful placement on wooden planks on the rig floor. After the drillstring has been removed from the wellbore, the dull bit is unscrewed with the use of a bit breaker and quickly examined to determine why the bit dulled or failed. Depending on the failure mechanism, the crew might choose a different type of bit for the next section. If the bearings on the prior bit failed, but the cutting structures are still sharp and intact, the crew may opt for a faster drilling (less durable) cutting structure. Conversely, if the bit teeth are worn out but the bearings are still sealed and functioning, the crew should choose a bit with more durable (and less aggressive) cutting structures. Once the bit is chosen, it is screwed onto the bottom of the drill collars with the help of the bit breaker, the drill collars are run into the hole (RIH), and the drillpipe is run in the hole. Once on bottom, drilling commences again. The duration of this operation depends on the total depth of the well and the skill of the rig crew. A general estimate for a competent crew is that the round trip requires one hour per thousand feet of hole, plus an hour or two for handling collars and bits. At that rate, a round trip in a ten thousand-foot well might take twelve hours. A round trip for a 30,000-ft [9230 m] well might take 32 or more hours, especially if intermediate hole-cleaning operations must be undertaken.

Balance Point: This term refers to the condition during a trip in or out of the hole where the pipe weight and the lift force exerted by the well acting on the cross-sectional area of the pipe being tripped is at or near equal.

BHA: Bottom hole assembly. Describes the production or workover tools used for completion or workover operations. (i.e. packers, bridge plugs, fishing tools, etc).

BOP stack: A series of blow out preventers stacked together using an equalizing and bleed of spool. Stack normally consists of an annular; equalize spool and a set of stripping rams. In snubbing operations the BOP stack is considered a secondary BOP. When working in conjunction with a workover, service or drilling rig the rig supplies the primary BOP’s.

Equalize line: High pressure line pipe, chick sans (swivels) and valves for use during a snubbing operation to equalize or bleed off pressures within different chambers in a snubbing BOP stack.

Gas well snubbing: Workover or completion work on a gas well which is either live or underbalanced with a rig assist or self-contained snubbing unit. Many gas well formations are fluid sensitive making a snubbing operation ideal for maximum production of the well. Eliminates the need for expensive kill fluids.

Guide Tube: Any arrangement of support system that prevents columnar buckling of the pipe being snubbed. Typical arrangements can be telescopic or static depending on the design of the snubbing unit structure.

Hydraulic Workover Unit: A unit that competes directly with conventional work over rigs. By utilizing hydraulic cylinders instead of a traditional draw-works arrangement, the unit maintains a small footprint allowing rig up in tight areas such as on offshore platforms.

Live well completions: A well condition where tubulars and tools are pulled or inserted into a well with the use of a rig assist snubbing unit or self-contained snubbing unit. The well has surface pressure from the down hole formations. Wells can be either gas or oil.

Live well workovers: Describes the condition of a gas or oil well is in when tubulars are snubbed in or out of well. There is pressure at surface in these wells making them ideal candidates for snubbing operations.

Passive Rotary: A turn-table integrally mounted in the snubbing unit traveling plate which allows the rotation of the string with the slips closed on the pipe in either the snub mode or pipe heavy mode. This rotary must be driven with an external force be it by hand or with a power swivel rigged above the unit.

Pipe Heavy: In regards to snubbing, this is a pipe condition in which the tubing has sufficient string weight to overcome the forces acting on its cross-sectional area. Once the weight is sufficient, it overcomes the force applied by the pressure in the well and will fall under its own weight into the well.

Pipe Light:  In regards to snubbing, this term describes the condition when the well bore forces acting on the cross-sectional area of the pipe being snubbed are greater than string weight; if tubing is not controlled, the snubbing unit will eject itself from the well.

Powered Rotary: A turn-table integrally mounted in the snubbing unit traveling plate which allows the rotation of the string with the slips closed on the pipe in either the snub mode or pipe heavy mode. This rotary is driven with hydraulic motors, allowing the unit to perform string rotation without external support equipment.

Rig assist snubbing: A mobile snubbing unit, either truck-mounted or skid-mounted, that works in conjunction with a workover, service or drilling rig for workover or completions work on a live well or underbalanced well. Unit is capable of running or pulling tubulars and tools under pressure.

Self contained snubbing:A snubbing unit which stands alone by itself with no need of a service, workover or drilling rig. A self-contained unit is capable of workover or completion work on a live well or underbalanced well or indirect.

Snubbing: A procedure in which tubing is run or pulled from a well, which is in an underbalanced or live well condition. Snubbing units have specialized pressure control devices which permit them to deliver drilling, completion and workover services while there is pressure in the wellbore. Snubbing units eliminate the need to neutralize well pressure prior to servicing and therefore avoid the formation damage which neutralizing pressure can have on a well’s ability to produce.

Snubbing Assistant: This person’s position is primarily focused on taking direction from the snubbing operator, and entails routine maintenance, pipe handling and power tong operation.

Snubbing jack: The structure of the unit designed to withstand engineered ratings for both the pipe weight and the force applied by the unit’s hydraulic cylinders. The hydraulically operated equipment which enables crews to work on underbalanced or live well.

Snubbing slips: A set of hydraulically actuated slips which can be run either inverted or right side up to control the movements of pipe in conjunction with a snubbing jack to insert or extract tubulars under live well or underbalanced conditions.

Snubbing Supervisor:Equivalent to a rig manager or tool push, the snubbing supervisor is responsible for all aspects of the snubbing unit and its operations. He/she is the direct liaison to the oil company representative he/she is working for. All members of the snubbing crew are subordinate to the snubbing supervisor. Typically the supervisor will have in excess of 10 years’ experience in snubbing operations.

Staging tubing: Is the process of moving tubing into or out of a live or underbalanced well by using different sections of the BOP stack to insert or extract tubing connections or larger diameter tool assemblies. I.e. annular and a set of stripping pipe rams or two sets of stripping rams. The preventers are closed and opened in sequence allowing for tubing connections or larger diameter tools to be staged in with at least one preventer being closed to contain well bore pressures.

Stand alone snubbing (see self contained unit): Use of a snubbing unit by itself without the aid of a service, workover or drilling rig. Unit is capable of workover or completion work on a live well or underbalanced well.

Stationary snubbing slips: A set of snubbing slips that are typically mounted on top of a BOP stack which will hold pipe that is in a pipe light or neutral state.

Stripping: : During snubbing operations this is the procedure where you move pipe through a closed preventer (pipe rams or annular) on a live or underbalanced well containing pressure from the well bore with a closed preventer.

Stripping on: : The procedure in which a snubbing unit is rigged onto a service, workover or drilling rig, which is holding the pipe heavy tubing string with their tubing slips and not with a tubing hanger landed.

Stripping Ram: A hydraulically operated ram style BOP used during snubbing and stripping operations. Typically the ram front insert is a sacrificial material that is easily replaced for extended stripping. Materials for the inserts can be custom ordered for the application at hand.

Traveling snubbing slips: A set of slips mounted upside down on a snubbing jacks traveling plate, which controls the movement of tubing in or out of a well. Slips will hold tubing only when tubing is in the pipe light state.

Underbalanced workovers: The well is live with pressure to surface when workover operations are performed. Rig assist snubbing or self-contained snubbing units are used for the running or pulling of tubulars and BHA’s. Typically the snubbing unit pulls pipe from the well, the original zone is worked over, abandoned, or a new zone perforated and the snubbing unit snubs the production string back into the well.

Tripping refers to the process of removing and/or replacing pipes from the well when it is necessary to change the bit or other piece of the drill string, or when preparing to run certain tests in the well bore.

At 6am the crew truck shows up at camp, and we pile in and head off for our 6.30am safety meeting. Once that’s done we head out onto the rig to find our cross-shifts, get a brief run down on whatever they’re working on and pick up where they left off.

Daily duties depend entirely on what the rig is doing. If we’re drilling, the days tend to be a bit more relaxed – keep an eye on the motors, the gens, the pumps, and head up to the drill floor whenever another pipe has to be connected to the drill string.

If there’s problems down hole, it means we might have to trip – pull all the pipe out of the hole and fix the problem. A drill bit might need to be changed, or we may need to adjust the setting on the tool that steers the drill bit. Tripping can take a lot out of you. It’s a routine of extreme physical exertion followed by brief periods of rest, doing the same thing over and over until all the pipe is out of the hole and the problem can be fixed. When it is, it’s the same thing again in reverse order until the bit is back on bottom and we can drill again.

Yikes – this is a question I don’t like thinking about. We work out of town on a two-and-one rotation – that is, 14 days on followed by seven days off. That means if I were to work a full year, I’d spend eight months away at work, and four at home. It’s tough. Because this line of work requires a lot of traveling, I often go months on end without seeing certain friends or family members, it makes it hard to have a normal social life. It’s strange, a rig hand spends all his time at work wanting his hitch to end so he can get home, but when he does it seems like your week off goes by twice as fast. I"ve managed to alienate a lot of friends and girlfriends working where I work.

So no, oil rigs don’t provide what you’d call a healthy balance of work and life. I had a cousin tell me once that you sell your soul to make money in the oil field, and sometimes it seems like he was right.What"s the craziest/most unexpected thing that"s ever happened to you while working?

The weather, the work and the people. You spend just about all of your time working closely with your crewmates, so if you’re lucky, it gets to be like a family after a while. If the temperature is just cool enough so you don’t sweat, tripping pipe out of the hole all day with your brothers is just about as good as working on an oil rig can get. If everyone knows what they’re doing and gets into a groove, the whole thing clicks and the crew operates like a well-oiled machine. After a good trip you can leave the rig with a sense of accomplishment, puff your chest out a bit when the other crew comes and sees how fast you were. On days like that, it’s always nice to head down to a river after work, get a bon fire going and have a beer or two with the guys. But depending on which oil company you’re working for, alcohol of any type might be contraband, so beer is out of the question. Which can kind of put a damper on things when you’ve worked all day in the heat.What"s your annual salary? Do you get benefits?

Most rig hands are paid hourly, only the brass gets salary. We’re paid quite well though, and working 84 hours a week makes for some nice overtime. A derrick hand gets a base wage of $37/hour. We also get a living allowance, $50 a day if we’re living in camp, $140 a day if we have to find our own accommodations.

Depending on how much of the year a rig spends working (or how much a rig hand wants to work, if the industry is busy), a guy can make anywhere from $70,000 a year up to a couple hundred thousand. I’m still relatively low on the food chain in the grand scheme of things, but I’m fortunate enough to work steady. A derrick hand working year round typically makes over six figures.

The benefits vary from company to company, but they tend to be quite good. It’s a rough line of work, and companies need to treat their guys pretty well or the guys will jump ship to another company. I’m lucky – the company I work for treats us right.What"s the biggest mistake you"ve ever made on the job?

1 Do not, ever, under any circumstances, drop an object down the hole. Hammers, wrenches, chains, and pretty much anything made of hardened metal can destroy a drill bit, and drill bits can be quite pricy. The wells we drill cost millions of dollars, and pulling the pipe and going fishing for a tool down hole can cost into the hundreds of thousands, and take days to do.

3 Don’t get hurt. This is a touchy one, but unfortunately it’s still true. Getting hurt doesn’t just ruin your week/year/life, it costs a lot of people a lot of money. Settlements might have to be paid, bonuses are lost, investigations have to happen, and someone must be held accountable.. Sometimes entire rig crews will get drug tested after an accident. They test us to ensure drugs or alcohol didn’t contribute to the cause of the accident, but it comes across like a punishment: “If you get hurt, you might cost someone else their job.” Unfortunately, it causes a lot of guys to sweep injuries under the rug. It doesn’t happen so much at my company, but it’s depressingly common in the industry.

Doing any one of the three things above is liable to give a guy a reputation, and a reputation can follow a guy from rig to rig, company to company. It’s a relatively tight knit industry and word travels fast. It’s not uncommon to find yourself working beside someone you heard about years ago on a different rig, if he’s got that reputation following him … I’ve managed to stay rep-free to date, and hopefully I can keep it that way.Here are some highlights from Tyson"s Q&A session in the comments below:Would you consider flying into space to blow up an asteroid if you had Liv Tyler to sweeten the deal?This is a no-brainer: Yes, definitely.

To be honest, most riggers don"t join the profession as much as they do, just... end up there. It"s hard work, but it"s fast money, and a lot of guys that only intended to do it temporarily end up sticking around once they get used to the pay cheques. That"s what happened to me anyways...

I stick to coffee. Night shift tonight, and I"m posting comments on the Guardian when I should be sleeping...Nightshift in the winter. Do you get to see the sun?What is the town of Ft. McMurray like?Fort Mcmurray is a town I"ve managed to steer clear of for several years now. And Mike is right: the majority of the bitumen around Fort Mac is mined rather than drilled.

The project I"m on right now is about an hour and a half south of there, near Conklin AB. We"re accessing the same bitumen, but using a less invasive technique. Rather than mine the bitumen, pairs of wells are drilled into the formation -- one to inject steam and make the oil easier to pump, and one to suck up the now much-less-viscous oil.

If it answers your question at all, the camp where we"re currently living holds about 2000 people, has 2 enormous cafeterias, 5 gyms, pool tables, 1 theatre, and apparently there"s a racquetball court here somewhere too. In terms of work camps, this one"s the creme de la creme.Have you ever worked on a drilling rig where it was necessary to throw the blowout preventors (BOPs)?I have. Actually, just last month we were working in Saskatchewan and had to shut the well in when we drilled into a pressurized water formation. An "Artesian Well," is what they"re called if I"m not mistaken. Luckily there was no sour gas in the area, so there was no chance of burning the rig down if it blew out.

Mike: The old timers still talk about that blowout in Drayton Valley, 80 meters from surface with no BOP"s? I remember hearing about a derrick hand getting killed during that blowout, the escape pods we have hanging from the monkey board now all have D.V Safety stamped across the side as a reminder...How many guys on a team? Do you get lunch?Anywhere from 5 to 9 people on a crew, and usually 3 crews per rig. The pecking order on my rig is as follows:

Depending on what province you"re in and what paper you"re reading, you could see two diametrically opposed viewpoints on the same issue. Case and point: I read the news in both Vancouver (where I live), and Edmonton (where I spend a lot of time for work). The Northern Gateway pipeline is pretty big news right now, but judging by how it"s painted by the news in BC and Alberta, it sounds like two different pipelines on two completely different planets.One of my female friends used to be a engineer of some description (it involved gas, but I cannot remember the details). Are there many females involved in the profession today?I apologize, I"m kind of picking them off in no particular order. Women are becoming more and more prevalent in the industry, though it"s still far from what you"d call a "normal" work place. It"s rare to see one working on the rig itself, but not unheard of.

What is the biggest misconception about people in your line of work? What"s the actual truth?Again, the answer to this one varies depending on where I am at the time. A lot of people look down their noses at oil workers, the whole white-collar vs. blue collar thing. Where I"m from, a lot of people see The Rigs as a copout, a place where drop outs and ex-cons can go to afford payments on a jacked up truck. "Rig Pig" is a fairly common term... Of course some of the guys out here are pretty rough around the edges, but those are the only ones people notice in the city. I work with plenty of people that are completely normal, functioning human beings. Wife and kids, mini-van... Not the type you would see in the street and label a Rig Pig.

Occasionally you"ll meet a militant environmentalist who will waste no time in insulting you for your work. Which is fine -- everyone is passionate about something. But until those people are prepared to give up living with petroleum products, they should think twice about ridiculing someone for trying to make a living. Oil rigs exist because people drive cars, not the other way around. If people stopped driving, the rigs would cease to exist. But they"re a very hate-able face to the problem of oil dependancy.