workover rig tripping pipe supplier

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.

The automatic operation equipment for minor workover is mainly composed of a wellhead operation device, hydraulic elevator, pipe and rod transmission and arrangement device and electro-hydraulic control system.

The device adopts the structural form of dispersing the functional modules and integrated installation on the workover rig: with the hydraulic tong, manipulator and anti splash snap device set on the derrick of the workover rig, which can expand and rotate, and the safety slip is installed above the BOP.

The device only needs to install safety slips, which realizes rapid installation and migration and shortens the auxiliary working time. The device has the function of moving back and forth, left and right, which is convenient to align the wellhead. The height of the hydraulic tong is adjustable and can adapt to the wellhead with different heights. Hoisting equipment and special transport vehicles are not required for the installation and removal of the device.

In addition to its main function of suspending the pipe string, it also has the functions of automatic tubing mouth match, make-up and break-out, and is also equipped with a guide device bearing reverse torque, which can realize the functions of automatic well washing, sand flushing, drilling, grinding and milling.

Main function: connect to the wellhead flange and clamp the pipe string. Slip teeth are common with other manufacturers for easy replacement. The hydraulic cylinder is clamped and the pipe string is forced to be centered. The clamping is reliable and convenient for automatic operation. Open and close state detection, and realize safety interlock with other equipment.

The main electric control box can be installed on the operation vehicle or integrated into the modular wellhead operation device. The make-up torque of various oil pipes is set on the touch screen to realize automatic make-up and break-down. Equipped with video monitoring, process prompt, safety alarm, etc. The control system has a perfect action interlocking function to ensure the safety and reliability of the workover operation process. All of the electric cabinets, sensors, connectors meet the requirement of Explosion-proof on field.

The hydraulic system includes hydraulic source, wellhead automatic operation device control valve group, hydraulic elevator, hydraulic slip valve group, conveyor control valve group and pipeline, etc.

The Attorneys at Spurgeon Law Firm know what it’s like to spend countless hours tripping pipe on a drilling rig. Stephen and Sam both have experience working on drilling rigs where they have roughnecked on Kelly and rotary drilling rigs.

Running in the hole or pulling out of the hole (aka tripping pipe) is one of the most labor intensive job tasks a worker will engage in while on a drilling rig. Long hours of throwing the slips in, breaking or making connections, and racking back stands of pipe in the derrick is mentally and physically exhausting whereby your brain will start to populate abnormal thoughts. Your mind will start to drift due to fatigue and exhaustion and thus cause you to lose focus on the job at hand. Because of this, people are more susceptible of making mistakes, which in turn will cause injury to themselves or someone else. This is why it is imperative that companies have adequate personnel on the job and to allow that personnel to take breaks as needed. Your safety should be priority and always put your health first and the company’s profit second.

All oilfield workers have the right to work in a safe environment. The oilfield is governed by rules, laws, and guidelines to keep workers safe. However, these rules and laws are not always followed and often lead to serious injury. If you have sustained injuries in the oilfield contact our experienced oilfield lawyers at 318-224-2222. Attorneys, Stephen and Sam, have both worked in the oilfield and know the ins and outs. Prior to becoming an attorney, Stephen worked offshore as a Petroleum Engineer gaining valuable experience which he uses to get his clients maximum compensation. Their experience can make the difference when it comes to getting the payment you deserve. Contact Spurgeon Law Firm today for a free consultation.

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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.

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.

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.

The act of pulling the drillstring out of the hole or replacing it in the hole. A pipe trip is usually done because the bit has dulled or has otherwise ceased to drill efficiently and must be replaced.

Canadian drilling rigs meet some of the highest regulatory and safety standards in the world. It"s a dynamic and exciting community to build a career in.

Canada’s drilling fleet is always changing to incorporate new technology and meet market demand. Most noticeably, the Canadian drilling fleet is growing in numbers. The fleet has 40% more rigs than it did 15 years ago. Today, the rig fleet offers just over 600 rigs.

For the most part, a rig is a rig is a rig. For example, all rigs have a derrick (the mast-like structure that holds the pipe to be lowered into the well bore) a catwalk that holds the drill pipe, a rig floor where floorhands handle the drill pipe, a drawworks which is the machinery that hoists and lowers pipe and a blowout preventor that enables a driller to control well pressure.

But different size rigs are used depending on the drilling target formation. Oil formations tend to be deeper than gas formations. When investors are most interested in producing oil, large rigs are in high demand. When the market prefers gas production, small rigs are in demand. Western Canada has plenty of both gas and oil, and activity cycles back and forth between preferences of one over the other.

Drilling rigs come in three sizes: singles, doubles and triples. These categories refer to how many lengths of pipe can stand in the rig’s derrick. On a single, the derrick holds one length of pipe. A double holds two, and a triple holds three.

A tall derrick isn’t necessary to drill deeper. If more pipe is needed to drill deeper, a single section of pipe is hoisted to the rig floor and added to the drill string. But sometimes the entire drill string needs to be pulled out of the hole (to change the drill bit, for instance). A derrick that holds multiple lengths of pipe comes in handy and helps the crew to complete this evolution quickly.

A crew working on a triple is able to pull three lengths of pipe out of the hole before unscrewing the pipe. The Derrickman, working from the monkeyboard, sets the ‘stand’ of pipe in the derrick. Then the crew pulls up the next three joints of pipe. This evolution is called ‘tripping’.

The larger derrick is efficient to drill deep wells but isn’t necessary for shallow wells. Single rigs drill wells that are around 1 to 2 kilometres deep. These wells usually access gas basins. Single rigs and their crews change drilling locations often, sometimes every day or every other day.

Doubles and triples are larger rigs with bigger substructures and taller derricks. These rigs drill between 3 and 6 kilometres into the earth and might be at the same location for several months to complete deep drilling operations.

Singles, doubles and triples refer to conventional rig categories. Additional new categories of rigs have introduced different ways of handling pipe. For instance, some companies run coil-tubing rigs that stream tubing from a large reel instead of using drill pipe, or automated drilling rigs that are outfitted with a pipe-handling arm that raises the pipe into the derrick, eliminating the need for a derrickhand to work from the monkeyboard.

Through the 1990s, rig activity focused evenly on the two commodities. Then in 1998, there was a shift: gas wells began to make up the bulk of drilling activity. Through the early 2000s, rig activity increased year over year, but gas wells—which are shallower and can be drilled faster—far outstripped the increase in oil wells. Between 2001 and 2006, oil wells made up about 25% of rig activity, and gas wells 75%.

The drilling industry reacted to this demand by expanding the fleet. In 2007, the rig fleet grew faster than it ever it had before: 49 rigs were added. Most of these new rigs were the smaller ones best suited for gas drilling. Then in 2008, natural gas was on the market in abundance, and the stock market price of natural gas started to fall. Investors pulled back on gas drilling. In 2010, industry was back to an even split between gas wells and oil wells.

And then the turn-around happened: oil drilling overtook gas drilling in western Canada. In 2011, 61% of the wells drilled were seeking an oil formation, versus the 39% seeking gas. Today’s market continues to favour large rigs that can reach deep oil formations. There also is increased interest in accessing these formations at an angle: rig crews drill a well bore that curves toward a drilling target. Drilling rig contractors have been adding equipment in 2013. Unlike 2007"s fleet expansion, these rigs will be the larger, heavier rigs, primed for oil drilling.

Our client was a young man of slight build and the end of his foot was crushed when he was alone handling the slips on the drilling rig floor during a pipe-tripping

The driller, backed up by other company personnel, claimed that in-hole pipe tripping with one man handling of the slips — which weighed more than our client for the

5-inch drill pipe used — was routine. Though having a brake handle in one hand, the driller said that because he had to be looking up in the derrick at the block as the drill string was

The drilling company blamed the accident entirely on our client for falling as he navigated the rig floor, wet with drilling mud and dope (grease) as he tried to maneuver the slips to drop

The Workover Rig Floorhand/Derrickhand assists the Operator in a multitude of functions including: tripping pipe, handling tongs, making connections, cleaning, operating machines and maintenance of equipment used on a workover rig.

Essential Job Functions and Responsibilities include the following. Other duties may be assigned.Perform services on oil and gas wells as part of a 3-5 person workover rig crew