Alberta drill workers shed lowlife image with Automated Drilling Rig technology

Automation is smoothing drilling’s hard edges

By Gordon Jaremko

December 01, 2009

Much of the obvious difference is the absence of hazardous manual labor. On an ADR, no one personally wraps chains and wields mechanical grips around drilling pipe to screw together or take apart its nine-meter lengths. Machines, rather than crewmen, unload pipe from trucks onto racks then manipulate it into position for use.

The middle of the rig floor no longer spins to force a drill bit through rock by turning the pipe. No one is stationed 30 meters or higher overhead, clamped to the derrick by a safety harness while manipulating equipment from a tricky stance on a small platform. Old fixtures discarded by the new technology include the Geronimo, a derrick escape slide known by the Apache chief’s name that roughnecks hollered while making wild descents as part of initiations into the cruder old version of their trade.

Also gone are hazardous monsters known as draw works and catheads, which were big rotating drums for winding wire rope under high tension and protruding axle ends. The new rigs do their heavy lifting with safer hydraulic machinery. The big power for raising, lowering, assembling and turning drill pipe comes from a compact, robot-like mobile unit known as a top drive.

Rig beginners still do some manual labor. Novice roles include keeping the well site tidy, “stripping” or cleaning mud off drill pipe as it slides out of wells, and “stabbing” or positioning pipe ends for the top drive to screw together.

But the physical work is mild and safe by historical standards, say veteran Ensign drilling superintendents. “In the ’80s, it was still a lot harder work. It was 180-degrees different to what it is now,” recalls Darren Tobler. “You get to play video games all day,” jokes Wilf Swan.

Automated drilling hardware is not cheap. The sticker price on a rig like the one shown off at WorldSkills – a compact unit for wells up to 1,300 meters deep that rate as shallow by current drilling standards – would be about $6 million if an industry newcomer tried to buy one. Big contractors do their own manufacturing and maintenance.

But gains in speed, efficiency and safety are large, say the machinery’s users. An entire rig, including drill pipe, travels mounted on as few as nine trucks, which is a fraction of the freight involved in moving older equipment.

Compact machinery on wheels also creates a greener version of drilling by cutting down on disturbances of farms and woods. “We’ll be in and out and you won’t even know we were there,” Very says.

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