The "iron roughneck" is really amazing, and the drill pipe can be moved only with a "press"

The "iron roughneck" is really amazing, and the drill pipe can be moved only with a "press"

Eskal Stick, an employee of Team 50071 of Karamay Drilling Company, remotely controls the "iron driller".

Increase productivity

Enhanced safety performance

Reduce labor intensity

"This 'iron roughneck' has replaced the hydraulic tongs. The work that was done by two people in the past can now be easily done by myself with the remote control." On April 26, the 50071 team of the Karamay Drilling Company of the Western Drilling Company was lifting the drill instruments. The outer fitter, Eskar Stik, said while control the "iron roughneck" to break out drill pipe thread.

This is the first "iron roughneck" in Western Drilling. It is an automatic wellhead tool matched with drilling operations. It is tall, strong and bright yellow throughout. It is mainly composed of make-up wrench, break out wrench, hydraulic system and other parts, which can adapt to the make-up and break-up of various drilling tools such as drill pipes, drill collars and joints in a wider range. It also can Improve production efficiency and enhance safety performance.

"In the past, hydraulic tongs were used to make up and break out the drill pipe thread. One person needed to push, one person needed to push, and two people cooperated to bite the drill pipe, which was time-consuming and laborious. There were more than 200 drill pipes in the 5,800-meter-deep well. It is very tiring," Escal said.

"There are different sizes of drilling tools in the well. If you use hydraulic tongs, you need to change the tong head. When you encounter a 9-inch drill collar, you need to use a B-type tong. The "iron roughneck" covers all the tools with a diameter of 3 inches to 9.5 inches. All drilling tools, you don't have to worry about making-up and break-out of drilling tools with different sizes in the future." said driller Li Richao.

"Especially when the well control pressure test we can feel obvious visible effect increase. According to the regulations, the well should be tested every 25 to 30 days after entering the three openings. Instead, it would take two hours to connect this string of connectors," said Kang Honghua, a technician.

In the well team, the most tiring work of the drillers is to lift and lower the drill tools, lay down the drilling tools, and run the casing. A drill pipe weighs more than 100 kilograms. When drilling a deep well, it takes 12 hours to hook, pull, push and support. Today, this situation is quietly changing in the 50071 well team.

"As long as I hold it in my hand, I can also control the 'Iron roughneck in the Driller’s room. It's very safe." Escal shook the remote control in his hand and said.

Zhao Xingbei, the captain of Team 50071, said that this equipment is very safe to use, and the risk of personal injury is greatly reduced because people do not have direct contact with the pipe string.

When accelerating the process of "standardization, specialization, informatization, and mechanization", Western Drilling has successively equipped the team with a variety of automation equipments such as iron roughneck, manipulators, and automatic weighing and weighting devices. Tired and dangerous work of driller has been changed.

Automation also makes the construction operations of the 50071 team more standardized, which promotes the improvement of on-site management, improves the working environment, reduces labor intensity, improves the safety factor, and greatly improves benefits and efficiency.

In January this year, the team successfully drilled the longest horizontal section of 1884 meters in the Ma18 well area in the MaHW6234 well. On April 4, the team first realized the "one-trip drilling" project of the build-up section in the Ma 18 well area in Well MaHW6235.