Posted By Graham Bullough If you’ve seen any of the info-tainment type programmes from the "Oil Riggers" series, what do you think of the work methods and safety standards shown? For those who don’t know the series, it deals with the work and antics of the men operating several competing rigs drilling for oil in West Texas, and is currently screened on Channel 5 on Wednesday evenings. Though my knowledge of drilling rigs is very limited – based mostly on the several “Oil Riggers” programmes I’ve managed to see - the working methods and safety standards shown seem to be sloppy and inconsistent for what is clearly a high risk line of work. I think last night’s programme mentioned that 8 deaths occur EACH MONTH on Texan rigs. Did I hear this bit correctly? If so, one wonders how much attention the rigs get from the American equivalent of HSE and whether it has adequate resources. Some of the risk factors evidently include the men turning up for work with massive hangovers and presumably with reactions still impaired by alcohol. At times the men have to do double shifts so fatigue, no doubt, also contributes to accidents and near misses. Last night’s programme included the problem of venemous snakes lurking around the rigs after being attracted to them by the vibrations they emit. At least North Sea workers don't have to contend with the risk of lethal snake bites. Hopefully the safety standards on North Sea rigs are much better than those shown from Texas. While on this subject, “Oil Riggers” has similarities to the "Ice Road Truckers" series and also "Axe Men" (lumberjacks In British Columbia), so perhaps they were made by the same company. One common similarity is that their soundtracks are littered with bleeps to mask expletives. At the same time the mouth actions of whoever is talking are disguised to protect the sensibilities of any lip readers who may be watching. Another common theme is that the men talk a lot about "kicking asses". However, I’ve never seen any quadrupeds on the programmes, let alone ones being abused. Perhaps the kicking is done off-camera so as to avoid upsetting animal welfare groups!

Posted By Dave Chapman I work in Health & Safety in the International Offshore Oilfeild and I can assure fellow members that it has been a long time atleast 25 years since we used the practices still displayed by those "Rednecks" in Oil Riggers. The one that always makes me cringe is the use of chain to spin & torque up joints in drillpipe. Can you imagine how many fingers were severed after being caught in these chains. Fortunately we learned from incidents & now have an industry with a good safety culture & improving safety performance.

Posted By TBC I worked for an American company here in the UK - I left after 3 months!

Posted By Graham Bullough Thanks to those who have responded so far. The use of chains to spin and connect drill pipes was featured on the programme shown earlier this week as a cause of accidents. I vaguely recall one guy saying that a rigger wasn’t considered sufficiently experienced if he hadn’t lost a finger or two. The programme also showed one guy narrowly escaping injury when the gloves he was wearing became temporarily entangled in a chain or something else because they were stretched and loose. When his supervisor learned of it he gave the guy a new pair and then chided himself for not saying or doing anything about having seen the state of the gloves earlier. This provided just one example of the sloppy standard of training and supervision of the men depicted in the programmes. The programmes probably make good viewing for H&S people on training courses – spot the problems shown and discuss what could/should be done about them. Is anyone already doing this? One aspect which does come across from the programmes is just how tedious, boring, repetitive and dirty the work generally is, and for long periods, especially during double shifts. No wonder the riggers in Texas tend to have a heavy drinking culture. This feeds a vicious circle of increasing the risks they face through being allowed to work when still affected by alcohol. Some of the guys with hangovers take naps at the rigs when they think their supervisors aren’t watching. This obviously takes them away from the physical risks at work but then introduces the risk of losing their jobs if caught. However, the sleepers surely make things harder and riskier for their workmates, especially if they are tempted to cut corners to try to keep the work going. Turning from safety to a purely technical aspect, I deduce that the drill pipes connect in a manner similar to that of ordinary drain cleaning rods – i.e. twist one way to connect them, and the other way to disconnect. Also, liquid mud is presumably forced down inside the linked pipes so as to lubricate the drilling process, perhaps drive any moving parts of the drill bit, and then flush the fine fragments of rock, etc cut by the drill bit up around the outside of the pipes to the surface. What I haven’t quite fathomed out is what provides the downward action/force of the connected pipes – Are there one or more parts of the drilling process which grab and rotate and/or push down the top piece of pipe or do the pipes simply descend under their own collective weight to fill the void left by material cut and flushed out of the drill hole? Please can anyone enlighten me and any others who may be wondering about this aspect?

Posted By Paul Leadbetter I have heard the same thing said about sawyers! Paul

Posted By Graham Bullough No problem with digression/deviation on this thread - surely that's partly how threads on this forum evolve and remain interesting. The theme of missing fingers reminds me of visits to numerous joineries and sawmills when I was a factory inspector with HSE. A few of the employees at such premises, especially the older ones, tended to hide their hands when I was near them because they had lost fingers during accidents with the machines over the years. It was curious to note that some of them, despite their adverse experiences, still didn't bother to adjust guards on the machines or use safety devices like push sticks at bench circular saw machines!

Posted By Ian Waldram For Graham - you've worked out the basics correctly. You could look on Wikipedia for an introduction to well technology, though I don't think it says anything about 'weight on bit', which is what you ask about. Basically the drill works by self-weight - in fact once the 'string' is any length at all you have to take most of its weight on the derrick and just let a small fraction bear on the bottom of the hole. You can imagine that, though the drillpipe is heavy steel, when it is hundreds or thousands of feet long it behaves more like a rotating piece of spaghetti unless most of its weight is carried from the top. One required skill of the driller (and it is still that kind of job, though today much more instrumented and semi-automated than in the past) is to be able to operate the manual controls and drill ahead as fast as possible, but without putting so much weight on the drill bit that it fails, wanders off direction uncontrollably, etc. Hope this helps. PS I too was appalled at the W Texas standards shown, though I can now better understand some of my former colleagues who 'graduated' from that workplace culture, and why they didn't at first fit in too well in UK! Apart from anything else, the lack of any drill crew 'work clothing' is notable, for what is a dirty and very manual job at the best of times - and I certainly agree with others that the general conditions shown are a very long way below what has been typical for many years for N Sea drilling and well workovers.

Posted By A Campbell As an ex 'medic' in the offshore industry I saw a few damaged fingers, hands, feet etc over the years! One of the reasons why I changed into H&S related topics was to try and prevent rather than patch them up and send them back onto the drill floor!... That was sometimes a bit of a pressure related experience.. to get them back to work! Another way of adding weight to the pipe (or drill string) is the addition of what is called 'drill collars' which connect in the same manner but are much heavier in weight. When added to a designated part of the drill string it added weight and also a little rigidity to the pipe.