Escar Stick, an employee of team 50071 of Karamay Drilling Co., Ltd., is remotely controlling the Iron Roughneck. Photograph by Hou Hongli
Improve productivity
Enhance safety
Reduce labor intensity
By Hou Hongli | news.cnpc.com.cn "With hydraulic tongs replaced by this Iron Roughneck, now I can easily use a remote control to finish the work used to be done by two people," said Escar Stick on April 26, the lead-tong man of team 50071 of Karamay Drilling Co., Ltd. who was commanding the breaking out of the Iron Roughneck at the same time.
This is the first Iron Roughneck for Western Drilling to have. It is an automatic wellhead tool designed for drilling operation. It is tall, strong, and covered in bright yellow the whole body. It is mainly composed of make-up tong, break-out tong, hydraulic system and other parts, and applicable to wider make-up and break-out operations of drill stems, drill collars, joints and other drill tools. The Iron Roughneck can greatly improve productivity and enhance safety by replacing manual operation.
"In the past, it took two people's cooperation to clamp the drill stem with a hydraulic tong, which was time-and-labor-consuming as there were more than 200 drill stems in a 5,800-meter-deep well." said Escar.
"There are different sizes of drilling tools in the well. You have to change the tong head when you use a hydraulic tong. For 9-inch drill collars, B-type tongs are required. The Iron Roughneck is applicable to all drilling tools with a diameter of 3 inches to 9.5 inches, which means we worry no more about the making up and breaking out of drilling tools of different sizes." said chief driller Li Richao.
"It is much easier to do the well control pressure test now. According to relevant regulations, the well control device shall receive a pressure test every 25 to 30 days after entering the third well opening stage, and the four joints we use have three specifications. We used to have to shift among three tong heads, and it took two hours for us to just connect these joints." said technician Kang Honghua.
In the drilling team, the most tiring work for drillers is to lift and lower drills, toss drilling tools and lower casings. A drill pipe weighs more than 100 kg. When drilling a deep well, they have to do hooking, pulling, pushing and supporting, all of which consumes 12 hours a time at least. Currently, the situation is changing for team 50071.
"As long as I hold it in my hand, I can control the Iron Roughneck even in the control room. It is absolutely safe." said Escar who shook the remote control in his hand.
Zhao Xingbei, leader of team 50071, said that in view of the on-site situation, this equipment was very safe to use, because they did not have direct contact with the pipe string, thereby greatly reducing the risk of personal injury.
In accelerating "standardization, specialization, informatization and mechanization", Western Drilling has successively provided the team with various automation equipment such as iron scaffolder, manipulator and automatic weighing device, changing the "difficult, dirty, tiring and dangerous" working state of the drillers.
Automation has also further normalized the construction operation for team 50071, which improves on-site management, enhances the working environment, reduces labor intensity, raises the safety factor, and greatly boosts benefits and efficiency.
In January this year, the team successfully drilled the longest horizontal section of 1884 meters for Well MaHW6234 in Ma 18 Wellblock. On April 4, the team successfully completed the "one-stop drilling" project for Well MaHW6235 in the deflecting section of Ma 18 Wellblock for the first time.
