Tripping out drill rods can range from being somewhat tedious to seriously dangerous; not to mention it is also hard, physical work. While sharing the same basic principles of water well, geothermal, foundation and other drilling industries, the processes used for tripping the drilling rods in the oil and gas industries are a different animal altogether. Here we will focus on equipment and techniques common to lighter-duty, more mobile, truck- and track-mounted top-drive drilling rigs.
While drilling, the drill string comes under tremendous amounts of torque and friction, which seemingly fuse threaded drill rods together. The challenge is breaking those extremely tight tool joints when retracting the drill string. In addition, heavy tooling and powerful drill heads can pose a serious threat to fingers, hands, heads and even your life if used incorrectly. The same difficulties apply to retrievable threaded casing. Another challenge is preventing the drill string from dropping back down the borehole, which results in costly downtime and expensive fishing tools for retrieval.