How to Work With Casing Slips Safely When you go to work, or when your employees go to work, you need them to be safe. For example, when you work in retail or the food industry, you need to make sure there isn’t water on the floor someone could slip on. It’s the same thing with the oil industry. Except for when you work in oil and gas, you need to make sure that your casing slips are intact. What are Casing Slips? Essentially, casing slips keep the drilling assembly from falling into the well you’re extracting oil from. Without casing slips the drilling assembly could fall through the drilling hole, causing potential injuries, not to mention thousands of dollars of damages. Casing slips grip different types of tubulars to secure it in the rotary table and enable connecting and disconnecting. The slip carries the entire weight of the string or singular tubular to keep it from falling into the drilling hole. The way casing slips are manufactured and used is essential to any drilling project. Slips are made of steel wedges which are then hinged together so they can fit around the OD of a tubular. When the tubular is attached to the rotary, the slips will securely fit in between the OD of the tubular and the rotary bushings. Increasing Safety with Casing Slips Before you start any project, the casing slips should be thoroughly inspected for damage or wear and tear; the most important area to focus on is the toe of the slip. Other things you will want to look for are sharpness, correct size and of course ensuring the parts are from the same manufacture. Although less upstanding manufactures will assure you their parts will fit, it’s best to keep them updated from the same high-quality manufacture like Texas International. If your casing slips don’t check out, you need to replace them. Working on a drilling project with less than perfect casing slips can be disastrous to your oilfield equipment and the people working on it.  vAnother thing to consider when looking to improve the safety of your worksite is the automation of casing slips. Not only does the automation of the casing slips create a more efficient work environment, but it also contributes to the safety of the team. When casing slips are automated, workers don’t have to place their hands on the potentially dangerous tools and rotary. As technology continues to evolve, there will be more and more strides in the industry to improve safety when working with casing slips. The best practices we listed above however, will keep your worksite and employees safe on the job, which is the most important thing. If your casing slips need to be replaced with new ones, give us a call today for the highest-quality slip products available on the market today. … [Read more...]

The Benefits of Casing Running Tools As you may be aware in 2015 nearly 77% of the most productive U.S. oil wells, those generating more than 400 barrels of oil per day, were horizontally drilled wells. Source: US Energy Information Administration Out on the field and dealing with both drilling and hydraulic fracturing has its challenges. However casing running tools (CRT) help make it much easier to ensure continued operations with significantly fewer workers. CRT maximizes the torque of the top drive, so casing tongs, drilling bails, and stabbers aren’t necessary. Manual issues from the stabbing board operator are gone. When CRTs are installed it includes the equivalent of spider elevator through drilling rig slips. Size of slips depend on the casing size transmitting the torque and the weight of casing strings. The CRT supports the single joint elevators as they lift to the well center. Once slips are on the joints, the top drive has enough energy. No Manual Backup Tongs With CRT you don’t necessarily need a manual backup tong. Not having to use tongs is likely preferable to most oil workers where most people argue over who is forced to use it when CRTs eliminate that undesirable task. Additionally you’re producing much faster as there’s no down time for manual tongs and other equipment. With fewer people and manual tools on the field, human error and hazards diminish. Less time rigging and less equipment also lets you finish tasks faster. Remote Operation Control panel only requires one person and is simple to operate. With the Casing Drive System and slips, it’s much easier to avoid dropped or lost pipes. Effectively with casing running tools you get a smoother and more efficient casing along with less hazards and labor needed. Learn more about Texas International Oilfield Tools. … [Read more...]