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  • Writer's pictureRaid Attir

1 - Are You Choosing The Right Drilling Rig?

Updated: Sep 6, 2018


Drilling Rigs are broadly classified as land and offshore rigs. Each class is further broken down into several types.

A Rig Selection process is conducted to determine which rig best suits your activity. This process takes into considerations three factors:

  • capacity,

  • availability,

  • and cost.

While availability and cost are important in the selection process, capacity remains the most crucial criteria to rig selection. Therefore, Rig Sizing, which is part of the Rig Selection process, intends to ensure that the selected rig is capable of handling all anticipated loads during well construction and intervention operations.


Although over-sizing a drilling rig results in an unnecessary expense, under-sizing the rig proves to be extremely costly to rectify. Therefore, it is essential that Rig Sizing process takes place at an early stage of the project planning phase.


While some operators have their own Rig Selection templates, it is a good practice to standardize such process and to integrate it with the organization's engineering system. Our methodology of rig selection follows the below steps:

  • Perform Offset Wells Analysis and review documentation

  • Design the well based on surface and target locations in a fashion that minimizes T&D

  • Establish a list of all the various anticipated loads (Casing running, Testing, Completions,..etc)

  • Build a risk register to document existing and anticipated risks (stuck pipe, stuck casing, well control,...etc)

  • Perform Rig Sizing for the 5 rig systems (Hoisting, Circulating, Power, Rotary, and Well Control)

  • Identify rig availability in the region

  • Invite to bid, and select rig based on capacity, availability and cost (use a Weighted Decision Matrix)

To learn more about our templates and calculators, please visit our tools section.

Also, We will be happy to share more details on this post, so please don't hesitate to contact one of our team members.


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Oea Services : Project Management

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