Drill Pipe

Drill pipe is an industrial tubular used to drill into the ground. There are three major industries that use drill pipe. The most common application of drill pipe is in the oil and gas industry. Another industry that uses drill pipe is the underground construction industry, or more specifically, the Horizontal Directional Drilling (HDD) industry. And finally, the water well drilling industry also uses drill pipe.

The oil and gas industry is where drill pipe is used the most.  Each 31ft length of drill pipe is screwed together one by one, and collectively they are known as the drill string. Drill collars and heavy-weight drill pipe are also parts of the drill string. At the bottom of the drill string is the drill bit, which does the actual boring into the earth. Initially all oilfield drill pipe is drilled into the ground vertically by the drilling rig. Then, depending on the proposed location and orientation of the oil well, the direction of the drilling is sometimes changed to horizontal. In comparison to other industries that use drill pipe, oilfield drill pipe is made to withstand the toughest working conditions. This is mainly due to the extreme depths it is used and the extreme conditions of the earth at those depths. For example some drill string lengths are in excess of 30,000ft.

Another industry that uses drill pipe is the underground construction industry, or more specifically, the Horizontal Directional Drilling (HDD) industry. This industry utilizes drill pipe to bore tunnels underneath waterways, major roadways, and generally any place where trenching is not acceptable. The resulting bore is used for various utility pipelines such as: fiber optic, water, electricity, and oil and gas. HDD drilling rigs are very different from oilfield drilling rigs in that they are almost completely laying flat or horizontal.

Drill Pipes