What Does a Roughneck do on a Drilling Rig?

A lot of people have questions about the oil field like:

"How do I get in the oilfield?"
"What is roughnecking?"
What Does a Roughneck do on a Drilling Rig?
"How much money does a roughneck make?"

Roughnecking on drilling rigs is one of the most dangerous and labor-intensive jobs that there is.

There are drilling rigs all over the United States but they're usually in West Texas, as well as other parts of Texas, North Dakota, Colorado, Wyoming, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Pennsylvania.

In this video, I break down how making up drill pipe works.

[buttonman]

Worked as a roughneck for 5 years offshore. During that time I was impervious to body fat.

[acousticarchivefortwayne]

Thanks for your video. Nice job. I worked as a roughneck from 1978-1979 in Northern California drilling for natural gas.
I’d lost my job as a route driver delivering soda pop and needed to earn money to get back home to Wisconsin. I had a buddy that was a Driller on the rigs so I asked him if I could get on.
He said, “No”. Then I asked if there were ever any openings. He said, “No. You’d hate it and you’d never make it anyway.” I told him I was in good shape and could handle the work. He laughed. We were sitting at the bar so I asked if he wanted another and he said, “Sure.” After half an hour of me asking for a job and him giving every reason I’d never make it he finally said, “Ok, go to the union hall and tell ‘em I asked for you. When they call you back, call me and I’ll tell you what’s next.”
My first shift was 4-midnight. About four hours in I was sucking air and dry heaving over the rail. About that time Tex, the Tool Pusher who oversaw all the crews on the rig, walks up on the floor. “How you doing?” he asks me. “Fine” I replied. Seeing right through that he says “Don’t worry, you’ll get your appetite for lunch back in a couple weeks.”
Well, I went from 145 lb. to 185 lb. in about 3 months, got stronger, and managed to make it until I had enough money. One day I went to Tex and told told him my plan to go home and he looked at me and in that kind Texas drawl said, “Home is a good place to be. You did a good job.” Hippie, the Driller on our crew said, “You can always say you were a roughneck once and that’s not something everybody can say.” So thanks to Tex and Hippie and Heifer, Piggy, and Gummy for looking out for me when I was a real rookie those first months. Also, if any of you guys are out there don’t worry about that knock-down that happened when the 4-way sling let loose. I don’t think it, I don’t think it, I don’t think it affected me at all.
Why do hippies like to work on drilling rigs?
Dope comes in 5 gallon buckets, we’re always making joints, and we trip every 24 hours!
Thanks again for the video. And stay safe.

[texassparky]

I did this shit in the late 90's as a teenager out in west Texas. OSHA wasn't a big thing back then. All I can say is, these dudes are amazing. Safety warning. Do Not F with a Rough Neck! These dudes are strong as hell, have un-ending endurance, an incredible work ethic, sense of loyalty, and absolutely zero patience for lazy or weak people. You wanna learn to be a man? Work a oil rig for a summer. You'll know if your tough or not after that. Stack them pipes brothers! Well done good Men!

[plk]

Great video and it sparked a memory. A guy I knew in the seventies worked on an offshore oil rig for 15 years. He was from Louisiana. Aside from being a roughneck I remember that he used the terms "tool push" and "roustabout" to describe the different jobs he had on the rig through the years. I seem to recall that entry level labor on a rig had something to do with pushing around endless bags of drilling mud and other grunt work. Possibly the job description of a roustabout. At one point his job consisted of spending each 12 hour shift strapped by a harness to the top of a tower, (derrick?), from which he muscled 300 pound sections of drill pipe, lowering them into position, one after the other. It appears that a lot of the labor that was done by hand back then has been replaced by machinery. Some of the more dangerous practices have been eliminated. He made very good money and his schedule was 12 hours on-12 hours off, 3 weeks on the rig- then 3 weeks off, which he spent at home with his family.. He told me a lot of stories including one in which a worker was struck in the head by a section of spinning chain, and that was it for him. Unfortunately that was the possible reality of it back then. Interestingly by the time I met him in 1977 he was working as the captain of a shrimp boat. I was walking the commercial fishing docks looking for work, and being in need of a replacement he hired me on as a crew member. I slightly "exaggerated" my previous experience in the commercial fishing industry. I actually had none and was a complete greenhorn. If I'd told the truth he never would have hired me. He admitted as much later. It worked out, but there was an adjustment period. Kind of grueling. To keep things in perspective while I got used to the hard work, grew my sea legs and toughened my hands, he always had a harrowing story to tell me about working on an oil rig. A shout out, my respect and gratirude to Captain Albert Chaisson, wherever he may be.

[lylesommers]

The next time you complain about how hard your 9 to 5 job is, just watch this video, much respect to these hardworking guys.

[dennishorn]

I worked 45 yrs in the oil and gas business, started out as a roughneck in the "worm corner". Working as the derrickman was the best job I ever had. We were lean and mean. Best physical shape I was ever in.

[joeo]

Damn good description. You clearly know your stuff. In the 80's we didn't say, 'Put down your purse." We would say, "Put some hair around it." Same meaning. Notice he is not exerting allot of force on anything. He is leaning in to it. You don't have to be big to make a great hand. Teamwork and timing was everything. New subscriber.

[Girrrrrrrr]

Great explanation. Being from Texas, I always wondered how these jobs went. Also I can't get enough of the comments from the men who've bled and sweat to give us the life of luxury we have today. Respect.

[shannonmurphy]

Dude as an engineer in midstream I for the life of me couldn't understand what the chains were for. All I could think was "what's with the chains that looks SUPER dangerous. And when it started spinning I escalated to WHY THE CHAINS?!" Scary. Thanks for explaining. Glad that practice is being designed away. It takes a lot of skill to be safe here that's clear.

[drywallerdave]

Remember throwing chain for Precision Drilling in the mid nineties in central Alberta, it was a great way to take a break from construction work, it was also nice to be young enough to do such work

[SC-brtu]

I broke out on a extreme drilling rig. It was a top drive super single tong rig. I miss this work every day. You don’t know what real work is until you come out from TD sideways using tongs! Shout out to all my fellow roughnecks! Good job on the video man! 💪🏼👊🏼🤙🏼

[acousticarchivefortwayne]

Thanks for your video. You did a nice job of explaining what's going on. I worked on a gas drilling rig in Northern California 1978-1979.
A friend of mine was a foreman on one of the three shifts. I'd just lost a job as a Pepsi driver and needed to make some money so I could get back home to Wisconsin. I asked him if there was any work on the rig and he said, "No." I asked him if there would be any openings and he said "No." I told him I really needed and job and he said, "You'll hate it. You'll never last." I told him I'd been humping freight as a Pepsi driver and was in good shape. He laughed. We were sitting at the bar and I asked if he and his buddy, who worked with him, wanted another round he said "Sure". Well I didn't let up asking and he didn't let up discouraging me until he finally said, "Go to the union hall, put in your name, and tell 'em I asked for you."
My first night was a 4 to midnight shift. Four hours in I was sucking air and dry heaving over the rail. I thought I was gonna die. I'd never done anything that was so relentlessly hard. About that time Tex the tool pusher, who oversaw the drilling crews, came up on the floor to meet me. He asked how I was doing and I said "Fine" but he saw through that and said, "Don't worry, you'll get an appetite for lunch in a couple weeks."  Well long, long story short, I did make it and went from 145 lb. to 185 lb. in about 3 months. So thanks for taking me on Hippie and thanks to the other guys, Piggie, Heifer, and Gummy, for watching out for me when I was a real rookie. And as a far as that knock down I took that night when the four-way sling broke loose - well it makes a great story. And I don't think, I don't think, I don't think it ever affected me.
So why do hippies like to work on drilling rigs?
Dope comes in 5 gallon buckets, we're always making joints, and we trip every 24 hours!
Best of luck to you. Thanks for the video.

[RRguy]

I worked on rigs in West Texas during the 90's, a few comments. Wells can vary from a few hundred feet to more than 30 thousand feet in depth, there is a drilling prospectus sent to the rig giving estimated tops of depth for the zones petroleum is expected to possibly be located in. These estimated depths are derived from information from wells drilled in the area the new well is being drilled. Sometimes the estimates are spot on and sometimes they can be off by hundreds of feet. plus or minus. One of the hands will collect cutting returns from the mud system shale shaker and periodically a rock doc (geologist )will come out of his trailer and collect them to look at under a microscope. If he finds hydrocarbons in the cuttings he may ask the rig crew to get ready for a testing company to come with a special tool called a jar and after the rig crew trips the drill pipe and bit out of the hole they will install on the drill string and trip back into the hole all the drill pipe.That special tool is sent to the bottom of the hole to collect samples of what is in the formation below. Then the crew drips the drill string back out of the hole and the testing company analiyzes the fluids from the zone. I was a floorhand and have worked both lead tongs and the chainhand spots. The chain is very dangerous but lets be honest everything on a rig can seriously hurt or kill you if your not alert and paying attention to your rig and your rig mates. There are still many smaller drilling companies using tongs and spinning chains. None of the major contractors like Patterson, Nabours or Precison do but many smaller companies using older rigs do because all of the majors rigs can cost more than 20 million USD each. Smaller well operators cannot afford to hire a 20 million dollar rig so they hire a company with older rigs that may be worth a couple of million and a much lower day rate and footage rate. I still have a couple of friends working the patch so I see pictures from them on Facebook and see the new rigs and the old dinosaur rigs still in action.

[BeardnScars]

Rough necking is one thing I never did, I was a railroad labor and now am a coal miner I would love to do this especially the work out that it is. Props to these boys.

[pauledwards]

Massive respect of these guys. They work their butts off.

[e.r]

Fascinating to watch but incomprehensible to understand what’s going on unless you’ve been in the field. Thanks for explaining.

[Mayor]

PLEASE ADVISE ME.
I was told to spread my savings across different things like Trade to protect and support my retirement. with everything being shaky, I'm considering going into Trade. i don't wanna make the wrong choice.

[MissNebulosity]

FINALLY after all these years if watching random clips of this kind of work, I actually understand what they are doing. it never dawned on me that they were simply adding more and more sections to the existing pipe. i feel silly.

[zacksheehan]

Always fascinated by the rigs and how they work. Been working oil and gas for 5 years as an instrument tech

[BrandonCockridge]

My grandpa did this back in the 1920s. He told me some pretty crazy stories. When I turn 18 I wanna join the oil industry and be like my grandpa