Top Drive Brand Advantages and Disadvantages

12 February 2020 Fellow Members,

This question may sound like an old Ford vs Chevy debate... but have you experienced any general/mechanical advantages or disadvantages with particular top drive brands: NOV/Varco, LTI/LEWCO, TESCO/Canrig? There must be some operational and economic importance to this preference (maybe motor type offerings and transmission differences?), but nothing comes to mind right now. The top drive desired specs in question would be a 500 ton 1000 - 1350 HP.

This was excluding software upgrades that enable pipe oscillation via "rocking" (Noble Drilling's Slider) but still including different top drive controllers. I've only observed several types of top drive controllers, but NOV's Amphion system appeared to perform the best in terms of drilling setpoint control to reduce drilling dysfunction.

4 Answer(s)

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