Drilling rigs are complex systems that are used to drill deep boreholes into the ground – for example to extract crude oil or natural gas. The central element is the drill string, which consists of numerous steel pipes that are bolted together via threaded connections. These pipes and the connecting threaded sockets (couplings) must be able to withstand enormous mechanical stresses and seal absolutely reliably. In this blog post, we shed light on how a drilling rig and its pipe systems work and, in particular, how the machining of the pipes and couplings takes place. The focus is on machine tools from the EMAG Group – in particular the series USC (for pipes) and VSC (for couplings), which are used in the machining of OCTG (Oil Country Tubular Goods) components.
