The rig floor, explained properly
Plain-language reference for drilling, well control, welding and oilfield careers — free, independent, and honest about its limits.
Why this site exists
Most oilfield knowledge lives in three places: company manuals you only see once you're hired, training courses that cost thousands, and the heads of people who have been doing it for twenty years. None of those are much use if you are trying to work out what a toolpusher actually does, why shut-in drill pipe pressure matters, or whether underwater welding is a realistic career.
RigFloorHQ fills that gap. We explain how the work actually functions — the equipment, the pressures, the procedures, the career ladder — in language that assumes you are capable but not that you already know. It is free to read, there is no signup, and there is nothing to buy.
Who runs it
RigFloorHQ is an independent site run by RigFloorHQ. It is not owned by a drilling contractor, an operator, an equipment manufacturer, a training provider or a recruitment agency — which matters, because each of those has an interest in what you conclude about training, equipment or employers.
We carry no advertising, take no payment for coverage, and run no affiliate links or referral commissions. Nothing on this site is placed because someone paid for it to be there.
Reviewed by a working driller
Several of our explainer videos and calculators have been checked for technical accuracy by Jabin Travis, a drilling professional with 30 years of experience across conventional and horizontal wells and workover/completions work, in the United States, Azerbaijan, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the UAE and Turkey.
He holds IADC WellSharp accreditation in Well Control (Drilling Operations Supervisor, Surface) and IADC DIT accreditation in Rig Equipment Inspection and Maintenance, plus earlier Advanced Well Control training completed in 2013.
He has reviewed our hole cleaning and torque & drag explainer videos, and our kill sheet, hydrostatic, gas migration and mud weight calculators, for real-world accuracy.
He's also shared real judgment calls from his own time on the floor — read a 48-hour volumetric kill he worked, and the two mistakes he sees new hands make most often.
How we handle safety-critical material
A lot of what we write about can hurt people if it is misapplied. We take that seriously, and it shapes how the site is written:
- Reference, never instruction. We explain how something works and why. We never tell you what to do on a live well. Your employer's procedures, the well programme, the regulations and your certified supervisor decide that — always, and without exception.
- Calculators are teaching tools. The kill sheet, hydrostatic and mud weight window calculators exist so you can see the arithmetic and check your understanding while studying. They are not approved for operational use, and we say so on the page rather than burying it in the terms.
- Standards are named, not paraphrased into fact. Where API, IADC, IWCF, OSHA or similar requirements apply, we name them and point you at them. Standards get revised; our summary of one is a starting point, not the authority.
- We say when something varies. Practice differs between operators, contractors, regions and rig types. Where there is no single right answer, we say so instead of inventing one.
In Spanish
A large part of the global drilling workforce works in Spanish. Most of the technical content here is published in both languages, with the Spanish edition maintained alongside the English rather than machine-translated and abandoned. Where a translation and the English differ, the English is the original.
Corrections
If something here is wrong, out of date, or explained in a way that would mislead someone on a rig, tell us and we will fix it. On a site about safety-critical work, accuracy is the only thing that makes it worth publishing at all.
Email contact@rigfloorhq.com with the page and what is wrong. Corrections from people who do this work for a living are especially welcome — if you have spotted something that reads like it was written by someone who has never been on a rig, we would rather hear it from you than not.
Using our material
Instructors, trainers and writers are welcome to quote us with a credit and a link back. If you want to use something more substantially — in a training pack, an induction, or a course — email and ask; the answer is usually yes.
Contact
RigFloorHQ
Unit 173637, PO Box 7169, Poole, BH15 9EL, United Kingdom
contact@rigfloorhq.com
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