What Well Servicing, Workover and Completion Work Is

A drilling rig makes the hole. After the drilling rig leaves, other crews work on the well for the rest of its life. This work has three common names.

• Completion: preparing a newly drilled well to produce. The crew runs tubing, opens the well to the reservoir and installs the wellhead equipment.
• Well servicing: routine maintenance on a producing well, such as pulling and replacing rods, a downhole pump or tubing.
• Workover: a larger repair or change to an existing well, such as repairing casing or changing the completion.

Much of this work is done with a service rig, also called a workover rig or pulling unit. It is a truck-mounted rig with a mast that folds down for the road. Other work is done by service companies with their own units: wireline, coiled tubing, pumping and stimulation, nitrogen, flowback and fluid hauling.

Rules and guidance

Rules for this work vary by country, and often by state or province. Your employer and the operator must tell you which rules apply. Widely used guidance includes API RP 54, a recommended practice of the American Petroleum Institute (API) for occupational safety and health in oil and gas well drilling and servicing operations, the Oil and Gas Well Drilling and Servicing eTool of the United States Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), and guidance from the International Association of Drilling Contractors (IADC) and the Energy Workforce & Technology Council. This council was formed in 2021, when the Association of Energy Service Companies (AESC) joined another trade association, so older documents still carry the AESC name. This course names such documents but does not quote them. Where the course and your company procedure differ, follow the company procedure and ask.

Where the detail lives

How the operations work is taught in the course Well Completion and Workover. General site hazards for newcomers are in the course Oil and Gas Hazard Awareness. Work at sea is in the course Offshore Safety Awareness. Closing a well for ever is in the course Plugging and Abandonment (P&A).