Nabors

Competency & Reliability


At Nabors, we understand that personnel safety and environmental protection depend on the competency of our people and the reliability of our equipment. Our training, processes, policies and procedures are dedicated to these ends.

Asset integrity
Nabors continues to deploy new assets and to upgrade assets already operating in the field. We know that well control is the most critical part of a well construction operation, so we use only pressure control components from the original manufacturer to assure equipment performance. Equipment is maintained by our proprietary myMaintenance system, which tracks maintenance and inspection schedules down to each individual asset, designed so that our assets perform safely and at peak levels.

Nabors makes every effort to guard against equipment failure. This includes redundant equipment systems throughout the rig. Regular inspections and audits verify that well control components are in good operating order.

Nabors rigs are constructed per API requirements and are routinely inspected and re-certified per these same requirements.

Processes and Procedures
Nabors publishes and maintains a broad spectrum of policies and procedures aimed at maintaining crew competency and equipment reliability. Among the most notable are:

  • Operational procedures – Nabors publishes operational procedures for every action required on a drilling rig. These include simple, everyday procedures from how to raise the mast and how to hook up mud lines, all the way to what to do in the event of a well control event.
  • Personal protective equipment – Nabors requires that all personnel working on a drilling rig wear fire-retardant coveralls, hard hats, steel-toed shoes, work gloves and safety glasses at a minimum. Specific tasks or work performed in certain areas may require additional PPE with special-purpose qualities. Nabors also provides Impact Safety Gloves to all members of the rig team. These gloves provide extra protection with shock absorbing armor to dramatically minimize hand injury severity compared to similar incidents where these gloves were not worn.
  • Safety audits – Regular safety audits are performed on every Nabors rig to verify compliance with company policies and procedures. Rigs that achieve a certain level of compliance are designated as Battle E rigs. Battle E rig crews receive additional compensation and are allowed to wear patches indicating the status of their excellence.
  • Pre-tour safety meetings – Pre-tour safety meetings are routine at every Nabors rig site and facility. Safety issues are addressed and incidents that occurred on the previous shift are analyzed for cause and future prevention.
  • Job safety analysis – A job safety analysis, or JSA, is conducted before any significant action is taken during rig operations. A JSA is a step-by-step analysis of the actions to be taken, hazards to be avoided and ways to eliminate such hazards.
  • Dropped objects maintenance – Dropped objects have historically been a hazard on drilling rigs. Nabors’ DROPS system registers all objects used overhead and requires that every tool or piece of equipment that is used for work at heights remains tethered at all times and is returned to the ground.
  • Safety Observation Cards – Safety observation cards are a key element of the Nabors' behavioral-based safety program. Observation cards are filled out by employees whenever a near miss occurs so that the cause can be analyzed and any recurrence can be prevented.
  • Management of change – Changes in processes or procedures aimed at improving performance cannot be implemented on a Nabors rig without proper authorization. A system exists to evaluate any changes from both an engineering and safety perspective. If a change is warranted, it is documented and adopted across all operations.
  • Equipment Standards – These guidelines define standard equipment that has been thoroughly evaluated by Nabors' professional engineering team in close coordination with both our safety and operational teams to determine the most optimum equipment used across our rig fleet.

Personnel training
Nabors makes every effort to ensure the competency of its employees. The company maintains training centers for multiple disciplines and operates training rigs where employees spend both class time and rig time to demonstrate competence in a certain position before being assigned to that position on a working rig. Drillers undergo training on simulators that replicate actual drilling conditions. Our new employees are provided with a short service employee (SSE) orange hard hat ensuring their assigned crew is aware of their experience level and provides encouragement and support when required. They are also assigned a mentor, a more experienced employee whose job it is to monitor their competency development, answer questions and report any problems or issues.

Nabors also maintains a sophisticated online global training program. This flexible program is in multiple languages and can be tailored to accommodate standards in different countries.

Nabors’ myTraining System keeps records of all employee training and communicates with rig management when additional training is required. The result is that Nabors crews are among the best trained and most highly skilled in the industry.