Fishing Drill Pipe Procedure – Screw in Drill Pipe

Sometimes drillpipe is accidentally dropped into the well and you need to fish it out of the well. One easy option that may be feasible to perform is to use a drill string to screw into the drill pipe in the well.

Before going into a detailed procedure, you may need to check the following conditions.

• Tight clearance between hole and tool joint

• Tool joint at the top of fish is in a good condition

Data that you need to know before going to fish the drill string

• Fish length

• Top of fish

• Weight of fish in the mud

• Actual turn to fully engage when screw in

Detailed procedure for fishing drill pipe by screwing into the fish

Fish length = xxx ft

Expected TOF = xxx ft

Weight of the fish (BHA + DP) = xx Klb

1. Trip in hole 1 stand

2. Count the actual turn of drill pipe

3. Run in hole to xxx MD (200 ft above the Top Of Fish)

4. Make up top drive

5. Break circulate with 160 GPM using current drilling fluid in the well

• Record pressure

6. Record pick up and slack off weight without rotation

7. Record pick up and slack off weight with 20 RPM

8. Record torque with 20 RPM

– In the steps 5-8, you will get the base line values when the drill string does not engage with another part.

9. Slowly run in hole without rotation

10. Tag top of fish while pumping with 160 GPM

11. Pick up 5 ft

12. Slowly run in hole with 20 RPM

13. Attempt to screw into the top of fish (tool joint)

14. Indicators if the fish is engaged.

– Increase in pumping pressure, torque, weight on bit and pick up weight.

– When picking up drill string, increment of pick up weight should close to buoyed weight of the fish (dropped drill string).

15. Flow check

16. Pull out of hole to surface.

 Note: This is the generic guideline. You may need to adapt some parameters/steps to match with your rig operation.