Direct drilling crews performing activities such as assembling and connecting pipe, applying weights to drill pipes, or drilling around lodged obstacles.

“Direct drilling crews performing activities such as assembling and connecting pipe, applying weights to drill pipes, or drilling around lodged obstacles.” is a supplemental task performed by Service Unit Operators, Oil and Gas. Among the occupation's 19 rated tasks, workers place it 14th by importance (#6 most important). About 59% of workers say it is relevant to their job.

This is a single occupation-specific task statement from O*NET. The figures below describe how central the task is to the job and what independent studies measure about AI and this kind of work — not a prediction that the task will be automated.

Work activities this task rolls up to

O*NET groups concrete tasks into broader work activities shared across many occupations.

• Direct construction or extraction activities. in Guiding, Directing, and Motivating Subordinates

AI exposure

The OpenAI / Eloundou “GPTs are GPTs” study rates this task E0. No direct exposure — current language models give little or no time savings on this task.

Exposure measures whether a model could meaningfully speed the task up — it is an estimate of overlap with model capabilities, not a measure of whether the work will be done by software. The study's intermediate score (β) for this task is 0.00. Automation potential label: T0.

Other tasks in this occupation

• Maintain and perform safety inspections on equipment and tools. · importance 4.6
• Operate controls that raise derricks or level rigs. · importance 4.5
• Listen to engines, rotary chains, or other equipment to detect faulty operations or unusual well conditions. · importance 4.5
• Prepare reports of services rendered, tools used, or time required, for billing purposes. · importance 4.4
• Install pressure-control devices onto wellheads. · importance 4.3
• Confer with others to gather information regarding pipe or tool sizes or borehole conditions in wells. · importance 4.2
• Operate pumps that circulate water, oil, or other fluids through wells to remove sand or other materials obstructing the free flow of oil. · importance 4.2
• Drive truck-mounted units to well sites. · importance 4.1
• Interpret instrument readings to ascertain the depth of obstruction. · importance 4.1
• Thread cables through derrick pulleys, using hand tools. · importance 4.0
• Select fishing methods or tools for removing obstacles such as liners, broken casing, screens, or drill pipe. · importance 3.9
• Apply green technologies or techniques, such as the use of coiled tubing, slim-hole drilling, horizontal drilling, hydraulic fracturing, or gas lift systems. · importance 3.8
• Operate specialized equipment to remove obstructions by backing off or severing pipes by chemical or explosive action. · importance 3.8
• Close and seal wells no longer in use. · importance 3.8

See all tasks on the Service Unit Operators, Oil and Gas page.

Sources for this page

Every figure above traces to a named public dataset and the exact release below — not hand-written opinion. See the full methodology for what each measure does and does not mean.

• O*NET 30.3 U.S. Department of Labor / National Center for O*NET Development
• “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130 OpenAI / academic

Data compiled June 2, 2026. Figures are estimates, not advice.

@misc{singulariki-task-7081,
  title  = {Direct drilling crews performing activities such as assembling and connecting pipe, applying weights to drill pipes, or drilling around lodged obstacles.},
  author = {{Singulariki}},
  year   = {2026},
  note   = {O*NET 30.3; “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130. Accessed June 7, 2026},
  url    = {https://singulariki.com/tasks/task-7081}
}