*Refers to the latest 2 years of stltoday.com stories. Cancel anytime. The robot on an oil drillship in the Gulf of Mexico made it easier for Mark Rodgers to do his job stringing together heavy, dirty ...

Iron roughnecks are mechanized tong systems that make up (tighten) and break out (loosen) drillstring and tubular connections on rigs, replacing manual tongs and spinning chains to improve safety, ...

Picture an oilfield. Chances are you see a greasy drilling rig surrounded by a group of equally greased-up and grizzled oilmen, moving heavy equipment in a dangerous and labor-intensive environment.

If you're searching for the stereotypical picture of the oil-field roughneck, the crewmen from Nabors Drilling Rig 314 might disappoint you. Sure they get wet, oily and exhausted after a 12-hour shift ...

There's no denying just what a time commitment working on an oil rig can be, nor how isolated one might feel while doing so. The latter in particular comes with the territory at times: The Perdido oil ...