Shear Rams vs Blind Rams: What's the Difference?

If you are safety personnel at a drilling site, it’s imperative to understand the difference between shear rams vs. blind rams. The ram BOPs use pairs of opposing steel plungers to prevent potential blowouts in a wellbore. They provide the ability to shear off tubular in the wellbores and seal the wells. However, the two ram BOPs operate differently.

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How do BOP shear rams vs. blind rams operate? Blind rams can close a wellbore even when the well doesn’t have a drill string or any other tubing. On the other hand, shear rams have steel blades to cut through the drill pipe and seal off the well. Now, let’s delve a bit deeper into how the two ram BOPs work.

Shear Rams

The BOP Products Shearing Blind Rams (SBRs) can shear a pipe in the drill hole and bend the cut pipe’s lower section to allow the rams to close and seal. If you’re looking for a shear ram with improved shearing capacities, consider the Interlocking Shear Ram (ISR). It is an excellent alternative to the standard SBR ram. You should only use them when the standard rams cannot handle the desired shearing load. 

Blind Rams

The primary function of the blind ram BOPs is to cut off the openings for tubing or drill strings when there’s no production going on in the well. The Dual Shearing Blind Ram (DS) is a special type of ram BOP. It can cut through multiple tubing strings or tubular with larger diameters regardless of their orientation to the ram’s centerline. The DS by BOP Products can also serve as blind rams during normal drilling operations.

Blowout Prevention Equipment

Blind rams and shear rams act as gate valves to regulate oil flow through the drill pipe. They can also seal the wells when the need arises. The good news is that the SBRs can cut pipe several times without their cutting edge getting damaged. Other equipment that can prevent blowouts are the Annular BOPs.

Pro Tip: An annular blowout preventer can close the opening (annular space) around a drill string to prevent fluids from flowing up unplanned. The annular BOPs can seal a wide range of drill pipes with different diameters.

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Using Shear Rams & Blind Rams in the Oilfield 

Now that you understand the difference between shear rams vs. blind rams, you can quickly choose an option that can fulfill your oilfield needs. Other BOP ram types that can also enhance workers’ safety at the drilling site are the variable bore rams and pipe rams. They are available for use in BOP Products Series 700 (U) BOPs.

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Look up terms beginning with:

A blowout preventer ( BOP ) closing element fitted with hardened tool steel blades designed to cut the drillpipe or tubing when the BOP is closed, and then fully close to provide isolation or sealing of the wellbore. A shear ram is normally used as a last resort to regain pressure control of a well that is flowing. Once the pipe is cut (or sheared) by the shear rams, it is usually left hanging in the BOP stack, and kill operations become more difficult. The joint of drillpipe or tubing is destroyed in the process, but the rest of the string is unharmed by the operation of shear rams.

1. n. [Well Workover and Intervention, Drilling]

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