Every rig runs on the daily drilling report, and most of them still run on the IADC (International Association of Drilling Contractors) format. It's the document that reconciles what happened on the rig floor with what shows up on the invoice. Get it right and billing is clean. Get it wrong and you're on a call three weeks later arguing about a four-hour block of NPT nobody wrote down.

This is what a complete IADC daily drilling report template actually needs — section by section — and where crews lose money when they cut corners.

The Header Block

Boring, and the part people fat-finger most. Every downstream number keys off it:

  • Operator, contractor, and rig number — exactly as they appear on the drilling contract, not a nickname.
  • Well name / API number — one wrong digit and the report doesn't match the operator's AFE.
  • Report number and date — sequential, one per 24-hour period, no gaps.
  • Depth at report time — MD and TVD, spud date, and days on well.

The Time Breakdown

This is the heart of the report and the part that pays you. Every hour of the 24 has to be coded to an operation — drilling, tripping, circulating, cementing, BOP work, waiting on orders, repair. Two rules keep you out of a dispute:

  • The hours have to sum to 24.00. If they don't, the operator's cost engineer will notice before you do.
  • NPT (non-productive time) gets coded honestly and specifically. "Repair — 4.0 hrs" invites a chargeback. "Repair — top drive VFD fault, 4.0 hrs, parts en route" is a fact that holds up.

The single biggest source of invoice disputes isn't the rate — it's a time breakdown that doesn't tie to the operator's own morning report. Match their coding and their day boundary, every day.

The Technical Sections

Bit record

Bit number, size, make/type, jets, depth in/out, footage, hours, and dull grade (IADC dull code). This follows the bit for its whole life and feeds the next well's bit program.

Mud / fluids

Weight, viscosity, and the properties your mud program calls for, plus volumes. If you're on a closed-loop or have losses, note them here — it's the paper trail if the mud bill gets questioned.

BHA and drill string

What's in the hole: bit, motor/RSS, subs, collars, and the running tally. When a fish or a twist-off happens, this section is the first thing everybody reads.

Remarks

The narrative. Written in plain language, in sequence, so a company man who wasn't on tour can reconstruct the day. This is also where safety events, near-misses, and delays get their first written record.

Where Crews Lose Money

  • Copying numbers at midnight. Transcribing a tallybook into a form when you're smoked is how depths and hours get transposed.
  • Inconsistent NPT codes. If the same fault gets three different codes across a hitch, the trend disappears and so does your argument at invoice time.
  • Reports that don't match the operator's day boundary. Midnight-to-midnight vs 6-to-6 — pick the contract's and never drift.

Template vs. Automating It

A blank template is better than nothing, but you still type every field. The faster path is to photograph the tallybook page you already fill out by hand and let a tool format the IADC report for you — same numbers, no transcription, done before you leave the doghouse.

Common Questions

Is there a free IADC daily drilling report template?
Yes — plenty of blank IADC-format spreadsheets float around. The catch is you still hand-enter every field. OpsDoc will build your first formatted report free from a tallybook photo so you can compare the two.
Who fills out the IADC daily drilling report?
Usually the driller or the company man on tour, reconciled against the tourpusher’s and mud logger’s numbers. On many rigs the toolpusher signs off before it goes to the operator.
What is the IADC dull grading code?
A standardized eight-position code describing how a bit came out of the hole (inner/outer cutting structure wear, dull characteristic, location, bearing, gauge, reason pulled). It lives in the bit-record section and drives the next bit selection.
How do I fill out an IADC report faster?
Stop transcribing. Photograph the tallybook page you already wrote, and generate the formatted IADC daily drilling report from it — the numbers carry straight through, so there’s nothing to re-key.