Mousehole

Drilling Equipment & Components

The mousehole is a hole in the rig floor, lined with pipe, used to store a joint of drill pipe or kelly ready for connection. It speeds up the connection process by allowing the next piece of pipe to be prepped while drilling continues.

On modern top drive rigs, the mousehole is less utilized for single joints in the same way, but 'stand-building' mouseholes are used to make up triples (stands) of pipe offline while the rig is drilling, significantly improving operational efficiency.