Drilling of wells is accompanied by expenditure of a certain amount of energy, which is spent to overcome friction in the ground “equipment, to rotate the drill string, the destruction of rock at the bottom hole and the friction of the drill tip on the rock.The article analyzes the power formulas and gives the results of experimental studies of two components of power: 1) on the destruction of rock and friction of the drill tip; 2) on the rotation of the drill string.

When selecting the engine power for the machine drive, the determining factors are the power consumption for drilling process and production of downhole operations. The latter are of great importance when working at great depths, where the rock strength increases significantly and the time of the drill bit stay at the bottomhole decreases. Below we propose a method of determining the required engine power for downhole operations.

Core drilling has found wide application in geological exploration and mining industry. The park of core drilling machines is replenished with new brands. There are units for drilling in the most different geological conditions and the most different depths of wells (from 50—100 to 1000—1500 m and higher). However, despite the large volume of drilling operations and their long application, very little attention has been paid to the issues of drilling rigs drive. The proposed paper addresses part of the general issue of power required to drive the well drilling process.