The coring operations are aimed at cutting a cylinder of rock and bringing it to the surface. To achieve this, there needs to be a coring bit at the end of the drill string and a core barrel immediately behind the coring bit.

Depending on the circumstances, there may be a requirement for near bit stabilizers as well as outer core and inner core barrel stabilizers. The core will be cut to determine reservoir engineering properties of the formation rock, like porosity, permeability (water or gas), relative permeability as well as other relevant petro physical and rock mechanical parameters.