A drive apparatus for a drill stem, in particular for de-coking systems, has a feeder (4) connected to a water supply (8) via a first interface (6) and connected to a drill stem (12) via a second interface (10), as well as a drive (14) and a gearbox (16) for rotatably driving said feeder (4) and said drill stem (6), characterized in that said feeder (4) has a first section (20) connected to the water supply (8) and a second section (40) connected to the drill stern (12) and the first (20) and second (40) sections are releasably connected to each other.