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Oil Drilling Equipment and Methodology

The drilling rig, tall and noisy, has become an iconic American image of industry. The main task that the drilling rig needs to perform is toefficiently drill a hole into the earth surface in order to reach gas andoil pockets. Small in diameter, the hole that these drilling rigs bore canrun as deep as several thousands of feet. The reason the hole needs topenetrate theground for such along distance is sothat it canultimately reachthe trappedpockets of oil andgas that areburied deep belowthe earth’ssurface. The mostnoticeable feature of the drilling rig is what we refer to as the “mast”or “derrick”. This is easily recognizable as the tall structure right abovethe hole being drilled. Some masts can reach heights as tall as 60meters or 200 feet. In order to drill a hole this far down the drill itself must be very durable and strong. For this reason the drill is very heavyand requires that the mast be of sufficient strength in order to supportthe weight of the different tools used in the drilling process.In order to drill several thousand feet below the Earth’s surface rigengineers need to incrementally add to the length of the drill. It isnecessary for the mast to be as tall as it is in order to accommodatethe extremely large segments of pipe that rig engineers need to jointogether to increase the length of the drill. The individual pieces of drill pipe are known as joints. At the end of all

the joined pipe segments of the drill is the bit. The bit is the drillingelement that is actually responsible for carving away the earth andessentially boring the hole. The amount of weight that is applied to thedrill bit during operation, is regulated by a hoist known as thedrawworks There are two main types of drilling methods that exist. One is knownas cable-tool and the other is rotary. The cable-tool method goes backseveral centuries, and yet was still used as a modern drilling techniqueas recently as the 1940’s. This method is well suited for drillingthrough hard-rock. Drake and Smith used this method of drilling at OilCreek as did many othersduring the same period.Although a very effectivegeneral drilling method itdoes not work well insandy or muddy conditions.Another problem is thatand crews are responsiblefor removing the soil androck the bit carves out. The cable-tool methodworks by attaching a largeheavy bit to a cable, andthen raising the bit slightlybefore letting it fall to theground. The cable and bitare attached to a seesawtype of mechanism thatallows the bit to be raisedand dropped repeatedly ina very short amount of time. Specific to a cable-tool rig is the seesawmechanism that isresponsible for raising andlowering the bit. It is referred to as the walking beam and it is mountedin the mast. By the peak of this style of drilling in the 1920’s, manycable-tool rigs had started to power their walking beams with a steam

powered engine. Thetall mast was used to liftthe bit out of the hole sothat it could be workedon directly. Whendropping the bit into theground several weightsatop the bit, namedsinker bars, would helpthe bit to penetrate therock. The bit for a cable-toolrig is more similar to ablade than the bit for arotary rig. A rotary drillbit has several adjacentrows of extremely sharpedges that work to grind out the rock with every revolution of the drill.In a rotary drill rig configuration, the drill consists of several joints of metal pipe that create one long conduit. In order to reach thefoundation the rig workersoccasionally need to add anotherpipe joint to extend the length of thedrill.Rotation for the drill is created byeither a rotary table, or by a topdrive mechanism. You can think of arotary table as a heavy, oversizedturntable. Top drives use electronicmotors to power the drill.Regardless of which rotation methodis employed, the system would notwork without the addition of fluidcirculation.While the drill is working awayboring a hole, a second system,

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Heartland Energy Development Corporation - Oil Drilling Equipment and Methodology

Covers the different equipment and drilling methodology used during the oil exploration process.

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Upload Date:	04/09/2009
Copyright:	Attribution Non-commercial
Tags:	heartland energy development corporation oil drilling equipment and methodology heartland energy development corporation oil drilling equipment and methodology (fewer)