Department of Pet. Eng.

, HU
Introduction
To Petroleum Eng. 2

Lecture 2

History of Drilling

Dr. Mazen Ahmed Muherei

Semester II 2013-2014
Drilling

 Part 1
 History of Drilling
▪ Drakes Well
▪ Cable Tool Drilling
▪ Rotary Drilling
 Drilling Today
 Drilling Contracts
History of Drilling
 1857: James M. Townsend was a New Haven banker
and the president of Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company
 Company leased oil rights to an island that lay in Oil
Creek – a mile south of Titusville, PA.
 Oil Creek – Oil seep that produced very small
amounts of oil.
 At this time oil was called “Rock Oil”
 Rock Oil was becoming more valuable as a lubricant
and illuminant due to massive shortages in whale oil.
History of Drilling

 Townsend proposed that the company drill

for oil as others had drilled for brine (salt
water)
 Townsend went looking for someone to
supervise a drilling operation in Titusville
 He found: Edwin L. Drake an unemployed
railroad conducter
Drake’s Well

 Carried on for two years:

 Could not find a driller, Brine drilling companies did
not want to give up there rigs for exploratory work
 When they started, the cellar (hand dug top soil
portion of the well) kept caving in due to ground water
filling it up before the driller could reach bedrock.
 Drake solved the problem by having his drilling
team (a Blacksmith named Billy Smith and his
son) hammer steel pipe into the ground (Casing)
until they hit bedrock.
Drake’s Well
Drake really started drilling by April
1859, by August 1859 Townsend called
it quits having sent a letter by
stagecoach to Drake instructing him to
abandon the well.

One afternoon before the letter had

arrived Billy Smith went to check on
the wells progress and found oil in the
well bore. It was 69 feet deep.
Cable-Tool Drilling

Used from the 1860’s to the

1920’s regularly

Portable cable-tool rigs became

popular up till 1950.

After this rotary drilling replaced

most of it.
Portable Cable-Tool Rig

http://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=YZMKLYOu7jI&f
eature=related
Rotary Drilling History
 Developed originally in France in the 1860’s

 It did not catch on at first because drilling companies believed petroleum

only lay in hard formations where cable-tool drilling was the norm.

 In the 1880’s two brothers named Baker gained a reputation for drilling
successful water wells in the soft formations of the Great Plains in the
United States.

 The rig they used was a rotary unit with a fluid circulating system.

 This system proved equally successful in the soft unconsolidated rocks of

Texas in the Corsicana oilfield (which was discovered while drilling for
water)
Rotary Drilling History

 Spindletop:
 In 1900 several unsuccessful attempts to drill the great
Lucas well at Spindletop (near Beaumont, TX) provided
the proving ground for rotary drilling.
 Anthony Lucas an Austrian-born Mining Engineer
believed there was oil under the dome of Spindletop. He
set out to use rotary drilling to find it.
 Historians estimate that between 80,000 and 100,000
barrels of oil per day gushed from the well in the first
nine days. (1 barrel = 42 gallons) 336,000-420,000
gal/day.
Spindletop
Spindletop

Boiler Avenue in
Spindletop, TX

By 1903 over 400

wells had been
drilled

Population rose in
Beaumont from
10,000 to 50,000
Rotary Drilling

The action of rotating the drill

bit with the application of
pumping fluid (Mud) through
the drill string, drill bit, and
annular to remove cuttings.
Drilling Today
Drilling Contracts

 Operator: Oil Company

 Drilling Contractor: Company hired to drill

the well

 Company Representative: Operating

company person on the rig/site at all times to
supervise and monitor operations
Drilling Contractor
 The Drilling Contractor:
 Tool Pusher: Contractors top manager on the drill site. Responsible for the rigs
overall operation and adherence to the operators specifications.
 Driller: is subordinate to only the tool pusher and is the one person who actually
operates the rig. Also manages the day to day activities of the derrickhand and
floormen.
 Derrickhand: two jobs- Monitors and records the condition of the drilling mud,
when the drill pipe is being removed from or put into the hole they handle the
top of the pipe from a small platform high in the derrick or mast of the rig.
 Floormen: handle the bottom of the pipe on the rig floor when pipe is being
removed from or put into the hole. Other times they repair and maintain
equipment on the rig.
 Roustabouts: (Offshore) assist in the loading and unloading of equipment and
supplies that a boat brings to the rig. Also responsible for cleaning, painting and
repairing the rig.
Drilling Contracts

 Bid Proposals and Specifications

 Agreement between the operator and the drilling
company that begins the process of drilling a well.
 Specifications: one of the most important parts
of the contract:
▪ Diameter and depth of each part of the hole
▪ The drilling muds to be used
▪ The equipment and services each party will furnish
Drilling Contracts
 Four types:
 Footage Contract: Operator pays the drilling company a certain
amount for each foot drilled.
▪ Riskier for the contractor due to any unforeseen down time the rig may have.
 Daywork: Operator pays a daily rate for use of the rig regardless of
what work the rig is performing.
▪ Rates are typically adjusted for the type of work being performed
 Turnkey: Operator agrees to pay contractor a set amount upon
completion of the well. Drilling contractor assumes all risk and
responsibility of the well site and has no operator supervision onsite.
▪ Typically awarded to companies the operator has worked with closely over time.
 Combination Agreements: A combination of Daywork and Footage
contracts that stipulate when each type is used for certain operations.