Drilling Process Basics

A Drilling Rig !
Here are a few different types of drilling rigs available:

Land Rig
For drilling on land.
Drill Ship
Drill ships and semi-submersible rigs are for drilling in
water depths from 100 to 5000+ ft.
Semi-Submersible Rig
Jackup Rig
For drilling in water
depths from 15 ft
to +/- 350 ft.
Inland Barge
For drilling in water depths
from 8 to 30 ft.
A Drilling Rig is:

A package of special equipment put together to enable us to
drill into the earth.

A drilling rig has many different parts:
a derrick, a substructure, hoisting equipment, engines for
power, drill pipe, steel tanks, pumps, solids control
equipment, and many other pieces.

Did you know that some drilling rigs can drill as deep as 6
miles? Thats as deep as Mt. Everest is tall!
Drill string
Drill bit

The hoisting equipment
consists of:

a crown block,
a traveling block,
drilling line,
and a drawworks to
pull the drilling line up
or down.
substructure
derrick
This picture shows the hoisting equipment on a rig.
This equipment is used to raise or lower the drillstring, which is
picked up in 30 foot long segments, or joints, of drill pipe.
spare drill pipe
This shows a 30 foot section
of drill pipe being added to
the drill pipe already in the
hole.
Heres a picture of the drill bit drilling the rock.
The drill string is turned at
surface, which turns the bit
at the bottom of the hole.

The teeth on the drill bit
grind the rock into
fragments, or cuttings.
Drilling mud is
pumped down the inside
of the drill pipe, through
jet nozzles in the bit,
and into the annulus.
This is the space
between the sides of the
hole and the drill pipe.

The mud lifts the
cuttings and circulates
them back to surface
where they are removed.
3) the mixture of drilling mud and
drill cuttings are circulated up the
annulus
screens
5) the drill cuttings are removed, and
form a cuttings pile. This can be
hauled off and disposed of.

4) the mixture is
circulated across
screens at surface
1) Clean drilling mud is taken from the steel
mud tanks and pumped down the inside of the
drill pipe.
2) the mud is circulated through the drill bit into the
annulus, lifting the cuttings removed by the drill bit.
6) Clean mud falls
through the screens
and is returned to the
pits
The Drilling Mud Cycle
mud pump
Heres a sequence showing how holes are drilled,
First, a large drill bit is used to drill
a short interval of hole.
Then, steel casing is run and cemented on
the outside to keep the hole from
collapsing.
0
200
Next,
a smaller bit is
run inside the
first casing.

This bit drills
out the bottom
of the casing,
and drills new
hole.
200
0
500
Then, this new
hole is also
cased off and
cemented.
Again, a smaller
hole is drilled out,

and smaller
casing is run
to keep the
hole from
falling in.
In this way, the hole is drilled in stages, until the target reservoir rock is penetrated. At
this point, the geologists must figure out if there is oil or gas in it.
They do this by running logs across the zone. Logs are tools run on electric cable
(wireline) which record the physical properties in the rock such as resistivity, porosity,
density, radioactivity, and pore pressure.
How do Geologists tell if the reservoir has oil or gas?
Sand
Shale
Siltstone
Shale
Siltstone
Dolomite
Shale
Heres an example of what a log looks like. Geologists look at logs to decide
whether or not to complete a well (if there is oil), or abandon it (if theres no oil).
Gamma
Radiation
200

500

3000
Electrical
Resistivity
Porosity
Looks
like
good
sand
quality
good
resistivity,
may have
oil or gas
poor
resistivity,
probably
water
good
porosity
poor
porosity
good
porosity
poor
resistivity,
probably
water
poor
porosity
good
porosity
Can you tell where the geologist would complete this well?
Gamma
Radiation
200

500

3000
Electrical
Resistivity
Porosity
Looks
like
good
sand
quality
good
resistivity,
may have oil
or gas
poor
resistivity,
probably water
good porosity
poor
porosity
good porosity
poor
resistivity,
probably
water
poor porosity
good porosity
}Right here! This shows a clean sand,
with good porosity and resistivity.
good porosity
poor porosity
If the well looks good on the logs, we run a final string
of casing across the production zone, and cement it in place.

Then, we run perforating guns in the hole and perforate (shoot
holes ) in the casing across the productive zone.

Production tubing is run, with a packer to isolate the produced
zone from the casing above.
tubing
Packer
Finally, the well is produced into
a pipeline, which takes it to
production facilities on surface.
The production facilities on surface separate out the
gas, oil, and water into their separate phases.
Production Separator
Oil
Produced
Water
Produced Gas
Production Separator
Oil
Produced Water
Produced Gas
From there, the oil and gas may
be refined further before being
ready to market.
Oil Refinery
Storage Tanks

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A Drilling Rig !

Here are a few different types of drilling rigs available:

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