A Drilling Rig ! Here are a few different types of drilling rigs available: Jackup Rig Land Rig
For drilling in water depths from 15 ft to +/- 350 ft.
For drilling on land.
Inland Barge
Drill Ship
Semi-Submersible Rig For drilling in water depths from 8 to 30 ft.
Drill ships and semi-submersible rigs are for drilling in water depths from 100 to 5000+ 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? That’s as deep as Mt. Everest is tall!
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. The hoisting equipment consists of:
derrick
a crown block, a traveling block, drilling line, and a drawworks to pull the drilling line up or down.
This shows a 30 foot section of drill pipe being added to the drill pipe already in the hole.
substructure Drill string Drill bit
spare drill pipe
Here’s 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.
The Drilling Mud Cycle 1) Clean drilling mud is taken from the steel mud tanks and pumped down the inside of the drill pipe.
4) the mixture is circulated across screens at surface
screens
6) Clean mud falls through the screens and is returned to the pits
3) the mixture of drilling mud and drill cuttings are circulated up the annulus
mud pump
5) the drill cuttings are removed, and form a cuttings pile. This can be hauled off and disposed of.
2) the mud is circulated through the drill bit into the annulus, lifting the cuttings removed by the drill bit.
Here’s 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’
0’
Next, a smaller bit is run inside the first casing.
Then, this new hole is also cased off and cemented.
This bit drills out the bottom of the casing, and drills new hole. 200’
500’
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.
How do Geologists tell if the reservoir has oil or gas? 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.
Here’s 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 there’s no oil). Gamma Radiation
Electrical Resistivity
Sand
Porosity
good porosity
Shale
200’
Siltstone poor resistivity, probably water
Shale Siltstone Dolomite
poor porosity
500’
Shale
Looks like good sand quality
good resistivity, may have oil or gas
3000’
poor resistivity, probably water
good porosity
poor porosity good porosity
Can you tell where the geologist would complete this well? Gamma Radiation
Electrical Resistivity
Porosity
good porosity
200’ poor resistivity, probably water
poor porosity
good porosity
500’
poor porosity good porosity good resistivity, may have oil or gas
Looks like good sand quality
with good porosity and resistivity. poor porosity
poor resistivity, probably water
3000’
}Right here! This shows a clean sand,
good 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
Produced Gas
gas, oil, and water into their separate phases.
Oil Production Separator
Produced Water
From there, the oil and gas may be refined further before being ready to market.
Produced Gas
Storage Tanks
Oil
Oil Refinery
Production Separator Produced Water
