Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
mostly in China, now the world's leading producer, with
Japan, the United States, and India each using less than
10 Mt/year (WCI 2005).
The first major technical advance in oil and gas extrac-
tion was the replacement of percussion (cable-tool) rigs.
The first rotary rig drilled the Corsicana field in Texas in
1895, but the technique began to spread only after WW
I (Brantly 1971). Its main components are a heavy rotat-
ing circular table, drill pipes inserted in its middle, and a
bottom hole assembly at the drill string's end (Devereux
1999). Tables were originally driven through gearings by
steam engines, later by diesels or diesel-powered electric
motors. As the drilling progresses, sections of threaded
drill pipes (9 m long) are added, but as a drilling bit
wears out, the pipes have to be withdrawn from the well,
stacked, and reattached after a new bit is mounted (the
process called tripping). The weight of the drill string is
increased by heavy drill collars placed just above the bit.
Drilling mud (water-, oil-, or synthetics-based fluid)
is pumped at high pressure down the drill string and
through the bit to cool it, to remove cuttings, and to
exert pressure on the well sides to prevent the hole from
caving in (Van Dyke 2000). Casing is installed and
cemented in place to stabilize the well. Rotary drilling
was much improved by replacing fishtail and circular-
toothed drills (only good for penetrating soft formations)
by a new bit invented by Howard R. Hughes in Texas in
1907. His design speeded up the drilling tenfold, and his
company's engineers subsequently introduced a number
of improvements, including a three-cone bit in 1934
that provided much better support on the well bottom,
reduced vibration, and resulted in faster yet smoother
drilling. Other innovations included the first diamond
drill in 1919 (modern bits are covered with a layer of
fine-grained synthetic diamonds), heavy drill collars to
add weight and rigidity, and various well control devices
to cope with high pressures in the well and to prevent
catastrophic blowouts.
Efficient cementing of wells and automatic well log-
ging spread after WW I. Erle P. Halliburton patented
his cement jet mixer in 1922 (Allaud and Martin 1976;
Haley 1959). In 1912, Conrad Schlumberger proposed
the use of electrical measurements to map subsurface
rock bodies, and in 1927 his son-in-law, Henri Doll, pro-
duced the first electrical resistivity well log in the Pechel-
bronn field in France. In 1931 the company introduced
electrical well logging, the simultaneous recording of
resistivity and spontaneous potential produced between
the drilling mud and formation water present in perme-
able beds. A multivalve stack to control well flow was
introduced in 1922, and by the 1990s the best control-
flow devices could hold pressures up to 103 MPa. Myron
Kinley and Red Adair pioneered the risky controls of well
blowouts and fires (Singerman 1991).
Faster operation and increased drilling depths—less
than 2000 m before WW I, 4500 m by the late 1930s,
and 6000 m a decade later—led to a spate of new discov-
eries. In the United States 64 giant oil fields were dis-
covered between 1900 and 1924, and 147 were added
during the subsequent 25 years (Brantly 1971). The larg-
est pre-1950 finds included supergiant Kirk¯k in Iraq
(1927), Abqaiq (1940) and al-Ghaw¯r (1948) in Saudi
Arabia, al-Burk¯n in Kuwait (1938) and oil fields in Ven-
ezuela. During the 1950s the addition of Saf¯n¯ya-Khafj¯
in Saudi Arabia (1951), Rumaila in Iraq (1953), and
Ahv
¯
z in Iran (1958) turned the Middle East into the
world's largest oil province (Nehring 1978). By the
1970s production from wells deeper than 5000 m be-
came common in some hydrocarbon basins, particularly
in Oklahoma's Anadarko Basin.
