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Well drilling is the process of drilling a hole in the ground for the extraction of a
natural resource Natural resources are resources that are drawn from nature and used with few modifications. This includes the sources of valued characteristics such as commercial and industrial use, aesthetic value, scientific interest and cultural value. ...
such as ground water, brine,
natural gas Natural gas (also called fossil gas or simply gas) is a naturally occurring mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons consisting primarily of methane in addition to various smaller amounts of other higher alkanes. Low levels of trace gases like carbon d ...
, or
petroleum Petroleum, also known as crude oil, or simply oil, is a naturally occurring yellowish-black liquid mixture of mainly hydrocarbons, and is found in geological formations. The name ''petroleum'' covers both naturally occurring unprocessed crud ...
, for the injection of a fluid from surface to a subsurface
reservoir A reservoir (; from French ''réservoir'' ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam. Such a dam may be either artificial, built to store fresh water or it may be a natural formation. Reservoirs can be created in a number of ways, including contr ...
or for subsurface formations evaluation or monitoring. Drilling for the
exploration Exploration refers to the historical practice of discovering remote lands. It is studied by geographers and historians. Two major eras of exploration occurred in human history: one of convergence, and one of divergence. The first, covering most ...
of the nature of the material underground (for instance in search of metallic ore) is best described as '' borehole'' drilling. The earliest wells were water wells, shallow pits dug by hand in regions where the
water table The water table is the upper surface of the zone of saturation. The zone of saturation is where the pores and fractures of the ground are saturated with water. It can also be simply explained as the depth below which the ground is saturated. T ...
approached the surface, usually with
masonry Masonry is the building of structures from individual units, which are often laid in and bound together by mortar; the term ''masonry'' can also refer to the units themselves. The common materials of masonry construction are bricks, building ...
or wooden walls lining the interior to prevent collapse. Modern drilling techniques utilize long drill shafts, producing holes much narrower and deeper than could be produced by digging. Well drilling can be done either manually or mechanically and the nature of required equipment varies from extremely simple and cheap to very sophisticated. Managed Pressure Drilling (MPD) is defined by the International Association of Drilling Contractors (IADC) as “an adaptive
drilling Drilling is a cutting process where a drill bit is spun to cut a hole of circular cross-section in solid materials. The drill bit is usually a rotary cutting tool, often multi-point. The bit is pressed against the work-piece and rotated at ...
process used to more precisely control the annular pressure profile throughout the wellbore." The objectives of MPD are “to ascertain the downhole pressure environment limits and to manage the annular hydraulic pressure profile accordingly."


History

The earliest record of well drilling dates from 347 AD in China. Petroleum was used in ancient China for "lighting, as a lubricant for cart axles and the bearings of water-powered drop hammers, as a source of carbon for inksticks, and as a medical remedy for sores on humans and
mange Mange is a type of skin disease caused by parasitic mites. Because various species of mites also infect plants, birds and reptiles, the term "mange", or colloquially "the mange", suggesting poor condition of the skin and fur due to the infectio ...
in animals." In ancient China, deep well drilling machines were in the forefront of brine well production by the 1st century BC. The ancient Chinese developed advanced sinking wells and were the first civilization to use a well-drilling machine and to use bamboo well casings to keep the holes open. In the modern era, the first roller cone
patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A ...
was for the rotary rock bit and was issued to American businessman and inventor Howard Hughes Sr. in 1909. It consisted of two interlocking cones. American businessman Walter Benona Sharp worked very closely with Hughes in developing the rock bit. The success of this bit led to the founding of the Sharp-Hughes Tool Company. In 1933 two Hughes engineers, one of whom was Ralph Neuhaus, invented the tricone bit, which has three cones. The Hughes patent for the tricone bit lasted until 1951, after which other companies made similar bits. However, Hughes still held 40% of the world's drill bit market in 2000. The superior wear performance of polycrystalline diamond compact (PDC) bits gradually eroded the dominance of roller cone bits and early in this century PDC drill bit revenues overtook those of roller cone bits. The technology of both bit types has advanced significantly to provide improved durability and rate of penetration of the rock. This has been driven by the economics of the industry, and by the change from the empirical approach of Hughes in the 1930s, to modern day domain Finite Element codes for both the hydraulic and cutter placement software.


Drill bits in mechanical drilling

The factors affecting drill bit selection include the type of geology and the capabilities of the rig. Due to the high number of wells that have been drilled, information from an adjacent well is most often used to make the appropriate selection. Two different types of drill bits exist: fixed cutter and roller cone. A fixed cutter bit is one where there are no moving parts, but drilling occurs due to shearing, scraping or abrasion of the rock. Fixed cutter bits can be either polycrystalline diamond compact (PDC) or grit hot-pressed inserts (GHI) or natural diamond. Roller cone bits can be either tungsten carbide inserts (TCI) for harder formations or milled tooth (MT) for softer rock. The manufacturing process and composites used in each type of drill bit make them ideal for specific drilling situations. Additional enhancements can be made to any bit to increase the effectiveness for almost any drilling situation. A major factor in drill bit selection is the type of formation to be drilled. The effectiveness of a drill bit varies by formation type. There are three types of formations: soft, medium and hard. A soft formation includes unconsolidated
sand Sand is a granular material composed of finely divided mineral particles. Sand has various compositions but is defined by its grain size. Sand grains are smaller than gravel and coarser than silt. Sand can also refer to a textural class ...
s,
clay Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4). Clays develop plasticity when wet, due to a molecular film of water surrounding the clay pa ...
s, soft
limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms w ...
s, red beds and shale. Medium formations include
dolomite Dolomite may refer to: *Dolomite (mineral), a carbonate mineral *Dolomite (rock), also known as dolostone, a sedimentary carbonate rock *Dolomite, Alabama, United States, an unincorporated community *Dolomite, California, United States, an unincor ...
s, limestones, and hard shale. Hard formations include hard shale, calcites, mudstones, cherty lime stones and hard and abrasive formations. Until 2006, market share was divided primarily among Hughes Christensen, Security-DBS (now Halliburton Drill Bits and Services), Smith Bits (a subsidiary of Schlumberger), and ReedHycalog (acquired by National Oilwell Varco in 2008). By 2014, Ulterra (then a subsidiary of ESCO Corp.) and Varel International (now a subsidiary of Swedish engineering group Sandvik) had together gained nearly 30% of the U.S. bit market and eroded the historical dominance of the Smith, Halliburton, and Baker Hughes. By 2018, Schlumberger, which acquired Smith in 2010, became dominant in international markets thanks to packaging drill bits with their other tools and services, while Ulterra (now owned by private equity firms Blackstone Energy Partners and American Securities) continued a Stark growth trend, becoming the market share leader in drill bits in the US according to Spears Research and Kimberlite Research.https://www.kimberliteresearch.com/ Image:Drill bit tricone worn.jpg, Tricone bit for well drilling (medium worn-out) Image:Hughesbit.gif , PDC bit for well drilling Image:Drill bits-italy.JPG , Multiple Tricone Bits Image:Drill bit 2-italy.JPG , Tricone Bit Image:Drill bit 3-italy.JPG , Drill Bit Image:Damaged drill bit-italy.JPG , Damaged Drill Bit, pieces missing on the left hand cone Image:Mudlogging.JPG, Mud log in process, a common way to study the lithology when drilling oil wells Evaluation of the dull bit grading is done by a uniform system promoted by the International Association of Drilling Contractors (IADC). See Society of Petroleum Engineers / IADC Papers SPE 23938 & 23940. See als
PDC Bits


See also

*
Blowout (well drilling) A blowout is the uncontrolled release of crude oil and/or natural gas from an oil well or gas well after pressure control systems have failed.'All About Blowout', R. Westergaard, Norwegian Oil Review, 1987 Modern wells have blowout preventers ...
* Borehole * Deep well drilling * Driller (oil) *
Drilling mud In geotechnical engineering, drilling fluid, also called drilling mud, is used to aid the drilling of boreholes into the earth. Often used while drilling oil and natural gas wells and on exploration drilling rigs, drilling fluids are als ...
* Drilling rig * Slickline *
Underbalanced drilling Underbalanced drilling, or UBD, is a procedure used to drill oil and gas wells where the pressure in the wellbore is kept lower than the static pressure of the formation being drilled. As the well is being drilled, formation fluid flows into the w ...
*
Water well A well is an excavation or structure created in the ground by digging, driving, or drilling to access liquid resources, usually water. The oldest and most common kind of well is a water well, to access groundwater in underground aquifers. T ...
; Manual well drilling methods: * Baptist well drilling * Sludging


References


Bibliography

*


External links


Drilling Equipment
* ''Drilling a Well by Automobile'',
Popular Science ''Popular Science'' (also known as ''PopSci'') is an American digital magazine carrying popular science content, which refers to articles for the general reader on science and technology subjects. ''Popular Science'' has won over 58 awards, incl ...
monthly, February 1919, Page 115-116, Scanned by Google Books: https://books.google.com/books?id=7igDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PT33
Schlumberger Oilfield Glossary
* Oil and gas well drilling, US Department of Labo


Water Well Drilling Ireland

"Mechanical Mole Bores Crooked Wells."
''Popular Science'', June 1942, pp. 94–95
Engineering a new approach to fixed cutter bits
{{Authority control American inventions Chinese inventions Drilling technology
Drilling Drilling is a cutting process where a drill bit is spun to cut a hole of circular cross-section in solid materials. The drill bit is usually a rotary cutting tool, often multi-point. The bit is pressed against the work-piece and rotated at ...