Thomm Posted March 2, 2009 Share Posted March 2, 2009 I found this very interesting: ... The geometry of an oil well has two main components. The first is the wellbore drilled through the rock. The second component is a series of perforation tunnels that project perpendicular to the wellbore axis. These tunnels, which are formed by explosive shape charges, effectively increase the surface area of the wellbore for oil extraction. The perforation tunnels are typically arranged to fan out in a helical fashion around the wellbore, uniformly offset in both vertical spacing and azimuthal angle. Schematic: http://www.glossary.oilfield.slb.com/Display.cfm?Term=shaped%20charge Best regards, Thomm 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Emrys Posted March 2, 2009 Share Posted March 2, 2009 Hmm. This has become more sophisticated. Years ago I had heard of just dropping a charge down the hole to fracture the rock and increase the flow. Michael 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bigduke6 Posted March 3, 2009 Share Posted March 3, 2009 This is oil we're talking about, where there's money, there's technological sophistication. Another trick is pumping acid into the hole at the level where the oil is, a process called "cracking". Getting the right amount of cement to the right point, in the correct thickness, is an entire profession all by itself, oilmen can pick and choose cement thickness and density literally miles below the surface. But the really sophisticated technology is the echo-ranging they use to guess at which kind of rock is where under the ground, as I understand it the seismics and computer programming involved in oil prospecting are typically well ahead of whatever the current military anti-submarine technology is, both in sensitivity and cost. Another (to me) amazingly complicated part of the business is how they can use specialized bits and subtle disbalances on a spinning pipe a mile long or more change the direction of the well from vertical to horizontal, this is called directional drilling. You wouldn't get this kind of effort if it was reserves of salt water they were prospecting for, but the lesson here of course is oil tends to motivate people. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
costard Posted March 3, 2009 Share Posted March 3, 2009 Arguably it was the use of directional drilling that led to the first Gulf War - the Kuwaitis drilling over into Iraqi fields and pinching their oil. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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