In thin-layered reservoirs, drilling engineers face tough challenges—planning their drilling programs to follow the most productive reservoir layers while avoiding nearby water, gas or high-pressure zones. The rewards for a successful drilling strategy are clear—increased oil production and reduced water cut. In an oil field in the Persian Gulf, for example, oil production was increased four- t...

(1) A few shipping accidents have caused spectacular local threats to the environment. (2) Leaks in offshore oil well drilling operations have received widespread news coverage. (3) A rising demand for petroleum products throughout the world complicated by political considerations has produced a corresponding expansion in tanker shipping operations and in offshore oil operations, both of which ...

Public concerns over potential environmental contamination associated with oil and gas well drilling and fracturing in the Wattenberg field in northeast Colorado are increasing. One of the issues of concern is the migration of oil, gas, or produced water to a groundwater aquifer resulting in contamination of drinking water. Since methane is the major component of natural gas and it can be disso...

O n 20 April 2010, the BP-owned, Transoceanoperated Deepwater Horizon oil-drilling rig exploded, killing 11 workers and injuring 17, and sending massive quantities of crude oil riddled with lethal toxins from the sea floor into the Gulf of Mexico. Geophysicists, Earth-space scientists, and policymakers continue to debate the cause of the explosion, how much oil has been released, how best to co...

Filtration index of the drilling fluid is an important parameter of well drilling, especially at drilling-in the reservoirs. Standard parameter in the study of drilling fluids is static filtration index. At the same time, it is more feasible to determine dynamic filtration index, if considering actual conditions of the well. Use of polymer carbonate-weighted drilling fluids is advisable at dril...

Exploratory data mining is fundamental to fostering an appreciation of complex datasets. For large and continuously growing datasets, such as obtained by regular sampling of an organisation’s communications, the exploratory phase may never finish. This paper describes a methodology for exploratory data mining within an organisational communications dataset. A model of support for knowledge disc...

The drilling time data of gas logging are used to calculate drilling time ratio of the reservoir, and the total hydrocarbon data are used to calculate hydrocarbon contrast coefficient and to establish the drilling time ratio--hydrocarbon contrast coefficient crossplot. The standards of distinguishing the boundaries of hydrocarbon zones, hydrocarbonaceous water layers and dry layers are determin...

Much has been written by economists about the sources of the productivity slowdown; and self-serving policy recommendations by interest groups abound. Strangely, the two are seldom connected. It is as if, upon seeing a neighbor jog his rounds more slowly than usual, we give him our expert advice without finding out why. But, surely, our advice to our neighbor must depend on the source of his la...

The accurate prediction of wellbore temperature distribution helps to accurately estimate well pressure profile and bottom-hole pressure (BHP) which is important in the under-balanced drilling (UBD) operation. In this paper effect of temperature variation due to heat transfer of drilling fluid with the formation and also oil and gas production from the reservoir into the annulus in under-balanc...