An oil platform is a large structure with facilities to extract and process petroleum and natural gas that lie in rock formations beneath the seabed. Many oil platforms will also have facilities to accommodate the workers, although it is also common to have a separate accommodation platform bridge linked to the production platform. Most commonly, oil platforms engage in activities on the continental shelf, though they can also be used in lakes, inshore waters, and inland seas. Depending on the circumstances, the platform may be fixed to the ocean floor, consist of an artificial island, or float. In some arrangements the main facility may have storage facilities for the processed oil. Remote subsea wells may also be connected to a platform by flow lines and by umbilical connections. These sub-sea facilities may include one or more subsea wells or manifold centres for multiple wells.
A block and tackle or only tackle is a system of two or more pulleys with a rope or cable threaded between them, usually used to lift heavy loads.
Baker Hughes Company, incorporated under Delaware General Corporation Law and headquartered in Houston, is one of the world's largest oil field services companies. The company provides products and services for oil well drilling, formation evaluation, completion, production, and reservoir consulting. It operates in over 120 countries, with research and manufacturing facilities in Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, India, Dubai, Saudi Arabia, Italy, Germany, Norway, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Missouri. From 2017 to 2020, the company was majority owned by General Electric (GE); however, GE no longer owns an economic stake in the company.
A derrick is a lifting device composed at minimum of one guyed mast, as in a gin pole, which may be articulated over a load by adjusting its guys. Most derricks have at least two components, either a guyed mast or self-supporting tower, and a boom hinged at its base to provide articulation, as in a stiffleg derrick. The most basic type of derrick is controlled by three or four lines connected to the top of the mast, which allow it both to move laterally and cant up and down. To lift a load, a separate line runs up and over the mast with a hook on its free end, as with a crane.
A drilling rig is an integrated system that drills wells, such as oil or water wells, or holes for piling and other construction purposes, into the earth's subsurface. Drilling rigs can be massive structures housing equipment used to drill water wells, oil wells, or natural gas extraction wells, or they can be small enough to be moved manually by one person and such are called augers. Drilling rigs can sample subsurface mineral deposits, test rock, soil and groundwater physical properties, and also can be used to install sub-surface fabrications, such as underground utilities, instrumentation, tunnels or wells. Drilling rigs can be mobile equipment mounted on trucks, tracks or trailers, or more permanent land or marine-based structures. The term "rig" therefore generally refers to the complex equipment that is used to penetrate the surface of the Earth's crust.
In petroleum and natural gas extraction, a Christmas tree, or tree, is an assembly of valves, casing spools, and fittings used to regulate the flow of pipes in an oil well, gas well, water injection well, water disposal well, gas injection well, condensate well, and other types of well.
A fly system, or theatrical rigging system, is a system of ropes, pulleys, counterweights and related devices within a theater that enables a stage crew to fly (hoist) quickly, quietly and safely components such as curtains, lights, scenery, stage effects and, sometimes, people. Systems are typically designed to fly components between clear view of the audience and out of view, into the large space, the fly loft, above the stage.
NOV Inc., formerly National Oilwell Varco, is an American multinational corporation based in Houston, Texas. It is a worldwide provider of equipment and components used in oil and gas drilling and production operations, oilfield services, and supply chain integration services to the upstream oil and gas industry. The company conducts operations in more than 500 locations across six continents, operating through three reporting segments: Rig Technologies, Wellbore Technologies, and Completion & Production Solutions.
Valaris Limited is an offshore drilling contractor headquartered in Houston, Texas, and incorporated in Bermuda. It is the largest offshore drilling and well drilling company in the world, and owns 52 rigs, including 36 offshore jackup rigs, 11 drillships, and 5 semi-submersible platform drilling rigs.
Mud logging is the creation of a detailed record of a borehole by examining the cuttings of rock brought to the surface by the circulating drilling medium. Mud logging is usually performed by a third-party mud logging company. This provides well owners and producers with information about the lithology and fluid content of the borehole while drilling. Historically it is the earliest type of well log. Under some circumstances compressed air is employed as a circulating fluid, rather than mud. Although most commonly used in petroleum exploration, mud logging is also sometimes used when drilling water wells and in other mineral exploration, where drilling fluid is the circulating medium used to lift cuttings out of the hole. In hydrocarbon exploration, hydrocarbon surface gas detectors record the level of natural gas brought up in the mud. A mobile laboratory is situated by the mud logging company near the drilling rig or on deck of an offshore drilling rig, or on a drill ship.
A marine riser tensioner is a device used on an offshore drilling vessel which provides a near constant upward force on the drilling riser independent of the movement of the floating drill vessel.
Offshore drilling is a mechanical process where a wellbore is drilled below the seabed. It is typically carried out in order to explore for and subsequently extract petroleum that lies in rock formations beneath the seabed. Most commonly, the term is used to describe drilling activities on the continental shelf, though the term can also be applied to drilling in lakes, inshore waters and inland seas.
Snubbing is a type of heavy well intervention performed on oil and gas wells. It involves running the BHA on a pipe string using a hydraulic workover rig. Unlike wireline or coiled tubing, the pipe is not spooled off a drum but made up and broken up while running in and pulling out, much like conventional drill pipe. Due to the large rigup, it is only used for the most demanding of operations when lighter intervention techniques do not offer the strength and durability. The first snubbing unit was primarily designed to work in well control situations to "snub" drill pipe and or casing into, or out of, a well bore when conventional well killing methods could not be used. Unlike conventional drilling and completions operations, snubbing can be performed with the well still under pressure. When done so, it is called hydraulic workover. It can also be performed without having to remove the Christmas tree from the wellhead.
Deepwater Horizon was an ultra-deepwater, dynamically positioned, semi-submersible offshore drilling rig owned by Transocean and operated by BP. On 20 April 2010, while drilling at the Macondo Prospect, a blowout caused an explosion on the rig that killed 11 crewmen and ignited a fireball visible from 40 miles (64 km) away. The fire was inextinguishable and, two days later, on 22 April, the Horizon sank, leaving the well gushing at the seabed and causing the largest marine oil spill in history.
A traveling block is the freely moving section of a block and tackle that contains a set of pulleys or sheaves through which the drill line is threaded or reeved and is opposite the crown block.
In a drilling rig, the drill line is a multi-thread, twisted wire rope that is threaded or reeved through in typically 6 to 12 parts between the traveling block and crown block to facilitate the lowering and lifting of the drill string into and out of the wellbore.
Krishna Godavari Basin is a peri-cratonic passive margin basin in India. It is spread across more than 50,000 square kilometres in the Krishna River and Godavari River basins in Andhra Pradesh. The site is known for the D-6 block where Reliance Industries discovered the biggest natural gas reserves in India in 2003.
A drawworks is the primary hoisting machinery component of a rotary drilling rig. Its main function is to provide a means of raising and lowering the traveling block. The wire-rope drill line winds on the drawworks drum and over the crown block to the traveling block, allowing the drill string to be moved up and down as the drum turns. The segment of drill line from the drawworks to the crown block is called the "fast line". The drill line then enters the first sheave of the crown block and makes typically 6 to 12 passes between the crown block and traveling block pulleys for mechanical advantage. The line then exits the last sheave on the crown block and is fastened to a derrick leg on the other side of the rig floor. This section of drill line is called the "dead line."
