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Directional drilling is the practice of drilling non-vertical wells. It can be broken down into four main groups: oilfield directional drilling, utility installation directional drilling, directional boring, and surface in seam (SIS), which horizontally intersects a vertical well target to extract coal bed methane.
Roughneck is a term for a person whose occupation is hard-manual labor. The term applies across a number of industries, but is most commonly associated with the workers on a drilling rig. The ideal of the hard-working, tough roughneck has been adopted by several sports teams who use the phrase as part of their name or logo.
A mud engineer works on an oil well or gas well drilling rig, and is responsible ensuring the properties of the drilling fluid, also known as drilling mud, are within designed specifications.
A kelly drive refers to a type of well drilling device on an oil or gas drilling rig that employs a section of pipe with a polygonal or splined outer surface, which passes through the matching polygonal or splined kelly (mating) bushing and rotary table. This bushing is rotated via the rotary table and thus the pipe and the attached drill string turn while the polygonal pipe is free to slide vertically in the bushing as the bit digs the well deeper. When drilling, the drill bit is attached at the end of the drill string and thus the kelly drive provides the means to turn the bit.
A Kelly hose is a flexible, steel reinforced, high pressure hose that connects the standpipe to the kelly and allows free vertical movement of the kelly while facilitating the flow of drilling fluid through the system and down the drill string. The Kelly hose has a diameter of 3-5 inches.
A drilling rig is used to create a borehole or well in the earth's sub-surface, for example in order to extract natural resources such as gas or oil. During such drilling, data is acquired from the drilling rig sensors for a range of purposes such as: decision-support to monitor and manage the smooth operation of drilling; to make detailed records of the geologic formations penetrated by a borehole; to generate operations statistics and performance benchmarks such that improvements can be identified, and to provide well planners with accurate historical operations-performance data with which to perform statistical risk analysis for future well operations. The terms measurement while drilling (MWD), and logging while drilling (LWD) are not used consistently throughout the industry. Although these terms are related, within the context of this section, the term MWD refers to directional-drilling measurements, e.g., for decision support for the smooth operation of the drilling, while LWD refers to measurements concerning the geological formation made while drilling.
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 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. Modern wells have blowout preventers intended to prevent such an occurrence. An accidental spark during a blowout can lead to a catastrophic oil or gas fire.
The Derrickhand or Derrickman is the person who sits atop the derrick on a drilling rig. Though the exact duties vary from rig to rig, they almost always report directly to the driller. Their job is to guide the stands of the drill pipe into into the fingers at the top of the derrick. Other duties might include monitoring pH and calcium levels, viscosity and the mud weight (density), adding chemicals and oil based fluids, and being responsible for the shale shakers and mud pump.
Drilling engineering is a subset of petroleum engineering.
The Driller is a team leader in charge during the process of well drilling. The term is commonly used in the context of an oil well drilling rig. Driller comes after the Toolpusher in the Rig crew hierarchy. Toolpusher takes the operation orders from the Company-man. Toolpusher then supervises these order to the driller and the rest of the drilling crew and gets the job done. While Toolpusher, driller and the drilling crew generally belong to the Drilling contractor company, Company-man is the employee of the operator company.
Oilfield terminology refers to the jargon used by those working in fields within and related to the upstream segment of the petroleum industry. It includes words and phrases describing professions, equipment, and procedures specific to the industry. It may also include slang terms used by oilfield workers to describe the same.
A mud tank is an open-top container, typically made of square steel tube and steel plate, to store drilling fluid on a drilling rig. They are also called mud pits, as they were once simple pits in the earth.
Desanders and desilters are solid control equipment with a set of hydrocyclones that separate sand and silt from the drilling fluids in drilling rigs. Desanders are installed on top of the mud tank following the shale shaker and the degasser, but before the desilter. Desander removes the abrasive solids from the drilling fluids which cannot be removed by shakers. Normally the solids diameter for desander to be separated would be 45~74μm, and 15~44μm for desilter.
Squeeze job, or squeeze cementing is a term often used in the oilfield to describe the process of injecting cement slurry into a zone, generally for pressure-isolation purposes.
The Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion was the April 20, 2010, explosion and subsequent fire on the Deepwater Horizon semi-submersible Mobile Offshore Drilling Unit (MODU), which was owned and operated by Transocean and drilling for BP in the Macondo Prospect oil field about 40 miles (60 km) southeast off the Louisiana coast. The explosion and subsequent fire resulted in the sinking of the Deepwater Horizon and the deaths of 11 workers; 17 others were injured. The same blowout that caused the explosion also caused a massive offshore oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, considered the largest accidental marine oil spill in the world, and the largest environmental disaster in U.S. history.
