All about Oil Well Drilling - By: michael russell

Oil and natural gas is formed by the fossilization of dead plants and animals over millions of years in the deep layers of earth exceeding over 30,000 ft. These days, Hydrocarbon fuels like petrol and diesel have evolved to be some of the most popular fuels replacing wood.

There are many oil deposits in the country including Titusville , Pennsylvania , where oil exploration was done as early as 1859. Oil drilling not just meets the fuel requirements of the country but also is a profitable business. Many techniques are used to bring out the oil to the earth surface. The conventional method was the percussion method where the earth is penetrated using a heavy tool and the oil is pumped out through the hole. The disadvantage of this method is that it is a slow process that has to be stopped periodically.

However, modern directional drilling technologies allow horizontal drilling or sub horizontal wells. These wells have more surface area than vertical wells and hence ensure a higher productivity. The latest oil drilling techniques have made it possible to reach out to oil pockets that are many miles away from the drilling site. This also helps to tap the most of the oil reserves from even those locations that are populated or environmentally sensitive.

In most of the wells, the natural pressure of the subsurface reservoir is more than enough for the oil to flow out to the surface. However, in the case of low permeability oil reservoirs, very often artificial lift methods including downhole pumps and gas lift are also used to drive up the oil or the natural gas.

The production stage is the most crucial phase in oil drilling. In this phase the rigs used to drill the well are moved to the well bore and fitted with valves that control pressure and regulate flow. The outlet valve is connected to a distribution network of pipelines and tanks that ferry the crude oil to refineries or oil export terminals.

About the Author

If you are curious to know more about oil well drilling and oil extraction processes, all you need to so is to refer the free online search engine of Jrank, which works with any website. It has all the information of oil drilling right from the good old days to the latest oil rigs, the various steps and the business prospects of this industry.

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