Oil and Gas

“From Deep in the Earth to Our Cars and Homes”

What are Oil and Gas?
• Oil and Gas are substances found within the earth’s crust.
• They are thought to come from decomposed plant and animal
matter.
• Scientists believe the plants and animals died long ago, and
were slowly buried by thick layers of sediments. Over a long
period of time, and with pressure and temperature, the organic
materials were converted into the oil and gas which are found
today.

(For example, we know that present day garbage

dumps give off methane gas)
What else do we know about
oil and gas?
Oil in it’s natural state can be thick
or thin, black or light colored.

When oil is refined, many

products can be obtained:
Many other materials also come
from petroleum:
–Energy for power
–Plastics
–Gasoline for cars
–Materials for clothes (example:
–Diesel fuel for trucks and trains
polyester fabrics)
–Hi-octane fuels for planes
–Chemicals for everyday use
–Heating oil for houses
–Paints
Did you know that oil has
natural gas in it?
• When oil is produced, some gas is
produced with the oil.
• The natural gas is in solution, just like the
carbon dioxide which is put inside of pop
to give it its fizz.
• A barrel of oil may contain anywhere
from 1 cubic ft of gas, to over 10,000
cubic ft, depending on the type of
reservoir.
That’s enough gas in a single barrel of oil to
fill your whole house!
Where do we find Oil and Gas?
Some people think that oil lies in big
underground pools.

Actually, most oil is trapped in the tiny pore spaces between

grains of rock or sand. Most of these pores are too small to
be seen with the naked eye.
So, how do we find oil-bearing rocks?

• Oil and gas are found in natural traps within the earth.
• These traps consist of domes and/or faults. Impermeable
rock above the trap prevents the oil and gas from migrating
up to surface. An “impermeable” rock is one that fluid
cannot pass through.
• Without traps, the oil and gas (which are lighter than water)
could migrate all the way to the surface and evaporate or
form seeps.
Here’s an example of a Dome Shaped Oil reservoir with a Gas cap

Note the layer of impermeable rock

which prevents the gas and oil
from escaping upwards.

Gas
Oil
Water
Why do you suppose the gas and oil are on top of the water?
Oil and gas are lighter than water, so they float upward to the
top of the trap (even underground)!
Without a trap, the oil and gas may rise to the surface to form
natural seeps (like the La Brea Tar Pits).
How do we find the oil and gas reservoirs?
Geophysicists find reservoirs by bouncing sound waves off them, and
timing how long it takes for the sound to come back

Computers process the data to construct pictures of what the earth

looks like underground.

source t = 1.42 sec

t = 1.2 sec
t = 1 sec

receivers

Gas
Oil
What do we do after
we find a reservoir?
?
?
? We Drill Into It! !
(of course!)

What do we drill with ?

 A Drilling Rig !
Here are a few different types of drilling rigs available:
Jackup Rig
Land Rig For drilling in water
depths from 20 ft
to +/- 350 ft.

For drilling on land.

Inland Barge
Drill Ship

Semi-Submersible Rig
For drilling in water depths Drill ships and semi-submersible rigs are for drilling in
from 10 to 30 ft. water depths from 100 to 5000+ ft.
What is a drilling rig ?
A Drilling Rig is: A package of special
equipment put together to enable us to
drill into the earth.

• A drilling rig has many different parts:

a derrick, a substructure, hoisting
equipment, engines for power, drill pipe,
steel tanks, pumps, solids control
equipment, and many other pieces.

Did you know that some drilling rigs

can drill as deep as 6 miles?
That’s as deep as Mt. Everest is tall!
This picture shows the hoisting equipment on a rig.
This equipment is used to raise or lower the drillstring, which is
picked up in 30 foot long segments, or “joints”, of drill pipe.

The hoisting equipment

consists of: derrick

a crown block,
a travelling block,
drilling line,
and a drawworks to
This shows a 30 foot
pull the drilling line up section of drill pipe being
or down. added to the drill pipe
already in the hole.

substructure

Drill string
spare drill pipe
Drill bit
Here’s how the drill bit drills the rock.
The drill string is turned at
surface, which turns the bit
at the bottom of the hole.
The teeth on the drill bit
grind the rock into
fragments, or “cuttings”.
Drilling mud is
pumped down the inside
of the drill pipe, through
jet nozzles in the bit,
and into the “annulus”.
This is the space
between the sides of the
hole and the drill pipe.
The mud lifts the
cuttings and circulates
them back to surface
where they are removed.
The Drilling Mud Cycle
1) Clean drilling mud is taken from the steel
mud tanks and pumped down the inside of
the drill pipe.

4) The mixture is
circulated across
screens at surface

3) the mixture of drilling mud and

drill cuttings are circulated up the
5) Clean mud falls annulus
screens through the screens
and is returned to
the pits

mud pump

6) The drill cuttings are removed, 2) the mud is circulated through the drill bit into
and form a cuttings pile. This can the annulus, lifting the cuttings removed by the
be hauled off and disposed of. drill bit.
Here’s a sequence showing how holes are drilled,
First, a large drill bit Next, a smaller bit is run inside the
is used to drill a short first casing, drills out the bottom of
interval of hole. the casing and drills new hole.

0’
Then, this new hole
is also cased off and
cemented.

2000’
In this way the well is
drilled in stages with
Then, steel casing is smaller bits used to drill
run and cemented on out a progressively smaller
the outside to keep hole, and smaller casings
the hole from run to keep the hole from
collapsing. 5000’ falling in.
Drilling continues in this way until
the target reservoir rock is penetrated.
How do Geologists tell if the
reservoir has oil or gas?
At this point, the geologists must
figure out if there is oil and/or gas in
the reservoir.

They do this by running

logs across the zone.
Logs are tools run on
electic cable (“wireline”)
which record the physical
properties in the rock such
as resistivity, porosity,
density, radioactivity, and
pore pressure.
 Here’s an example of logging a well
Geologists look at logs to decide whether or not to complete a well
(if there is oil), or abandon it (if there’s no oil).
Gamma Electrical Neutron
Radiation Resistivity Porosity

Sand good
porosity
Shale
200’
Siltstone
poor
Shale resistivity,
probably poor
Siltstone water porosity

Dolomite
500’
Shale

Sandstone good
good porosity
resistivity,
Looks may have
like oil or gas poor
good porosity
sand
quality poor
resistivity, good
probably porosity
water
3000’
Can you tell where the geologist would complete this well?

Gamma Electrical Porosity

Radiation Resistivity

good porosity

200’
poor
resistivity, poor porosity
probably
water

good porosity

500’ poor porosity

good porosity

Looks
good
resistivity,
may have oil
or gas
}Right here! This shows a
like
good poor
porosity
clean sand,
sand
quality
poor
with good porosity and
resistivity,
probably
good porosity
resistivity.
water

3000’
If the well looks good on the logs, Then, we run perforating
we run a final string of casing guns in the hole and perforate
across the production zone, and (shoot holes) in the casing
cement it in place. across the productive zone.
Production tubing is run, with
a packer to seal off the
produced zone from the open
Tubing
casing above.

Valves are installed

and the well is
connected to a pipeline
on the surface.

Packer
Finally, the well is
produced into the
pipeline, which takes
the crude oil to
surface production
facilities.
The production facilities on surface
separate out the gas, oil, and water
Produced Gas
into their separate phases.

Oil

Production
Separator Produced
Water
 Finally, the gas and oil can be sold
From there, the oil and to power cars and heat homes.
gas may be refined
further before being
ready to market.

Produced
Oil Storage Tanks
Production Separator
Produced
Water

Oil Refinery
And That’s How Oil and Gas Get From Deep
in the Earth into YOUR Everyday Lives!

The End.