Exploring and Drilling

for Oil and Gas

Prepared by Tom Sheeran

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)
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 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
• Energy for power from petroleum:
• Gasoline for cars
• Diesel fuel for trucks and trains • Plastics
• Hi-octane fuels for planes • Materials for clothes (example:
polyester fabrics)
• Heating oil for houses
• Chemicals for everyday use
• Paints

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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! Prepared by Tom Sheeran
Where can we find Oil and Gas?

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Some people think that oil is in big pools underground.

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.

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So, how do we find oil-bearing rocks?

• Oil and gas are found in natural traps within the earth.

• These traps consist of domes 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 could migrate all the way to
the surface and evaporate.
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 Here’s an example of a dome-shaped
Oil reservoir.

Oil

Water

Note the layer of impermeable rock which prevents the oil from migrating upwards.

Also, note the layer of water below which prevents the oil from escaping down. Why?

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 Here’s an example of a Gas reservoir.

Gas

Water

Again, note the impermeable layer of rock preventing the gas from
escaping.

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Here’s an example of an Oil reservoir with a Gas cap

Gas
Oil
Water

Why do you suppose the gas is on top?

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How do we find the oil 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

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What do we do after we find a
reservoir?

?
?
?
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We Drill Into It ! ! !

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What do we drill with ?

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 A Drilling Rig !
Here are a few different types of drilling rigs available:
Jackup Rig
Land Rig For drilling in water
depths from 15 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 8 to 30 ft. water depths from 100 to 5000+ ft.

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What’s a drilling rig ?

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

substructure

Drill string
spare drill pipe
Drill bit

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Here’s a picture of the drill bit drilling 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.
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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
6) Clean mud falls annulus
screens through the screens
and is returned to the
pits

mud pump

5) the drill cuttings are removed, and 2) the mud is circulated through the drill bit into the
form a cuttings pile. This can be annulus, lifting the cuttings removed by the drill bit.
hauled off and disposed of.
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Here’s a sequence showing how holes are drilled,
First, a large drill bit is used to drill
a short interval of hole.
0’
Then, steel casing is run and cemented on
the outside to keep the hole from
collapsing.

200’

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 0’

Next,
a smaller bit is Then, this new
run inside the hole is also
first casing. cased off and
cemented.
This bit drills
out the bottom
of the casing,
and drills new
hole.
200’

500’

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Again, a smaller
hole is drilled out,
and smaller
casing is run
to keep the
hole from
falling in.

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In this way, the hole is drilled in stages, until the target reservoir rock is penetrated. At
this point, the geologists must figure out if there is oil or gas in it.

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 How do Geologists tell if the reservoir has oil or gas?
They do this by running logs across the zone. Logs are tools run on electric cable
(“wireline”) which record the physical properties in the rock such as resistivity, porosity,
density, radioactivity, and pore pressure.

Prepared by Tom Sheeran

Here’s an example of what a log looks like. 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 Porosity
Radiation Resistivity

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

Dolomite 500’

Shale

good
good porosity
resistivity,
Looks may have
like oil or gas poor
good porosity
sand
quality poor
3000’
resistivity, good
probably porosity
water

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

3000’ Prepared by Tom Sheeran

If the well looks good on the logs, we run a final string
of casing across the production zone, and cement it in place.

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Then, we run perforating guns in the hole and perforate (shoot
holes ) in the casing across the productive zone.

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Production tubing is run, with a packer to isolate the produced
zone from the casing above.
tubing

Packer

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Finally, the well is produced into
a pipeline, which takes it to
production facilities on surface.

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The production facilities on surface separate out the Produced Gas
gas, oil, and water into their separate phases.

Oil

Production Separator
Produced
Water

Prepared by Tom Sheeran

From there, the oil and gas may
be refined further before being
ready to market.

Produced Gas

Storage Tanks

Oil

Production Separator Oil Refinery

Produced Water

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Finally, the gas and oil can be sold to
power cars and heat houses.

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And That’s Where Oil and Gas Come From!

The End.
Prepared by Tom Sheeran
 About the Author:

Tom Sheeran has been working in the oil and gas industry for over 18
years. He worked summers on a drilling rig while going to school to earn
a degree in Petroleum Engineering. After graduating, he went to work for
Chevron in the Rocky Mountains. In 1990 he began working for Chevron
Overseas Petroleum, and since then has worked all over the world, in
Scotland, Australia, Papua New Guinea, Venezuela, Angola and Nigeria.
Tom is currently employed by Chevron Nigeria Ltd. and is living and
working as a resident in Lagos, Nigeria.

Tom and his wife Shallini have 2 children, and home-schooled in the U.S.
for several years before moving overseas. Tom developed this
presentation for kids so they may learn more about the oil industry.

You may contact Tom at:

Tom A. Sheeran
Sr. Drilling Engineer
Chevron Nigeria Ltd.
SHTA@chevron.com
TAS Oct. 1998