Directional Drilling
When natural gas, oil and other resources are in hard to reach places only directional drilling can bring them to the surface. It’s important for exploiting the natural resources needed to power and run the world.
In the 1920’s people sued over drilling across property lines, so the oil industry became aware of directional drilling. Finally people realized that wells could deviate from the vertical.
Directional drilling is key to accessing oil that can’t be reached with vertical drilling. For example, sometimes natural resources are found under areas where people live. Or the oil may be under a mountain or otherwise blocked from a straight line from above.
Another benefit of directional drilling is that one well head, or rig, can be used to reach multiple oil deposits. This decreases environmental impact. It helps defuse the arguments against drilling that come from environmentalists. It’s more likely to get drilling approved when the impact is low. It also means saving time and money. Fewer rigs are needed. It also decreases the number of moves that have to be made of bulky drilling equipment.
horizontal directional drilling
Directional drilling helps alleviate blow outs. A blow out is when the pressure builds up enough to force materials, such as gas, back through the drilling equipment. But this can be stopped if a heavy liquid is pumped in from the side. Now lost wells can be salvaged. Losing fewer wells saves money in the long run.
In the early days of directional drilling it was far slower than vertical drilling. It was hard to measure the direction of the drill and how far it had gone. In addition, all the drill pipes had to be removed from the ground in order to change direction. That wasted a lot of time. Modern tools, however, have made directional drilling quite fast.
Oil thieves can use directional drilling. In 1990 Iraq claimed Kuwait was stealing oil from across the border. This prompted Iraq to invade Kuwait. That conflict became the Gulf War. It’s unlikely that Kuwait was stealing oil. At the time the methods and technologies weren’t very advanced. Nobody every found the conspicuous equipment that would have been required.
directional drilling equipment
The directional drilling technique is becoming more and more common in man’s search for precious oil.
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