What Is an Oil Well?

In order to extract oil, the holes drilled by the well layout system according to the development plan of the oil field, the passage of oil rising from the bottom of the well to the wellhead. ^[1]

Used when extracting oil

Oil well productivity evaluation is done through capacity testing. The conventional productivity test is performed underground, that is, to determine the productivity index of an oil well by measuring the well production and bottom-hole pressure, so as to evaluate the productivity of the well. For some oil wells, downhole pressure testing is very difficult, and productivity evaluation is often difficult to achieve. In order to effectively evaluate the productivity of an oil well, its evaluation method was improved, that is, the productivity test was moved from underground to the surface, the productivity of the oil well was evaluated by testing the productivity equation of the nozzle, and the size of the productivity of the well was evaluated by the size of the nozzle productivity index. . By measuring the output of wells with different nozzle sizes, the nozzle productivity index can be determined. Studies have shown that the nozzle production test does not affect the normal production of the well, nor does it increase any test costs. The method is simple and practical. ^[3]

Well testing mainly includes

Before the oil well was invented

The use of tar and oil has been around for thousands of years. Artesian oil, gasoline, and tar are found around the world. The famous La Brea tar pits in Los Angeles is an artesian oil outlet. Traditionally, oil naturally spills over the ground and is then used directly for waterproofing or as kerosene. The word "petroleum" is derived from Latin, meaning oil in rocks. In any case, people think that oil is squeezed out of rocks.

How oil wells were invented

In 1857, Edwin Drake was 38 years old. He was seated on the back of a postal wagon that delivered messages twice a week, and arrived in Titusville, a poor little village in Pennsylvania. Drake was born in Greenville, New York, and worked as a railroad construction worker and train conductor. Later, he invested in a small Pennsylvania company that specialized in collecting oil from a flowing oil field in eastern Pennsylvania and selling it for medical use.

Drake was anxious that the company collected pharmaceutical oil and sold it. He was wondering if he could find a way to speed up the company. He had read articles about workers drilling and digging underground saline water. He wondered if he could dig for oil in the same way. If feasible, the company will produce more oil instead of waiting for the oil to slowly seep.

Since his company only bought the right to collect artesian oil, Drake spent more than a year buying the first drilling right, and then bought the entire farm where the oil seeped. In the meantime, he read and mastered the saltwater drilling technology, and even spent 8 weeks on-site inspecting two drilling equipments.

Drake purchased two adjacent farms with a natural seepage field in the middle of the farm. At the same time, he also designed a rig to be installed on the oil field. In the middle of 1858, he had erected a rig and transported a steam engine by boat to drive the drill. He bought the drill bit from a saltwater drilling company supplier and hired 12 salt drilling workers to operate the drilling machine. In the first four months, Drake faced either difficulties or setbacks. The Pennsylvania soil is strewn with rock, the soil is hard, the drill is too soft, and it always breaks. Saltwater drilling workers did not know how to deal with such a soil environment. The piston and rocker of the steam engine broke repeatedly and the drilling operation was forced to stop.

Drake fired all workers, began to study drilling technology seriously, and redesigned the rig. Drake decided that instead of simply digging directly, it would be better to build a drilling system more like a steam hammer. He installed a sharp drill bit on the drilling machine. After drilling the drill bit and the iron shaft into the rock, he slammed the rock into fragments and then drilled into the next rock formation.

In early 1859, he hired blacksmith William Smith to design and build new drill bits. After studying Drake's drilling program and local rock formations, Smith built a giant furnace on Drake's farm.

Drilling began in late July. On Saturday, August 27, 1859, Smith's drill bit broke a 75-foot deep rock formation. Then he drilled into a crack in the soil and drilled 8 inches further down. The sun was about to go down and the drilling stopped.

Early Sunday morning, Drake found a large layer of oil covering the ground around the rig, which seemed to tower over a calm, dark lake. By noon on Monday, all the containers that could be found were filled with oil-vats, empty whiskey cans, sinks and kettles.

Drake erected several more rigs, pumping a steady stream of black oil. Every day, horse-drawn carriages transport barrels of oil to eastern coast cities. There is also a caravan full of empty barrels climbing up the hillside, waiting for the next morning to be filled with oil.

Heavy oil (such as tar, kerosene, and viscous lubricating oil) is separated in place and put into barrels and sent to ships. The lighter components of petroleum (primarily gasoline) are considered useless dangerous goods. Drake sucked out the light oil with a siphon and burned it in a huge metal bucket. Soon, a continuous black smoke screen released by gasoline burning enveloped Titusville. Steam and drilling machines drilled oil day and night, and Titusville quickly became more crowded, noisier, and dirty than downtown New York.

After the invention of oil wells

At first Drake sold heavy oils as lubricants. However, kerosene (used as kerosene) quickly became the most popular and profitable product. By 1870, heating oil replaced coal and fireplaces, becoming the third major petroleum product. It wasn't until the beginning of the 20th century that cars became a viable product when cars began to drive on American and European roads.

New Jersey chemist Robert Chesebmugh found an unexpected item in the field in Titusville. He saw a substance called a "wax stick"-a colorless sludge deposited on the drill pipe. Czebluff also found that miners applied the waxy substance to burns or cuts that were said to promote wound healing. So he bought the exclusive right to sell this product and named it Vaseline, which is a kind of first aid that is still widely used today.

With the world's oil reserves gradually declining, scientists are scrambling to find alternatives to oil. But so far, no suitable product has been found to replace the petroleum products used every day. ^[5]