Page 11 - A Primer of Oilwell Drilling, 7th Edition

he location of the well, or drill site, varies as the surface geog-
Traphy of the earth varies. in the industry’s early days, geologists
Petroleum Extension-The University of Texas at Austin
and wildcatters were able to find oil and gas in places readily acces- 7
sible. As people began using more hydrocarbons, the oil industry
extended its search for oil and gas worldwide. Today, companies
might drill wells in the frozen wilderness, remote desert, marshes,
jungles, rugged mountains, and deep offshore waters. A drill site is
anywhere oil and gas exists or might exist. The drill Site

CHOOSINg THE SITE

The operating company considers several factors when deciding
where to drill. A key factor is the company knows or believes that
hydrocarbons exist in rocks beneath the site. Sometimes, an opera-
tor drills a well in an existing field to increase production from it.
in other cases, an operator drills a well on a site where no one has
previously found oil or gas.
Where no production has occurred, a company often hires ge-
ologists and geophysicists to find promising sites (fig. 74). Geologists
and geophysicists are called explorationists because they explore areas
to determine where hydrocarbons might exist. Major companies
have an explorationist staff, while independent companies might
hire consultants or buy information from companies that specialize Figure 74. Geologists working at a
in geological and geophysical data. prospective petroleum area at the Peel
Plateau in the Yukon

71 Courtesy of Government of the Yukon. Photograph by T iffani Fraser