August 24, 2010 • 23 mins
Last week, Robert and Allison broke down the science behind oil exploration. In the second segment of this series, the hosts explore the process of drilling for oil once a potential well is found. Tune in to learn more about drilling for oil.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Yeah, hey guys, and welcome to the podcast. Is Alice Adamok,
the science editor at how stuff works dot com. And
this is Robert Lamp, science writerer at how stuff works
(00:22):
dot com. And if let me stop you right now
because this is actually a second the second part of
the two part series. Yeah, we left you last time
with the search for offshore I I mean, lot you
in a real cliffhanger. Yeah, unless you didn't listen to
the last one, in which case you have idea what
we're talking about. Yeah, in the last just to catch
you up previously unlost, this is what happened. Um. We
(00:44):
we were talking about how how oil companies sniff out
and and actually listen for, uh the tailtale signs of
petroleum hidden under the c floor. And when they think
they they found something, they did these exploratory well and
you know, get a get a core sample forget what
exactly is going down there, do some tasks on the
(01:05):
on the on what they find, and if if it
looks like it's going to be profitable, it looks like
they can actually live off this thing for ten to
twenty years, then uh, then it's time to start harvesting
the oil and that's where we are now harvesting the
oil harvesting That makes me think of like you know,
corn in the ocean or something like that. Well, again,
this all stuff, the stuff all used to be biomass.
(01:27):
That's true, very good point, Roberts. Yeah, so a lot
of this is based on your your article how offshore
drilling Ricks, which we are going to refer you to
guys to and we did a little bit in the
last in the last podcast as well. It's just because
sometimes it's hard to picture and especially as we get
into some of these platforms today, you may just want
to check them out around the site. And in the article. Yeah, yeah,
(01:49):
we've got some cool illustrations and a lot of really
jazzy photos of offshore oil rigs. Right, so production gets going,
and what are you gonna need to do. You need
an area, you need to you need a staging area
to get all that oil up. So you're gonna build
a production platform for the duration. And these platforms you
have to you have to be stable, you know, want
men you know, just tossed overboard or women if they
(02:11):
used to work on an off shore rig. And so
the rigs are attached to the ocean, floor and using
like a metal and concrete foundation. And they also have
these tethering cables. And again this comes into play when
you think about some of the spots that these off
shore rigs are going to be, I mean, the north sea,
crazy environment. You've got to make sure that sucker is stable. Yes,
(02:31):
it's like a constant storm. And and you're you know,
you're looking to basically tether it, tether the production line,
you know, from the facility to the ocean floor. So um,
you know, it becomes a little a little tricky at times, right,
and then one platform can have as many as eight wells.
That's pretty crazy, yeah, because you you're you're putting in
(02:52):
all this effort to get it out there, You're gonna
want to maximize its efficiency, right of course. And uh
and as as everyone, uh, I think a lot of
you may remember from there will be blood. There's a
such thing as directional drilling R the I drink your
milkshake thing, you know where, which means that you don't
just have to drill straight down. You can you can
(03:14):
drill at angles, you know, and then you can maximize
the area that you can drill into, right, and states
have been known to do this, Like I think California
has done some directional drilling if you can make the case,
um that you have a right to do so. And
I'm sure there's more to it than that, but yeah,
it basically comes down to like, if you can prove yeah,
that's your oil over there, it's it's it's kind of snaky.
(03:36):
I mean it's it's right. So let's let's stick you
down to the to the oil. Well, yeah, you're gonna
want to install a subside drilling template. That's gonna be
really important. And that's it's kind of what it sounds like. Uh,
you know, if like if you're you're putting down a
stencil or something that you know, to cut out a pattern,
it's basically like a big, you know, metal box with
(03:57):
a bunch of holes in it that directs the drilling. Right,
So instead of sticking your pencil to draw a circle
through the stencil, you're gonna stick your big old drill
bit through that. Well yeah, and they're pretty crazy drill
bits too. Um, Like you know, it's not just a big,
you know, pointed drill. It's more like that. Then it's
(04:17):
like revolving heads with us either like steel or industrial
diamond um um like teeth in it looks kind of
like a if you've ever seen like a microscopic view
of a parasite's head, like a tape worm's head, they
kind of look like that, like just kind of crazy
and awful. Well, yeah, in a nice analogy in your article,
and you said that the drill kind of looks like
(04:39):
tent poles, right, oh yeah, and you have the full
structure of it because because you're gonna be drilling miles
into the floor of the ocean, and so you're hoping
you're not going to, but chances are you might have to. Right,
So the drill can't, you know, come in one long piece,
you know, because that's gonna stretch forever, so it needs
to come apart, and it comes apart basically like a
giant tent pole in the different lengths. Right, has these
(05:01):
multiple thirty foot drill pipes that are screwed together and
the whole the whole unit is called a drill string,
although again maybe it's just content poles. So and then
connected to the polls if you will, on the top
is you have this sort of platform that's rotating the
drill string and at the other end you have, of
course your bit that's you know, charging through the earth
in search of oil. Now it's important to note that
(05:24):
this drill though, is is inside of something called a
marine riser, which I think of it as like a
like a protective casing. Yeah, like an umbilical cord or something.
Um it's kind of like how I think of it.
You know, it's like there's a or just a bundle,
like it's just a protective bundle, and then all this
equipment's going in and it you know, so it's not
(05:44):
just free form. If you're a fish going by, you're
not gonna encounter the drill bit. It's encased. And the
bit is actually kind of cool. Lest you think it's
just some random drill bit. It could be embedded with
diamonds um or it could be like a trio of
rotating interlocking bits with these fearsome steel teeth parasite head.
Oh yeah, that's what you're going for now, I got you, Robert.
(06:07):
And you think about how hard this bit is working,
you know, knowing through the earth, so you can chances
are it'll have to be replaced because it's going to
grow dull, and it's it's coming against some pretty tough
materials within the earth. You've probably heard of drilling mud
um from a recent coverage of the oil spill and
drilling bud mud is used basically to lubricate the drill.
(06:27):
I mean it's used for a number of different purposes,
but one of the key ones at this stage is
to lubricate the drill and keep it going. It's a
thick viscus fluid consists of clay water mixture of special
chemicals and uh, yeah, it drill it. It lubricates the drill.
Bit it seals the wall the well, and it controls
the pressure inside the well. Um and uh and in
(06:49):
this it actually serves as like the first line of
defense against a blowout because you're drilling down. One thing
to keep in mind, you're drilling down into some pressurized areas.
So I mean that's the whole like, oh, it's truck
oil when it comes spewing out, and you know, you
don't really want a lot of oil spewing out. That's
generally were trying to prevent oil drilling indeed. Um. Well,
(07:11):
so related to the drilling mud is you're gonna have
something called the blow up prevention system. And again I
mean I feel like you guys have probably heard of
a blowout prevention system what with all the coverage. Um. So,
this is built so that if pressurized oil and gas
gush up the well, the the bob, I like that,
the bob. Uh, it's supposed to steal the well off
with a hydraulic valves and rams, and then it's going
(07:34):
to reroute the well fluids into these containment systems. Okay.
So yes, it failed in VPS case. So and there's
some allegations that I was reading right before we went
into recording, uh that tests of these blow up preventers
were either falsified or in fact the the bobs weren't
adequately tested at all. Yeah. So it's not a fail safe.
(07:54):
But let's let's get to the drilling process. Let's start
going into the into the earth. Yeah. Like the best
way to think about it, um is to think of
don't think of it as drilling a hole, like, think
of it as boring a tunnel, because it's basically and
you know, sometimes it's not even a vertical shaft, you know,
but you think of it as a tunnel. Like have
you ever seen like any of the old you know,
(08:15):
stalog seventeen the Great Escape type movies. You know where
they're they're building the tunnel to escape you know a
Nazi um you know um prisoner of war camp. Yeah,
well you know that you have to actually support the
tunnel you're building and u and it can get kind
of elaborate. You know, if you're building, you're actually building
walls in there, you know, etcetera. Right, you want to
make sure it doesn't collapse. You have to build casing
(08:36):
in right, right, And that's that's what's going on. So
like they're drilling down, then they pull the drill out
and the install casing. Well, let's let's let's back it
up for one sack. You got your initial surface hole
and I don't know how big you picture this. I
didn't have a real clear idea of how big that
surface hole would be. And so a lot of times
it's about a foot and a half. Yeah, you gotta
you gotta start small reinforce or bigger force. Like it's
(09:01):
it's a gradual thing. It's not just alright, drive the
drill and you know a little break for lunch when
we hit oil. No, you've got to you've got to build.
It's something you build really you're building something, not just
digging something, right, You're boring and then you're reinforcing with
the casing. So once you once you get into the
next phase, once you drill about several hundred to several
thousand feet uh and you move past that initial surface hole,
(09:23):
you're gonna start a busting out the twelve inch drill
bit and you're going to dig that well even deeper.
And again you're gonna repeat that whole process of taking
out the drill string and packing up the the tunnel
that you're building with casing, you're going to reinforce it.
And then your your last part, the part that it's
going to get you really excited if you're searching for
offshore oil, is a the bottom hole. And this is
(09:45):
the final stretch. And again it's lined with the casing.
And another important thing to know is that you know
while you're doing all this, you know, boring down and
reinforcing of the tunnel. Um, you're gonna have this device
that it's called a packer. Yeah, I kind of think
of just robot. I think it's I think it qualifies
as a robot um. Yeah, And it just follows down
(10:05):
and it's expanding the walls and making sure everything is
sealed and just kind of like fine tuning everything kind
of I can't help with sort of picture like the
thing in Labyrinth, remember the the drill looking thing that
comes down. Never mind, I was looking a little blank.
So so anyway, the thing that that was really interesting
to me when I first was researching this is that
(10:27):
once the drill hits petroleum, you think it's like, all right,
let's start. Now we finally hit it. We've opened it up.
The first thing they do seal that sucker. Ye, this
did strike me as well. Yeah, they put something called
a production casing in which, alright, think of it this way.
Imagine you board a hole in the side of a dam,
(10:48):
all right, all right, and then you took a you
took a glove, all right, and you stuck one gloved
finger through, right right, and then you like we're in
ignoring pressure and all that, you're able to remove your
hand and so you have that hole is stopped by
this glove tip that's going through to the other side. Okay,
So now imagine that with the oil. Well there's basically
(11:10):
this this this finger, this you know, this steel finger, this, uh,
this production casing that's sticking down into the oil, all right,
and it's sealed, right because and then I'm gonna hit
another analogy here, like if you have a if you
have some like some sort of tea and with a
bunch of ice in it or I don't know, margarite
is or whatever it's got. Our sangree is a better example.
(11:31):
You have a picture of Sangoa sa al right, so
you've got like a lot of fruit and ice and
all sorts of stuff in there, right, and you go
to poor and you don't let's say, you don't want
all that stuff coming out of the picture because you
have a strainer. So that's basically what they're going for here,
is they want to control the flow. And they don't
want everything in the world just flowing up, all the
(11:52):
all the petroleum and uh and all the gunk that's
in it just skyrocketing to the surface. So they want
to prevent a geyser from happening. And they also want
to ensure the integrity of what they're bringing in, right,
So they basically go down there and poke holes in
that finger then that that gloved finger that's that's down
there in the production casing, right, and they poke those
(12:12):
holes with explosives. Yeah, it's like, so you're probably not
poking holes with explosives all the time. And again it's
kind of crazy. It's like to think it's like, oh,
they okay, we finally reached the bottom. First we're gonna
seal it up and they we're gonna start chunking explosives
down there. Yeah. So but this, uh, this opens up
holes in the production casing. And now this is how
the oil that patrollingum starts flowing in, right, and that
(12:35):
that pressure keeps up for a while, but eventually it's
going to decline, and so then you're gonna have to
bring in something pump. Then you're gonna maybe use some
injections of gas oil or water to start bringing that
petroleum up to the surface. Yeah, and engineers can kind
of tinker with the reservoir pressure and they can cause
a patrollum to rise again. Yeah. It's like the kid
(12:57):
at are we going with another analogy? This is a
record analogy breaking time. It's like it's like the kid
you see at like McDonald's or whatever, and he's he's
consumed most of his milkshake, but there's still some milkshake left.
So he's trying all sorts of ingenious things to try
and suck it up. And if he's young enough, he
also see that what's the soft spot on the top
of the kid's head, Like you see that part sort
(13:17):
of dipping down because he's sucking so hard on the
milkshake straw. But I've never witnessed that. It doesn't really happen.
But but no, it's it's like, it's like that the
milkshake is almost gone, but that's valuable milkshake. And we're
going to make sure that we get our money's worth
out of this stuff, this particular drill site. Right, So
now the oil is coming up, so you know, it's
(13:38):
not just a matter of barreling it up and you know,
sending it up to whatever country needs oil or wants oil.
It's not the case, right, Yeah, it needs to be refined.
I mean, this stuff has like dirt in it. This
is this is pretty pretty far from the stuff that
ends up getting pumped into your car. Yeah, it's a
mixture of crude oil and natural gas, water and all
sorts of cretty sediments. And while a lot of oil
(13:59):
refinement is going to take place on shore. Um, you know,
if you have an oil rig that's big enough, why
not just build a refinery on top of that rig.
We'll have a refining ship. I believe that they sometimes
do that as well. So we've gone down to the
bottom of that of of of the drill side. But
let's go back up to the top a few minutes. Um,
you're you basically have two types of drilling platforms. The
(14:21):
first kind we're gonna look at is a mobile drilling platform, right,
and these are used in conjunction with the exploratory drilling face. Yeah,
when you're not really sure what you know, whether this uh,
this drilling action is going to pan out, you don't
want to invest any huge rig, so you're you're gonna
want to take you more in expensive, more mobile drilling
platform Yeah. Like some of these are just like barges.
(14:41):
U there's a you know, they're drilling ships, which really
cool because they have what's called a moonhole in the bottom.
A moonhole is like imagine a swimming pool in the
bottom of a of a ship and accepted that swimming
pool is the ocean. It's like a hole in the
bottom of the ship, and that the that it's going
to go through. Um, so Yeah, it's it's a ship
(15:04):
with an oil rig mounted on the top of it.
It's it's it's pretty basic. Um. Yeah, So you're gonna
have another basic one would be your drilling barge. And
this is mostly going to be used for shallow drilling
in non ocean waters. Yeah, kind of like that one
we talked about earlier in the swamp. Yeah, it's it's
it's suitable for calmer waters and you need a tug
(15:25):
boat to tug that thing out to the site and
then you're gonna just anchor in place. Bang. That's it.
That's what you got for your mobile drilling platform. And
you like the jack up. The jackup is pretty cool
because it's it's kind of hard to explain it. It's best.
There's a there's a really cool picture of in the
article on the the page that's about mobile drilling platforms,
and it's just it's kind of like a jack it's um,
(15:50):
like they raised up and these these massive legs, right yeah,
and it's has those legs retracted when they haul it
out and then it lowers the legs which jacks itself up. So, um,
look at a picture of it, because it's it's really cool. Yeah,
and all this can be years for the price of
maybe a hundred eighty million million. So when we do
say that these are some of the inexpensive chilling platforms,
(16:12):
they are pretty darn expensive. But I guess if you're
a big oil company, maybe you have that kind of
cash line around. Oh, you have that kind of cash
line around. Yeah, And then there there are a couple
other ones along the lines of submersible and semi submersible rigs.
And this is basically, you know, incorporates a little bit
of the drilling barge and the jackup. So what you
have going on here is you have your production facilities
and they're you know, nice and elevated to be kept safe,
(16:34):
and they're they're up on stilts. They're hundreds of feet
above these kind of pontoon like barges. And after the
reaching the drill side, the crew floods the barge with water,
and so after they fled them, the barges sink until
they rest on the sea or the lake floor or
whatever body of water they happen to be in. It's
kind of like imagine like and again here's another analogy,
(16:55):
but okay, imagine like a giant dude with floating feet,
all right, with like big floating shoes, right, and he's
like standing on the water and then floods. No, just
bear with me, all right. Imagine if you were standing
on the surface of the water and your your shoes
were floating, and then you like, you know, swamped your
shoes and then you sank and then you suddenly you're
(17:18):
up to your knees in the water because your feet
are on the bottom of the ocean instead of on
the surface. I don't know if that helps at all,
but that's basically these things go. They go out there,
then they flood the pontoons, and then the pontoons go
from resting on the surface of the water to resting
on the bottom of the ocean, or in some cases
they're not resting on the bottom, but they're still anchoring it,
you know. Yeah. Yeah. And then of course you've got
(17:40):
stuff like your drill ship and this is just mostly
an ocean going vessel, but we already cover that. So
then the next type of of oil rig are the
offshore drilling platforms. And and this is when you decide
that you want to stay. You're gonna be here for
the roots, uh, you know, in fashion, Yeah, yeah, and
these vary from things that are essentially towers just you know,
(18:02):
riveted right to the floor of the ocean, to things
like the spar platforms that are in like such deep
waters that there's there's no way that they could they
could you know, touch the bottom of the ocean. So
they're just they go down to a certain, uh, certain
depth just to anchor, you know. And then we're talking
like big concrete structures, uh, and then they tether them
(18:23):
in place with cables, right the spar platform can This
is for the case where you absolutely need to drill
a hole at a depth of ten thousand feet. It's
pretty it's pretty far down. Yeah, these are the big
the bad boys, I say. And you know one thing
that you keep doing, or that you did in the
article when you're writing it, is that you could sort
of compare them to all these very tall skyscrapers, only
(18:44):
these are reverse skyscrapers, you know, so you picture how
far down they're going, and and even farther if you
think about, you know, building that tunnel into the earth too. Yeah,
it's it gets ridiculous again the lengths, say an addict
will go to to get his fixed you know, we'll
we will build just I mean, no matter what you
think about about the offshore oil drilling in the industry itself,
(19:05):
the process is amazing and it's really a testament to
technological achievement. Um. But yeah, there we actually have a
really awesome illustration in the in the article. Thank you
Lee Dempsey illustrator. Yeah, that that shows you, like several
different varieties and stacks shows them like side by side.
So to give you a good idea of how, uh say,
(19:28):
a a compliant tower differs from a fixed platform, which
and how that differs from the c star platform. Um,
you know, if it would take a lot of awkward
analogies to try and tell you what they look like.
So what if you wanted to work or live on
one of these oil rigs pace, well, I understand, yeah,
(19:49):
I mean, and there are a lot of people to
keep you company. I mean, you might find yourself working
with you know, like a hundred other workers to keep
the platform running. I think in the case of BP
um there are a hundred twenty five people work on
that rig and they compared it to the size of
two football fields. It's pretty pretty genormous and if you
think about it, a lot of these are in fact
(20:10):
gonna be located far away from from shore, so they
have to have a lot of amenities. Um, and you're
also going to have a lot of different people on it.
You need you need an in house doctor, you need
your engineers, you need your geologists, you need chefs, you
maybe you need a personal trainer. I don't know. Um,
And what I've heard and what you read in your
article is also that salaries and benefits from working on
(20:33):
these things are pretty good. Um. I don't know that
I would necessarily be in sort of maybe you listeners
would not be into it, but hey, we might have
some listeners out there who have worked on one. Yeah,
we really would love to hear about that. Would it
reminded me of is Um, you do these long stretches
at sea and then you have long periods off. It's
kind of you know, like a doctor who's on call
(20:53):
or works these crazy shifts, you know, seven to seven
and then you know, has five days off or something
like that. And I think it really is pretty grueling.
Of course, if you guys have experience with this, like,
tell us about it. We'd love to hear about it. Yeah,
and you know, it bears to be said that, of course,
oil rigs aren't all jacuzzis and cafeterias, you know outside
of your living quarters. You're gonna have um constant encounter
(21:15):
with some pretty crazy conditions and of course deadly conditions. Yeah,
it can be a dangerous job, as we've seen even
in recent years. So that's that's basically the current face
of offshore oil drilling. Uh. The interesting thing is that
our current technology uh does not permit us to reach
you know, all of the the oil that's underneath the ocean. Um,
(21:38):
So the research continues, techniques continue to improve and figure
out ways to i mean to not only reach you know,
titanic depths in the ocean itself, but also just dealing
in in you know with like freezing or or boiling
temperatures inside the earth. Uh. You know, it gets pretty advanced.
So it's like there's a there's continues to be a
lot of money out there for the guys that and
(22:01):
gals that create the technology that will reach even deeper
into the earth. And there maybe is a lot of
money out there for those people who come up with
say renewable sources of energy as well. Well. Yeah, prevent
us from having to work in the North Sea with
waves pitching and rolling all around us. But yeah, again,
(22:21):
like we said, we really would like to hear from
any of you guys if you have experienced with offshore
oil or working on an oil rig, so send us
an email at science Stuff at how stuff works dot com. Yeah,
and be sure to check us out on Facebook and Twitter.
On Facebook, you can just look up stuff in the
Science Lab and on Twitter we're lab stuff and we
try and update those, uh those pages pretty constantly. All right,
(22:43):
that's all we got today. Thanks for listening for more
on this and thousands of other topics. Does it how
stuff works dot Com. Want more how stuff works, check
out our block on the House of works dot com
home page.
Yeah, hey guys, and welcome to the podcast. Is Alice Adamok,
the science editor at how stuff works dot com. And
this is Robert Lamp, science writerer at how stuff works
(00:22):
dot com. And if let me stop you right now
because this is actually a second the second part of
the two part series. Yeah, we left you last time
with the search for offshore I I mean, lot you
in a real cliffhanger. Yeah, unless you didn't listen to
the last one, in which case you have idea what
we're talking about. Yeah, in the last just to catch
you up previously unlost, this is what happened. Um. We
(00:44):
we were talking about how how oil companies sniff out
and and actually listen for, uh the tailtale signs of
petroleum hidden under the c floor. And when they think
they they found something, they did these exploratory well and
you know, get a get a core sample forget what
exactly is going down there, do some tasks on the
(01:05):
on the on what they find, and if if it
looks like it's going to be profitable, it looks like
they can actually live off this thing for ten to
twenty years, then uh, then it's time to start harvesting
the oil and that's where we are now harvesting the
oil harvesting That makes me think of like you know,
corn in the ocean or something like that. Well, again,
this all stuff, the stuff all used to be biomass.
(01:27):
That's true, very good point, Roberts. Yeah, so a lot
of this is based on your your article how offshore
drilling Ricks, which we are going to refer you to
guys to and we did a little bit in the
last in the last podcast as well. It's just because
sometimes it's hard to picture and especially as we get
into some of these platforms today, you may just want
to check them out around the site. And in the article. Yeah, yeah,
(01:49):
we've got some cool illustrations and a lot of really
jazzy photos of offshore oil rigs. Right, so production gets going,
and what are you gonna need to do. You need
an area, you need to you need a staging area
to get all that oil up. So you're gonna build
a production platform for the duration. And these platforms you
have to you have to be stable, you know, want
men you know, just tossed overboard or women if they
(02:11):
used to work on an off shore rig. And so
the rigs are attached to the ocean, floor and using
like a metal and concrete foundation. And they also have
these tethering cables. And again this comes into play when
you think about some of the spots that these off
shore rigs are going to be, I mean, the north sea,
crazy environment. You've got to make sure that sucker is stable. Yes,
(02:31):
it's like a constant storm. And and you're you know,
you're looking to basically tether it, tether the production line,
you know, from the facility to the ocean floor. So um,
you know, it becomes a little a little tricky at times, right,
and then one platform can have as many as eight wells.
That's pretty crazy, yeah, because you you're you're putting in
(02:52):
all this effort to get it out there, You're gonna
want to maximize its efficiency, right of course. And uh
and as as everyone, uh, I think a lot of
you may remember from there will be blood. There's a
such thing as directional drilling R the I drink your
milkshake thing, you know where, which means that you don't
just have to drill straight down. You can you can
(03:14):
drill at angles, you know, and then you can maximize
the area that you can drill into, right, and states
have been known to do this, Like I think California
has done some directional drilling if you can make the case,
um that you have a right to do so. And
I'm sure there's more to it than that, but yeah,
it basically comes down to like, if you can prove yeah,
that's your oil over there, it's it's it's kind of snaky.
(03:36):
I mean it's it's right. So let's let's stick you
down to the to the oil. Well, yeah, you're gonna
want to install a subside drilling template. That's gonna be
really important. And that's it's kind of what it sounds like. Uh,
you know, if like if you're you're putting down a
stencil or something that you know, to cut out a pattern,
it's basically like a big, you know, metal box with
(03:57):
a bunch of holes in it that directs the drilling. Right,
So instead of sticking your pencil to draw a circle
through the stencil, you're gonna stick your big old drill
bit through that. Well yeah, and they're pretty crazy drill
bits too. Um, Like you know, it's not just a big,
you know, pointed drill. It's more like that. Then it's
(04:17):
like revolving heads with us either like steel or industrial
diamond um um like teeth in it looks kind of
like a if you've ever seen like a microscopic view
of a parasite's head, like a tape worm's head, they
kind of look like that, like just kind of crazy
and awful. Well, yeah, in a nice analogy in your article,
and you said that the drill kind of looks like
(04:39):
tent poles, right, oh yeah, and you have the full
structure of it because because you're gonna be drilling miles
into the floor of the ocean, and so you're hoping
you're not going to, but chances are you might have to. Right,
So the drill can't, you know, come in one long piece,
you know, because that's gonna stretch forever, so it needs
to come apart, and it comes apart basically like a
giant tent pole in the different lengths. Right, has these
(05:01):
multiple thirty foot drill pipes that are screwed together and
the whole the whole unit is called a drill string,
although again maybe it's just content poles. So and then
connected to the polls if you will, on the top
is you have this sort of platform that's rotating the
drill string and at the other end you have, of
course your bit that's you know, charging through the earth
in search of oil. Now it's important to note that
(05:24):
this drill though, is is inside of something called a
marine riser, which I think of it as like a
like a protective casing. Yeah, like an umbilical cord or something.
Um it's kind of like how I think of it.
You know, it's like there's a or just a bundle,
like it's just a protective bundle, and then all this
equipment's going in and it you know, so it's not
(05:44):
just free form. If you're a fish going by, you're
not gonna encounter the drill bit. It's encased. And the
bit is actually kind of cool. Lest you think it's
just some random drill bit. It could be embedded with
diamonds um or it could be like a trio of
rotating interlocking bits with these fearsome steel teeth parasite head.
Oh yeah, that's what you're going for now, I got you, Robert.
(06:07):
And you think about how hard this bit is working,
you know, knowing through the earth, so you can chances
are it'll have to be replaced because it's going to
grow dull, and it's it's coming against some pretty tough
materials within the earth. You've probably heard of drilling mud
um from a recent coverage of the oil spill and
drilling bud mud is used basically to lubricate the drill.
(06:27):
I mean it's used for a number of different purposes,
but one of the key ones at this stage is
to lubricate the drill and keep it going. It's a
thick viscus fluid consists of clay water mixture of special
chemicals and uh, yeah, it drill it. It lubricates the drill.
Bit it seals the wall the well, and it controls
the pressure inside the well. Um and uh and in
(06:49):
this it actually serves as like the first line of
defense against a blowout because you're drilling down. One thing
to keep in mind, you're drilling down into some pressurized areas.
So I mean that's the whole like, oh, it's truck
oil when it comes spewing out, and you know, you
don't really want a lot of oil spewing out. That's
generally were trying to prevent oil drilling indeed. Um. Well,
(07:11):
so related to the drilling mud is you're gonna have
something called the blow up prevention system. And again I
mean I feel like you guys have probably heard of
a blowout prevention system what with all the coverage. Um. So,
this is built so that if pressurized oil and gas
gush up the well, the the bob, I like that,
the bob. Uh, it's supposed to steal the well off
with a hydraulic valves and rams, and then it's going
(07:34):
to reroute the well fluids into these containment systems. Okay.
So yes, it failed in VPS case. So and there's
some allegations that I was reading right before we went
into recording, uh that tests of these blow up preventers
were either falsified or in fact the the bobs weren't
adequately tested at all. Yeah. So it's not a fail safe.
(07:54):
But let's let's get to the drilling process. Let's start
going into the into the earth. Yeah. Like the best
way to think about it, um is to think of
don't think of it as drilling a hole, like, think
of it as boring a tunnel, because it's basically and
you know, sometimes it's not even a vertical shaft, you know,
but you think of it as a tunnel. Like have
you ever seen like any of the old you know,
(08:15):
stalog seventeen the Great Escape type movies. You know where
they're they're building the tunnel to escape you know a
Nazi um you know um prisoner of war camp. Yeah,
well you know that you have to actually support the
tunnel you're building and u and it can get kind
of elaborate. You know, if you're building, you're actually building
walls in there, you know, etcetera. Right, you want to
make sure it doesn't collapse. You have to build casing
(08:36):
in right, right, And that's that's what's going on. So
like they're drilling down, then they pull the drill out
and the install casing. Well, let's let's let's back it
up for one sack. You got your initial surface hole
and I don't know how big you picture this. I
didn't have a real clear idea of how big that
surface hole would be. And so a lot of times
it's about a foot and a half. Yeah, you gotta
you gotta start small reinforce or bigger force. Like it's
(09:01):
it's a gradual thing. It's not just alright, drive the
drill and you know a little break for lunch when
we hit oil. No, you've got to you've got to build.
It's something you build really you're building something, not just
digging something, right, You're boring and then you're reinforcing with
the casing. So once you once you get into the
next phase, once you drill about several hundred to several
thousand feet uh and you move past that initial surface hole,
(09:23):
you're gonna start a busting out the twelve inch drill
bit and you're going to dig that well even deeper.
And again you're gonna repeat that whole process of taking
out the drill string and packing up the the tunnel
that you're building with casing, you're going to reinforce it.
And then your your last part, the part that it's
going to get you really excited if you're searching for
offshore oil, is a the bottom hole. And this is
(09:45):
the final stretch. And again it's lined with the casing.
And another important thing to know is that you know
while you're doing all this, you know, boring down and
reinforcing of the tunnel. Um, you're gonna have this device
that it's called a packer. Yeah, I kind of think
of just robot. I think it's I think it qualifies
as a robot um. Yeah, And it just follows down
(10:05):
and it's expanding the walls and making sure everything is
sealed and just kind of like fine tuning everything kind
of I can't help with sort of picture like the
thing in Labyrinth, remember the the drill looking thing that
comes down. Never mind, I was looking a little blank.
So so anyway, the thing that that was really interesting
to me when I first was researching this is that
(10:27):
once the drill hits petroleum, you think it's like, all right,
let's start. Now we finally hit it. We've opened it up.
The first thing they do seal that sucker. Ye, this
did strike me as well. Yeah, they put something called
a production casing in which, alright, think of it this way.
Imagine you board a hole in the side of a dam,
(10:48):
all right, all right, and then you took a you
took a glove, all right, and you stuck one gloved
finger through, right right, and then you like we're in
ignoring pressure and all that, you're able to remove your
hand and so you have that hole is stopped by
this glove tip that's going through to the other side. Okay,
So now imagine that with the oil. Well there's basically
(11:10):
this this this finger, this you know, this steel finger, this, uh,
this production casing that's sticking down into the oil, all right,
and it's sealed, right because and then I'm gonna hit
another analogy here, like if you have a if you
have some like some sort of tea and with a
bunch of ice in it or I don't know, margarite
is or whatever it's got. Our sangree is a better example.
(11:31):
You have a picture of Sangoa sa al right, so
you've got like a lot of fruit and ice and
all sorts of stuff in there, right, and you go
to poor and you don't let's say, you don't want
all that stuff coming out of the picture because you
have a strainer. So that's basically what they're going for here,
is they want to control the flow. And they don't
want everything in the world just flowing up, all the
(11:52):
all the petroleum and uh and all the gunk that's
in it just skyrocketing to the surface. So they want
to prevent a geyser from happening. And they also want
to ensure the integrity of what they're bringing in, right,
So they basically go down there and poke holes in
that finger then that that gloved finger that's that's down
there in the production casing, right, and they poke those
(12:12):
holes with explosives. Yeah, it's like, so you're probably not
poking holes with explosives all the time. And again it's
kind of crazy. It's like to think it's like, oh,
they okay, we finally reached the bottom. First we're gonna
seal it up and they we're gonna start chunking explosives
down there. Yeah. So but this, uh, this opens up
holes in the production casing. And now this is how
the oil that patrollingum starts flowing in, right, and that
(12:35):
that pressure keeps up for a while, but eventually it's
going to decline, and so then you're gonna have to
bring in something pump. Then you're gonna maybe use some
injections of gas oil or water to start bringing that
petroleum up to the surface. Yeah, and engineers can kind
of tinker with the reservoir pressure and they can cause
a patrollum to rise again. Yeah. It's like the kid
(12:57):
at are we going with another analogy? This is a
record analogy breaking time. It's like it's like the kid
you see at like McDonald's or whatever, and he's he's
consumed most of his milkshake, but there's still some milkshake left.
So he's trying all sorts of ingenious things to try
and suck it up. And if he's young enough, he
also see that what's the soft spot on the top
of the kid's head, Like you see that part sort
(13:17):
of dipping down because he's sucking so hard on the
milkshake straw. But I've never witnessed that. It doesn't really happen.
But but no, it's it's like, it's like that the
milkshake is almost gone, but that's valuable milkshake. And we're
going to make sure that we get our money's worth
out of this stuff, this particular drill site. Right, So
now the oil is coming up, so you know, it's
(13:38):
not just a matter of barreling it up and you know,
sending it up to whatever country needs oil or wants oil.
It's not the case, right, Yeah, it needs to be refined.
I mean, this stuff has like dirt in it. This
is this is pretty pretty far from the stuff that
ends up getting pumped into your car. Yeah, it's a
mixture of crude oil and natural gas, water and all
sorts of cretty sediments. And while a lot of oil
(13:59):
refinement is going to take place on shore. Um, you know,
if you have an oil rig that's big enough, why
not just build a refinery on top of that rig.
We'll have a refining ship. I believe that they sometimes
do that as well. So we've gone down to the
bottom of that of of of the drill side. But
let's go back up to the top a few minutes. Um,
you're you basically have two types of drilling platforms. The
(14:21):
first kind we're gonna look at is a mobile drilling platform, right,
and these are used in conjunction with the exploratory drilling face. Yeah,
when you're not really sure what you know, whether this uh,
this drilling action is going to pan out, you don't
want to invest any huge rig, so you're you're gonna
want to take you more in expensive, more mobile drilling
platform Yeah. Like some of these are just like barges.
(14:41):
U there's a you know, they're drilling ships, which really
cool because they have what's called a moonhole in the bottom.
A moonhole is like imagine a swimming pool in the
bottom of a of a ship and accepted that swimming
pool is the ocean. It's like a hole in the
bottom of the ship, and that the that it's going
to go through. Um, so Yeah, it's it's a ship
(15:04):
with an oil rig mounted on the top of it.
It's it's it's pretty basic. Um. Yeah, So you're gonna
have another basic one would be your drilling barge. And
this is mostly going to be used for shallow drilling
in non ocean waters. Yeah, kind of like that one
we talked about earlier in the swamp. Yeah, it's it's
it's suitable for calmer waters and you need a tug
(15:25):
boat to tug that thing out to the site and
then you're gonna just anchor in place. Bang. That's it.
That's what you got for your mobile drilling platform. And
you like the jack up. The jackup is pretty cool
because it's it's kind of hard to explain it. It's best.
There's a there's a really cool picture of in the
article on the the page that's about mobile drilling platforms,
and it's just it's kind of like a jack it's um,
(15:50):
like they raised up and these these massive legs, right yeah,
and it's has those legs retracted when they haul it
out and then it lowers the legs which jacks itself up. So, um,
look at a picture of it, because it's it's really cool. Yeah,
and all this can be years for the price of
maybe a hundred eighty million million. So when we do
say that these are some of the inexpensive chilling platforms,
(16:12):
they are pretty darn expensive. But I guess if you're
a big oil company, maybe you have that kind of
cash line around. Oh, you have that kind of cash
line around. Yeah, And then there there are a couple
other ones along the lines of submersible and semi submersible rigs.
And this is basically, you know, incorporates a little bit
of the drilling barge and the jackup. So what you
have going on here is you have your production facilities
and they're you know, nice and elevated to be kept safe,
(16:34):
and they're they're up on stilts. They're hundreds of feet
above these kind of pontoon like barges. And after the
reaching the drill side, the crew floods the barge with water,
and so after they fled them, the barges sink until
they rest on the sea or the lake floor or
whatever body of water they happen to be in. It's
kind of like imagine like and again here's another analogy,
(16:55):
but okay, imagine like a giant dude with floating feet,
all right, with like big floating shoes, right, and he's
like standing on the water and then floods. No, just
bear with me, all right. Imagine if you were standing
on the surface of the water and your your shoes
were floating, and then you like, you know, swamped your
shoes and then you sank and then you suddenly you're
(17:18):
up to your knees in the water because your feet
are on the bottom of the ocean instead of on
the surface. I don't know if that helps at all,
but that's basically these things go. They go out there,
then they flood the pontoons, and then the pontoons go
from resting on the surface of the water to resting
on the bottom of the ocean, or in some cases
they're not resting on the bottom, but they're still anchoring it,
you know. Yeah. Yeah. And then of course you've got
(17:40):
stuff like your drill ship and this is just mostly
an ocean going vessel, but we already cover that. So
then the next type of of oil rig are the
offshore drilling platforms. And and this is when you decide
that you want to stay. You're gonna be here for
the roots, uh, you know, in fashion, Yeah, yeah, and
these vary from things that are essentially towers just you know,
(18:02):
riveted right to the floor of the ocean, to things
like the spar platforms that are in like such deep
waters that there's there's no way that they could they
could you know, touch the bottom of the ocean. So
they're just they go down to a certain, uh, certain
depth just to anchor, you know. And then we're talking
like big concrete structures, uh, and then they tether them
(18:23):
in place with cables, right the spar platform can This
is for the case where you absolutely need to drill
a hole at a depth of ten thousand feet. It's
pretty it's pretty far down. Yeah, these are the big
the bad boys, I say. And you know one thing
that you keep doing, or that you did in the
article when you're writing it, is that you could sort
of compare them to all these very tall skyscrapers, only
(18:44):
these are reverse skyscrapers, you know, so you picture how
far down they're going, and and even farther if you
think about, you know, building that tunnel into the earth too. Yeah,
it's it gets ridiculous again the lengths, say an addict
will go to to get his fixed you know, we'll
we will build just I mean, no matter what you
think about about the offshore oil drilling in the industry itself,
(19:05):
the process is amazing and it's really a testament to
technological achievement. Um. But yeah, there we actually have a
really awesome illustration in the in the article. Thank you
Lee Dempsey illustrator. Yeah, that that shows you, like several
different varieties and stacks shows them like side by side.
So to give you a good idea of how, uh say,
(19:28):
a a compliant tower differs from a fixed platform, which
and how that differs from the c star platform. Um,
you know, if it would take a lot of awkward
analogies to try and tell you what they look like.
So what if you wanted to work or live on
one of these oil rigs pace, well, I understand, yeah,
(19:49):
I mean, and there are a lot of people to
keep you company. I mean, you might find yourself working
with you know, like a hundred other workers to keep
the platform running. I think in the case of BP
um there are a hundred twenty five people work on
that rig and they compared it to the size of
two football fields. It's pretty pretty genormous and if you
think about it, a lot of these are in fact
(20:10):
gonna be located far away from from shore, so they
have to have a lot of amenities. Um, and you're
also going to have a lot of different people on it.
You need you need an in house doctor, you need
your engineers, you need your geologists, you need chefs, you
maybe you need a personal trainer. I don't know. Um,
And what I've heard and what you read in your
article is also that salaries and benefits from working on
(20:33):
these things are pretty good. Um. I don't know that
I would necessarily be in sort of maybe you listeners
would not be into it, but hey, we might have
some listeners out there who have worked on one. Yeah,
we really would love to hear about that. Would it
reminded me of is Um, you do these long stretches
at sea and then you have long periods off. It's
kind of you know, like a doctor who's on call
(20:53):
or works these crazy shifts, you know, seven to seven
and then you know, has five days off or something
like that. And I think it really is pretty grueling.
Of course, if you guys have experience with this, like,
tell us about it. We'd love to hear about it. Yeah,
and you know, it bears to be said that, of course,
oil rigs aren't all jacuzzis and cafeterias, you know outside
of your living quarters. You're gonna have um constant encounter
(21:15):
with some pretty crazy conditions and of course deadly conditions. Yeah,
it can be a dangerous job, as we've seen even
in recent years. So that's that's basically the current face
of offshore oil drilling. Uh. The interesting thing is that
our current technology uh does not permit us to reach
you know, all of the the oil that's underneath the ocean. Um,
(21:38):
So the research continues, techniques continue to improve and figure
out ways to i mean to not only reach you know,
titanic depths in the ocean itself, but also just dealing
in in you know with like freezing or or boiling
temperatures inside the earth. Uh. You know, it gets pretty advanced.
So it's like there's a there's continues to be a
lot of money out there for the guys that and
(22:01):
gals that create the technology that will reach even deeper
into the earth. And there maybe is a lot of
money out there for those people who come up with
say renewable sources of energy as well. Well. Yeah, prevent
us from having to work in the North Sea with
waves pitching and rolling all around us. But yeah, again,
(22:21):
like we said, we really would like to hear from
any of you guys if you have experienced with offshore
oil or working on an oil rig, so send us
an email at science Stuff at how stuff works dot com. Yeah,
and be sure to check us out on Facebook and Twitter.
On Facebook, you can just look up stuff in the
Science Lab and on Twitter we're lab stuff and we
try and update those, uh those pages pretty constantly. All right,
(22:43):
that's all we got today. Thanks for listening for more
on this and thousands of other topics. Does it how
stuff works dot Com. Want more how stuff works, check
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