Drilling and Excavation Technologies for the Future (1994) / Chapter Skim
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3. National Importance of Drilling
3. National Importance of Drilling
Pages 12-33
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From page 12... ...
Drilling is the primary too} for extracting petroleum from rocks in the subsurface. Improvements in drilling technology that lower drilling costs and increase the rate of success in finding and extracting petroleum will have a direct benefit to the United States in terms of higher energy reserves, stable energy costs, and improved economic competitiveness in the drilling and service industries, which are increasingly global in character.
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From page 13... ...
petroleum industry continues to maintain a considerable level of domestic drilling activity, the character of Me companies drilling domestic petroleum wells is changing. Major petroleum companies are redirecting their exploration and production budgets for work abroad, and drilling activity by these companies in the lower 48 states has reached historically low levels.
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From page 14... ...
14 ._ o or d ._ 4 ~q o ._ a ~4 g ~Q 3 ._ CQ .
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From page 15... ...
In 1992, a panel of oil resource analysts convened at the request of the U.S. Department of Energy concluded that there is a substantial remaining, recoverable volume of crude oil in the United States, on the order of 99 to 204 billion barrels (Oil Resources Panel, 1992~.
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From page 16... ...
Advances in drilling technology are especially important for accessing these targets and reducing overall development costs. Natural Gas Drilling Natural gas, which is composed mostly of methane, is a relatively clean and domestically abundant fuel that provides more than one-fif~ of the primary energy used in He United States.
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From page 17... ...
Recent domestic supply projections indicate that a substantial resource of about 1,300 Tcf exists in Me lower 48 states (National Petroleum Council, 1992; Enron Corporation, 1993~. At present rates of U.S.
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From page 18... ...
Tight gas and deep gas are likely targets for targeted drilling, directional and horizontal drilling, and smart drilling technology. Geothermal Drilling Geothermal energy, including steam, hydrothermal, hot dry rock, and magma resources, constitutes a large and relatively untapped source of energy in the United States.
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From page 19... ...
Geothermal reservoirs are frequently found in mixed hard and soft volcanic rocks, which makes drilling difficult and costly. Only a small portion of known geothermal resources can be exploited at current energy prices.
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From page 20... ...
Of this, about one-third ($240 billion) will be spent on the government's weapons complexes (Nuclear Waste News [NWN]
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From page 21... ...
The difficulty of access, He type of pollutant, and He nature and time of treatment will influence the total cost. In petroleum operations, drilling costs typically account for 50 to 80% of exploration finding costs, and about 30 to 80% of subsequent field development costs (zincked, 1987~.
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From page 22... ...
At the Department of Energy Savannah River Site, several directional and horizontal wells have been drilled (Kaback and others, 1989a, b; Westinghouse Savannah River Co., 1992~. Early work was carried out by using conventional oil field directional drilling technologies, but subsequent holes have been drilled with purpose-built equipment or with drilling techniques adapted from river-crossing and service placement technologies.
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From page 23... ...
Total annual of} and gas exploration and production expenditures paid to service companies decreased from $36.7 billion in 1981 to $10.6 billion in 1990 Independent Petroleum Association of America, 1991~. Job losses in the of} and gas service companies include many of the technical leaders in this field.
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From page 24... ...
However, wig increased urban crowding, Here is increased interest in building these replacement facilities underground. Recent estimates suggest that over 200 miles of tunnels, 5 ft and larger in diameter, will be built in He United States by the end of the century (American Underground Space Association, 1993~.
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From page 25... ...
In addition, the mining industry uses boring machines to gain access to ore bodies and to drive operations connections between various areas of mines. These machines are similar to, or use technology similar to, tunnel boring machines (TBMs)
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From page 26... ...
Although drilling and exploration for resource recovery remain important purposes, the overall objectives of scientific drilling are far broader and include the following (National Research Council [NRC] , 1979, 198S, 1992~: structure and chemical constitution of continental crust; distribution of mineral resources; thermal regime of He crust and crustal heat flow; · state of stress in the Earth's crust and crustal response to stress, including properties of fault zones for purposes of understanding earthquake phenomena; and nature and age of the ocean floor with particular reference to seafloor spreading.
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From page 27... ...
In addition to these, the United States is an important collaborator in several large international scientific drilling programs such as Me Lake Baikal, Kola Peninsula, and KTB deep drilling programs (MacGregor, 1993~. In distinction to the continental drilling programs, the Ocean Drilling Program of recent years involves an outlay of roughly $40 million/yr but is devoted to almost exclusively to scientific purposes (NRC, 1992~.
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From page 28... ...
both act as stimulus for radical improvements in drilling technology and provide the opportunity for such developments. Because the cost of drilling is usually the major part of any scientific drilling program, such programs require careful planning to utilize all available opportunities, both nationally and internationally.
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From page 29... ...
companies In several sectors of the economy, most notably in the areas of resource exploration and extraction, environmental remediation, and infrastructure development. The committee believes that improvements in drilling technology can best be achieved through a national R&D effort that integrates industry, university, and government perspectives.
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From page 30... ...
L., 198S, The technological dependency of the remaining oil and gas resource base in the U.S.: Presentation to the Society of Petroleum Engineers, Symposium on Energy, Finance, and Taxation Policies, Washington, D.C. Fisher, W
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From page 31... ...
, 1979, Assessment of Geothermal Resources of the United States—1978: U.S. Geological Survey Circular 790, 163 PPe National Petroleum Council, 1992, The Potential for Natural Gas in the United States, Washington, D.C., NPC, 7 v.
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From page 32... ...
Westinghouse Savannah River Co., 1992, Demonstration of Eastman Christensen Horizontal Drilling System: Integrated Demonstration Site, Savannah River Site: Westinghouse Savannah River Co., report prepared under contract no.
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From page 33... ...
W., and Ellswordl, W L., 1993b, Scientific drilling into the San Andreas Fault Zone: Preliminary proposal to the Continental Dynamics Program of the National Science Foundation.
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