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Well drilling involves the process of drilling a hole in the ground to explore for, or extract, natural gas or petroleum, to inject fluid from the surface into a subsurface reservoir or for the evaluation or monitoring of subsurface formations. The earliest wells were dug by hand, but this was later replaced by manual drilling using the “spring-pole” method and, in turn, by mechanical drilling, first using the percussion drilling or “cable-tool” method and then by rotary drilling using drill pipe and drilling bits (Brantly 1971).
Percussion drilling is a discontinuous method of drilling whereby an impact tool or bit is suspended in the well and dropped repeatedly on the bottom of the borehole to crush the rock.
Rotary drilling is an alternative method of drilling that relies on continuous circular motion either of the entire drill string from the surface, or by using “downhole motors” to turn the drill bit to break the rock at the bottom of the hole. Rotary drilling is a...
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Craig, J. (2021). Drilling: History of Onshore Drilling and Technology. In: Sorkhabi, R. (eds) Encyclopedia of Petroleum Geoscience. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02330-4_26-2
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Drilling: History of Onshore Drilling and Technology- Published:
- 02 October 2021
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02330-4_26-2
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Drilling: History of Onshore Drilling and Technology- Published:
- 04 August 2021
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02330-4_26-1