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Crude Oil from a Drilled Well: the American Cable-Tool Method (Crew 1887)
How the Pennsylvania oil wells were drilled: no rotating drill pipe, just a heavy string of tools on a cable, lifted and dropped by a rocking beam so the bit chips its way through rock. A well of 1500 feet took a few weeks. Once the oil sand is reached, tubing is run in and the oil flows, or is pumped, to tanks.
Source: Crew, A Practical Treatise on Petroleum (1887), after Carll's survey of the Pennsylvania oil regions, with the costs of a Bradford well of 1878. Not described here: the pumping gear, and the nitroglycerin 'torpedo' once used to shatter the oil sand. Gas from a strong well can overcome a man: Crew tells of a foreman who fell unconscious under the bull wheel. Picture: the Drake well, the first American oil well (public domain).
Advanced
3 weeks
Instructions
1
1
Raise the rig: derrick about 75 ft, walking beam, wheels
Raise the rig: derrick about 75 ft, walking beam, wheels
Set the timber foundation: mud sills in trenches, main sill and sub-sills, all locked with wedges (keys), no mortices or tenons. Raise the derrick, about 75 ft high and 12 ft square at the base, with a crown pulley on top. Fit the samson post and walking beam, the band wheel, the bull wheel that winds the cable, the sand-pump reel, and the engine and boiler. A headache post under the beam catches it if the crank pin breaks.
Tools needed:
Cable-Tool Drilling Rig
Stationary Steam Engine
Steam Boiler2
2
Set a conductor down to bed-rock
Set a conductor down to bed-rock
Sink a wooden conductor of heavy planks spiked together through the soil and gravel and fit it tight on the rock, so mud cannot wash into the well. Where the rock lies deep, drive an iron pipe down to it in joints instead, with a pile-driver, and clear the earth out of it.
Tools needed:
Timber Plank
Steel Pipe (thick-walled, threaded ends)3
3
Spud the hole, then string up the tools
Spud the hole, then string up the tools
The tools are about 62 ft long and weigh about 2100 lb strung up: centre bit, auger stem (4-in iron, 28 to 40 ft), jars, and sinker bar (14 to 16 ft) on the cable. Until the hole is deep enough to hang them below the floor, spud: lift and drop the auger stem by coiling and uncoiling the cable on the bull wheel. Then string the tools up and let them down with the bull-wheel brake.
Tools needed:
Cable Drilling ToolsCable-Tool Drilling Rig4
4
Drill: the beam drops about a ton 2 ft each stroke
Drill: the beam drops about a ton 2 ft each stroke
Hook the cable to the walking beam through the temper screw. Each stroke lifts and drops the tools about 2 ft. The driller walks the temper-screw lever round to turn the bit, watches the jars, and lets the screw out as the bit goes down. Draw the tools out when the screw is run out or the bit is dull, and sharpen it. Work goes on day and night in two shifts.
Tools needed:
Cable Drilling ToolsCable-Tool Drilling RigStationary Steam Engine5
5
Bail the chips with the sand pump
Bail the chips with the sand pump
Pour water into the well so the broken rock stays in suspension. Each time the tools come out, run the sand pump down on its own line and bail out the mud and sand. A reamer can be run in place of the bit to true the hole.
Tools needed:
Sand Pump
Water6
6
Shut off the water, case the hole
Shut off the water, case the hole
At the bottom of the water-bearing rocks, set a seed-bag packing to keep the water out of the well, and run in casing. The Bradford well of 1878 had about 300 ft of casing for about 1500 ft of hole.
Tools needed:
Steel Pipe (thick-walled, threaded ends)
Well Packer7
7
Tube the well and run the oil to tanks
Tube the well and run the oil to tanks
On reaching the oil sand, run in the tubing (about 1600 ft in the Bradford well) with a packer and a working barrel, fit the casing head, and connect it with tees and elbows to the tanks: a 25-barrel and a 250-barrel tank. A new well often flows on its own gas; when it slows, it has to be pumped. Crew does not describe the pumping gear.
Tools needed:
Steel Pipe (thick-walled, threaded ends)Well Packer
Oil Storage TankTools Required
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