Petroleum Mining and Oil-field Development A Guide to the Exploration of Petroleum Lands, and a Study of the Engineering Problems connected with the winning of Petroleum

Abstract

THE engineering part of the book contains a large amount of instructive information, especially in regard to customary procedure in Russian oil-fields, but the author betrays a lack of knowledge of recent practice in some of the American oil-fields. Thus, his remarks on steel wire cable drilling on p. 193 are misleading, for it is common knowledge that at the. present time this system is certainly in favour in the United States, and may, in fact, be said to be generally used for deep wells in that country, often after a depth of 600 to 800 feet has been reached. Similarly, the statement made on p. 218, as to the method adopted when a dropped tool cannot be recovered by “fishing,” ignores the usual practice of “side-tracking” by raising the casing and drilling off with a wedge. Again, on p. 238, the diameter of the last string of casing is understated, for American wells, started with a diameter of 12 inches or 14 inches, are frequently completed at a depth of 3000 feet, or even 4000 feet, with a diameter of 6 inches, and it is incorrect to state that in the United States the casing is always manufactured from mild steel, for wrought-iron casing is manufactured in that country and is readily obtainable. In the description of the process of cementing wells, on pp. 266–8, there is no mention of the latest and most effective system, which consists in pumping the fluid cement, without any admixture of sand, through tubing packed inside the casing, so that it circulates below the shoe and passes up on the outside of the casing, which is afterwards lowered and the packer withdrawn.

Petroleum Mining and Oil-field Development. A Guide to the Exploration of Petroleum Lands, and a Study of the Engineering Problems connected with the winning of Petroleum.

By A. Beeby Thompson. Pp. xx+362. (London: Crosby Lockwood and Son, 1910.) Price 15s. net.