Gulftex Operating Oil and Gas exploration - Layman's guide

Plenty of people think that drilling for oil amounts to finding a spot where crude oil oozes from the soil like the Beverly Hill Billy's. It is not quite that way. Drilling for oil today is a complicated, systematic process of coaxing oil from materials where it is partially embedded. This requires companies that understand how to get the best results. GULFTEX Operating, Incorporated's engineers and employees use a mix of sciences including seismology, geology and physics to find and unleash the most oil possible . Once geologists have determined that an area may contain oil, mud work starts at the drilling site to prepare an acceptable location for a drilling rig.

A drilling rig, identifiable by its 90-foot mast is erected at the site.Then engines are assembled on the site and the rig can begin drilling. The first phase is for surface surrounding . The surface casing is set below any water formations. The surrounding itself comes in 40-foot sections, which are threaded at both ends. Employees called "roughnecks" attach the sections with a threaded "collar" . Chains are used to spin the pipe into the threaded collar. The roughnecks then tighten the collar with a giant pipe wrench. Once the surface surrounding has been run into the hole, a special cement is pumped in. The cement seals the area between the surface surrounding and the side of the hole; shielding all water formations from contamination as drilling continues.

Drilling, Testing & Completion
The drill bit and 30-foot sections of drill pipe are used to drill deeper toward the possibly oil-bearing formation. A liquid composed of water and bentonite is mixed ( on a make-shift basis ) to a gelatin-like consistency and is pumped into the hole to hold the drill cuttings to the surface. This liquid is known as "drilling mud." Once the hole reaches the required depth,, logging starts. Logging is the method of deciding which of the formations between the surface and the base of the well contain oil and gas and which formations contain only water. An electrical wire and a "logging tool" are dropped into the hole, and the tool sends electric charges into the formation. Logging contractor staff get ready to lower the 20-foot logging tool into the hole. 5000' of drill pipe is standing beside them.
The tool then sends this geological info to the "logging" van where a PC processes the info. The info which can be derived from logging includes rock type, porosity, and resistivity ( oil resists electricity ; water conducts it ). Once this info is gathered and studied, a call is created to either plug or complete the well. This is known as the "casing point decision." Once the choice to finish the well has been reached, enough surrounding is dropped into the hole to get to the bottom ( often over 5000 feet ).
An employee, called a "stabber" makes sure the surrounding is "stabbed" right into the joint of every bit of surrounding. Power tongs screw the pipe together till it reaches the correct torque. Cement is then pumped into the hole thru the surrounding. When it toughens, the cement forms a seal between the exterior of the surrounding and the wall of the hole itself. The last joint or section of surrounding pipe is then cut off at floor level.

Gulftex Operating reaches the final Goal
The drilling rig is removed, and a service rig takes its place. A perforating gun blows holes thru the casing and cement (surround) into the rock using formed explosive charges. The perforating gun blows a hole every 3 inches down the hole. A P. C. Telling the gun when to fire a charge. These holes or "perforations" permit the oil to seep into the surrounding. However, another step must be taken to boost the amount of oil moving into the surrounding. This next step involves "loosening" the oil that is encircled in the porous rock employing a process called "fracing" ( asserted fracking ).
This is accomplished by pumping water at very high pressure into the hole till a crack develops in the rock formation. Water and sand are then pumped into the crack, once pumping is ceased, the sand holds the cracks open it being more porous than the oil containing rock. Once all this is accomplished, the oil starts to escape the broken rock and flows into the surrounding. The service rig is then exploited to run another string of pipe into the well ( within the surrounding ).
This string of pipe is known as the "tubing." A pump is also installed in the base of the well. From this point the gas and oil are pumped to handling station for distribution.

When most people think of crude oil they automatically think of automobile gasoline. But how much of a barrel (32 gallons) of crude oil does it represent? What other products are fined from crude oil. Before we list the products of crude oil refinement, let's take a short look at the process. An oil refinery as most people know them is a large complex of tanks and pipelines, usually accompanied with a flame coming out of one or more of these tanks. The main refinement process is twofold. Adding chemicals to the base mix then vacuum distilling the mix and collecting/cooling the extractions.
Following is a list of directly distilled products with their oil refinery names and gallons per barrel of crude:

Gasoline 19.5 gallons
Distillate fuel oil 9.2 gallons
Jet fuel 4.1 gallons
Residual fuel oil 2.3 gallons
Liquefied gases 1.9 gallons
Still gas 1.9 gallons
Petroleum coke 1.8 gallons
Asphalt/road oil 1.3 gallons
Petroleum Feedstocks 1.2 gallons (plastics stock)
Lubricants 0.5 gallons
Kerosene 0.2 gallons
Other 0.3 gallons

Totaling 44.2 gallons

This is a gain from the 32 gallons of crude at the start of the process. This gain is due to the chemicals and expansion of the products during the vacuum distillation processes.

To see another side of the oil and gas industry from exploration to production you can check out Gulftex Operating Inc . and its Sister company TBX Resources, Inc. of Dallas TX - see below.

Gulftex Operating http://www.gulftexoperatinginc.com
Sister company TBX resources http://www.tbxresources.com