Page 19 - Air and gas Drilling Field Guide 3rd Edition

10 CHAPTER 2 Air and Gas Versus Mud

In general, the use of air and gas drilling methods is confined to mature sedi-
mentary basins within mature geologic provinces.
Pneumatic conveying represents the first use of moving air to transport
entrained solids in the flowing stream of air. This airstream was created by
steam-powered fans that were the direct outgrowth of the industrial revolution
of the early sixteenth century. Pneumatic conveying was accomplished on an
industrial scale by the late 1860s [1]. The need for higher pressure flows of air
and other gases led to the first reliable industrial air compressors (stationary) in
the late 1870s [2]. Here again, these early compressors were steam powered. After
the development of the internal combustion engines, portable reciprocating and
rotary compressors were possible. These portable compressors were first
utilized in the late 1880s by an innovative mining industry to drill in mines
using pneumatic-actuated hammers for in mine wall boreholes and shaft pilot
boreholes [2].

2.1 ROTARY DRILLING
Rotary drilling is a method used to drill deep boreholes in rock formations of the
Earth’s crust. This method is comparatively new, having been first developed by a
French civil engineer, Rudolf Leschot, in 1863 [3]. The method was initially used
to drill water wells using fresh water as the circulation fluid. Today, this method
is the only rock drilling technique used to drill deep boreholes (greater than 3000
ft, or 900 m). It is not known when air compressors were first used for the dril-
ling of water wells, but it is known that deep petroleum and natural gas wells
were drilled utilizing portable air compressors in the 1920s [4]. Pipeline gas
was used to drill a natural gas well in Texas in 1935 using reverse circulation
techniques [5].
Today, rotary drilling is used to drill a variety of boreholes. Most water wells and
environmental monitoring wells drilled into bedrock are constructed using rotary
drilling. In the mining industry, rotary drilling is used to drill ore body test bore-
holes and pilot boreholes for guiding larger shaft borings. Rotary drilling techni-
ques are used to drill boreholes for water, oil, gas, and other fluid pipelines that
need to pass under rivers, highways, and other natural and man-made obstructions.
Most recently, rotary drilling is being used to drill boreholes for fiber optics and
other telecommunication lines in obstacle-ridden areas such as cites and industrial
sites. The most sophisticated application for rotary drilling is the drilling of deep
boreholes for the recovery of natural resources such as crude oil, natural gas,
and geothermal steam and water. Drilling boreholes for fluid resource recovery
usually requires boreholes drilled to depths of 3,000 ft (900 m) to as great as
20,000 ft (6000 m).
Rotary drilling is highly versatile. The rotary drilling applications given previ-
ously require the drilling of igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary rock. How-
ever, the deep drilling of boreholes for the recovery of crude oil and natural gas