What’s the upstream oil & gas business?
How are oil & fuel sources found?
Seismic surveys
Canada complete database
Floor and mineral rights
What jobs are involved in drilling a properly?
How are wells drilled?
Making a hole
Drilling phases
Kicks
Cores & cuttings
Logging & testing
Abandonment
Completion & servicing
Coiled tubing
Pipeling & processing
GIS Saskatchewan

What is the upstream oil & fuel business?

When you fill up your car with gasoline or pay your pure gasoline heating bill, you are the final link in an extended chain of companies that make it attainable for us to enjoy these , handy and economical forms of energy. The whole chain is known as the petroleum business. However, the trade is usually divided into three main elements: upstream, midstream and downstream.

Theupstream trade finds and produces crude oil and natural gasoline. The upstream is typically recognized because the exploration and production (E&P) sector. As a result of Alberta accounts for greater than 80 per cent of Canada oil and fuel manufacturing, many upstream businesses are based in Alberta and most have their head places of work in Calgary.

Themidstream business processes, shops, markets and transports commodities comparable to crude oil, pure gasoline, natural fuel liquids (NGLs, mainly ethane, propane and butane) and sulphur. The midstream gives the important hyperlink between the far-flung petroleum producing areas and the inhabitants centres the place most shoppers are located. In Canada, transmission pipeline firms are a serious a part of the midstream petroleum trade. Most of these corporations are also based in Calgary, although their actions prolong throughout the country, into the United States and sometimes abroad.

Thedownstream trade includes oil refineries, petrochemical plants, petroleum products distributors, retail outlets and natural gas distribution firms. Although many downstream corporations are headquartered in Calgary, the largest centres of exercise are close to Sarnia, Ontario, and Edmonton, Alberta. The downstream industry touches every province and territory-wherever customers are situated-and offers hundreds of merchandise resembling gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, heating oil, asphalt, lubricants, synthetic rubber, plastics, fertilizers, antifreeze, pesticides, pharmaceuticals, natural gas and propane.

The upstream petroleum trade in Canada consists of greater than 1,000 exploration and manufacturing corporations as well as lots of of associated service companies resembling seismic and drilling contractors, service rig operators, engineering corporations and various scientific, technical, service and supply companies.

Upstream trade revenues totaled $sixty three billion in 2000, of which 53 per cent got here from the sale of crude oil. The remainder was from sales of pure gas, pure fuel liquids and sulphur. About half of Canada oil and gas production is exported to the United States. Canada is self-adequate in natural gasoline-supplying virtually all domestic markets with domestically produced pure fuel-however imports of crude oil into Eastern Canada account for about 40 per cent of the nation oil provide.

The Canadian upstream petroleum industry has attained a global popularity for excellence in lots of areas together with:

How areoil & gas assets discovered?

The search for oil and gasoline begins with aerial surveys and floor statement by geologists and geophysicists to see if an space has the kind of the rock formations which may contain petroleum. Firms then conduct seismic surveys or buy seismic data from other corporations to get a better image of the underground rock formations.

Seismic surveys

In a seismic survey, the geophysical contractor crew lays out a line (or a number of lines) of delicate receivers, known as geophones or ugs,on the bottom. Then explosions or mechanical vibrations are created on the surface. The geophones document the energy reflected back as seismic waves from rock layers at varied depths. Geophysicists use highly effective computers to course of the information from digitally recorded seismic surveys. Pc-assisted processing of the info creates an image of the sedimentary constructions below and ideally shows the placement and extent of porous layers inside these buildings.

Geophysicists and geologists study the seismic data for the presence of appropriate traps and for similarities with other petroleum-producing areas. If the results appear promising, they use the seismic knowledge to find and drill a properly.

Canada comprehensive database

Due to lengthy-standing and close cooperation amongst industry, government and tutorial scientists, Canada is considered having probably the most comprehensive details about its petroleum resources of any country in the world. Early necessities to report accurately all types of information from the 650,000 wells drilled so far in Canada have given us an extremely useful and dependable database that can be utilized rapidly and cheaply.

With the introduction of computerized commercial databases, new drilling prospects may be generated, producing fields can be optimized and field operations scrutinized

Floor & mineral rights

Access to land, and the minerals beneath it, is required with the intention to drill a well. Oil firm land departments negotiate access with house owners and federal or provincial governments. Specialized workers, often called landmen (who could also be male or female), are chargeable for all these negotiations. No exploration or production activity can occur without the mandatory permissions.

What jobs are concerned in drilling a effectively?

About 75 employees are straight employed by the drilling of one well, though solely 4 to seven could also be on responsibility at the rig at any given time. The precise number can fluctuate considerably, relying on the type of effectively being drilled.

The personnel employed at varied occasions throughout drilling might embrace:

The rigs function across the clock, seven days every week, and the crews typically work 12-hour shifts for 2 weeks after which have every week off. The staff generally live in a short lived camp on site.

How are wells drilled?

The one approach to find out whether a rock formation truly contains oil or fuel is to drill a nicely. There are about 690 lively drilling rigs in Canada. Most rigs are owned by contractors who promote their companies to exploration and production corporations.

There are a lot of different types of drilling rigs. The smallest are mounted on trucks, whereas the largest are installed on ships or offshore platforms. Some are specifically equipped for bitter gasoline exploration, Arctic operations, slanted holes or horizontal drilling.

As a general rule, the larger the rig, the deeper it might drill. Land-based mostly rigs could be rapidly assembled and taken apart in sections for transferring between locations, though this will require up to 50 semi-trailers for the largest.

Making hole

Drillers name drilling making hole. The fundamental process is simple. A revolving steel bit at the underside of a string of pipe grinds a gap through the rock layers. The bit could also be studded with tungsten carbide or industrial diamonds to reduce bit wear and penetrate harder rock formations.

A fluid known as drilling mud lubricates the bit, removes cuttings, conditions the properly bore and stabilizes the pressure in the outlet. The mud, a suspension of chemicals and minerals akin to bentonite clay in water or typically oil, is pumped down the drill pipe. It circulates back to the surface by means of the area outdoors the pipe, identified as the annulus. The mud recirculates after cuttings are eliminated by a vibrating display screen called the shale shaker.

Sometimes, wells are drilled without mud to increase penetration rates and to keep away from contacting sensitive rock formations with water. In so-known as air drilling, compressed air removes the cuttings.

Alternatively, drillers can receive a lot of the same advantages via underbalanced drilling-using mud lightened by the addition of nitrogen or different gas. Underbalanced drilling has change into more and more frequent in western Canada because it minimizes injury to the producing reservoir. This is very useful in clay formations. Clays can collapse into the well bore or swell up when contacted with contemporary-water-primarily based drilling fluids. Underbalanced drilling prevents the invasion of the drilling fluid into the reservoir and allows oil to be produced extra effectively.

As the bit penetrates deeper, the crew threads extra pipe onto the top of the string. Sections of pipe are usually 9.5 metres long, however could also be longer. Pipe diameters and wall thickness differ, depending on well depth.

On most land-primarily based rigs, a rotary desk on the rig flooring rotates the drill string to rotate the drill bit. Nonetheless, most offshore models and an growing variety of land rigs use prime drives-hydraulic or electric motors suspended above the drill string. In some situations, the bit may be turned by a mud motor, a downhole hydraulic drive which is inserted above the bit at the underside of the string. It receives power from the mud movement. That is the method utilized in horizontal drilling.

Drilling phases

Wells are normally drilled in phases, starting with a surface gap drilled to reach a depth anywhere from 60 to 400 metres, relying on ultimate well depth and space circumstances. This is known as pudding inthe effectively. The crew then pulls out the drill string and inserts steel pipe, referred to as surface casing, which is cemented in place to maintain the wall from caving in. It controls the return circulation of mud and different fluids encountered throughout drilling and also prevents contamination of groundwater aquifers.

Blowout preventer (BOP) devices are usually put in on the highest of the casing, below the rig floor. BOPs are massive valves that help include the fluid and fuel pressure in the nicely. One sort of BOP can seal off the area between the drill pipe and the casing (the annulus) if the drill pipe continues to be in the hole. One other can shear off the drill pipe and thus seal off the entire well, whereas a 3rd can seal off the well if no drill pipe is in the opening. If the nicely is prone to encounter excessive pressures, several of these BOPs could also be mounted in a BOP stack.

Opposite to the image portrayed in previous films, drillers do their best to avoid uncontrolled releases, referred to as ushersor blowouts. Blowouts waste beneficial resources and sometimes injury the surroundings. Some blowouts may launch foul-smelling bitter gasoline containing toxic hydrogen sulphide, which can be a significant hazard for employees, close by populations and environments. Blowouts will be enormously costly to bring underneath control. Crews are trained to make use of BOPs and drilling fluid to cut back the frequency and severity of blowouts.

Some wells are designated as vital bitter gas wells as a result of they’ve the potential for releases of hydrogen sulphide that may have an effect on close by residents. Corporations and governments require emergency response planning, public consultation, security tools and worker training for vital bitter gasoline operations. When the drill bit enters the crucial zone in a properly the place sour fuel will possible be encountered, additional precautions might include offering breathing apparatuses for rig personnel and notifying people residing close by.

After setting surface casing and installed the BOPs, the crew resumes drilling. A probe for shallow gas or heavy oil in eastern Alberta or Saskatchewan might require solely two or three days to drill 450 metres by way of soft shale and sandstone to the target depth. Nevertheless, a rig may go eight months or more to penetrate 4,500 metres or extra by exhausting, complicated rocks in the foothills of the Rockies.

Kicks

The drill bit column could also be several kilometres deep by the point high-strain gasoline deposits are reached. The burden of the drilling fluid could be elevated by including heavy minerals comparable to bentonite clay to the mixture. Drillers attempt to keep the mud heavy enough to hold again gasoline from entering the opening, but not so heavy that the mud will penetrate into the reservoir sufficient to wreck it.

If the reservoir strain is larger than the stress exerted by the mud column, some fuel may enter the well bore. This is known as a kick and should be managed to forestall a blowout. Kicks are detected by sensitive devices which monitor the mud flow and composition and the mud tank ranges. Drillers control most kicks just by managing the mud move and increasing the weight of the mud.

Cores & cuttings

When a effectively is drilled, small rock chips called cuttings are recovered from the drilling fluid. These are items of rock floor up and damaged off by the drill bit as it cuts into the earth. Geologists, geochemists and paleonologists (scientists who study pollens and small fossils) examine the cuttings to learn extra about the age, chemistry, porosity, permeability and different properties of the subsurface rock formations.

Larger, extra continuous cylindrical rock samples, known as cores, may also be reduce using a particular coring bit. Although coring adds to the price of the well, laboratory evaluation and visible examination of the core present additional essential details about the basin history, the composition and bodily characteristics of the rock and any fluids contained within it.

Logging & testing

All through drilling, numerous logs are plotted to file the well progress, like a ship log. The file consists of data about the type and thickness of rock layers, primarily based on the wellsite geologist examination of cuttings dropped at the floor during drilling. The speed of penetration is another indicator.

The primary sign of doable success is normally an increase in the rate of penetration adopted by the looks of oil or gas traces in cuttings. If more info is needed concerning the rocks, a particular cylindrical bit could also be used to cut a core pattern for evaluation by geologists, reservoir engineers, geochemists and paleonologists.

Further information is obtained by lowering a package of instruments, called wireline logging tools, into the well bore. The instruments report and transmit information about the rock layersthickness, porosity and permeability and the composition of the fluids (oil, fuel or water) contained in them.

A logging instrument will also be mounted on the string above the bit to ship info repeatedly during drilling. It sends signals to the floor by way of pulses, like sonar signals, within the mud. One other instrument, known as a measurement whereas drilling (MWD) software, can equally measure the course and precise location of the bit whereas drilling horizontal wells.

Another frequent means to determine potential oil or fuel manufacturing is the drillstem check, using a special instrument instead of the bit on the end of the string. The instrument has valves and rubber sleeves, referred to as packers, that can be managed from the surface. First, the packers are expanded to isolate the part of the opening to be tested. Subsequent, valves on the software are opened, allowing liquids or gas from the formation to move into the empty drill pipe. This offers a good indication of the type and volume of the fluids within the formation, their pressure and rate of circulation.

Abandonment

If exams indicate the effectively is a dry gap, not able to producing commercial portions of oil and gasoline, the drilling crew plugs the properly bore with cement and cleans up the location. An identical procedure is followed if a producing properly is no longer economical to function.

Completion & servicing

After exploration has located a reservoir of oil or gasoline, the working company manufacturing department takes over the duty of supervising the providers required to carry the resource to the floor. Oil shouldn’t be produced from underground lakes. Moderately, the oil is contained within the pores of certain sedimentary rocks in the identical method that water is held in a sponge.

Completion is the process by which a profitable properly is readied for production. The first step for many wells in Canada is the installation of manufacturing casing. Open hole completion, not often used in Canada, does not use manufacturing casing.

The casing-tubular steel pipe related by threads and couplings-lines the total size of the nicely bore to ensure protected management of production, prevent water coming into the properly bore and keep rock formations from loughinginto the nicely bore. Production casing is cemented in place by pumping a cement mixture into the casing and forcing the cement back up the annular area, between the casing and effectively bore. The task must be carried out quickly but fastidiously, as a result of a poor cement job can adversely have an effect on the producing formation.

As soon as the cement has set, the drilling rig is normally moved and a smaller, truck-mounted service rig is introduced in to finish the well. There are about 870service rigs in Canada. They also return to wells periodically to perform maintenance, exchange gear or improve manufacturing.

The second step is the installation of the manufacturing tubing. Production tubing is steel pipe smaller in diameter than the manufacturing casing. It’s lowered into the casing and held in place by packers which additionally isolate the producing layers of rock. The tubing hangs from a surface set up called the wellhead. The wellhead contains valves, chokes and pressure gauges, and makes it attainable to regulate production from the effectively.

The third step is to perforate the well. The casing prevents the opening from collapsing, however it prevents the oil or gasoline from entering the properly bore. Subsequently, holes are made by the casing and into the formation. That is usually achieved with an explosive gadget that’s lowered into the effectively on an electrical wireline to the required depth. This machine, a group of explosive prices in a particular provider, is called a perforating gun. An electrical impulse fires the fees to perforate the casing, surrounding cement and reservoir rock.

While some oil wells contain enough stress to push oil to the floor, most oil wells drilled immediately require pumping. This is also referred to as artificial elevate.

If a effectively requires it, a pump is lowered down the tubing to the underside of the well on a string of steel rods, referred to because the rod string. The rod string is hung from the wellhead and connected to a drive unit and motor on the surface. The rod string conveys energy to the pump either by rotating or shifting up and down, relying on the type of pump employed. Submersible pumps are used on some wells.

In lots of oil and fuel wells, one extra step is required-stimulating the formation by bodily or chemical means in order that hydrocarbons can move extra simply to the effectively bore via the pores or fractures in the reservoir. This is often executed earlier than installing a pump or when the pump is removed for upkeep.

Acidizing, one form of stimulation, is the injection of acids beneath pressure into the rock formation via the production tubing and perforations. Hydrochloric acid, for example, is especially efficient in dissolving parts of limestone and dolomite. This creates channels beyond the perforations for oil to flow back to the effectively.

Fracturing or racingis one other frequent methodology of stimulation. A fluid corresponding to water or an oil product is pumped down the opening below enough stress to create cracks within the formation. A tough materials-like sand, glass beads, aluminum pellets, even walnut shells-is injected with the fluid. As the fluid disperses, this material remains to prop open the cracks.

Coiled tubing

Coiled tubing has been an important innovation in well completion and servicing. Coiled tubing is a jointless, high-strain-rated hollow steel cylinder. Production tubing is historically made up of joined sections of pipe, similar to the string of pipe used for drilling; however coiled tubing is now also used in this application. It is brought to the wellsite on reels holding as much as 19,000 metres. Particular tools is used to insert the tubing by the wellhead into the well bore. This methodology is considerably quicker and extra environment friendly than becoming a member of sections of pipe.

Coiled tubing has additionally proved useful in other applications such as properly stimulation and under-balanced drilling. Coiled tubing can even be used with downhole motors (pushed by mud circulation) for certain sorts of drilling such as horizontal re-entries. On the Hibernia platform off Newfoundland, coiled tubing is used for a variety of completion and servicing tasks.

GIS Saskatchewan (formerly GeoSask)

GIS.Saskatchewan.ca Your Online Supply for Maps and Land Information in Saskatchewan

Saskatchewan on-line source for provincial maps and land info is prepared for public use and is accessible at GIS.Saskatchewan.ca. Because it online, you possibly can discover, visualize and obtain knowledge everytime you want. Registration only takes a minute and it free to make use of.

Here what youl find:

Pipelining & Processing

All natural gas production in Canada is related to processing amenities and eventually to markets by buried pipelines. Some crude oil manufacturing is trucked to the closest processing facility (referred to as a battery) or pipeline terminal. Pipelines serving wells and facilities within the upstream petroleum business are known as flowlines or gathering systems.

Oil and gas firms function greater than 200,000 kilometres of flowlines and gathering systems in the producing areas of western Canada. These are comparatively small pipelines-2 to 24 inches, or 50 to 600 millimetres, in diameter. About 60 per cent of the gathering traces in Alberta carry pure gasoline and pure gasoline liquids. Processing amenities separate the raw petroleum into marketable commodities and by-products. If the oil or fuel comprises sulphur compounds, it is termed ourand requires particular gear and procedures. Sulphur compounds are extremely corrosive, so regular upkeep and inspection of pipelines are notably vital. There are about 6,000 kilometres of pipelines in Alberta carrying bitter gasoline from about 2,000 producing sour gas wells.

At fuel processing plants, sulphur compounds and liquids are faraway from pure gasoline via chemical and bodily processes involving heat, cooling and catalysts. Plants dealing with giant volumes of bitter gasoline embrace sulphur recovery amenities to produce elemental sulphur on the market to the fertilizer manufacturers and other industries.

Of the nearly 300 gasoline processing plants in Alberta, greater than 60 are giant facilities that produce elemental sulphur as a byproduct. The British Columbia bitter gas industry contains three giant sulphur recovery plants, four smaller area plants and greater than four,600 kilometres of bitter gas pipelines.

Found and produced together with crude oil are varying quantities of natural gasoline, often known as associated fuel or resolution fuel. This gas could also be directed to processing plants or flared if quantities are too small to justify restoration. In the nineteen nineties, there was a pointy discount in the proportion of resolution gas that’s flared. This has been finished to conserve economically useful product and to cut back air emissions.