Oil and gas production is booming across the United States. New drilling methods and technologies are allowing companies to find and extract oil and gas from places previously inaccessible. And MSI is helping make it happen with high-quality drill pipe protectors.
Drilling Technologies and Drill Pipe Protectors
Just ten years ago, the industry thought that most of the world’s oil and gas reserves were tapped out. Since then, new sensing technologies have identified huge deposits previously hidden in underground rock formations and deep below the ocean’s surface. The result, according to the Associated Press1, is that “drillers are finding oil faster than the world is using it.”
To extract oil and gas from these newfound reserves, companies have turned to new and more effective drilling methods and equipment. The resultant wells, sometimes of unusual shape, require new and improved forms of drill pipe protection.
1. Horizontal Drilling: Targeting Reserves Not Directly Underneath
Horizontal drilling is one of the key new drilling techniques. With this approach, the equipment first drills down, then shifts direction to drill horizontally. This lets companies drill from a distance under surface sites that they cannot access via traditional vertical shafts. The wells themselves often have an L-shape, which places an increase in stress on the piping, requiring additional pipe protection.
2. Hydraulic Fracturing: Forcing Out Hard-to-Recover Reserves
To recover oil and gas trapped within tight shale foundations, companies are turning to hydraulic fracturing, also known as “fracking.” With this technique, high-pressure water jets create fractures in the rock. A fine mesh of sand is then forced into the fractures. This enables the oil and gas to flow out of the rock, freeing reserves long thought inaccessible. The high-velocity release also places additional stress on the well piping.
New Drilling Equipment Requires Drill Pipe Protection
To utilize these new drilling methods, companies have developed new drilling equipment. In horizontal drilling, for example, companies use a rotary steerable drill bit that enables remote shifting of the drill path from vertical to horizontal, without having to extract and adjust the drills aboveground.
New types of piping have also been developed to handle the increased stress of diagonal and L-shaped drill paths. In addition, the so-called steerable drill pipe is necessary when repositioning the trajectory of the drill bit.
MSI Meets the Needs of New Drilling Methods
These new drilling methods can place new stress on the well piping and MSI Pipe Protection Technologies is here to help. MSI is on top of the latest trends, designing protective products to maintain the integrity of the drill pipe. Along with drill pipe protectors, we also manufacture other tubular products for both horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing. We design our products around all relevant emerging technologies, developing custom pipe protection for the most physically demanding situations.
Drilling methods may change, but the need to protect the pipe is constant. MSI is there to provide state-of-the-art pipe protection solutions for any type of drilling – traditional or emerging. Explore our high-end line of pipe protection products, or freely contact us for orders and more information at tel:877-276-9208.
