This is a three credit hour course concerning the basics of petroleum drilling engineering.
This is a required
course for graduation with a Master or Doctorate degree in Petroleum Engineering at the
Colorado School of Mines, if you don't have either a petroleum engineering
degree or by experience.
The material and presentations have been selected and prepared to assist in the understanding of oil and gas well drilling concepts and communicating with technical drilling people. There will be no term problem and no presentations by the students, but there will be several homework assignments to facilitate learning. There will be two short quizzes, one mid-term and one final examination.
This course will cover the basic ideas and procedures for the drilling of a well. This
course will not enable you to become an instant drilling engineer. Instead, it is designed
to familiarize you with some of the drilling equipment and procedures and some of the
engineering methodology used in today's drilling operations. Most importantly, this class
will try to show you the “why” of drilling.
In this class, we will cover the basics of rig equipment and operations, pore pressure and fracture gradient determination, casing setting depths, bits, bottom hole assemblies, drill pipe, directional drilling, drilling fluids, hydraulics, cuttings transport, casing design, cementing, and well control.
In order to produce hydrocarbons, water, or geothermal energy or to analyze environmental damage or to dispose of hazardous waste or even for underground science, it is necessary to drill a hole. For the most part, this is not a trivial task to accomplish. Literally millions of dollars can be spent on a hole in the ground. In addition, there are hidden dangers to threaten to unwary. For these and other reasons, it is critical to apply engineering knowledge to the challenge of drilling operations.
Comments to aeustes at mines.edu
This page last updated on 10 March, 2006.