Industrial Research 



147 



To attain the present drilling doi)ths has called for 

 many improvements in drilling technique, which to- 

 gether have culminated in the high speed drilling now 

 possible. A record speed is believed to have been 19 

 days for a 10,000-foot wildcat subsequently abandoned.' 

 Among factors influencing this speed are increased 

 rotating speeds from 125 revolutions per minute of 

 some years ago to an extreme of 750 revolutions per 

 minute. In addition, the weight on the bit has been 

 raised to 5-15 tons during rapid rotation, depending 

 upon the formation. The increased drilling efficiency 

 has reduced cost of drilling from an average of $8 per 

 foot, for 3,000-4,000-foot wells, to $3-4 per foot, for 

 5,000-6,000-foot wells.= 



Well logging has been improved in recent years and 

 is still a subject of investigation in petroleum produc- 

 tion research. A recent development in core logging 

 is the use of pressure cores. Pressiu-e core barrels 

 allow" cores to be cut and brought to the surface under 

 pressure, uncontaminated by drilling fluid.^ Cores 

 obtained in this way "would yield precise information 

 regarding reservoir conditions, such as the quality of 

 oil, gas, and water, and other pertinent subsurface 

 data regarding reservoir pressure and temperature and 

 the permeability of the sand." A number of problems 



1 Mills. Brad. Improved practices permit high speed deep drilling. The Oil 

 Weeklu. 9i. No. 8. 66 (July 31, 1939). 



3 Byles, Axtell J. Record oil consumption in 1939 brings reduced profits, record 

 taxes to U. S. producers. World Petroleum, 11, No. I. 21 (January 1940). 



' Sclater, K. C. A review of oilfield developments and drilling methods. The 

 Petroleum Engineer, II, No. 10, 13 (midyear 1940). 



involved in the recovery and analyses of pressure 

 cores remain to be solved. In the meanwliile, two 

 additional methods of well logging are being developed 

 and improved, viz, electrical logging and gamma-ray 

 logging. By electrical logging a complete fluid log of 

 tlio formations penetrated is possible by means of 

 continuous tests on the mud for oil, gas, and salinity. 

 Gamma-ray logging is based on the radioactive prop- 

 erties of rocks, the intensity of the gamma radiations 

 being used to identify the rock formations. 



The advances in oil-fleld devt^lopmcuts have largely 

 come about through research, and the achievements 

 accomplished justify its continuance and expansion. 

 As has been pointed out, whereas "profits resulting 

 from discovery of a new oil field are earned only once 

 . . . profits resulting from improvements in recovery 

 methods . . . apply to all future time . . . ." * 



Motor Fuels by Cracking 



The rapid increase in automobile production, starting 

 about 30 years ago, found the petroleum industry ob- 

 taining a country-wide average of only some 10-12 

 percent of gasoline from its crude oil. To raise this 

 figure, in order to meet the growing demand for motor 

 fuel, became a problem of vital importance to the 

 refiner. As recently as 20 years ago the naphtha 

 stripped from crude oil ("straight run") and recovered 

 from natural gas ("natural") supplied 86 percent of 

 the country's gasoline. At that time the refiner had 

 little or no means of controlling chemical structure 

 and distribution of boiling points of the components 



' Uren.LesterC. Recent trends in petroleum production research. The Petroleum 

 Engineer, 11, No. 10, 17 (midyear 1940). 



FiGORE 33. — .\erial View of Research and Development Laboratories, Universal Oil Products Company, Riverside, Illinois 

 321835—41 11 



