Oil exploration-Digging deep for success

Nowadays, we are witnessing an increased demand of oil and for which oil companies are going an extra mile to find the new resources and ways of extracting oil and natural gas.

Exploration and production of oil is a very complex process and every step of the chain involves specialized technology and oilfield equipment. Employing advanced techniques like geological field work & modeling, seismic imaging and exploratory drilling, oil reservoirs are identified. Percentage of accuracy of oil exploration needs to be extremely high as setting up of oil rigs is staggeringly expensive. Once reservoirs are determined, oil is extracted using production oil field equipment and transported via tankers and pipelines. When oil reaches refineries, it is refined into wide spectrum of end products including gasoline, petrol, diesel, marine fuel and other chemicals. In the cases when the oilfield is offshore, the transportation is through huge tankers while for onshore resources, oil is transported using pipelines that can span entire continents. 

However, most of the oil companies don’t themselves build these oil field equipments required during the entire exploration process. Instead, the companies hire engineering firms that develop and expertly operate the oil rigs, pumps, clutches, breaks etc. that are the backbone of the industry. 

These engineering service firms provide the advanced oil and gas equipment as well as services needed by domestic and international oil companies. They render their expertise for each stage- exploration, extraction and transportation of crude oil and natural gas from reservoirs to the refinery and finally to the end consumer.

Oil field equipment-Reaching through rocks into reservoirs

In recent times, petroleum resources have become an invaluable asset for oil and natural gas companies. Hence, oilfield equipment has witnessed a meteoric rise in its demand.

However, searching robust oil field equipment can be an exhausting job. This is because today there is an extensive range of these equipment available in the market depending on different parameters like geographies and the project in hand. You must be very particular before finalizing an oil field equipment as a tool for one region might not work for another. 

The type of oil and gas equipment will also depend on where you drill and whether it’s on land or water. Moreover, the choice of equipment may vary by the types of bedrock material that you need to drill. The greater the elusiveness of the oil, the greater is the effort required for harvesting it. The deeper drilling of the hole asks for more specialized equipment. And to operate these equipment, it requires specially trained personnel.

Besides, while choosing the tools, you need to make certain that they have suitable working load limit, manufactured to a definite standard and most essentially very safe. 

These meticulous oil field equipments are developed to facilitate their movement from one oilfield to another to keep the cost in check with increased speed of extraction.

Due to the perpetual innovation in the field of technology and constant rise in demand, there is a great probability that modern oilfield equipment will enable us to reach deeper reservoirs situated in challenging locations. Thus, it will help us to extract more of the resources inside it, without much difficulty.

Storage Tanks-An Overview

Storage tanks are the containers that hoard liquids and compressed gases. They play a critical role in industries today. The extensive use of storage tanks can be seen in industries like petroleum, pharmacy, chemistry, mining and textile amongst others. In these industries, it becomes imperative to store chemicals and liquids safely because some of them can be hazardous to people and environment. Hence, these tanks are designed to ensure complete safety to the chemicals stored within as well as to the external environment.

Depending on the varying usage of storage tanks, their types differ. While manufacturing such tanks, the properties of components are primarily put into consideration. The two types of storage tanks that are widely used across numerous industries are:

Liquid Storage Tanks:

Liquid storage tanks are commonly utilized for the optimum handling and storage of liquids such as petrol, diesel, gasoline, industrial alcohol along with other liquids. Essentially, they are comprised of outer shells, closure handles, fusible vents, outlet valves, heating and cooling jackets, extended fork tubes etc. In certain cases, a floating roof is required along with the fixed roof. The floating roof facilitates the rise and fall of liquid levels as it moves together with the liquid inside the tank.

Cryogenic Storage Tanks:

Cryogenic storage tank that hold chemicals at very low temperature have to be extremely strong to withstand the pressure, both internal and external. A cryogenic tank, employed for storage of oxygen, nitrogen, helium or other element, is extremely effective to store the elements in the desired condition at required pressure. 

Cryogenic storage vessels are specifically designed to maintain the temperature of materials below -150 OF. In addition, they are easy to install and available in required capacity.

Oil and gas extraction-An overview

Oilfield is an area with rich petroleum deposits. Suitable oil and gas equipment along with different high-end techniques are essential for drilling and extraction of oil and natural gas. However, selection of oilfield equipment might vary depending on whether the oilfield is located on land or under the ocean.

Some of the oil field equipment consists of oil field crane, oil rig, casing, tubing, pump jack, rotary tables, block, truck mounted rigs and jack up rigs amongst others. Oilfields are a tough environment and to get the job done, it requires tough people and robust equipments. Hence, the equipments used on oil fields are very specialized and quite expensive. Their application is not limited to just digging for oil but for searching and testing the locations as well.

One of the most prominent and indispensible oil field equipments for oil search is an oilfield crane. An oilfield crane has different parts like an oil pipe casing, oil pipe handling equipment, oil drilling equipment and lifting parts. It can be either land-based or marine-based and plays a vital role in extracting oil from under the surface of the earth. 

Another important equipment is an oil rig and oilfield clutches and brakes are its integral parts. It is inevitable to ensure that an oil rig runs efficiently and is strong enough to withstand the conditions of an oilfield. Thus, it’s imperative for oil and gas equipment manufacturers to produce the equipment of supreme quality. 

One of the reputed suppliers of oilfield equipment is INOX India Ltd. The Company’s impressive list of satisfied customers all over the world stands testimony to their quality of products.

Fundamentals of Petroleum Drilling

Deep under the earth’s crust are the rocks that yield oil and natural gas. The area with petroleum rich deposits is termed as oilfield. 

Extraction of oil and natural gas is the primary challenge faced by petroleum engineers. They also have to determine suitable oil and gas equipment as well as techniques to be employed for drilling and extraction.

Depending on where the drilling needs to be executed, whether it’s under the land or a water body, oilfield equipment varies. The oilfield equipment that’s at the heart of the entire drilling process is Drilling Rig. Drilling rig bores holes or tubes into the earth. If the oilfield is more elusive, greater effort is put into harvesting and more specialized oil field equipment is needed.

Today, petroleum resources have become an invaluable asset for any company. Hence, new advancements are constantly developed to improve the output and for staying abreast with the latest trends of oilfield drilling. The state-of-art equipments and techniques help to save time manifolds as well as reduce the cost and minimize the margin of human error. 

However, companies should bear in mind that exploration and drilling processes can be dangerous. Thus, right equipment and specially trained personnel can make a tremendous difference on the outcome and safety of the project. This is because modern equipments have greater efficiency and overall decision-making happens faster with the appropriate tools.

Petroleum drilling is a highly specialized field therefore one needs to be careful before buying any oil field equipments to ensure quick and precise extraction.

Black Gold extraction using suitable oilfield equipments

Oil wells are vertical holes drilled in the earth to extract underground oil and natural gas. These oil wells can produce different types of products- oil, natural gas or both. Drilling of oil wells can be carried out onshore or offshore using oil and gas equipment. Those oil wells found on land are termed as onshore wells while offshore wells aim at oil that is found under an ocean. It is easier and less costly to drill onshore wells but the logistics of extracting oil from deeper waters is expensive as well as the procedure is more complicated. However, oil field equipment is a necessity irrespective of the location of the field.

The important phases of oil extraction process are: Drilling, Completion and Production. Each of these complex process requires advanced oil field equipments for effective, easier and quicker extraction. Drilling and selection of oilfield equipment for drilling (also known as drilling rig) is one the most crucial aspects of any oil field operations.

A drilling land rig is an oil field equipment that functions to create holes (boreholes) in the ground. Some of the drilling land rigs can be a huge structure to accommodate oil and gas equipment used to drill wells for extraction of oil and natural gas. Whereas, to extract offshore oil, marine rigs are used that operate some hundreds of miles offshore. An offshore platform, also referred to as an oil platform, is a massive platform built to house workforce and oilfield equipments needed to drill the oil wells in the ocean. Deeper the oil wells the more customized and specialized oilfield equipment is required.

Today's modern oilfield equipments are designed to facilitate their movement from one well to another and thus keeping the cost down and speed of extraction up.

There are many different forms of oilfield equipment and the one that is suitable for you depends on the project. An oilfield is a tough environment and an oilfield equipment that is employed must be durable and reliable.

Guidelines to manage hazardous liquid nitrogen

Nitrogen is a non-toxic, odorless, colorless and non-flammable element. Liquid nitrogen is its liquefied form existing at a very low temperature and commercially produced by fractional distillation of liquid air. It is best used for cryogenic applications that range from freezing & transport of food products, cryopreservation of biological samples to cryotherapy to remove skin lesions and as coolant for superconductors, vacuum pumps etc.

However, liquid nitrogen can be hazardous if not taken care. It can cause severe frostbite upon contact with living tissue. Or another dangerous outcome can be asphyxiation which results when greater amount of nitrogen gets mixed up with the air and reduces relative amount of oxygen. This can cause difficulty in breathing especially in confined spaces like laboratory. Hence, liquid nitrogen requires great care while handling and should be stored in proper containers. 

There are two kinds of nitrogen containers based on the state of nitrogen that needs to be stored. Compressed gas cylinders are used to store gaseous nitrogen while for its liquid form, its liquid nitrogen container. These liquid nitrogen tanks can hold the liquid nitrogen at an adequate pressure to sustain a particular required temperature.To store and transport this chemical safely, liquid nitrogen containers are best option as they are rugged vessels that can sustain physical damage or high temperature to some extent. 

Another type of liquid nitrogen container is cryogenic dewar. Cryogenic dewars are specialized vacuum flask whose boiling points are significantly lower as compared to room temperature. All liquid nitrogen dewars have a double-walled, vacuum vessel with multi-layer insulation to maintain high vacuum between the layers. This assembly provides thermal insulation which reduces the rate of content boiling away. They can also resist pressure and impact.

Though cryogenic dewars are more stable than liquid nitrogen containers, they must be handled with extreme care. The empty ones can also be unsafe as they still have a lot of pressure inside.