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Edwin Drake Research Paper

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In today’s world crude oil has become a necessity. It is the world’s primary source of energy and is used for transportation, generating power, and manufacturing goods that people use in their daily lives. However, oil is not easily accessible as it is trapped within the rocks deep within the earth. In order to provide the world with its energy needs, the oil must be drilled out of the reservoirs. This was first accomplished in the year 1859 when Edwin L. Drake, a former railroad conductor, used a drilling rig to specifically produce oil on the banks of Oil Creek, near Titusville, Pennsylvania. (American Oil & Gas Historical Society, n.d., para. 5). This discovery by Edwin Drake helped revolutionize the oil and gas industry. The “discovery …show more content…

Directional drilling is a drilling process that is used to drill multiple wells from a single point on the ground at several different angles in order to reach more reservoir rock and produce more oil and gas. Figure 1 is an example of directional drilling in which several different wells are drilled from the same derrick. Development of this technology significantly transformed the oil and gas industry as it allowed for more production of crude oil and gas at a much lower cost. While directional drilling was first introduced in the year 1920, it did not make any significant improvements until later. “Since 1968, there has been a steady progression of improvements in deep directional drilling tools and techniques” (Thompson, 1979, p. …show more content…

One of the primary applications of directional drilling is that multiple wells can be drilled from a single location. This technique has made a huge impact in the Arctic ocean, as an “optimum number of wells from a single platform or artificial island” were drilled to produce more oil and gas (Society of Petroleum Engineers, n.d., para. 3). This has helped companies by reducing the costs related to drilling several vertical wells. Furthermore, drilling multiple wells from a single location has also significantly lowered the environmental

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