More Oil

Der Spiegel reports on a new oil field discovered in the Gulf of Mexico called "Jack 2".

The drilling rig was built in Singapore at a cost of half a billion dollars. They claim this field contains reserves of 15 billion barrels, which at today's price of $90 a barrel amounts to $1.3 trillion. Sounds like big money, eh?

15 billion barrels amounts to about one half of one cubic mile of oil, which is enough to fuel the United States for about six months.

Here are some photos of the rig. Most of them are very small. Typical news reports, the bigger the project, the smaller the photo.

The oil is five miles below the surface of the Gulf. The water is more than a mile deep. I think they may be reaching the limits of drilling technology. If they are using five inch pipe (which is just a wild guess on my part), the drill string is going to weigh on the order of 300 tons. The tensile strength of the pipe is going to be about 500 tons. God forbid anything should break. Is five inch diameter pipe even big enough to transmit the torque six miles down? How strong would the steel have to be to be able to withstand the pressure of the drilling fluid being pumped down the hole? People like to talk about rocket science like it's something special. These guys are doing things that are really difficult. Of course, there is lot more money in it, and not that much to see. It's all underground, out of sight and out of mind.

Update 1 - Welding Drill Pipe

I remember a guy telling me about working at Hughes Oil Tool in Houston a long time ago. They used to weld the couplings onto the drill pipe using friction. Here's a video of friction welding. I imagine this is similar to the way they were welding the drill pipe. While I was looking for this I also came across something called "Friction Stir Welding" which has only been around for 15 years or so. It is very weird.

Update 2 - More about the "Cajun Express"

Another slide show from onboard (dead link)
Industry newsletter article
National Geographic article

Update December 2016 replaced broken links.