Drilling for Oil Like a Dummy

A rotary drilling rig

There's a former oil-company geologist on staff who, from time to time, rails about the public's complete ignorance of how the oil and gas business works. Sure, ExxonMobil and BP make boatloads of bucks, but the real fact is that it's the mom-and-pop operators who hold the leash on people like Scott Pruitt, not Shell Oil. One of the reasons they get away with it is that people like eHow.com's Jason Chavis are ignorant about the business, as Chavis proved by writing "What Is Oil Drilling?" for the mother lode of misinformation (now niched at Sciencing.com).

Jason, who claims to have won an award "for best science fiction/fantasy" at some time or other, must have thought he was writing science fiction here... not that eHow's version of science is definitive to begin with. To make a long story short, here is some of the rubbish Chavis said on his way to collecting a stipend for his ignorance:

Oil drilling is the process by which tubing is bored through the Earth's surface and a well is established. — "[T]ubing is bored"? "through the... surface"? Neither statement makes sense. A pump is connected to the tube and the petroleum under the surface is forcibly removed from underground. — Pretty prose, that "forcibly" bull, but an odd way of saying "pumped"... The standard oil drilling process is conducted by boring a hole between 5 and 36 inches into the earth. — No, Jason, oil wells are usually a lot more than 36 inches deep, and they're never 36 inches in diameter.

...and there's more: there's always more with people like Chavis!

• A drill string is used, which is a series of tubes put together that continue to dig deeper until oil is found. What's this obsession with "tubes," Jason? You never heard of "pipes"? Oh, and earlier you said "boring," now you claim the drill string "digs"? Make up your tiny little mind!
• Cement is generally placed on the outside of the drill string in an effort to prevent the borehole from collapsing. Umm, no, the drill string isn't cemented in place. The casing is cemented in place, but that's not the same thing – at all.
• This also helps prevent a loss of pressurization, which can lead to a possible explosion or collapse. This is accompanied by back pressure holes being drilled. In all honesty, no one here has any idea at all what Chavis is talking about. Perhaps it has something to do with the attempts to kill the Macondo well blowout (pressure-relief wells, perhaps?

All in all, some of the most ignorant material we've ever seen published about the process of drilling a well, Chavis would probably be ashamed if he weren't so proud of making fifteen bucks or so for publishing this Dumbass of the Day-quality rubbish.

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