Well Coring for Dummies

This is a core, Tim

No matter how many times we repeat it, the official Antisocial Network mantra remains the watchword of our staffers: "If you want information, ask a person who knows – not a freelancer who just looked it up." Take the question of, "What Is Oil Well Coring?" We figure that if you want to know, you'd probably be better off asking someone who has seen one of those cores or worked around oil wells... as opposed to a journalism student like Tim McQuade writing for Sciencing.com.

A first-timer here at the AN, McQuade (unlike some of his fellow eHowians) started out headed more or less in the right direction. It was clear, however, from his introduction that he just skimmed the Wikipedia article he'd read:

"Oil well coring is a procedure that provides invaluable information to drilling teams and oil and gas companies during the well drilling process."

We asked the house petroleum geologist about that claim, and he just grinned. Tim's answer opens up a whole world of questions, chief among which is, "What is this 'invaluable information'?" We looked, and Tim... didn't say. Our geology guy did, however, point out that McQuade's mention of "during the well drilling process" is pretty stupid, since the vast majority of the information yielded by cores is harvested after the well is already completed; sometimes years later.

McQuade scraped up a description of the coring process – and even a mention of sidewall coring – somewhere, although in the rewording process he did manage to scramble some of the facts. For instance, he said, "Because the rock is so tough, the core bit... uses a a [sic] PDC or natural diamond cutting device to cut with." Well, Tim, the "D" in "PDC" stands for "diamond," so where are you going with this? Besides, the difference between a PDC bit and a conventional roller bit is the design of the cutters, not the materials used to make the bit.

After a tedious rewording of someone's description of the coring process (HINT: it's not in any of the references he cited), McQuade wandered briefly into describing sidewall cores before closing with this rather anodyne comment:

"Core drilling is used to assess the productivity of oil well drilling. The coring procedure provides valuable information about the makeup of the rock being drilled. Oil well coring is also used during the exploration for oil and gas reservoirs. Obtained core samples hold valuable information. These samples are carefully washed to remove all foreign matter, and then analyzed and labeled. This gives a drilling team information about the depth at which certain rock formations occur at a specific drill hole. Also, oil and gas levels can be estimated based on coring samples."

Some comments about McQuade's closing:

1. Cores (not "core drilling") are used to assess the rock through which a well is being drilled, not the "productivity of [the] drilling."
2. Where else would oil well coring be used: in designing dirigibles?
3. What valuable information do you mean, Tim?
4. What's the "analyzed" business? Oh, and we can tell you that the labeling takes place as the cores come out of the core barrel, not after being "carefully washed."
5. Hey: he got something right! Cores are used to check the depth of specific rocks! Yay, Tim!
6. Not so much "oil and gas levels" (whatever that means), but actually useful information such as porosity and permeability.

Once again, we think that your questions are better served with answers from knowledgeable people than Dumbass of the Day freelancers.

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