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An oil well is a drillhole boring in Earth that is designed to bring petroleum oil hydrocarbons to the surface. Usually some natural gas is released as associated petroleum gas along with the oil. A well that is designed to produce only gas may be termed a gas well .
Flare stack at the Shell Haven refinery in England. A gas flare, alternatively known as a flare stack, flare boom, ground flare, or flare pit, is a gas combustion device used in places such as petroleum refineries, chemical plants and natural gas processing plants, oil or gas extraction sites having oil wells, gas wells, offshore oil and gas rigs and landfills.
Hydraulic fracturing [a] is a well stimulation technique involving the fracturing of formations in bedrock by a pressurized liquid. The process involves the high-pressure injection of "fracking fluid" (primarily water, containing sand or other proppants suspended with the aid of thickening agents) into a wellbore to create cracks in the deep rock formations through which natural gas, petroleum ...
A blowout preventer (BOP) (pronounced B-O-P) [1] is a specialized valve or similar mechanical device, used to seal, control and monitor oil and gas wells to prevent blowouts, the uncontrolled release of crude oil or natural gas from a well. They are usually installed in stacks of other valves.
A pumpjack is the overground drive for a reciprocating piston pump in an oil well. [1] It is used to mechanically lift liquid out of the well if there is not enough bottom hole pressure for the liquid to flow all the way to the surface. The arrangement is often used for onshore wells. Pumpjacks are common in oil-rich areas.
Initially, the steam engine used for drilling the well was kept in-place to lift the oil to the surface. As the well's production dropped off, the economic feasibility of firing a boiler and maintaining a steam operation at each individual well fell far short of the income from the well's production (often only a fraction of a barrel per day.)
Gas lift well: gas is fed into valves installed in mandrels in the tubing strip. The hydrostatic head is lowered and the fluid is gas lifted to the surface. Single-well alternate completions: in this instance there is a well with two zones. In order to produce from both the zones are isolated with packers.
An oil producing well is usually completed to pump all produced fluids to the surface where the fluids will be separated into their constituent components. In the early life of most oil producing wells, more petroleum will usually be produced than produced water. The produced water is considered to be wastewater that will need to be treated.