Thematic: Drilling For Oil, Gas And Water

Hi all,

deep drilling and obtaining oil, gas water: that's the technical field in which I'm examining patent applications since 25 years. It comprises drilling tools, drilling methods on- and offshore, equipment such as drill rigs, blow-out preventers, further cementing techniques, production methods, enhanced oil recovery, well logging, and more.

I thought that this topic could be an idea for a collection, so I started looking for stamps. Shown below are stamps depicting drill rigs.

I'm curious if anyone has anything on the topic?


Columbia 1935: Early days drill rig, work floor is low above the ground, which probably means no blowout preventers, so once oil or gas is found, it would gush freely out of the well and catch fire.




Columbia 1956





Pakistan 1955: drill rig with hydrocarbons being flared off. When oil or gas in found in the ground, a drill stem test is performed in order to take samples and test the production capacity of the well. The hydrocarbons produced during these tests are burned via flares located at some distance from the rig.

USSR 1987

When drilling rock, drilling fluid is circulated through the drill string to the bottom and back to the surface in the annulus between string and borehole wall (see arrows). This fluid may be mud, air or foam. It serves to cool the drill bit, stabilize the borehole, and transport the drill cuttings to the surface. The thick tube sections in the lower part of the drill string are drill collars, i.e. very heavy weight drill pipe, which provide additional weight on the drill bit for crushing the rock.

When a certain depth is reached, steel tube (or casing) is inserted into the hole and cement is pumped into the annulus between casing and borehole wall. The casing + cement layer prevent the borehole from collapsing under the horizontal pressure exerted by the rock and formation fluids and the cement prevents formation fluids from moving from lower rock layers to upper ones and to the surface. The stamp shows 3 casing strings set at different depths.

Welcome KlausR I have a history with Oil Rigs as well.

This is my beloved ODE Oil Rig No16 at 300ft. I trained all new personal and spent 3 summers in the Simpson Desert the hottest day 64c Wheels and myself were the only two left standing that day. I still have all my body parts even after 41/2 years working the floor. As a floorman I took control of the floor by force once. Three engineers, a mean Toolpusher and the huge Driller. We were testing for gas and I knew it stopped flowing because the pipe was blocked and the Engineers called it a dud and screamed for the pipe to be open. Got my crew off the floor and running. Managed to get the Driller to get the rest into the Dog house. They were screaming at me as you can imagine. I broke the pipe and managed to reef myself behind the leg of the rig.It was like hitting a 10ft Brown snake on the head with a stick. It was a small flow rate at 5 million cubic feet of gas a day. Saved 11 lives that day including myself. But somehow I lost a confidence that day. Our deepest hole was 14,650ft. Drilled the red beds for 2 weeks. A bit change very day and would drill 15ft in that time. Even after all these years I still get mean!

An image of my Oil Rig.

Hi KGV,

for my master in petroleum engineering I had to work 1 year in the field. Being from a coal mining area I worked half of that time in coal and salt, the other half in oil (rig and production). When I finished the master, crude was at about 20 USD, so companies were hesitating to recruit new staff. That's why I went into the patent business, so my hand-on experience is very limited.

Examining patent applications means that you see things, on paper though, before they get into the field, and it's quite rewarding to later see devices actually being sold and used for which you've granted the patent. Searching an invention sometimes is searching for the proverbial needle in the haystack, you know it's there, but where???

To get an idea of the patent world of drilling and production, have a look here:

http://www.wipo.int/ipcpub/#refresh=page¬ion=scheme&version=20120101&symbol=E21B

Shown below is an early days drill motor (French patent from 1908):

While not stamp related this is a HOT subject in North Central Pennsylvania at t he moment. We/They like the job opportunities and wealth it generates but HATE (and that's putting it mildly) the ecological impact that comes along with it. Unscrupulous company policies regarding frack water disposal is a very big issue at the moment so this is a collecting area that I have pondered recently as you could probably imagine. I think that it's a fascinating job you described and very glad you got to keep all your body parts! I know it's a high risk job to put it mildly. Thank you.

KlausR & KGV Collector - Outstanding posts! Thanks for sharing your interesting personal experiences with drilling.

Here is an image of a stamp depicting a French-built oil rig at Hassi-Messaoud, in the Sahara Desert, designed by Jacques Combet, engraved by Claude Durrens, and issued by France on May 23, 1959 as on of a set of four stamps publicizing French technical achievements, Scott No. 922, Y&T No. 1205. Bonus design feature: Camels!

- nethryk

BAYERN1kreuzer & nethryk,

thanks for showing those stamps, they are on my shopping list as well. I just placed a bid for the PR China stamps (short set, fortunately I need only the two stamps at 8 FEN).

The drill rig stamps from China and France show pipe stands stored in the fingerboard. When drilling is under way, drill pipe is stored and handled in form of stands, that is drill string sections comprising 3 individual drill pipes. Drill pipe is typically 31 ft long (9.5m) so one stand is 93 ft (28.5 m). For handling the stands two guys are needed, one on the floor, and a second up in the rig on the finger board. Nowadays rigs may have mechanised pipe handlers.

@ nethryk,

talking experience, it's maybe interesting for some to know what patent examiners do, so in a nutshell:

a patent application comprises description, drawings and claims. The examiner reads the whole and tries to understand what the invention is. If that is not possible, at the European Patent Office the application might be rejected for reasons of insufficient disclosure.

In my technical field today there are 227,125 patent documents, classified according to particular technical aspects (see link provided above). If for instance the invention is directed to a new polycrystalline diamond cutting insert, the documents to be looked at are in E21B10/567.

For a typical search I need to look at 1000 documents, one by one, in some cases it's only 50, in others it may be up to 5000. Typically this takes about 2 days, (2 hours for 50, up to two weeks for 5000).

In some cases I need to look at non-patent literature, i.e. papers from Society of Petroleum Engineers, World Oil, Offshore Technology Conference and others. This means search in online database using keywords.

When examining the claims, what is judged is if the claimed subject-matter is new and inventive (i.e. not obvious for the person skilled in the art). The invention as such may be great, but the claims may be drafted such that novelty destroying documents are plentiful.

The phase of substantive examination typically takes another 2 days, the examiner exchanges letters with the applicant (or rather, his patent attorney) until both parties agree on claims which can be granted, or until it is clear that there is no substance in the application worth a patent and the application is rejected.

Klaus

KlausR - It probably helps to be detail-oriented, I suppose. My kid sister's specialty was patent litigation; she also found it fascinating.

Here is an image of a stamp depicting an oil derrick, a pipeline, and a map of the Middle East, printed by lithogravure, and issued by Egypt (UAR) on April 16, 1959 to publicize the first Arab Petroleum Congress, held in Cairo, Scott No. 466, SG No. 620.

- nethryk

Hello KlausR, I guess I am a dinosaur..i remember 20 cent a gallon heating oil and 25 cent a gallon gasoline..as I kid I could drive forever on a dollars worth of gas(one hours work)...trying to think if there are any stamps related to getting natural gas from the North Sea to the Netherlands etc ?

in the 1980's I read that Argentina was pretty much self sufficient with oil supply ...i don't know if the case is different today !

i don't have the sheet..my Netherlands collection pretty much ends in 1998...but I see the Industrial Heritage sheet of 10 from 2002 has a stamp J.Schroonenbeck oil well pump, 1947 !!

Canada 1967 oil rig and combine harvester on the prairies SC#456

Thanks nethryk and jamesw for showing the stamps.

@nethryk, examiners need to be inquisitive and tenacious, since finding the needle in the haystack isn't that easy, in particular when you have the strong feeling that it's in there.

@jamesw, when checking the Canadian stamp I found that that set has a second stamp showing a wildcat drill site, which I did not find with the keyword search.

@philb, I can't remember gasoline prices from when I was a kid, but I remember that in the early 70ies, when I was cycling to the tennis club on Sunday mornings, streets were empty because of gasoline restrictions, only cabs, public transport, firebrigade, police and ambulance had permission. I just bought the two stamps from the Dutch heritage sheet.

Klaus

Klaus, I remember how people over reacted here...the lines at the gas stations were insane ..it seemed everyone wanted to "top off" their fuel tanks...oh well, as one wise person put it.."people are people!".

1941