Free Point, String Shots & Jarring

I was almost going to share something here about a meeting today that I’m insanely excited about… But I deleted it and I’ll share once it’s real.

It’s hard to keep a lid on stuff you’re passionate about, right?

This week Wade and I had a great conversation, and I’ve included his napkin math below about TVD calculations if you’re into numbers.

Enjoy!

In this episode:

• Blackstone acquires Enverus – what it means for oil and gas data access and pricing

• Opportunities for smaller, independent data providers

• Heat trace systems – how and why they’re used in cold-weather operations

• Free point tools and jarring – the process of freeing stuck drill pipe

• Understanding drilling zones and how geology affects lateral placement

• California vs. Oklahoma – surprising similarities in power generation mixes

• Secondary recovery – water floods and steam floods explained

Here’s Wade’s rough math re-imagined for high school students, for How Bed Dip Changes True Vertical Depth:

Imagine you are walking across a football field that is so slightly sloped that you can barely tell.

It seems flat, almost.

You walk straight forward for two miles, but because the field is sloped, you slowly end up higher or lower than when you started.

In this case:

• The “tilt” is the bed dip (1°).

• Every 100 feet you walk, you go 1.75 feet up or down.

• After 2 miles (10,560 feet), that small slope adds up to almost 185 feet of change.

• Depending on how you measure it, you could call it about 350 feet if you think about it in certain chunks, like Wade was doing.

The big idea is this:

Even if you stay in the same “layer” underground, if the layer tilts, your actual depth changes a lot over long distances.

Career Changes: Directional Drilling

Not that anyone is looking to exit the oilfield… But this was a really interesting idea and thought it was worth resharing.

Kyle Benander asked this question on LinkedIn:

The response from Clinton Moss was gold: