TABLE OF CONTENTS This engineering practice monograph has been prepared for petroleum and related drilling and completion engineers and technicians who work in modern rotary drilling operations. This book derives and illustrates engineering calculation techniques associated with air and gas drilling technology. This book has been written in consistent units to ease application in either USCS or SI. Also, field unit equation use has been minimized in the text. Chapter 1 and Appendix A give definitions of important units and constants and useful conversions for both USCS and SI.
Air and gas drilling technology is the utilization of compressed air or other gases as a rotary drilling circulating fluid to carry the rock cuttings to the surface that are generated at the bottom of the well by the advance of the drill bit. The compressed air or other gas (e.g., nitrogen or natural gas) can be used also or can be injected into the well with incompressible fluids such as fresh water, formation water, formation oil, or drilling mud. There are three distinct operational applications for this technology: air or gas drilling operations (using only compressed air or other gas as the circulating fluid), aerated drilling operations (using compressed air or other gas mixed with an incompressible fluid), and stable foam drilling operations (using compressed air or other gas with an incompressible fluid to create a continuous foam circulating fluid).
In the past, air and gas drilling methods have been a small segment of the petroleum deposit recovery drilling industry. Currently, air...
