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Oil, Gas & Mining vocabulary · Drilling & Wells

Well

Meaning in oil, gas & mining, with examples

/wel/nounCore term

In oil, gas & mining, well means: A deep, narrow hole drilled into the ground to find or produce oil, gas or water, or to inject fluids back into a reservoir.

In Turkish: kuyu, sondaj kuyusu

How it is used

Wells are drilled, completed, tested, put on production, shut in and finally plugged and abandoned. Types include exploration, appraisal, production and injection wells. Engineers refer to each well by its name and number, for example 'Well K-12'.

Example sentences

  1. The well reached a total depth of 3,450 metres on Tuesday.

  2. We have to shut in the well before the workover crew arrives.

Common collocations

  • drill a well
  • exploration well
  • production well
  • injection well
  • plug and abandon a well
  • drilling rigThe complete set of machinery used to drill a well, including the tower, engines, pumps, hoisting system and the equipment that turns the drill pipe.
  • casingLarge steel pipe lowered into a newly drilled section of a well and cemented in place to stop the hole collapsing and to keep rock layers and fluids apart.
  • wellheadThe steel equipment at the top of a well, at the surface or on the seabed, that holds the casing and tubing and connects the well to valves and flowlines.
  • well completionThe work done after drilling to make a well ready to produce safely, such as running production tubing, perforating the casing and installing valves.
  • dry holeA well that does not find oil or gas in amounts worth producing. It is usually plugged and abandoned.

More terms: Drilling & Wells

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