[Quiz] Rotary Drilling

Rotary drilling is the most common method and is used to drill both exploratory and production wells at depths over 5 miles (7,000 m). Lightweight drills, mounted on trucks, are used to drill low-depth seismic wells on land. Medium and heavy rotary mobile and floating drills are used for drilling exploration and production wells. Rotary drilling equipment is mounted on a drilling platform with a 30- to 40-m-high derrick and includes a rotary table, engine, mud mixer, and injector pump, a wire-line drum hoist or winch, and many sections of pipe, each approximately 27 m long. The rotary table turns a square kelly connected to the drilling pipe. The square kelly has a mud swivel on the top which is connected to blowout preventers. The drill pipe rotates at a speed of from 40 to 250 rpm, turning either a drill which has drag bits with fixed chisel-like cutting edges or a drill whose bit has rolling cutters with hardened teeth.