Glossary
Oil and Gas Terminology
Listed are some of the commonly used terminologies in the oil and gas industry whenever wellsites are involved or just oil and gas in general.
Abandonment
The abandonment of an oil well is the process of following proper legal federal procedures to remove all things related to oil well drilling on site including properly plugging and sealing the wellsite from public access. This happens when oil is no longer being produced and the company in charge of the area no longer wishes to perform further operations on site.
Barrel
A unit of measurement to measure the volume of petroleum and related products.
bbl
One barrel of crude oil.
bcf
Billion cubic feet. A standard unit of measurement for the amount of natural gas supply. (1 bcf = 0.83 million tons of oil)
bcfe
Billion cubic feet equivalent. A unit of measurement to measure the amount of natural gas that's untapped in reserves or is being pumped and delivered over an extended period of time.
bcm
Billion Cubic Meters or cubic kilometer of natural gas is a unit of measurement to measure the amount of natural gas. (1 cubic meter = 35.31 cubic feet)
Drilling
The use of a derrick and associated drilling tools to bore into the earth in order to gain access to retrieve crude oil from underground via a pump or through alternative means such as hydraulic fracking.
Dry Hole
A wellsite whose oil production is unproductive. In other words, the wellsite is no longer producing any oil.
Fracturing
Fracturing, commonly referred to as hydraulic fracturing or hydraulic fracking, is a method of pushing oil out of the ground in wellsites by injecting water into the oil well underground.
GIS
GIS stands for Geographic Information Systems. It is a system that is responsible for storing and displaying geographic information on things (commonly maps).
MWh
Megawatt Hour. A unit of energy measurement that represents 1 million watts used in 1 hour.
Natural Gas
Natural gas is something found naturally usually along with petroleum underground.
O&G
Oil and Gas.
Oil Derrick
Oil Derrick or derrick, is the oil tower that resides at the top of the ground where all of the drilling controls are being housed at.
tcf
Trillion Cubic Feet.
Withdrawals
The process of physically removing natural gas from storage and moving it into the market during times of high demand, such as during the cold winter season where demand for heat generated by gas is higher.