Oil and Gas Terms Beginning with “B” — Page 5

A downhole device or tool component designed to catch debris or objects, such as balls, darts or plugs dropped to actuate downhole equipment or tools. Read more →

The basket flowmeter is a production logging tool used to measure the in-situ velocity of fluid flow inside a producing or injecting wellbore. It consists of a set of hinged metal petals, or vanes, that remain folded… Read more →

What Is a Batch Mixer? Batch mixer (also called a recirculating mixer or pre-mix unit) is a cementing equipment unit that prepares an entire volume of cement slurry in a single batch before pumping begins, as opposed to… Read more →

What Is a Batch Treatment? Batch treatment (also called slug treatment or intermittent chemical treatment ) is the practice of injecting a concentrated, discrete volume of chemical into a wellbore, pipeline, or… Read more →

The bathyal zone is the oceanic realm between 200 m (656 ft) and 2,000 m (6,562 ft) water depth, encompassing the continental slope and the upper portion of the continental rise. It sits intermediate between the neritic… Read more →

The installation of similar or identical units of equipment in a group, such as a separator battery, header battery, filter battery or tank battery. Read more →

What Is a Battery Site? Battery site (also called a production battery , lease battery , or gathering battery ) is a centralized surface facility where production fluids from one or more oil and gas wells are gathered,… Read more →

What Is a Bead Tracer? Bead tracer (also called a radioactive bead tracer or tracer bead survey ) is a small radioactive or chemically tagged particle injected into the wellbore during production logging or injection… Read more →

A fixed choke or a choke with an adjustable needle, sleeve or plate that can be changed to adjust the flow rate. The flow rate from a well is limited to conserve reservoir energy, decrease friction forces and improve… Read more →

(noun) A surface-mounted reciprocating artificial lift system, also known as a sucker rod pump or pumpjack, that uses a walking beam mechanism driven by a prime mover to impart an up-and-down motion to a string of… Read more →

A fixed choke or a choke with an adjustable needle, sleeve or plate that can be changed to adjust the flow rate. Read more →

What Is a Bean (Choke)? Bean (choke) (also called a production choke or orifice choke ) is a fixed or adjustable flow restriction device installed at a wellhead, in a flowline, or downhole to control production rate and… Read more →

A layer of sediment or sedimentaryrock, or stratum. A bed is the smallest stratigraphic unit, generally a centimeter or more in thickness. To be labeled a bed, the stratum must be distinguishable from adjacent beds. Read more →

Bed thickness is the spatial dimension of a sedimentary layer measured perpendicular to the bounding bedding planes that define its upper and lower surfaces. In a geometrically ideal case where beds are horizontal and… Read more →

The first layer of coiled tubing, slickline or wireline to be wound on the core of a reel drum or spool. The bed wrap helps secure the tubing string or slickline to the reel core and provides the foundation upon which… Read more →

Solid rock either exposed at the surface or situated below surface soil, unconsolidated sediments and weathered rock. Read more →

The unit of measurement to describe or compare the intensity of acoustic or electrical signal, named for American inventor Alexander Graham Bell (1847 to 1922). Measurements are typically given in tenths of a bel, or… Read more →

What Is a Bell Nipple? Bell nipple (also called a mud return nipple or flow nipple ) is the flared, funnel-shaped tubular fitting installed at the top of the blowout preventer (BOP) stack — or at the top of the surface… Read more →

A condition in deviated wellbores in which an additional friction component is applied as the slickline, wireline or coiled tubing is drawn to the inside radius of the curve. The effect is largely dependent on the load… Read more →

A standard against which the performance of processes are measured. Read more →

Chemical treatment or mechanical processes that improve a mineral or ore for its designed use. For example, barite and bentonite clay minerals are beneficiated in order to help them meet certain specifications for use… Read more →

Benthic refers to the ecological zone at, on, or immediately above the bottom of a body of water, and to the community of organisms that live there. The word derives from the Greek "benthos," meaning "depth of the sea."… Read more →

Bentonite is a naturally occurring smectite clay mineral composed predominantly of sodium montmorillonite (Na-MMT), a 2:1 phyllosilicate with exceptional capacity to absorb water and swell dramatically in aqueous… Read more →

An adjustment of the relative positive and negative excursions of reflections during seismic processing by bulk shifting the null point, or baseline, of the data to emphasize peaks at the expense of troughs or vice… Read more →

A technique used in the assembly of coiled tubing strings at the manufacturing plant. Prior to being formed, the string is assembled from flat steel strips joined by a bias weld that is angled across the strip joint at… Read more →

What Is Bicarbonate Contamination in Drilling Mud? Bicarbonate contamination (also called bicarbonate invasion or HCO₃⁻ contamination ) refers to the introduction of bicarbonate ions into a water-based drilling mud… Read more →

What Is a Bicenter Bit? Bicenter bit (also called a bicentre bit or eccentric underreaming bit ) is a drill bit with two offset cutting structures — a central pilot bit and an eccentric wing cutter — designed to drill a… Read more →

What Is a Bid and Study Agreement? Bid and study agreement (also called a B&SA or bid preparation agreement) is a pre-contract commercial arrangement between an operator and a service provider — such as a drilling… Read more →

What Is a Big-Hole Charge? Big-hole charge (also called a large-entry charge or high-flow perforating charge) is a shaped explosive charge designed specifically to maximize the diameter of the perforation tunnel through… Read more →

A perforating charge designed to create perforations with a large-diameter entrance hole. These charges typically are used in sand control completions, in which efficient placement of the gravel pack treatment within… Read more →