Oil and Gas Terms Beginning with “B” — Page 7

What Is Blended Crude? Blended crude (also called a crude blend or blended stream ) is a crude oil produced by combining two or more crude oils of different densities, viscosities, sulfur contents, or other quality… Read more →

The equipment used to prepare the slurries and gels commonly used in stimulation treatments. The blender should be capable of providing a supply of adequately mixed ingredients at the desired treatment rate. Modern… Read more →

A simple slickline tool used to dislodge or push tools or equipment down the wellbore. The blind box is generally of heavy construction and is hardened to reduce damage when jarring is required. Read more →

A blind ram is a solid, heavy-steel closing element used inside a ram-type blowout preventer to seal the wellbore when no tubular, wire, or other object is present in the bore. Unlike pipe rams, which have a… Read more →

What Is a Blind Zone in Logging? Blind zone (also called dead zone or end effect zone ) in wireline logging is the depth interval at the top or bottom of a logged section — or immediately below a casing shoe — where a… Read more →

A set of pulleys used to gain mechanical advantage in lifting or dragging heavy objects. There are two large blocks on a drilling rig, the crown block and the traveling block. Each has several sheaves that are rigged… Read more →

A blockage is any obstruction inside a wellbore, production tubing , flowline, or export pipeline that significantly reduces or completely stops the flow of reservoir fluids. Blockages range from partial restrictions… Read more →

What Is a Blow-Down? Blow-down (also called blowdown or system depressurization) is the controlled release of pressurized gas, vapor, or liquid from a pressure vessel, pipeline segment, wellbore, or process separator to… Read more →

An uncontrolled flow of reservoir fluids into the wellbore, and sometimes catastrophically to the surface. A blowout may consist of salt water, oil, gas or a mixture of these. Blowouts occur in all types of exploration… Read more →

What Is a Blowout Preventer? A blowout preventer (BOP) is a large, high-pressure valve assembly installed at the top of the wellbore — at the wellhead on surface wells or on the seafloor in deepwater operations — that… Read more →

To vent gas from a well or production system. Wells that have been shut in for a period frequently develop a gas cap caused by gas percolating through the fluid column in the wellbore. It is often desirable to remove or… Read more →

A phenomenon in which free gas leaves with the liquid phase at the bottom of the separator. Blowdy can indicate a low liquid level or improper level control inside the separator. Read more →

What Is Blowing the Drip? Blowing the drip (also called drip blowing or draining a drip pot) is a natural gas pipeline and gathering system maintenance operation in which accumulated liquids — including condensate,… Read more →

A blowout is the catastrophic, uncontrolled release of reservoir fluids from a wellbore following the failure of all installed well barriers. Unlike a kick , which is an early-stage influx of formation fluid that can be… Read more →

What Is a Blowout Preventer? A blowout preventer (BOP) is a large, high-pressure valve assembly installed at the top of the wellbore — at the wellhead on surface wells or on the seafloor in deepwater operations — that… Read more →

A body wave is a seismic wave that propagates through the interior volume of a solid or fluid medium, as distinct from surface waves that are constrained to travel along an interface or free boundary. Body waves carry… Read more →

Slang term for a type of pressure vessel. Read more →

(noun) A cement evaluation log, typically acquired using a cement bond log (CBL) tool, that measures the acoustic amplitude and transit time of sound travelling through casing, cement sheath, and formation to assess the… Read more →

What Is a Bonus Consideration? Bonus consideration (also called a lease bonus, bonus payment, or signing bonus) is the upfront cash payment made by an oil and gas lessee — typically an operator or E&P company — to a… Read more →

A small metal tube containing secondary high explosive that is crimped onto the end of the detonating cord. This explosive component is designed to provide reliable detonation transfer between perforating guns or other… Read more →

A borehole is the cylindrical hole created in the earth by the drilling process, extending from the surface or a subsea wellhead to the total depth (TD) of the well. The term encompasses both the open-hole sections of a… Read more →

What Is Borehole Compensation? Borehole compensation (also called borehole correction or dual-spacing compensation) is a wireline and LWD logging tool design technique that electronically cancels the distorting effect… Read more →

What Is a Borehole Correction? Borehole correction (also called environmental correction or borehole effect correction) is a mathematical adjustment applied to a raw wireline or logging-while-drilling (LWD) measurement… Read more →

Borehole gravity refers to the measurement of the Earth's gravitational acceleration at successive depth stations inside a wellbore using a high-precision downhole gravimeter. The technique exploits the fact that… Read more →

What Is a Borehole Gravity Meter? Borehole gravity meter (BHGM) (also called a borehole gravimeter or downhole gravimeter) is a precision wireline logging instrument lowered into a wellbore to measure the vertical… Read more →

Borehole seismic data refers to any seismic measurement acquired with at least one element of the source-receiver system located inside a wellbore. By placing receivers, sources, or both downhole, borehole seismic… Read more →

A borehole televiewer (BHTV) is an ultrasonic wireline logging instrument that produces a continuous, oriented, 360-degree image of the borehole wall by rotating a piezoelectric acoustic transducer at 2 to 6 revolutions… Read more →

What Is a Bottle Test? Bottle test (also called a jar test or demulsibility test) is a laboratory bench procedure performed on crude oil emulsions to evaluate the performance of demulsifier chemicals — small volumes of… Read more →

What Is the Bottom Log Interval? Bottom log interval is the deepest formation section recorded during a wireline logging run — specifically, the depth range from the logging tool's lowest measurement point up to the… Read more →

What Is a Bottom Sample? Bottom sample is a representative crude oil sample collected from the lowest accessible point of a storage tank, pipeline, or pressure vessel — specifically to detect and quantify water,… Read more →