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By T. C. Craig

For the year 1934, there were 382 oi1 wells completed for a total initial of 146,965 bbl. Fifty-three wells were deepened for a total increase of 8363 bbl., bringing the total volume of new oil to 155,328 bbl. As of Jan. 1, 1934, the daily potential of the field as determined by the Texas Railroad Commission was 159,740 bbl. Of this amount 26,429 bbl. is "marginal oil," and 2682 bbl. is exempt on account of water. In December, 1934, the daily potential was established by the Railroad Commission as being 297,501 bbl. with a daily allowable of 56,800 bbl. Of this amount 31,993 bbl. is "marginal oil," and 2183 bbl. is exempt on account of water. There has been no field-wide test made during the year, and as a result the rated potential of the field is in all probability much higher than the actual potential. As each new well comes in, a five-day test is made under the supervision of the Railroad Commission. The potential thus established is added to the field potential and shares its pro rata part of the market outlet, which is the allowable production, no allowance

Jan 1, 1935

By J. L. Rodda

A large amount of time has been devoted to the microscopical study of the copper-zinc alloys, emphasis naturally being placed upon the commercially important alloys of the system. Suitable methods are available for microscopically recognizing the two phases richest in copper, but none appear to have been developed for the positive identification of the other phases. This is, however, accomplished, for the phases normally encountered, by an electrolytic method described in the following pages. Five phases of the copper-zinc diagram (Fig. I) are considered for the purpose of this paper: the solid solution of zinc in copper, alpha (a); the intermediate phases, beta (ß), gamma (?), and epsilon (e); and the solid solution of copper in zinc, eta (11). Beta prime is not considered a separate

Jan 1, 1937

By Charles H. Osmond

The rapid progress of basic changes in refining processes, which has characterized this division of the petroleum industry during the last 7 years, slowed up in 1926 and the industry as a whole devoted itself to the enormous task of adopting these changes to its methods of manufacturing. If for no other reason, the year of 1926 will stand out as the first year of widespread activities in placing refining on a true manufacturing basis. A brief survey of each of the important operations and the trend of the changes with their economic results indicate the importance of this period of transition. No attempt has been made to detail the numerous activities in each of the major operations and the writer would refer those seeking such information to the various trade papers and the paper on "Basic Changes in Refining Processes," by Walter Miller.' Distillation.—-Distillation (excluding cracking) is the major item in refining. During the past year there has been a wide application of the improvements developed in former years. Operating costs have been reduced for fuel, labor and capital items. Practically all types of distillations are now carried on as semi-continuous or continuous operations, rather than by the old batch method. Heat-saving devices, such as heat exchangers, or improved combustion chambers, have had a marked effect on the total fuel bill of the industry. The modern pipe-still has been widely used and figures available show that approximately 10 per cent. of the older shell equipment was replaced by pipe-stills during 1926. The range of usefulness of this type of equipment has been extended successfully to the most complicated types of lubricating oil manufacture. These stills afford marked economies in fuel as well as labor costs, also many advantages in older plants where space is limited, as a single pipe-still can replace several batteries of shell stills. Capital expenditure per barrel capacity is decidedly lower and offers economy in this direction. Although there has been considerable discussion of other types of distillation equipment such as the vacuum still, there has been no appreciable increase in these installations during 1926. Cracking.—-Cracking equipment increased rapidly during 1926 as evidenced by the increase in output of cracked gasoline from an average

Jan 1, 1927

Discussion of the paper of PHILIP W. HENRY, presented at the New York meeting, February, 1915, and printed in Bulletin No. 97, January, 1915, pp. 23 to 30. C. ,E. GRUNSKY, JR., San Francisco, Cal. (communication to the Secret ary*).-The difference of opinion of engineers on the subject of depreciation is justified, to some, extent, by the many viewpoints from which such a subject can be considered when applied to properties of widely differing physical characteristics. Mr. Henry takes up the subject of depreciation as applied alone to oil properties, and in doing so makes a clear distinction between amortization and the repair or renewal requirement. After carefully reading the paper the purpose of its author in suggesting a "depreciation" reserve or fund to keep the property at a constant value does not seem clear. As shown by Mr. Henry, the depreciation element as compared with the operating expense per gallon of oil is very large because of the comparatively short life of the oil properties, and it is also evident that such a "depreciation" fund would in a short time contain a very large amount of money. It seems desirable and permissible in income-tax matters to take into account the depreciation of property and to separate from the income such money as is necessary to amortize the invested capital to an extent warranted by the depreciation. However, it does not seem either necessary or desirable to create a large fund which will in time approximate the entire invested capital and which may he invested by the directors, as Mr. Henry suggests, "in the property itself or in outside securities." This method seems cumberome and liable to offer in the reinvestment of such a fund temptations to a directorate that might show more devotion to its own interests than that of the stockholders. A reserve fund is very frequently desirable in mining and oil operations, but to keep up a fund of this magnitude or to reinvest it in outside securities does not seem desirable from a stockholders' standpoint. The. money withdrawn from the receipts to be placed in the depreciation fund (not including replacements and the drilling of new wells necessary to keep up the productiveness) should he returned to the stockholders of the company, not as dividends, but as an amortization of the invested capital.

Jan 5, 1915

By P. W. Bridgman

THE thesis of this article is that the age of Newton is now coming to a close, and that recent scientific discoveries have in store an even greater revolution in our entire outlook than the revolution effected by the discovery of universal gravitation by Newton. The revolution that now confronts us, arises from the recent discovery of new facts, the only interpretation of which is that our conviction that nature is understandable and subject to law arose from the narrowness of our horizons, and that if we sufficiently extend our range we shall find that nature is intrinsically and in its elements neither understandable nor subject to law. The new experimental facts are in the realm of quantum phenomena. Comparatively little has been written for popular consumption about this new realm which has opened in the last fifteen years. The man in the street has been much more interested in relativity, which to him has seemed extremely interesting and revolutionary. Occasionally, however, there has filtered down to him the news that nearly all the theoretical physicists are occupied with a new order of phenomena which they find very much more exciting and revolutionary than any in the realm of relativity. For after all is said and done, the practical effects of relativity, measured in ,dollars and' cents or in centimeters and grams, are exceedingly small, and require specially de- signed experiments executed by men of the highest skill to show their existence at all. The phenomena with which quantum theory deals, on the other hand, are of the greatest practical importance and involve the simplest aspects of everyday life. For example, before the advent of the quantum theory no one could explain why a tea kettle of water boiling on the stove should not give out enough light in virtue of its temperature to be visible in the dark; the accepted theories of optics demanded that it should be visible, but every burned child knew that it was not.

Jan 1, 1929

By M. I. Nathan, K. Weiser, R. S. Levitt, G. Burns, J. Woodall

Jan 1, 1964

By F.M. Walters

In order to isolate the effect of an element on some property of an alloy, the effect of the other alloying elements must be elimi-nated, either by reducing their quantity to the extent that they may be neglected or by determining the specitic effect of each. The success of Grossmannl in calculating hardenability from chemical composition by means of factors suggested such a

Jan 1, 1943

By F. M. Walters

In order to isolate the effect of an element on some property of an alloy, the effect of the other alloying elements must be elimi-nated, either by reducing their quantity to the extent that they may be neglected or by determining the specitic effect of each. The success of Grossmannl in calculating hardenability from chemical composition by means of factors suggested such a

Jan 1, 1943

By Terry G. Richard, Sunder H. Advani

A sequence of 250 unconfined compression tests were completed on a common marine shale indicative of the overburden strata of east- central Ohio. The samples were of a light gray clay shale of Pennsylvanian age. The shales considered are obvious layered materials with distinct bedding planes. For this reason there is sufficient evidence to consider this material as anisotropic in nature. With a properly chosen reference coordinate system this anisotropy can be reduced to a layered orthotropic characterization. This implies that the mechanical properties can be specified with regard to principal material directions. With this nature in mind a systematic study of the combined influences of strain rate and moisture conditioning was initiated. Of particular interest is the variations in unconfined ultimate compressive strength with variations in the controlled parameters of strain rate, moisture conditioning level and direction of testing. Results of this particular phase of the program are presented.

Jan 1, 1982

By W. M. Aubrey

Lying approximately 110 miles east of Toronto, Canada, the Marmora mine produces iron ore with a content of about 40 pct Fe, primarily in the form of magnetite. Operated by the Marmoraton Mining Co., a subsidiary of Bethlehem Steel Co., the orebody is mined by open pit methods. The ore from the pit is crushed, cobbed, ground to -100 mesh, magnetically concentrated to 67 pct iron, and then pelletized in shaft furnaces. The pellets are normally shipped by rail throughout the year from Marmora to Picton on Lake Ontario where they are unloaded and stored. Subsequently, during the navigation season, the pellets are shipped to Bethlehem Steel's Lackawanna plant in Buffalo, New York, for use in the blast furnace. At Marmora, the pellet plant demand and the concentrator output are not usually equal. To counter this problem, surge capacity in the form of storage pits in combination with a 30-ft diam thick¬ener has been provided between the concentrator and the pellet plant. Two sets of controls have been installed on this thickener, one controlling the…

Jan 9, 1960

By Ali M. Heidarieh Zadeh, Raghu N. Singh

The paper presents a stability investigation of shaft intersections and pit bottom roadways in the vicinity of upcast and downcast shafts at a colliery in the U.K. Aschemeof instrumentation was aimed at monitoring the strata displacement surrounding the pit bottom roadways and shaft intersections with a view to ascertaining the origin of the strata movement and effectiveness of the control measures. The bore- hole instrumentation results together with a theoretical analysis suggested that the cause of instability could be attributed to the drivage of a roadway within the shaft pillar. A semi-empirical technique was used to calculate the amount of support resistance required to reinforce the pillar to take additional abutment load. A rock bolting system was designed to provide a required increase in thrust capacity of the roadway support. The results indicated that roadway closure was effectively controlled after installation of bolts indicating efficacy of the control measures adopted.

Jan 1, 1982

By W. H. Adams

At the present time all the larger and better chemical works of Europe and the United States have introduced, as essential factors in the economical manufacture of sulphuric acid, both Glover towers and Gay-Lussac absorbing columns. The clear exposition of facts given by Bode and Lunge in their very valuable technical contributions since 1870 has slowly but surely brought about radical changes from the old methods of manufacture ; but while the Gay-Lussac column has been known since 1827 and the Glover tower was originated in 1869, yet no theoretical treatise covering the subject fully was given to the world until 1876, when the various contrivances for demonstrating nitrous vitriol were described and criticized by Fr, Bode in a paper "On the Glover Tower" which obtained the great prize of the Berlin Society for the Promotion of Industry.*

Jan 1, 1887

By W. G. Matteson

IN 1915, the State of California passed a law of great scope and importance. This law has been in successful operation for., year and may be briefly described as an act "establishing and creating a department of. the State Mining Bureau for the protection of the natural resources of petroleum and gas from waste and destruction through improper operations in production; providing for the inspection of petroleum and gas wells; requiring all persons operating petroleum and gas wells to make certain reports" and providing the necessary officers and assessments-to carry out the provisions of the act. The statute provides for a separate department of the State Mining Bureau, under the general supervision of the State mineralogist, with a staff composed of a "state oil and gas supervisor" and four deputies. It rules that all petroleum and natural gas wells shall be drilled, operated or abandoned under the supervision of the State supervisor, who shall order such tests or remedial work as seems to him necessary to protect the interests of property owners and the general public. It also provides for a board of arbitration to consider orders given by the supervisor which are not acceptable to the well owner. Section 18 of the, act, which is the provision that is directly related to, this paper, requires "the owner of any well referred to in this act to keep a careful and accurate log of the drilling of such well;" and further requires that this log shall show the character and depth of the formations passed through or encountered in the drilling, particularly the location and depth of the water-bearing strata; the character of the water encountered (so far as ascertained); whether the water was shut off, and, if so, at what point; that it shall show completely the amounts, kinds and size of casing used; the depth at which oil-bearing strata are encountered; the depth and character of the strata, and whether all water was successfully and permanently shut off so as to prevent percolation or penetration into the oil-bearing strata. -

Jan 2, 1917

By H. F. McCullough

The success of a coal-mining venture as relates to operations at the gob or break-line, such as the drawing of pillars or the working of long-faces, depends upon the control of face conditions. The measures required to control the latter are dependent upon the action of the coal seam, roof and floor at and in the vicinity of the faces, but the manner in which these will act is dependent upon the rate of face movement as well as upon the facc characteristics and upon the forces exerted. Yet the merits of a method of working—the practicability of controlling face conditions and the means required for such control when applied to any particular case—are usually judged only upon a consideration of the characteristics of coal seam, roof and floor, and the manner in which they have been observed to act. Practically every coal-mining man knows that face conditions are influenced by the rate of face movement, but few have appreciated that this is as much of a factor in the control of face conditions as are the face characteristics and the forces exerted. Fewer yet have recognized or taken advantage of faster rates of face movement as one of the principal means of establishing control of face conditions or of securing more favorable face conditions. Seemingly inherent difficulties, particularly in the control of roof conditions, but also in the control of conditions of the coal seam and floor, are frequently mitigated or disappear when the rate of movement of the faces is sufficiently increased. The characteristics of the coal seam, roof and floor and the forces exerted upon them do determine the general trend or tendency of face action, but the manner in which the coal seam, roof and floor will act and be aeted upon and the magnitude of the action during the time the site of mining operations remains at any particular point are very largely determined by the rate of movement of the faces. Progressive Nature of Forces Exerted Coal seam, roof and floor are composed of materials having definite properties or characteristics. The potential or ultimate values of the

Jan 1, 1927

By E. L. Brack

ASARCO's copper smelter at Hayden, Arizona has been upgraded to meet the increasing Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) environmental standards. Fortunately, means were found to accomplish these standards and provide for more efficient operations. With the adaptation of oxygen flash smelting and other related operations at Hayden, ASARCO has turned to the use of minicomputers and microprocessors for inter-plant communications and local area process control. The applications of distributive and computer controls to the plant operations at the Hayden smelter are discussed in this paper.

Jan 1, 1984

US 4,185,193-Method of assaying the vicinity of a borehole for uranium ore or thorium ore. A pulsed neutron source IS operated to irradiate the earth formations with fast neutrons. A detector responds to the delayed fission neutrons emitted by the ore as a measure of ore concentration and to the delayed neutrons from oxygen-17 as a measure of the neutron output of the source. The measurement of ore concentration is corrected In accordance with the measured changes in the neutron output of the source. R L. Caldwell, assigned to Mobil Oil Corp. Jan. 22, 1980 4 pp (250-269). Filed: 5-18-78 (906,907).

Jan 1, 1982

By H. H. Hasler

THE mining and removal of coal from two or more beds, either simultaneously or consecutively, in vertically adjacent areas have always been matters of concern to mine operators from both operating and recovery points of view. However, with the progressive introduction and use of electrical and mechanical facilities, such problems assume even greater proportions. In this paper typical cases occuring in Cambia County, Pa., are given and procedures whereby such problems may be greatly reduced, if not entirely eliminated, are suggested.

Jan 5, 1951

By L. S. Panyity

The question of natural-gas supply is receiving careful consideration in many parts of the country, as in the winter months it is quite a problem to have on hand sufficient gas to satisfy the demand. Increasing the output of wells by the application of vacuum has been tried with various results and large companies have attempted to keep up the supply with gas compressors. The possibility of storing natural gas in the sands of exhausted gas pools has been 'tried in a few instances with satisfactory results. This method may prove of practical value in solving the problem, especially in the case of towns that formerly obtained gas from their immediate vicinity but now must search for new pools. In all cases, only part of the available supply is utilized during the warm weather, so that many wells are shut-in, yet during the winter months, the supply is not sufficient even with all the wells on the line; in such cases it would be of great value if a large volume of stored gas were on hand, obtained through wells that would have been standing idle during the summer. Idle producing wells having considerable "rock pressure" will force gas into the exhausted, or storage wells, and this gas will be used only when the regular supply falls short (Fig. I). If two gas wells of different

Jan 1, 1920

By Richard A. Kesler, W. Michael Reed

Grindability or resistance to fine comminution is the fundamental issue involved in the application and sizing of grinding mills. Over the years, many theories for determining the amount of energy required for size reduction to a specified fineness have been proposed. The first published theory, introduced by P. R. von Rittinger in 1867, stated that the energy required for crushing or grinding is proportional to the increase in surface area produced. The surface area of a ton of particles of diameter (d) is proportional to (1/d), therefore the work input per ton for particles of diameter (d) would be proportional to (1/d). The second significant theory is that of F. Kick published in 1885. Kick said that the work required is proportional to the reduction in volume of the particles concerned. If (f) is the diameter of the feed particles and (p) is the diameter of the product particles, the work input relationship would be: [W =Ioq(f/p) 9] The "Third Theory" of F.C. Bond, introduced in 1951, states that the work required is proportional to the length of the new crack tips produced in particle breakage during crushing or grinding and equals work represented by the product minus that represented by the feed. This takes the form: [W=]

Jan 1, 1982