Oil Well Engineering Co:1935 Review
Note: This is a sub-section of Oil Well Engineering Co
Visit of the Iron and Steel Institute to the Iron, Steel and Engineering Industries of Manchester and District
The works of the Oil Well Engineering Company are situated at Cheadle Heath, near Stockport, about seven miles due south of Manchester. They comprise a structural department, forge, heat-treatment plant and machine shops, all particularly adapted for the manufacture of the deep well drilling equipment in which the Company specialises.
The principal products of the Company are the steel derricks which are so prominent a feature of oilfields, the other structural components which are incorporated in the drilling gear, the well head machinery which includes heavy special types of hoisting winches called 'Drawworks,' crown blocks, return blocks, and special hooks capable of carrying loads up to 300 tons, rotary swivels and tables, by means of which the turning motion is applied to the drilling tools, and the drilling and fishing tools themselves which are of multifarious and ingenious design. Special pumps are manufactured for pumping mud to the drilling tools.
Equipment of this kind—involving as it does the handling of great weights of drilling strings, sometimes now extending from II to 2 miles deep-necessitates the use of very special steels, the greatest care in design and heat treatment, and extreme accuracy in manufacture and inspection. Each drilling string incorporates the use of a great many taper screw thread joints which must be manufactured and gauged to precision. Some features, therefore, of these works are the special taper threading equipment including special taper thread millers, precision machines and machines for checking accuracy.
The surface machinery is subject to great strains, shocks and abuse and is very ruggedly made. Manganese steel is very largely used for wearing parts and special and properly heat- treated steel is involved in nearly every item of equipment. This Company was started in the year 1911, particularly to cater for the requirements of British and foreign oil fields and some of the principal oil fields in Burma, India, Iran, Iraq, Roumania and Trinidad have been largely equipped with its
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