In my experience, most people, if you ask them about oil (or gas) drilling, make references to Daniel Day-Lewis with a pickax, snarling something about milkshakes, or perhaps Jed Clampett shootin’ at some food.
For those interested in energy issues, it never hurts to be a little more well-versed in the how-to’s. So if you don’t know a BOP from a mouse hole, here are two quick films (like 5-6 minutes) about the process someone emailed me. One is about oil (with more technical terminology), the other shale gas and the new horizontal drilling. They are a lot less painful than the geology and drilling books I had to read when I first started researching this issue.
They are quite informative BUT please be aware these are industry videos, so you may be well served to ignore the editorializing.
General well drilling:
http://www.energyindepth.org/rig/index.html
Shale gas drilling:
http://www.api.org/policy/exploration/hydraulicfracturing/hydraulicfracturing.cfm
