Oil Well From Hell - part 2

You do not open a drill-stem-test tool after dark; at least that was true twenty years ago when standard light bulbs commonly illuminated the drilling rig. This is because an exploding light bulb can easily ignite natural gas. It was not something we were worrying about on this well, but we should have been.

I stood on the drill floor, watching as the drill stem tester opened the tool for the first time, anything that might be in the formation sucked into the drill pipe by hydrostatic pressure. If there were enough pressure, whatever gas or fluid in the pipe would flow to the surface. In anticipation of this, we had a pipe from the test tool protruding out to the reserve pit. I expected to see nothing at all, but I got a big surprise.

The sound of natural gas accelerating up through the pipe soon began stressing everyone’s ears. When the gas hit the surface, it streamed from the relief pipe in a super-charged, jet-like whoosh. My eyes were wide and I was holding my ears when the oil hit, spraying from the pipe in a jet of solid crude, projectile vomiting from the well.

Two minutes passed with the well showing no signs of abating its wild flow of oil and natural gas. James W., the assistant Cities Service field superintendent stood beside me. It took a minute for me to realize how stressed that he had become. James was a big man that looked a little like an over-the-hill professional wrestler. He was not acting like a macho wrestler. There were tears in his eyes and I had the distinct impression that he was on the verge of passing out.

“James,” I said, grabbing his big right shoulder. “What’s the matter?”

Daylight was rapidly disappearing, but even in the flickering luminosity coming from the rig floor, I could see that his face had taken on the ashen expression of someone suffering a near-death experience. A sorrowful moan exited from his open mouth as his upper body rocked back and forth like a strong oak in a whistling gale.

“Are you okay?” I demanded, administering a vigorous shake to his arm.

All he could say was, “Oh God Damn, oh God Damn!”

It was then that I realized we were in trouble and I did not have a clue what it was, or what to do about it even if I did. I am not a small man, but James was six inches taller and a hundred pounds heavier. Still, I was becoming quickly agitated by the scream of natural gas, roar of erupting oil and the look of total desperation on my big friend’s face. Grabbing him by the shoulders, I wheeled him around, shook him as hard as I could and screamed in his face.

“You get a grip, James, or I swear I am going to slap the shit out of you. Tell me what the matter is, now!”

James quit shaking and opened his mouth, as if to clear his plugged ears.

He was moaning when he said, “This is how my Daddy died, burned to death on a drill stem test pulled after dark.”

I was still shaking him and screaming in his face. “What do we need to do?” James did not answer me. He just keep wobbling from side to side and shaking his head. I let go of him and grabbed the tester. “Shut in the well, now!”

Heavier than the air, natural gas had pooled around the drilling rig. We were ten feet off the ground, but the liquids-rich gas flooded my nostrils. The drill stem tester quickly shut in the well, instantly stopping the flow of oil and natural gas to the pit.

“Get off the rig!” I shouted, moving from one roughneck to the next. “Get away from the rig! Do it! And don’t crank your cars.”

We were soon all standing a hundred yards from the abandoned drilling rig, the roughnecks and driller looking at me as if I were a crazy man. It was in the days before the cell phone. After threatening the crew, I returned to the location, cautiously starting my company car and driving ten miles to the nearest pay phone.

A company engineer reached the location from Wichita in about an hour. He never told me if I had done the right thing, but he sent the crew home and told me to return to my motel room. Next morning, a knock on my door awoke me. It was Fred, the head geologist and my company supervisor.

“I’m relieving you for the rest of the well,” he said.

Fred and I had breakfast but he dodged every effort I made to try to find out if my rash actions of the previous night were met with agreement or discord. I never learned. No one in management ever gave me an atta boy, or reamed my ass. I did not see James again because I never sat another well in that district.

I left Cities shortly after the incident, never learning from anyone in the company if I was a hero, or an idiot. Looking back, I was probably more of the latter than the former, but it was not my fault. Put in a position of responsibility for which I was sorely incompetent. I could only do the best that I could do. As a Vietnam veteran, I well knew the look of desperation, and had only acted after seeing that expression on James’ big face.

There are few occupations as dangerous as drilling oil and gas wells. I can live with the realization that I am probably a fool because it is better than the possibility, no matter how remote, of attending the funeral of a charred burn victim.

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