The Mud Does Not Lie
May 8, 2021 16:09:25 #
As a stroke of fortune, I met a former neighbor when I had lived in New Orleans, but at a chance meeting in Houston, the meeting led to my being hired as Marketing Manager and V.P. of Warren Instrument Company in Houston, Texas.
Our primary business at Warren was the measurement of mud! Both the flow of mud being pumped up out of the well bore and the measurement of the mud volume in the mud pits. If one isn’t familiar with these parameters, it is a critical measurement for the safety of both the drilling rig and its personnel. If a crew is careless and does not pay attention to these mud measurement parameters, it can mean their lives.
The company, Warren Automatic Tool Company of Houston had as its primary business, the instrumentation for drilling rigs, mud measurement being primary, but also other critical items were also measured. We also introduced computerization of these measurements, along with others and had all recorded for later analysis by petroleum engineers.
The company had 8 different satellite offices stretching from Mississippi and Louisiana all the way to Casper, Wyoming. It was the office in Odessa, Texas that we got a complaint that our equipment on a drilling rig on a well somewhere near San Angelo that our mud measurement equipment was not performing satisfactorily. The Petroleum Engineer, who was a contract employee sitting on the well had said there was an error in our equipment measuring the mud flow coming out of the well bore.
To make sure that our equipment was performing adequately, I ordered the service personnel in Midland to go out and replace all our equipment with brand new equipment and to carefully calibrate it so the petroleum engineer would be satisfied. However, within hours, we get another call that our equipment was defective. Our service representative, upon arrival at the drill site and checking our equipment reported that there was nothing wrong with our measurement equipment, that there was a slight gain in the volume of mud returning from the well bore!
Both the Petroleum Engineer and the drilling company representative threatened to fire us and have a competing company install new equipment on the rig. We knew something was wrong, and I was preparing to fly out to the drilling rig and personally check on the problem when I got a call that the well had blown in! It had blown in with fresh water, not hydrocarbons! The petroleum engineer had been expecting crude or natural gas and not an artesian spring fresh water.
For several days, the rig was completely isolated due to the flood water. The contractor had to hire several cable dumb trucks of gravel to fill in around the drilling rig just to make it accessible and to get it operational again after they had cemented of the flow of fresh water. When I finally arrived at the rig, it looked like an off shore operation.
The hired petroleum engineer was fired. Our equipment had been correct all along in that there was a slow and steady increase of volume in the mud pits. It was slow at first but continuing to gain. The engineer had not anticipated for the presence of another source to be adding to the volume of the mud pits. The rancher who owned the property and been quoted as saying he had rather have had the water than whatever revenue the oil well would have produced! Just Saying…RJS
Our primary business at Warren was the measurement of mud! Both the flow of mud being pumped up out of the well bore and the measurement of the mud volume in the mud pits. If one isn’t familiar with these parameters, it is a critical measurement for the safety of both the drilling rig and its personnel. If a crew is careless and does not pay attention to these mud measurement parameters, it can mean their lives.
The company, Warren Automatic Tool Company of Houston had as its primary business, the instrumentation for drilling rigs, mud measurement being primary, but also other critical items were also measured. We also introduced computerization of these measurements, along with others and had all recorded for later analysis by petroleum engineers.
The company had 8 different satellite offices stretching from Mississippi and Louisiana all the way to Casper, Wyoming. It was the office in Odessa, Texas that we got a complaint that our equipment on a drilling rig on a well somewhere near San Angelo that our mud measurement equipment was not performing satisfactorily. The Petroleum Engineer, who was a contract employee sitting on the well had said there was an error in our equipment measuring the mud flow coming out of the well bore.
To make sure that our equipment was performing adequately, I ordered the service personnel in Midland to go out and replace all our equipment with brand new equipment and to carefully calibrate it so the petroleum engineer would be satisfied. However, within hours, we get another call that our equipment was defective. Our service representative, upon arrival at the drill site and checking our equipment reported that there was nothing wrong with our measurement equipment, that there was a slight gain in the volume of mud returning from the well bore!
Both the Petroleum Engineer and the drilling company representative threatened to fire us and have a competing company install new equipment on the rig. We knew something was wrong, and I was preparing to fly out to the drilling rig and personally check on the problem when I got a call that the well had blown in! It had blown in with fresh water, not hydrocarbons! The petroleum engineer had been expecting crude or natural gas and not an artesian spring fresh water.
For several days, the rig was completely isolated due to the flood water. The contractor had to hire several cable dumb trucks of gravel to fill in around the drilling rig just to make it accessible and to get it operational again after they had cemented of the flow of fresh water. When I finally arrived at the rig, it looked like an off shore operation.
The hired petroleum engineer was fired. Our equipment had been correct all along in that there was a slow and steady increase of volume in the mud pits. It was slow at first but continuing to gain. The engineer had not anticipated for the presence of another source to be adding to the volume of the mud pits. The rancher who owned the property and been quoted as saying he had rather have had the water than whatever revenue the oil well would have produced! Just Saying…RJS
May 8, 2021 18:02:31 #
Able Man
Loc: North Coast (Cleveland, Ohio)
Thanks for the reminder, that; SOMETIMES- we've all got to "expect the unexpected".
May 8, 2021 18:34:00 #
The way that things are trending, the water could sooner or later, be worth more than oil!
May 8, 2021 18:45:33 #
If the results are not what you expected, DON'T jump to conclusions. Re-examine the facts in front of you, it could save your life and others around you as well.
And, NOT just in MUD samples.
And, NOT just in MUD samples.
May 8, 2021 18:50:07 #
Able Man
Loc: North Coast (Cleveland, Ohio)
bcwolfe wrote:
If the results are not what you expected, DON'T jump to conclusions. Re-examine the facts in front of you, it could save your life and others around you as well.
And, NOT just in MUD samples.
And, NOT just in MUD samples.
Yeah, you right; about that whole: "¡Don't jump to conclusions!" rule. It's ALWAYS good, to gather as many facts as exist.
May 8, 2021 19:50:13 #
Graveytrain50
Loc: DFW Area Texas
bcwolfe wrote:
Very good!If the results are not what you expected, DON'T jump to conclusions. Re-examine the facts in front of you, it could save your life and others around you as well.
And, NOT just in MUD samples.
And, NOT just in MUD samples.
May 8, 2021 20:57:16 #
Water is everything thing. Water rights are a big deal in the West ever since it’s been settled always will be.
May 8, 2021 21:49:26 #
I don't know what the state laws are about tapping into an underground aquifer, but I assume the land owner who owns his mineral rights would also have the right to tap the water in some fashion.
But in that case, afterr seeing the flooding that resulted, I assume it probably doubled the flow of the Pecos River where this overflow ran into. Just Sayin...RJS
But in that case, afterr seeing the flooding that resulted, I assume it probably doubled the flow of the Pecos River where this overflow ran into. Just Sayin...RJS
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