I didn't realize that oil was under this kind of pressure. Ignorance is deadly

Seriously. I picture oil wells as these old lazy electrically operated pumps in peoples back yards that pump out a few barrels of oil per day. And yea, I have seen the John Wayne movie where he puts out the big gushers on fire but figured that was mostly fictional kind of like the Three Stooges.

Anyone else who thought it had to be pretty much pumped out of the ground and didn't realize that something like this could happen?

Don

No offense but that's what happens at first. There's lots of pressure underground.

I didn't realize the magnitude of this is what I am saying.

Don

Imagine the weight of a column of watter a mile high or the weight of rock for that matter...that is a lot of pressure.

whos dad flew helicopters out to platforms...

Kind of like hitting a jugular vein.

Leaks (well, natural oil seeps) are what we get routinely on Santa Barbara and Goleta beaches. We come back with tar on our feet from walking on the sand and speckles of it on our skin from swimming in the water.

This thing is horrendous with no end in sight.

Hekate

...(holes blown in pipe to let the liquids in), you never really know what is gonna happen. When you drill deep holes, there is enormous pressure, and heat. If you manage to hit natural gas, you cannot imagine the noise it makes! There is a huge explosion of pressure being released, thus the blow-out valves that are necessary. It'll scare the bejeezus out of you if you are not aware the hole is being perforated.
I worked for a wireline company and we perforated hundreds of wells while I was working there. My job was to load the guns (pieces of pipe with directional shape charges screwed in them)which were about 4 to 12 ft in length. They send the guns down to the depth that they want to perforate and set off the charges blowing holes in the casing. There can be several "zones" of interest in every well. The geologist determines which areas of porosity will most likely contain the oil or gas. He uses a log of the well to determine this. We logged wells too. That is done by sending a tool that emits a neutron beam downhole, very slowly. The results are logged on paper and used by the geologists.

Usually when you perforate a well, nothing happens, unless you hit gas. I have never been involved in any accidents where a fire was started. Never even seen any, so it is a very rare occurrence.

When we retrieved our tools from deep wells (5000 ft plus), they were so hot they were smoking, and had to be cooled before disassembling.

It was an interesting experience, to say the least. Let me be the first to say that the guys who work on the rigs are called "roughnecks" for a reason. It's tough, nasty work.

Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson and James Dean?

Or the new classic, 2007-8's Oscar-winning "There Will Be Blood" starring Daniel Day Lewis? Stop depriving yourself and get thee online to NetFlix, pronto.

:yoiks:

We ALL should be including Obama & Congress.

But none of them give a damn about this planet they only care about money.

The planet is screwed.

I thought that sounded way too large, so I did some checking.

The rotary table on this rig was 60 in. in diameter. And then I found this definition of a rotary table: A flat plate in the drill floor which is turned mechanically at varying speeds and directions imparting the rotary action to the drill string which passes though its centre.

So maybe that is where the dimension comes from? :shrug: