WorldWide Drilling Resource

in this environment! By this time, with winter snow, the contractor was anx- ious about this job taking excessive time. Finally, however, the casing and screen were set to total depth, and the cement seal placed to 160 feet by late one freezing night. By now, the crew was looking for- ward to some short development time followed by demobilization. The next afternoon, the contractor called, saying they had a problem. They thought the casing had collapsed, and they couldn’t work the drill stem past about 128 feet. Obviously bad news, and the cause for such a calamity was un- known. A downhole camera was needed to assess the situation. Luckily, the util- ity had a very small-diameter camera they used to inspect sewer pipes. The camera revealed the thick, 14-inch diameter steel casing was crushed inward, so the cross section resembled a “crescent moon”, but allowing the camera to pass through a very small opening. A ten-foot section was damaged, fortunately above the static water level, and the casing and screen were undamaged. Abandoning the well and starting over was out of the question considering the time, effort, and money spent to date, and it had to be saved! More snow hindering access to the location allowed time to develop a strategy for repair. A specialist in the use of explosives for destroying wells was employed to carefully blast away the ten-foot section of deformed casing, also breaking parts of a large rock, presumably from a “block and ash” flow which somehow had been dislodged during the cementing process, crushing the casing. Several liners were then installed to repair the casing. Then the question was: “Will the production from this 300-foot well be worth nearly four months of time, effort, and extra funds to repair it? A sustained pumping test soon answered the question. The well produced 900 gallons per minute (the capacity of the pump) with four feet of drawdown. Now, maybe not exactly a “well from heaven”, but close to it, considering the positive results for the owner. The moral of this story? Obviously, skill and persistence paid off in this case. Jeremy Jeremy Wire may be contacted via e-mail to michele@worldwidedrillingresource.com To all the WWDR Team, You guys are a bright spot in my life. Calvin Scott C & B Drilling Douglas, AZ 34 FEBRUARY 2017 WorldWide Drilling Resource ® Wire cont’d from page 26.