WorldWide Drilling Resource

Tales from the Field by Jeremy C. Wire Geoconsultants, Inc. A Wife’s Advice Saves a Well There are times when we don’t give our wives enough credit when, inadvertently, they offer good advice to a drill operator in our absence during a well drilling project. Cell phones and other digital devices now allow “instant” communication we take for granted. It was not always this way, and if we were not available to consult on a project at night or on a weekend, and someone called our home, quite often my wife would answer the telephone. Often, it was a brief discussion of when we might be available to answer a simple question. However, in this tale from the past, a more serious situation was involved. A deep community water supply well was being constructed in our nearby mountains, where sometimes the drilling pad is cut into steep slopes underlain by unstable soil and weak rocks, as was the case for this project. Drilling started on a Saturday morning, when we were away on another project. About two o’clock in the afternoon, the telephone rang at the house, and my wife answered it. The drill operator, who apparently was not too familiar with drilling conditions in these mountains, was on the other end of the line, and in an apparently distraught voice said, “I called the shop, and also my boss’s house, and I can’t find anyone to talk to. There is a problem up here. I just started drilling, and about 20 feet down the nearby slope started being undermined and slipping away. The rig is starting to tilt, and I am afraid it might tip over. What should I do?” In hindsight, a deeper conductor casing should have been installed to avoid this problem, but now it was too late for that. When we arrived home later, my wife related the above conversation. “So what did you advise him to do?” I asked. She replied, “Of course I told him to stop drilling, and then go put a prop under the rig, and wait for help.” Under the circumstances, it was perfectly good advice, we thought! The next morning, we visited the site and found that if drilling had continued, the rig would have become dangerously unstable, possibly tipping on its side. With some jacks and planks placed underneath, the rig was releveled, and pulled off the location. Later, when the site was stabilized, drilling resumed, this time with a deep conductor. This was the first of four cas- ings which were “telescoped” in sequence to nearly 850 feet in depth, as the drilling progressed. The well is still producing, wi th some occasional rehabi l i tat ion along the way, nearly 45 years later. We like to think this longevity is partly due to a wife’s initial advice given to a dri l l operator, on that long-ago day. Jeremy Jeremy Wire may be contacted via e-mail to michele@ worldwidedrillingresource.com 12 JANUARY 2018 WorldWide Drilling Resource ®