AREA |
LAST COUNT DATE |
COUNT |
CHANGE FROM PRIOR COUNT |
DATE OF PRIOR COUNT |
CHANGE FROM LAST YEAR |
DATE OF LAST YEARS COUNT |
UNITED STATES |
5/17/13 |
1769 |
+0 | 5/10/13 |
-217 |
5/18/12 |
CANADA |
5/17/13 |
118 | +5 |
5/10/13 |
0 |
5/18/12 |
USA OFFSHORE |
5/17/13 |
52 |
+2 | 5/10/13 |
+5 |
5/18/12 |
INTERNATIONAL |
04/2013 |
1301 |
+33 |
3/2013 |
+123 |
4/2012 |
World Oilfield Forum
July 5th- Unit Drilling Rig #35 drilled into what is being reported as a "shallow gas pocket" at a depth of 1100' and burned to the ground while drilling for Laredo Petroleum 6 miles north of Allison Texas on Ranch Road 2654 on the bank of the Washita River. No injuries are reported.
Officials from Laredo Petroleum could not be reached for comment.
Emails received at Drilling Ahead indicate rig workers thought they had drilled into an air pocket when the hole started to unload the red bed mud but then the rig soon ignited into flames indicating it was actually natural gas. While drilling the surface portion of the well blowout preventers 
were not in place leaving no way to control the well in this situation.
Some area roughnecks & drillers are showing anger and concern that despite several of these shallow gas blowouts and rigs burning down in the area recently, Operators and Drilling Contractors are not spending the extra money to put "Diverters" in place which would direct the flow of burning gas away for the rig possibly saving the lives of workers as well as equipment.
One email states, "I know that if they don't start putting some kind of divertor on these wells out here there will be alot more burn down....I hope we can get the word out about these wells blowing out before any BOPE is installed so that we might save someone's life."
Nomac Rig #17 burned down in this area of the Oklahoma/ Texas Panhandle earlier in the year while spudding a well for Chesapeake Energy at 900' under similar circumstances.
A short video of work dismantling the torched rig is below.
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Oilfield Tools Collectors Edition Desktop PDC Drill Bit
Comment by Jimbob1229 on July 6, 2012 at 6:43pm Unit Drilling dont care about this...They will get a Fat Insurance Check and laugh all the way to the bank.....
Comment by JAMES E. HOWELL on July 6, 2012 at 8:27pm I hope someone starts paying attention to all these surface blow outs and the rig's that have burned to the ground. The Insurance company's will probably say something about it and want more money to insure the rig's. James the data analyst / mud logger.
Comment by james adams on July 7, 2012 at 7:40am shave another day or two off the well..
i remember back when day rate was just 5200.00 we always drilled our own conducter
nippled up 13an7/8 inch hydrill an 6 inch deverter line..
insurance companies rule the game anyway. we can thank them for all the extra safty none since we the worker gotta put up with.. its coming back you want us to insure you? you will spud in with hydrill,deverter line.
Comment by Bryan bellar on July 7, 2012 at 8:33am 
Comment by Seruyange William on July 7, 2012 at 9:26am i didn't know that in this age, drilling can be done in such a place without a diverter. What are the drilling companies upto??!!
Comment by Russell Dwayne Olivier on July 7, 2012 at 4:53pm Agreed Mr. Williams. What are the operator's up to as well?
It's 2012
"Quote", "Quote"; from a famous author.
You can do something about "ignorance", but if your "stupid", you better be likable!
We have know about the danger about surface blowouts for many years and fixed our *ignorance*
Dangerous enough, even with a diverter in place, dealing with a *KICK* in such shallow dept, time is the enemy; no room for error!
And to assume and have not so much as an "LEL" system in place, leading to a guess.....
Something better change soon!!
Comment by charles (Lynn) Safford on July 8, 2012 at 10:27am Does fracing play into this? Are we charging these shallow zones that have been depleted for years?
Comment by Russell Dwayne Olivier on July 8, 2012 at 4:53pm Good point Mr. Safford.
Fracing near drilling or well servicing has caused a many of heads to be scratched, wondering where pressure was coming from, in places unexplainable, until engineering and geology teams figured out the unknow answers.
Once the team of experts define what is "safe distance" for SIMOPS for drilling/well servicing and fracturing, your question will be answered, if indeed, fracing was the RCA in this incident.
It will be another "lessons learned", once we get to read the RCA.
Thank God no one was injured !
Keep up the hard work team members of Unit Drilling.
Comment by kenneth small on July 9, 2012 at 8:29am well how many blow outs will it take for companies to start using bops on surface
Comment by josh on July 9, 2012 at 12:00pm im a driller for cactus and new field makes us put a rot head on wile we drill surface its fast and easy. Now this goes for the last comment how are you going to put a bop on a conductor?
In my opinion it has nothing to do with the frac jobs if we could frac from the pay zone to surface why are we drilling horizontal wells I think that we should start checking the casing in our wells that are producing more often that is where you will charge your upper zones and I have run ROT. heads for the same problem and it works great
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