Prayers Up!

Terrible, prayers up for all

When i built roller coasters
the bosses would show up at top out
some dumb stuff happened
trying to impress them

Prayers for the families involved in this.

They could have gotten a big kick that put the drill string in a bind. The Co man and DD were on the floor together and that doesn't happen unless something big has happened. The shakers were on fire and the only way for that is a big kick. The BOP could have failed or if the kick was big enough, it could have pulled the hoses from the rams which wouldn't have closed off the well.

Kind of what I figured too because of the shakers being on fire. The choke and blind flanges didn't make sense to me, but I've not been on a rig floor in over 30 years. I did read where Patterson said the BOP failed which lends even more credence to a big kick.

so what does that mean?
somebody screwed up?

Butch, I began to type an explanation for you but it was getting too long and technical. Just google "kick while drilling a well" and also "shale shakers". You'll find all you wanted to know in layman's terms. A kick basically happens when the hydrostatic pressure within the well bore drops below the pressure of the formation into which they are drilling. This allows hydrocarbons to escape the formation and travel through the drilling fluids (mud and other chemicals) in the well bore to the surface of the rig, if not contained. Reasons are typically one of two. Either the drilling fluid wasn't heavy enough to begin with, or the drill bit encountered a pocket within the formation that was much higher pressure than anticipated.

My buddies were of the mindset that many wrong decisions had been made to get to the point of having everyone on the floor during a kick.

They're thinking if the blinds were closed, they were out of the hole, and didn't know a bubble had surfaced or panicked and tried to get pipe back into the hole and it was too late.

Really horrible.

thank you
man thats a bad deal

I would agree with this.

Sad for the families.
If Patterson is saying it was a failed BOP, I wonder whose BOP it was?

I mix rubber for several of the OEM BOP manufacturers. This is exactly why I will only mix THEIR formulations using THEIR recommended ingredients.

I have compounds that I think are way better, but I do not want the liability.

I saw the first pic and noticed they were either out of the hole, or nearly out. I was on a Patterson rig yesterday, and the drilling superintendent confirmed they were on a bit trip and were out of the hole. He says they had the BOP closed and they had been taking a kick for a while, and the hole had been giving mud back, and they were also transferring the excess mud while they were tripping out of hole. They speculate they opened the BOP to go back in, and that�s when it happened. *Disclaimer- this is what I was told, so it is definitely third hand info. However, it is very plausible that this or a similar circumstance was present.