The Oil Field

Fire requires fuel, heat, and oxygen to burn (the fire triangle principle): In fighting a fire at a wellhead (the portion of the well at and just above the ground's surface), typically high explosives such as dynamite are used to consume all the local atmospheric Oxygen and 'snuff' the flame first. Doing so removes the 'heat' but the 'fuel' (the natural gas or oil) is still present, often a huge 'fountain' of oil surrounds the work area, showering fuel upon the working crew.

After snuffing, the wellhead must be 'capped' to stop the flow of fuel. During this time, the fuel and oxygen required to create another inferno is present in copious amounts. At this perilous stage, one small spark (perhaps from a steel or iron tool striking a stone) or other heat source might re-ignite the fuel.

To prevent re-ignition, brass or bronze tools, which do not strike sparks, or paraffin coated tools are used during the capping process. Meticulous care is used to avoid heat and sparks, or any other ignition source. The explosive re-ignition of a wellhead may take the form of an extremely powerful explosion, possibly even worse than the original 'blowout'.

Due to recent advances in technology as well as environmental concerns, many wells today are capped while they burn. The use of high powered water sprays and Purple K dry chemical (a potassium bicarbonate mixture) are used to extinguish the wells.

Red Adair has died aged 89. His exploits fighting oil well fires around the globe made him a household name from Kuwait to Texas. John Wayne immortalised Adair in the film Hellfighters.

Born: 18 June 1915
Birthplace: Houston, Texas
Died: 7 August 2004
Best Known As: Oil well firefighting legend

The Hellfighters

is a movie released in 1968 starring John Wayne

The movie, directed by Andrew McLaglen, is about a group of oil well firefighters, based loosely on the life of Red Adair. Adair, "Boots" Hansen, and "Coots" Matthews, served as technical advisors on the film.

On "Rig 33" my "Blowout" the flames shot upwards of over 4,000' high (high pressure Gas well) The Derrick melted in about 8-10 min. "Rig 33" was a "Fourble" It pulled 4 Joints of Drill Pipe and racked them back in the Derrick, we Could Drill over 25,000 feet, and we were the first of it's kind to Drill 4 miles into the earths surface.

PS.. I will add some pic that I took myself from the top of the Derrick on "Rig 33" before it blew and some others that I worked on before..will have to scan them....hi

I worked in the Oil Fields in the 70's & 80's on Land Rigs,Inland Barge Rigs & various Offshore Rigs in Florida,Texas and Louisiana and in the Gulf of Mexico until 1981, I was working (Wildcat) for "Diamond" aka "Diamond M Drilling Company", "Diamond M Company",and "Diamond Offshore". "Diamond M Rig 33" was a Inland Barge type Rig that I was on drilled in shallow water about 15'deep.The Crew of about 28 was drilling on a high pressure Gas well,a deep well about 22,000 feet when the we ran into sand formation and lost circulation. The well had started coming in on us around Midnight and was blowing Gas (Natural) out of the hole. ( Lost Circulation- no return of the Mud, the heavy Mud we were pumping in the hole was going into the formation (SAND) & bottom hole pressure was Higher then we were putting in the Hole).

At 4:20 A.M. the well came in on us,and the Well Blew! i.e. Blowout!, I was Burned over 65% of my body and spent 10 weeks in a Burn Unit at West Jefferson,LA Hospital (New Orleans). I recovered from my Injury after many surgeries over 2 1/2 years, and with plenty of Scares....I never could win a Beauty pageant anyway!....... Funny Thing, I was sure missing going back on a rig not long after I went home. Not one to be "Idol" even on my days off, I was going nuts, Not being able to do for myself,Thank God For my wife of 30 years now, She's stuck with me thru thick & thin. So I started my new career in electronics, since I never recovered fully Physically strength wise, now weight wise.But I had that Waning to go back on a "Rig" so I did, Not back Offshore but on a "Land Rig" in east Texas. I did that for a year till the old Oilfield politics came into play as it does often in the "Oil Patch" .......New "Toolpusher" = New Drillers and crew. so I left and never went back. I still find my self missing the "Oil Patch" from time to time, Oh the memories! good times and Bad.

They Say when you work in the "Oil Field" on a "Drilling Rig". "The Oilfield runs in your Blood" I can say...It definitely does!

I will add more here Latter....maybe as it was kinda hard to put some of these pic up on this site.

I found these pics, Drilling Rigs do seem to attract Lighting as it happened to me a couple of times at ground zero,But I never got to see what it looked like off at a distance! and if there were gas present...It would have caused a "Blowout"

Check Out this Great Oilfield site: Roughneck City and alot of info. Has some great Oilfield Music & Games too!

I remember catching out of the Penzoil docks in Galveston,TX.flying 115 miles out to the Rig in a Helicopter, and we seen about 12 of these "Waterspouts"Just like these...only allot more. Our chopper pilot was ex-Veitnam Vet, so he just zig-zaged in between them I wished I had my camera out.

Blow-Out blowing up and destruction of a drilling rig due to uncontrolled flow of fluid (gas or liquid) from underneath the earth's surface during exploration or development drilling. Such accidents are accompanied, in most cases, by fire and leads to damage of property and often loss of lives. The chances of a blow-out in an exploratory well are greater than in a development well because the former has more unknown geologic conditions in the subsurface.

A blow-out may be caused when a drilling pipe encounters a shallow or a deep pressurised gas zone or an over-pressured rock layer in the subsurface without being prepared to counter the pressure. This allows the gas or the fluid from the rock layer to enter the drilling pipe and up towards the surface. The initial sign of a blow-out may be forceful kicks at the drilling rig floor, gas bubble in the circulating mud flow line system and increase of volume of returning mud as seen in the mud pit.

The most effective way to handle an imminent blow-out is to shut down the well by closing the blow-out preventer (BOP). An alternative way is to increase the weight of circulating mud to balance the subsurface fluid pressure, should there be enough early warning and time to activate the procedure.

Blow-outs in petroleum exploration are not rare. In Bangladesh there have been some blow-outs in its 90 years of exploration history. The earliest blow-out took place in 1955 in Sylhet-1 well, which was drilled to a depth of 2,379m before being blown out and destroyed. A large crater was created and subsequently filled with water at the well location and still shows gas bubbles coming out from its depths.

The most unusual and well-known blow-out in the petroleum exploration history of Bangladesh took place in 1997, at Magurchhara in the Maulvi Bazar Well-1 drilled by Occidental Oil Company of USA. The company drilled a vertical well to a depth of 840m and then planned to deviate the well in the subsurface, for which drilling was temporarily stopped. But due to lack of proper pressure maintenance, gas from a gas zone at 840m depth forcefully entered the drill pipe, made an uncontrolled rush to the surface and blew out the rig resulting in its total destruction. Although no life was lost, a huge fire broke out in and around the rig site, damaging the installations as well as the surrounding forest. An inquiry committee formed by the Bangladesh government concluded that negligence on the part of the company personnel caused the blow-out. [Badrul Imam]

How does a company go about finding oil and pumping it from the ground? You may have seen images of black crude oil gushing out of the ground, or seen an oil well in movies and television shows like "Giant," "Oklahoma Crude," "Armageddon" and "Beverly Hillbillies." But modern oil production is quite different from the way it's portrayed in the movies.

Fire at the Wellhead