I am "Rockin the Bakken" and "Frackin the Forks"!

23.8.11

Never a dull moment!

On a regular basis, my friends and family say, "Never a dull moment when Dena is around."  I believe this story is perfect evidence for why they say this!

Let's start off with a little oil field lesson.  When we drill the lateral it is not always a perfect horizontal zone.  If it was, we would say that our inclination is 90 degrees.  We would continue to drill at 90 degrees of inclination for the 10,000' of the lateral.  This would be in a perfect world.  Since we do not live in a perfect world, the inclination is constantly changing.  If the formation tends to curve upward, we would say it is something over 90 degrees (90.1, 90.2, 90.3, etc.)  If it is tilting downward, we would say it has an inclination of 89.9, 89.8, etc.  Usually these numbers do not go more then a full degree in either direction. 

We have to keep our motor and bit going in the correct direction up and down in the lateral and keep us in the "pay zone".  So if we have an up dip of 90.5 (our formation is dipping upward) and need to come up in the zone or formation, we would need our bit to travel at a 90.6 or higher.  Does that make sense?  If not, give me a call! ha j/k!

Well a few days ago, our dip went up dramatically and we had to come up in zone.  We were having troubles coming up, so they ended up having to take extreme measures!  Well..when it was all said and done, our inclination OF THE BIT was a 97.77 degrees inclination!!!!  This is unheard of and got us into trouble!!  I called into the office and my boss (thanks Felipe) made this for me!
Pretty hilarious!

Because of this super high inclination, we ended up bursting into the shale and that is not a good thing.  Our office on the wellsite was very stressed out!  I had to get up at 3 AM and figure out the plan forward.  First, we had to run out and catch samples every few minutes to verify that we had gone into the shale.  Once we did this, we then had have multiple conference calls to figure out all the options of moving ahead.  It took ALL day and I was stressed to the max. 

I came back into the work shack and walked by the garbage.  I saw there were coffee grounds from earlier that day and a thought entered my mind.  I grabbed a pinch, sneakily put them on a slide, and pretended to freak out when I looked at them under the microscope.  I had my night hand "take a look" and he could not for the life of him figure out what the sample was.  Like I said before, I do not love rocks, but I work with people who do.  Well this particular young man does love rocks.  It was so funny watching him in dismay by the fact that he did not know this rock.  He used the term squishy to describe it! NEVER A DULL MOMENT WITH ME!

20.8.11

Traffic...UGH!

As I mentioned in my bio..this area used to be quiet.  If you had to pass, you could drive in the wrong lane for miles.  If you drove at night, you never had to turn your brights down.  The street I grew up on never had a stop sign.  Now I sit for 5 minutes at our newly installed stop sign just trying to get on main street!  Attached is a picture I took driving into town.  I had to go 45 on the highway...what is the point of passing?!

19.8.11

Life is crap...Life is good.

I saw a few T-shirts on my last days off that I thought were hilarious.  They apply to my job because ...

A) I am addicted to coffee

B) I'd rather be fishing then working (and that is saying A LOT!) Don't tell my dad, but fishing is not my most favorite hobby!

 C) I could definitely go for a beer after we finish this well!   It has been a stressful one!

OK...now that we know life is crap, it can also be good!  This morning, like all other mornings,
I watched the sunrise.  It was sureal.  Here is my view from my work shack...LIFE IS GOOD!

10.8.11

That's what she said...

I apologize to my mother in advance for this blog...Ky, this is for you! :)

Things that are discussed on the rig that I want to yell "THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID" when they are done talking.

1) We will need to ream the hole.
2) Pull the nipple.
3) Nipple up
4) Nipple down
5) Pull out of the hole
6) What would you like your pump strokes set at?
7) The hole diameter is...
8) Strokes per minute are...
9) Let's wait for bottoms up!
10) The rate of penetration is...
11) Hole depth
12) Don't forget to lubricate.
13) What is the pipe size?
14) Don't forget to use protection.
15) Rotating rubber head.


More to come!

4.8.11

Work Shack

I have officially started my second job as a lead geologist.  I was super excited when I got to work to see we had gotten a new command center (which is the shack the MWD, DD, and I work out of).  A reminder: the MWD controls the tools that bring data back to our offices and the DD basically does the calculations to build the curve.  Back to my new work shack...It has a kitchen and a bathroom!  YAY!  Last hole we had to use the bathroom AKA outhouse and share it with the roughnecks.  I held my pee all day!  I would NOT go in there.  My other option was to pee outside, which I also did not do (even though I am a professional squatter!)  Reminder: I work 12 hour days and start at a quarter to 5 in the morning.  It is so hard to go to bed early because the sun is out until 9:30 pm.  So needless to say, I have been pretty tired at work lately.  I noticed this sign was posted right by the door in our work shack...I don't know about you, but I think it is suggesting I can nap at work! :)