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Gold/Mining/Energy : KOB.TO - East Lost Hills & GSJB joint venture -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RSkarsten who wrote (775)	12/9/1998 1:15:00 AM
From: Rocket Red	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 15703

It could all be possible. But this well is Cooked for good they will Cement it off. Drill a new one.

To: RSkarsten who wrote (775)	12/9/1998 1:19:00 AM
From: Scotchman	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 15703

Lost Hills fireball gives way to geyser December 8, 1998 By BOB CHRISTIE Californian staff writer e-mail:bchristie@bakersfield.com LOST HILLS — Flames 200 feet tall gave way to a cascading liquid geyser Tuesday afternoon as water from deep underground overcame natural gas and oil and put out a well fire that had been blazing here for more than two weeks. The sudden — but not totally unexpected — turn of events came days after firefighters for Houston-based Boots & Coots International Well Control first noted water spewing out of the well along with the natural gas and oil that had fed a huge fireball since the well blew out Nov. 23. Tuesday morning, it became clear more water was being forced out of the deep wildcat well and it could put itself out. "It looked to us that it was going to be a race between us capping the well and it going out," said Larry Flak, vice-president of engineering for Boots & Coots. "It's real common for these wells, after they've blown out for a while, to start making water." The water-to-hydrocarbon ratio must exceed 60 percent to 70 percent before the fire can no longer burn, Flak said. Instead of a huge flame visible for miles, the well is now spouting like a broken fire hydrant. The water, mixed with natural gas, natural gas liquids and some light oil, is being turned into a fine mist and carried downwind. Tuesday afternoon, prevailing winds carried the plume across the nearby California Aqueduct, which provides drinking water for hundreds of thousands of Southern California residents. Kern County Fire Department officials said although a fine sheen of oily residue had been noted floating on the water, most of it was evaporating before it reached numerous booms and collectors set along the waterway as a precaution last week. "It's evaporating real quick," Capt. Kevin Scott said. "If it starts putting out heavy hydrocarbons and we start getting a heavier sheen, we'll bring in some vacuum trucks to collect it." The Boots & Coots crew will continue efforts to control the flow from the well as planned, Flak said. The lack of fire will both help and hinder the men trying to stop the enormous flow. No fire means cooler temperatures; it also means the chance of unexpected fire. Crews are shooting flares into the plume regularly, to make sure it is still not explosive. Although there is no longer enough oil and gas in the flow to spontaneously burn, there is enough gas pressure from the 17,640 foot-deep well to force a 200-foot tall geyser into the air, Flak said. That pressure, which initially exceeded 15,000 pounds per square inch, indicated a highly over-pressurized gas and oil reservoir. Overpressure in a oil or gas reservoir could be a good thing — if the reservoir is large. For a small reservoir, it could appear large because of the volume and pressure, but be emptied in days. No one yet knows which is the case in the new Lost Hills field. The origin of the water being produced is also a matter of concern. It could be coming from the same level as the oil and gas, or it could be coming from higher in the rock formations, being sucked into the stream of gas escaping from deep underground. Pressure is one of the factors that caused the crew manning the drilling rig to lose control of the well as they tried to clear natural gas from the well bore 16 days ago. The well was being drilled by a consortium of small Canadian and U.S. oil companies to explore the possibility that a large concentration of oil or gas was sitting more than three miles underground and nearly two miles from the closest oil field. The crew had drilled no more than 17 feet into the rock formation engineers believed held the oil when the well blew. It will take a new well, and possibly several more, before there is enough evidence to prove or disprove the existence of the very large reserves the companies believe are there. "The jury's still out on this one," said Claude Fiddler, a Bakersfield petroleum engineer who is a former Chevron executive. "It could be limited or it could portend bigger things " The Boots & Coots crew is finishing planned construction of a diverter assembly to send the flow into two pits. If all goes as planned, that assembly will be connected after a new blowout preventer is placed on the well head later this week. Although the diverter and new blowout preventer may slow the flow, the well itself may not be controlled for nearly two months. That's when a relief well — expected to begin drilling Saturday — reaches more than 13,000 feet, its drill bit steered to intercept the blown well's casing. At that time, engineers and roustabouts will likely pump cement into the failed well to "kill" it. "This well is lost — that's a given," Flak said. Paid for by insurance covering such events, the new well will be used to close off the blown-out well. Then, crews will back out the bit, and aim again for the rock formation that has been producing all the gas and oil that has lit the sky here for weeks. Copyright© 1998, The Bakersfield Californian \| Email the Webmaster Associated Press Copyright Notice \| Privacy Policy Statement PS. Rick Brown, Pat a.k.a. The Busdriver, is holding tight.

To: RSkarsten who wrote (775)	12/9/1998 3:50:00 AM
From: JL	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 15703

Russ... In the old days it wasn't uncommon for wells to be abandoned because they started to flow water instead of oil. This created a whole new industry for our day and age because it was discovered that the water was a result of drawing up the oil too fast. Today we have "re-entries" that turn into good producers. This open hole flow that we've had for the past 2 weeks could easily be ranked in league with those big producers. The downside of this is that the explosive rise of this stock and the stock of the partners was fueled by speculation on behalf of a lot of people that saw easy and quick money. Unfortunately, that is not going to be the case here. Those people are going to sell tomorrow (the 9th) on successive bids and drive this stock way down. Maybe to where it was on November 23rd. Maybe even lower. This will be a panic sell off. Strange that the sell off will cause what they fear will happen. In this case I would rather risk waiting for the second well than sustain the loss of selling in a panic market. This particular well appears to be dead for all intents and purposes. Maybe without the blowout it would've worked out. The next well (and there WILL be a next well) will tell the tale. At this point we're still in the dark. We don't KNOW for sure that the water is a result of this unbridled open hole flow of enormous gas volume but it's a very distict possibility. A well know phenomena. It could easily be from up-hole. A different level. Forced to flow into the bore by the unbridled rush of gas from the lower level. All I know for sure is that there are companies that thrive on re-entries that were made possible by shows of water caused by rapid withdrawal of the coveted hydrocarbons during the original production. For those willing to wait it out it may pay handsomely. All is not lost.... Unless you're one of the unlucky few who sold the farm and believed that they'd be rich early next year in time to make February's mortgage payment. JL