drilling is done

Several of the crew left late this afternoon saying they may not be back. They all worked for one of the contractors and said the drilling is complete and they are moving on to other rigs. There is still a chance they could get assigned back here once the rig moves.

Yes, I said back here! Henry, the company man, showed up at our door and said they are going to drill the back pad and will be moving the rig later this week. Should be really interesting because he said they are not going to disassemble it. They will lower it onto two semi trucks, one facing east and the other facing west, and move it that way. I sure would hate to be the truck that has to go backwards all the way.

He said they will tear down a large portion of the fence so they can make the turn without doing too much maneuvering. This is the same fence they just finished building a couple of weeks ago!

The new well will probably just sit for a couple of months with little to no activity since the next stage would be to fracture the well. This process know as "fracking" actually fractures the rock surrounding the well pipe which allows the oil and gas to flow better. Since they are drilling another well in close proximity Henry does not think the fracking will start until the other well is drilled because one could interfere with the other.

Bottom line is we are staying put here until they finish drilling on the other pad and then will move with the rig to the next site. Well I guess we will move as long as they still want us :-).

We are having a problem with our fresh water system. I hooked everything back up this morning and kept getting leaks. The end of the hose provided by the company had some wear on the threads so I cut it off and used a repair kit to replace the end. This solved the problem so I went to bed. Turns out the end started leaking and Rudee had to shut the water off until I got up. Once I was up and showered (using the on board water) I replaced their hose with one of my own and it worked fine for a little while then would not flow. I tried different things but it would flow for a few minutes and then it would slow to a trickle. I checked their pump which is mounted inside the generator cabinet and it was almost too hot to touch. Rudee called Hunter, who services our equipment, and told him about our troubles. He said he will bring us another pump and hose first thing in the morning.

I guess this is another good reason to make sure we keep the tank on our 5th wheel full.

Henry said we would be able to take a day off while the rig is being moved and set up. He said Sunday and Monday would be the best days so we went ahead and made some plans. We will drive to San Antonio early Sunday afternoon, see some of the sites, spend the night and be back at the gate before dark on Monday. Should be a fun time and a welcome break. I'll keep you posted.