drilling lesson #2 soa

Folks,

Thanks for the kind comments and thumbs up.

Thought I would post one more thing along the education lines.

Why is Salt problematic?

Salt is referred to as a plastic formation. Obviously all formations under the ground are under great stress from the overburden. When you drill a hole in that formation you create a void. Some formations in essence can 'self support' It's not the best analogy but think of an old fashioned stone arch which self supports. That is the cross section of the borehole wall.

Now make the arch out of plasticine, you can see it will collapse as it is a plastic medium. This is the same with salt it deforms into the wellbore.

I suspect they were making a connection (fitting another stand of drillpipe onto te top of the drillstring) in which case the string is statci, no rotation and pumps off, and the salt 'slumped' in at the bit.

When Uncle Terry runs the contingency liner he will have to run a thick wall string know as MUST casing, to withstand the slumping salt.

OK, know you all know enough to be dangerous, put Driller on your CV and go and get a job in North Dakota....

cheers and good luck all, for the record my call is:

1. SOA - May be a duster (this is only based on the fact that most exploration wells fail, nothing more). SSN can see the structure on 3D, the risk is either poor reservoir or water. I have no more idea than anyone else on this board.

2. Defender - 60/40 Success, El Tel can not have done anymore work on this, I was very bullish but you can't ignore CHK not liking the ex SSN land. Our completion method being open hole has much more wellbore contact area so should flow better IP's than CHK.

3. Roosevelt, 90/10 Success, wells very close by flowing at good commercial rates, the nature of shale dictates that unless they screw up the frac these wells will flow similar rates.

Please don't invest on my say so, but I believe strongly in this Company, particuarly now they have the Montana land.

cheers,

Oilman