After a few years in the oil and gas industry, I finally got a chance to do something I've wanted to from the beginning...go out to the field. We have an area in Texas that we're really active in right now, so I was able to see a lot in one trip...except the one major procedure I went to see, but I'll talk about that more later.
These next two photos are of a couple of the drilling rigs. To get a better understanding of the whole process of drilling and completing a horizontal well...check out this link.
It's difficult to conceive just how large drilling rigs are until you get up close and personal.
This one not only has stairs, but an elevator as well. See the yellow cage at the bottom?
What I really went to see yesterday, was a frac job. Fracking, simply put, is the process in which the formation containing hydrocarbons (oil and gas) is fractured, allowing the product to flow up the well and be dispersed for sale. I realize that there is a lot of controversy regarding this procedure, but that's not what this post is about.
This link is probably the best animated explanation I've found.
Below, you can see the trucks lined up like in the video. It takes the horse power of all of these pumps to push the fracking fluid down the hole and force open the rock. Everything is controlled by computer in a nearby trailer so it can be easily monitored.
Unfortunately, when we arrived on location, this is what we saw. This is a coiled tubing unit, and when you see one of these it typically means there was a problem and the hole needs to be cleaned out. See the three guys in the very middle of the picture? Makes you feel kind of small, huh? They were just finishing up about the time we needed to leave. Bummer.
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