Blowout

#WriteFridays challenge from http://infamous-scribbler.com/blog/

The light over the phone caught Cliff's eyes before he heard the klaxon, he put down his fluid density scale and walked over to the phone hood. He picked up the phone, an explosion proof design, with an ancient looking handset,  and covered his other ear with his hand. The noise of the mud pumps as they stroked, the hum of their huge electric motors deafened him and made normal conversation nearly impossible.

He could barely hear the voice on the other end, it was Billy, the tool push. He was in charge of all the rig crew, his position had gone to his head. His voice was nasal, his East Texas accent almost a foreign language to a prairie boy. "Ya'll got to cut that mud weight back, son. Ah'm fixing ta get this well drilled, and that casing run in before that storm hits."

Cliff replied "I don't think that is a good idea. I am seeing long splinters of shale coming over the shaker screens, and the mud is coming back gas cut and bubbling. The logging crew told me there are traces of gas recorded up on their sniffer at the return line. We need to weight up the mud now."

Cliff cringed when he heard Billy's reply "Screw that, boy. Start watering back, and let's get this thang drilled. Now! Do you hear me?"

Cliff turned around and walked back to the mixing hopper. A roughneck, Tom, stood there, slowly feeding another sack of barite to make the mud heavier into the hopper. His eyes opened wide when Cliff gestured with a slashing motion across his throat with the tips of his fingers to cut it, stop mixing the material.

The roughneck, a green hand, but wise,  leaned forward, and yelled into Cliff's ear "What? If we don't get the weight up, we are gonna take a gas kick!" Cliff shrugged and leaned forward to yell back in Tom's ear "I know, but that idiot tool push insists. A*****e is going to get everybody killed someday."

Cliff walked over to a standpipe, and opened a tap, water flowed into the first tank, it would be mixed in the tank with the huge agitator rotating, and stirring the contents before it flowed over into the next tank, and then into the pumps to be circulated down the drill pipe and back up out of the hole.

It was only the density of that column of drilling fluid that held back the extreme pressure found at that depth, and all the signs Cliff  saw told him it was on the edge of underbalanced right now. Any reduction in density would present a problem, the hole could slough in and stick the pipe. A kick could occur, that could cause a big bubble of gas and a further reduction in the back pressure. If that happened a blowout could be next.

Cliff put his mouth close to Tom's ear and said "Don't let the weight drop below 11.8 pounds. If it does, cut back on the water. I am going to talk to the company man. This is their well, not Billy's. Maybe he will listen to some common sense, for sure that a*****e Billy ain't gonna."

He walked across the grated walkway on top of the tanks and opened the watertight door at the end of the mud pits. He stepped out of the loud steamy room and onto a grated landing. The sea air was a refreshing change from the smell of chemicals, and the oppressive wet heat. He looked up at the rig floor, saw the pipe rotating, the blocks slowly lowering as the drill bit cut through the shale thousands of feet below.

Cliff turned to go up the stairs to the offices. He looked out over the ocean and saw the standby boat, in a position a few hundred meters away, its navigation lights bobbed with the roll of the waves. It was calm, a clear night, except for a low band of cloud in the east. The clouds were the front edge of the storm that they were warned was to come. The early dawn light made the clouds stand out against the dark sky and made them appear more ominous.

He had just reached the door to the offices when a strong vibration shook the platform, Cliff looked back at the drill floor, and saw that the rotary table had stopped turning. He saw one of the roughnecks as he ran to the blowout preventer panel. He sensed rather than heard the changed tone, the new sounds. He realized the drill pipe had become stuck, and judged by the different vibration of the pumps that it had sheared off in the hole.

A low rumble reached his ears, he saw mud come blowing up from under the rig floor, it sprayed in every direction. Blowout! The platform alarm began to wail.

Cliff turned to go back to the mud pits when the rumble of the flow changed, and a ball of fire lit up the rig, as bright as daylight. Cliff was knocked flat by the blast that hit him. Flames shot up to the top of the derrick, the entire platform was smothered in flames.

Author's Note

Exercise 5: Two of your characters are having a conversation through some form of modern technology. (This could be modern as in the fast food window, modern as in “new for the 19th century” modern, or future-world modern.) How does the technology impede their communication? How does it assist? Do hijinks ensue? Or does the miscommunication have fatal results?

OK, with apologies to my German speaking friends, as soon as I read this challenge, I could not help but think of this video from an advertisement for Berlitz language training a few years ago. It highlights the danger of miscommunications.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLSdOY-6R_U

Reviews

[Jennie Baron]

Isn't it amazing how exercises and writing prompts help spur the imagination? You've done great at taking the theme and going with what you know to create a riveting story. I know next to nothing about drilling, though, and as K.L. said, some explanation might be enlightening. Still, I got the general idea of what it must have felt like to be within the story.

[NoelHC]

Thank you for dropping in Jennie, I am pleased you enjoyed it. To explain just the job Cliff did (which was what I worked at) would take about 10 minutes if I were having a coffee with you. I struggled with how much of that needed to be described without losing the reader to sleep!
I will have to consider how to deal with that in future writing that may have technical aspects to it.

[kmpatrick]

I really liked the detail and description that you put into this piece. I could actually "see" the events as they unfolded. The end in my opinion was a little open ended, which in my opinion could be expanded into something wonderful. Good Job! :-) (Disclaimer: Opinions and @$$hols have a lot in common. Everyone has one and they all stink. My opinion is no different.)

[Lyn Anderson]

This is a good response to the challenge. My only comment would be, and not sure how you would do this, a little more clarity on the whole drilling thing for those of us not in the know, I was a little scattered on the scene.

[NoelHC]

Without going all James Michener on this, it would be difficult to convey many years of experience in this short work. I understand your point though. I will try to expand on that part a bit.
I appreciate the review, and also the fact that I appear to have eliminated the "time ravel" you usually can bust me on. : )

[Lyn Anderson]

yes, much better time continuum here. I know, but even a line on what the terminology is for description would help, i.e. Billy was what you call a ....

[NoelHC]

In this case Billy was an amalgam of every dumb a*s redneck cracker hillbilly manager of the drilling contractor staff on board I ever met. So yes, "it was Billy, the tool push, the jerk in charge of the drilling equipment..."
Considering the writer block last night, I was glad to crank this one out today.

[Lyn Anderson]

Yes, I understand, but I know you catch my meaning.