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Blowout at EOG site in Eagle Ford Shale

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Apparently there was a blowout yesterday evening at an EOG site in the Eagle Ford Shale but no workers were hurt. Currently, the only source for this story is Drilling Ahead where they have some photos posted without attribution.

Disturbing:

A nearby resident, who asked not to be identified, said her husband was in the front yard with their 4 year-old son at the time of the explosion and saw workers running. When he asked workers what happened the workers kept running so he too grabbed their son and ran, she said.

This sounds a little like the Eagleridge blowout in Denton where workers fled the scene leaving residents wondering what was happening. Maybe they shouldn’t be drilling so close to residents.
Disturbing speculation:

Facebook posts by workers in the area indicate the drilling rig was Nabors Rig F38 and that Halliburton was on location at the time of blow out possibly indicating they may have been cementing at the time of loss of well control.

We have not been able to confirm the information from Facebook

If the cement was not in place, what was protecting the water?  What happened to the blow out preventer?

You might remember that Nabors sets the record for deaths of oilfield workers in Texas. With their record of accidents, I have to wonder why operators still contract with them. Do they give deep discounts?

From the comments: News video: The fire is going to burn for days.

The fire is expected to burn for a couple of days.

I hope they don’t need any water to put out the fracking fire because fracking used up all the water down there.

Update:  This well was capped on September 4th.

YOAKUM — Workers have now capped the oil well which blew out  Aug. 28, causing an explosion and fire which raged for several days. Source

About Sharon Wilson

Sharon Wilson is considered a leading citizen expert on the impacts of shale oil and gas extraction. She is the go-to person whether it’s top EPA officials from D.C., national and international news networks, or residents facing the shock of eminent domain and the devastating environmental effects of natural gas development in their backyards.

Comments

  2. Doesn't Matter says

    Drilling Mud in a balanced or overbalanced state is what was protecting the water before CMT had been run. And more then likely if the well “blew out” then it was drilling a intermediate or long string, and the surface casing had been long installed, cemented and zonal isolation for the upper water barring formations had been achieved. Not alot of “blow outs” happen in that area in the first 1500 feet.

      • wth says

        What, exactly, is crap? If it blew out, then obviously they were quite a bit down, and the surface casing would have been set way before that. The post has a lot of questions, this is the answer to one of them.

        • TXsharon says

          I can’t say what the specific “crap” is to which that commenter referred. But I was just reading more about this from workers in the oilfield and there is a lot of uncertainty about what happened and what string was cemented and if the cement was botched and so forth. It also seems there are questions about the drilling mud sooooooo….

          I don’t see that any questions have been answered. I”m betting that as everything else with this industry, we will never know.

  3. Curtis says

    Sharon
    “If the cement was not in place, what was protecting the water?”
    You cannot cement a hole until you drill it- think about it-maybe toss it around in your head and it should come to you.
    Casing is run into the hole in different stages of the cell-then cemented after each stage-You cannot run casing into a hole until you drill it.
    As for attributes of the photos on Drilling Ahead- if you mouse over either image you will see an image description as well as “”Photo:Yoakum Fire Department” as the credit
    Sometimes the answers are there- you just have to look for them
    Curtis recently posted..Chiksan SpecsMy Profile

  5. Smarter than you says

    You sound like an idiot. The casing was protecting the water and if I’m outside with my child and see workers fleeing the scene then I don’t see how any questions are necessary. Would you just stand there with your child and say oh well I don’t know what’s going on so I’m just going to stand here or would you be smart enough to realize that you better just follow them then find out what’s going on

  6. Smarter than you says

    And on the same note park your cars and stop using petroleum or shut the hell up

  8. Anymous says

    Many things can happen–for example, hole drilled, casing run, cement run, fracking takes place–during pressure release, casing collapses, cement becomes unbonded from casing. This is equal to cement not being there to protect water acquifers.

  9. Nick says

    From looking at the pictures you refer to, it looks like the drilling rig is still in place. To “find” that much gas it would have to be coming form the Eagleford formation, which would mean the fresh water would have been protected quite awhile back during the drilling operation & this uncontrolled blowout was from some stage of the multi-stage final cement job on the 4th string of casing that would be only across the producing interval.

    Watching rig hands running @ you would not make me comfortable with the situation either. I suspect they may be the ones with the least knowledge about the well & it’s current condition and are probably still going.

    I assume the fire department wasn’t running because the understood what was happening.

    As I understand it EOG is a good operator. I hope you will stay engaged with this accident long enough to report what the cause was.

  10. Anymous says

    Nick, I “like” your “all’s well” comments.
    If the water aquifers are protected with surface casing–many things can go wrong such as the connections or couplings can fail or leak so as to allow this kind of pressurized event inside that casing to damage or contaminate drinking water aquifers. I know of NO place in the RRC Rules where couplings are controlled in any way what so ever!

  11. Tim Ruggiero says

    This is what I get out this conversation: 1) The workers have no idea what they are doing and run at the first sign of trouble, but we’re supposed to trust that drilling is perfectly safe. 2) The people that are forced into living with this shit continue to be forced with living with this shit. 3) The people who are on the front lines exposing Industry lies just make this stuff up. 4) The same workers who run at the first sign of trouble are the same ones who complete a perfect casing. 5) The fire dept not running is proof that it was a false alarm, because firemen never put themselves in danger. 6) Since we all drive vehicles powered by frack gas, we should just shut the hell up or walk. 7) The thousands of impacted people are not victims, but rather specially selected patriots. Who should also shut the hell up and just take it.

    • TW says

      Bravo, Tim. That’s what I’m reading here, too. Your #1 is the one especially making me shake my head. We’re supposed to feel safe, if: THE WORKERS DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON OUT THERE? We’re supposed to feel safe if we see THE WORKERS RUNNING FOR THEIR LIVES?

      Oh, it’s ok, don’t be alarmed …. THEY DON’T KNOW WHAT THEY’RE DOING.

      Sorry for yelling, but it boggles my mind. The Gashole up there doesn’t even realize the deadly irony in his/her statements. And they have the nerve to mock those of us in the line of fire. Pure evil.

  12. WCGasette says

    Hard to believe but the frackers like Halliburton weren’t required to disclose FRAC job dates to the RRC until the Texas Fracking Chemical Disclosure Bill went into effect in February 2012 ~ with FracFocus as the web site du jour. The RRC certainly didn’t spell that out as something newly required with passage of that bill. Seems like a CYA moment for the RRC. Or something.

    So, now with the more recent passage of Amendments to Statewide Rule 13 (these won’t take effect until January 1, 2014) frackers will only now be required to conduct pressure tests prior to fracking and report problems to the RRC. And that’s outrageous since there’s a lot of damage that can be done and likely has been done (as in this EOG Eagle Ford Shale blowout) between now and January 1, 2014. And that means there are no records and Open Records Requests will show nothing prior to that date.

    Excerpt from the new Statewide Rule 13:

    […]For wells undergoing hydraulic fracturing treatments, operators are required to pressure test well casings (steel pipes that make up a well) to the maximum pressure expected during the fracture treatment and to notify the Commission of a failed test. Also during hydraulic fracturing, operators are required to monitor the annular space between the well’s casings for pressure changes (which could indicate a leak in casing) and suspend hydraulic fracturing operations if the annuli monitoring indicates a potential down hole casing leak; …
    […]
    WCGasette recently posted..Perforating the Horizontal Wellbore: The DocumentaryMy Profile

    • Fracking Crazy says

      That’s all very interesting, considering, what I have read about casing is they can barely handle the pressure of 1 frack job.

      • WCGasette says

        So, therein lies a BIG problem. Must be why they have to cover up so much of what they are REALLY doing near us by making it all sound like Disneyland and by helping the RRC to create new rules (even years too late). Oil and Gas has always been a wildcat mentality…amazing how so many of us thought that was all in the past. Hard to tame a wild animal without getting hurt.
        WCGasette recently posted..Perforating the Horizontal Wellbore: The DocumentaryMy Profile

  13. Anuymous says

    And that’s all well and good if there is casing in the hole. The RRC doesn’t require any casing to be installed, other than surface casing, for any producing wells in Texas. There are many, many Tubing less completions and casing less completions in Tx.

  14. Anymous says

    For instance, for surface casing, cementing is required from the bottom of the casing to the surface—-but, there is no requirement that the operotor file any certification that such cementing has actually be made. Our RRC, the Lapdog, in action.

  15. Another Alberta Neighbour says

    Alberta’s DeRegulator, the “no duty of care” AER, released Hydraulic Fracturing Directive 083, effective August 21, 2013.

    http://www.aer.ca/documents/directives/Directive083.pdf

    It says:

    “Licensees must obtain ERCB approval if using a barrier system other than a single- or dual-barrier system”

    and

    “Licensees’ hydraulic fracturing operations must not have an adverse effect on a nonsaline aquifer”

    Yet the AER (headed by Encana’s ex VP Gerard Protti who Chaired CAPP, Energy-in-Depth’s northern cousin) allows frac’ing of vertical and horizontal wells above the Base of Groundwater Protection (where the fresh or nonsaline water is) and open-hole completions, “leaving the zone to be stimulated free of any cement that might create formation damage”.

    http://www.csur.com/images/CSUG_publications/CSUG_HydraulicFrac_Brochure.pdf

    There is no requirement to test nearby water supplies before or after hydraulic fracturing of deep or shallow shales, vertical or horizontal, not even above the Base of Groundwater Protection.

    We get lots of pretty pictures and promises of multiple barriers to protect our water and loved ones from hydraulic fracturing … perfectly safe, perfectly sealed … except in reality.

    • Anymous says

      Good story above–no surprise, because most of these so-called lapdog regulator organizations learned how to operator from the Texas RRC. Even OPEC learned from the RRC!!!!

  16. J.R. says

    I was on the rig next door when it happened. This line of work is not the safest line of work to be in and it used to be a lot more dangerous in the past. We now use better equipment and the safety standards are a lot higher. I was around 30 years ago And the injury and death rates have dropped significantly. As for you that don’t work in the industry either educate yourself or shut-up. There are no proven cases of any water contamination.

  17. Nick says

    The running rig hands are not the casing crew. When casing is run, a trained casing crew is brought in to run and set the casing.

    Surface casing is ALWAYS required AND cemented to surface to protect the fresh water aquifers.

    There are completions that don’t require a third string of pipe since nothing fresh exists below the surface pipe. The only reason to run additional pipe strings is to isolate multiple producing formations from salt water intervals and/or from each other.

    Many, if not most oil & gas operators are now testing the fresh water wells near their location before the first vehicle shows up on location. It’s not required YET but, the unsubstantiated contamination claims can only be disproven if you have a before & after analysis. It’s still the way our legal system works, facts are important. If you have a fresh water well, test the water BEFORE they start. Most universities will be happy to test it for you.

    I understand most here don’t want to hear the facts on this but, for some reason, I keep thinking the truth helps everyone.

  19. Nick says

    I see where you’re coming from. I apologize for thinking a reasonable discussion would somehow be helpful or useful to understanding the topic.

  20. PGS says

    DONT WORRY ABOUT OUR WATER. THEY ALL PUMPING OUR FRESH WATER OUT AS FAST AS THEY CAN. MAKING LAKES BETWEEN SHINER AND MOULTON. WE ARE NOT GOING TO HAVE ANY WATER LEFT TO CONTAMINATE. IT LOOKS LIKE HELL. The air is so full of dust our lungs are definatly going to be encased in cement. Thanks penn virgingia