Sunday, May 25, 2014

Oil and Gas Well Drilling: "Very Loud, Very Dirty"

This informative half hour video tour shows the industrial scope of a drilling site. The narrator says "It's very loud, very dirty" and "there are lots of ways to get hurt out here". When he's under the platform to show the Blow Out Preventer, or BOP, he says that's a dangerous place to be. 


 


Under the yellow link below, is a video of the Windsor frack water blowout that happened in February 2013. It spewed for 30 hours before it was finally shut off. The Windsor rig used by PDC Energy is not nearly as solid and professional looking as the one shown in the video tour, and perhaps we should be concerned about that! 


  • 80,000 gallons of frack water spilled at oil well east of Fort Collins Full story: http://tinyurl.com/lwepzlv

If we cannot stop wells from being drilled, we should at least expect that it is done with top notch equipment to make it as safe as possible. It's usually the smaller operators like Mineral Resources in Greeley that use small, mobile rigs. 

See this one at Island Grove in the summer of 2013 

5 comments:

  1. “If we cannot stop wells from being drilled, we should at least expect that it is done with top notch equipment to make it as safe as possible.” — Definitely on point. Oil spills and other dirty drilling can be avoided, if the contractors are also aware on how their operations and equipment work, as well as the proper safety procedures and waste disposal after. I hope this video would spread awareness to the drilling company out there to make them become more careful with their work process. Any kind of negligence is definitely not safe for everyone.

    Jermaine Ryan @ Loadcraft Industries, Ltd.

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  2. Thanks for your comment, Jermaine. It is nice to have an insider's view point. We here in Greeley and surrounding areas are inundated by drilling and fracking operations. I know that some operators do their job more conscientiously than others, but with the boom and frenzy there is no oversight on any of the operations unless there has already been a spill or explosion. Not a good situation! Not for the workers either!

    I doubt that all get the necessary training in safety procedures as stipulated by OSHA. Many may then assume there are no health risks involved. I heard one man say just that, but I pointed out that the effects may not be showing until years later, such as in the case of asthma which my brother-in-law was recently diagnosed with. His first major attack almost left him dead! He'd been checking gas wells for three decades!

    The problem is also that local officials trust that the companies know what they are doing. I think they do not want to acknowledge the risks involved or else they'd ban drilling and fracking close to homes and schools. They just like having the tax revenue pouring in.

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  4. It's very alarming that some people in the industry seem to neglect their responsibility to the public. Just a small amount of oil can have negative effects to an environment, what more if they spill gallons of crude oil through an accident due to negligence. The contractors and oil companies should be careful, not only with the work process, but also how they will deal with such situations. Or better yet, make sure that everything is up to standard, so that those types of situations never occur in the first place. Anyway, thanks for sharing!

    Stanley Bryant @ Leo Fittings

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  5. I have been through several posts on this very subject but the satisfactory information that I found here is something that all other blogs are missing.

    Drilling for oil and gas

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