Wall of Fire
By W.L. (“Steve”) Stevenson
Search and Discovery Article #12001 (1999)
(from The Sumner [Illinois] Press—3/16/92)
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Most of us who have spent a lifetime in the oil
business have faced real danger at various times in
working with our stock in trade, highly flammable oil and
gas. One such event occurred to me when l was a young
field engineer in Northeast Texas. We had drilled a
development well to 8500 feet in the Quitman Field in
Wood County and found the pay zone too tight to produce
at normal rates. The decision was made to acidize the
zone to increase the flow rate. A service company was
called and a large pump truck loaded with acid was
brought to the well site. The day scheduled for the
operation dawned pleasantly cool without even a faint
breeze stirring. We began pumping acid down the tubing
and letting the high gravity crude oil that was in the
tubing flow back to the surface through the space between
the tubing and the casing into a 210 barrel tank with an
open vent at the top. Unfortunately, the oil in the well
contained more dissolved natural gas than anticipated and
we failed to realize the amount of gas that was escaping
from the vent. Further, we were also unaware that the
pump truck had faulty spark-arresting equipment on its
exhausts.
While the pumping process was getting underway, I had
been standing near the wellhead watching the pressure
gauges. For some unexplained reason I decided to cross
the location area to retrieve something from my car,
which was some 300 feet away. About halfway to the car
the sensation of extreme heat on my back and rear caused
me to look back toward the wellhead. The view was
terrifying. There had been no flash and no explosion, but
not more than 10 feet behind was a wall of blue flame
about three feet high extending for 100 feet or more
across the location. The barrier of fire slowly retreated
as it burned toward the source of the gas, which was the
vent at the top of the tank. Fortunately, the operator of
the pump truck was unaware of the fire until his feet
began to feel hot, he told us later. At that time he
jumped out of the truck just as the fire moved past. Had
he abandoned the truck any sooner he would have stepped
directly into a horrible death. The wall of flame was
almost like a living being as it slowly crept along and
funneled toward the tank and finally reached the tank
vent where it flared vividly. The fire apparently acted
as it did because the gas had formed a very dense layer
at ground level on a very calm, damp morning.
When it reached the top of the tank we began to worry
about the possibility of a higher concentration of oxygen
in the tank that could result in an explosion that could
blow flaming oil all over the location and kill everyone
present. The decision was made to keep the casing valve
open and feed the flare at the tank vent until people and
vehicles were cleared from the area. We finally located a
large portable fire extinguisher that was placed in a
pickup truck and driven within a few feet of the flame.
With a combination of fear and foolhardiness we closed
the casing valve, turned the extinguisher into the tank
vent and hoped an explosion did not follow. Fortunately,
the plan worked; we all survived and I escaped with only
the indignity of a hot-seat.
It has been many years since I have been exposed to
well safety methods, but somehow I doubt that our
solution to the problem would meet today's O.S.H.A.
standards.
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