Drilling Done

Last Thursday the second of the two wells across the highway from our property was done drilling and all tghe machinery was being removed. All of that drilling went really fast, to my mind, considering that it was two wells they drilled and that they first go down to a depth of 9,000 to 12,000 ft. and then again approximately 5,000 ft. horizontally. That place across  the highway has two wells, btw, one going roughly north and the other going roughly south.  And now the fracking, i.e. the injection of water, sand and chemicals into the shale under enormous pressure,  can start – well, maybe they have already started it.

As before, I’ve tried to document it with a few pictures. Heavy machinery is being removed:

Heavy Machinery Being Removed

The mobile homes are being removed, too:

A Mobile Home Being Removed

The container housing the control center is being lowered hydraulically:

Container Housing Controls Lowered

The rig is being canted over:

Rig Starting to Cant Over

The rig is nearly horizontal:

Nearly Horizontal

The top is resting on the flatbed truck:

The Top End Resting on a Flatbed Truck

Now all it wants is for the platforms to be lowered and the rig to be divided into two before it can be moved to the next drilling pad:

Platforms Being Lowered/Folded

Meanwhile, more heavy machinery is being moved:

More Heavy Machinery Being Removed

And then, on the next day, the place was completely empty:

Empty Drilling-Pad

Considering that here for years to come thousands of barrels of oil are to be produced, the two well heads looks really unimpressive. They’re barely to be seen, aren’t they?

With this picture I’ll interrupt this account so that downloading this post will not take too long a time. I’ll continue with more pictures of the fracking process.

Um diesen Beitrag in Deutsch zu lesen, hier klicken.

Related articles

• They’re Drilling (pitstexasexpatblog.wordpress.com)
• They’re Drilling for Real Now (pitstexasexpatblog.wordpress.com)
• Preparations for Drilling – Part 2 (pitstexasexpatblog.wordpress.com)
• Preparations for Drilling – Part I (pitstexasexpatblog.wordpress.com)
• They’ll Be Drilling Soon, … (pitstexasexpatblog.wordpress.com)
• The U.S. is drilling, baby, drilling, yet oil prices are rising (dailykos.com)
• Southern Texas “Christmas Trees” (pitstexasexpatblog.wordpress.com)
• Fracking Pollution Claim ‘Unproven’ (junkscience.com)
• Fracking Could Work If Industry Would Come Clean (blogs.scientificamerican.com)
• University Of Texas Researchers Find No Direct Link Between Fracking And Contaminated Groundwater (businessinsider.com)
• Fracking Doesn’t Harm Drinking Water, Study Says. (reason.com)
• Mixed Verdict on Fracking (news.sciencemag.org)
• Fracking Study: It’s Not The Process Contaminating Groundwater, It’s the Sloppy Way They Do It (crooksandliars.com)
• Is Fracking in Your World? (forcedgreen.com)