A WELL LOGGING TALE

OCT 2000

I emailed this "logging tale" to my brothers 'cause I was feeling lucky about the one that I didn't lose. The client's company man thought I was the source of all the bad luck they'd been having, because of the one I almost lost. I guess that's the difference in an optimist and a pessimist.

RECAP: (of a tale from the deep):
First let me explain why I'm only a little fool, rather than an OLD FOOL or a DAMNED FOOL. Before I had to cut 1200' off my cable a few weeks ago, the boys in Tulsa claimed they put 5500' of cable on the drum the week before I left. My ohm meter indicated I had about 4800' and they agreed that's what their ohm meter calculated also, but they actually put more on. So I'm assuming my ohm meter's OK since our readings agreed. So they tell me they just put 5500' on another truck and the first wrap measures so far from the edge of the drum and mine measures to have about one or two wraps less. So they tell me I've probably got 52 or 5300'. At that point I cut 1200' off (accurately measured by my depth counter). So our operations manager says he thinks I've got at least 3500' and I've probably got over 4000'. My ohm meter now tells me I've got a little over 3600'. Are you gettin' all this? Now, since the beginning of time, the story has always been that the ohm meter calculations are accurate within 100'. So with a safety factor of 2, I'm thinking I've got at least 3400'. (And the boys at the shop are talking 4000'.) So the first 3500' hole I do, I'm going to be looking at the drum around 3400'. So I'm thinking I'll check the drum at the bottom of this 3350' hole I'm logging, just to see if I'm anywhere close to the end of the line. So I'm flying down the hole and at 3200' the drawworks go WHUMP and pull tight. I'm thinking the gears locked up or something cause this can't happen going downhole. I immediately shut down the drawworks and look through the back truck window and hazy campershell window; looks like no cable. I shove my face against the glass; yep… that's the aluminum drum all right. The cable had reached the end of the line and backspooled, suddenly pulling hard against a few hundred pounds of cable and logging tool. So the only reason the cable hadn't pulled off the drum was because when it backspooled it put about a 170 degree kink on the end of the line, creating enough friction to hold. Next thought: don't move a thing, get out there and clamp the cable down before it pulls out of the socket. Now let me explain that they don't have brakes on these drawworks cause they're hydraulic and shouldn't move when shut down. But that's a joke and most of them creep, like this one, and all that weight is pulling it back to the end of the line. As I'm getting out of the cab: WHUMP; the line tears out of the socket and my heart skips a beat as 125 millicuries of Cesium137 and 3200' of stainless steel cable are on their way straight to Hell. So I take off running as the frayed end of the cable goes flying out of the boom at the back of the truck. And I'm thinking I should get my gloves, yeah right, that sucker'd be down the hole 'fore I could get 'em on. So I'm jumping flowlines, leaping up the steps onto the drilling platform and the cable end's just ahead of me, on its way up to the shivewheel about 20' above. I pounce on the cable at the Kelly bushing and clamp down with my fingers. Good thing I inherited Dad's vice-grip hands. I'm looking up to be sure the cable's not going to grab me by the throat; the frayed end passes the shive and it looks like it might slip past before I get it to a full stop. Now, I did lose an arm wrestle with Donny Lachenmayr (a 6' 9" 260# All-American driller) last year, but I'll be damned if I was going to get my ass whoopped by a chickenshit loggin' probe and a few thousand feet of cable. So I gave it 2 quick wraps around my arm and pulled it down over the Kelly bushing; got it stopped with about 10' to spare. (Had the Devil by the tail just as he was poking his nose through the gates of Hell, but he doesn't give up that close to home.) Now that the dynamic tension is gone with the loose end on the floor, the stiff cable unwraps off my arm and I'm back to vise-gripping it with my fingers and losing a few inches at a time. So the drillers are walking across the platform by now and one of the helpers says, "Whut a' ya gunna do now?" I said, "I'm gonna drop a radioactive source in the hole if ya don't start helpin' me." He immediately grabs a hold and the driller tied the end off. So we pulled some slack, I rewired it to the drum and commenced to logging. Had to adjust the log depth with the computer once I calculated a new zero point at the top of the hole. And everyone lived happily ever after. GREG

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