A Spectacular Well:
Barrackpore 306 by W W Jardine
(Unfortunately all the photos are of Apex Quarry South 310 not Barrackpore
306)
All photos and text compliments Greg Boyles (nhett@tstt.net.tt) of
New Horizon Exploration Inc.
One night in December 1938, I took up the morning tour duty in charge of drilling
rig at Barrackpore, The well was located in a flat and swampy area of ‘lagoon' which had previously been cultivated
as a rice field and was protected against flooding by an earthen bank or levee rising about 5 ft above the general
level of the ground. Access to the rig was by means of a narrow-gauge railway built along the top of the
earthen embankment. The 136-ft (41 m) steel derrick was supported at the corners by wooden cribbing
resting on a 30 ft x 30 ft (9 m) concrete foundation mat.
The oil string had already been cemented and perforated, tubing landed and Christmas
tree made up. Drilling mud had been displaced with water and the well was bringing itself in by the simple
process of ejecting the water from below with oil and gas under natural formation pressure. The 3000-ft (910
m) drilling string had been broken down and laid out, but the kelly, with swivel attached, remained standing in
the rat hole.
After checking the well-head and making sure that all was well, I went to the slush
pit, into which an intermittent stream of muddy water was flowing through a 2-in (5 cm) pipe from the tubing head.
The well was definitely alive and it was a simple matter to control the flow as necessary by means of a pinch-valve
the water was completely displaced by oil. This occurred about 1:00 am and after closing the well in, prospects
seemed fair for a quiet and uneventful shift.
When making a routine check on the well-head pressures at about 2:00 am I noticed
that gas was escaping to surface through a pool of water surrounding the rat hole casing and it later became evident
that it was also forcing its way through the ground in various places around the concrete foundation mat, with
sufficient pressure to cause a hissing noise like escaping steam. As time went on the situation became
worse and at 4:00 am I decided to share my problems with the tool-pusher in charge.
After reporting that the well had come in successfully and giving the tubing and
casing pressure, I described in a quiet way the phenomenon of escaping gas. The pusher was not impressed
and, in a rather pompous way which seemed to come naturally to him, instructed me to check the pressure on the
conductor casing and to let him know if the situation became SPECTACULAR.
My crew was understandably reluctant to go beneath the derrick floor - the place
reeked of gas and dim lights barely made darkness visible - but an attempt had to be made to carry out instructions
and we tried to install a pressure-gauge on the conductor casing, only to find that this necessitated digging out
a portion of the concrete cellar wall. Since this exercise with a steel crowbar would undoubtedly have caused
sparks, I considered the risk to by unjustifiable and called off the attempt.
 The first dim light of dawn revealed an incredible sight. Within a
radius of perhaps 100 yards (90 m) of the well, the water beyond the impounding levees had turned to greyish mud
and was in a state of turbulence , although boiling briskly,. The mud in a nearby reserve pit was erupting
violently and threatening to destroy the enclosing banks. About 200 ft (60 m) away, two thin columns of mud
were standing like polished pencils 15 ft (4.5 m) in the air and here and there, fish and eels appeared, flopping
around in apparent discomfort.
There was an all-pervading roaring noise like the sound of continuous surf.
A 5-in (12 cm) cascadura fish appeared as if by magic at the well-head and some kindly impulse prompted me to pick
it up and put it in a can of water on the derrick floor. It seemed to me that the situation might now be
truthfully described as "spectacular' -if not calamitous - and I lost no time in again contacting the tool-pusher.
After apologizing for waking him up I said that the situation at the well was now definitely spectacular and gave
a brief description of what was going on. He wanted to know whether any gas was breaking out around the well-head,
so I went downstairs to find out. The conductor had been securely cemented
and there was no strong evidence of gas in the ‘cellar' and I had no sooner ascertained this than I heard my headman
yelling to me to come up. He said that the railway line was moving and so it was, like a sluggish snake.
 For the third time that morning, I rang my remote-control toll-pusher and
told him briefly: "if you have any intention of coming down here, I advise you to do so soon or you ma not
be able to reach the rig". This seemed to strike the right note - I heard the receiver go down with
a bang and shortly afterwards a distant pop, pop, popping heralded the approach of the boss, belting down the track
in his little two-seater trolley. Normally a florid man, the pusher's face was as pale as mine when he stepped
onto the derrick floor and looked around him with an expression of offended incredulity. I felt that he was
on the point of asking me why I hadn't let him know how bad things were. He decided to kill the well by pumping
back drilling mud, but pressures were high, the pump engine stalled, and the mechanic seemed unable to start it.
When my relief arrived at 8:00 am, the immediate vicinity of the well was becoming unsafe and it was with a feeling
of relief that I returned to my bungalow for a bath and breakfast. About this time, a small earth tremor
shook the house and this may well have been associated with events at the well.
 I returned to the scene of activity at about 10:00 am to find that conditions
had become worse and that all personnel had been ordered off the rig. A crater had developed close to one
of the corners of the derrick and from this tons of mud were flying in a series of explosive eruptions as
though dynamite charges were being set off beneath the ground.
Sheets of galvanized iron and lengths of timber from the pump shed were rising into
the air at each explosion and the immense pile of grey mud and shale.
I regretted the fate of my poor fish, which was now buried under tons of mud. It
was impossible to see what was happening at the well-head, but when a jet of oil and gas emerged with a roar from
beneath the derrick, it became obvious that one of the side-arm connections had been broken off. Nothing useful
could be done about things as the derrick was swaying and the floor threatened to collapse at any moment.
 The derrick fell at about two in the afternoon and in doing so broke the top off the well-head, from
which a roaring column of gas and oil rose like a plume over 100 ft (35 m) in the air. Immediate steps had
now to be taken to impound this river of oil before it spread over the surrounding countryside and emergency levees
were hurriedly constructed by swarms of laborers under the direction of the field engineer. The risk of
fire now became a real menace and steps were taken to evacuate all families from houses in the
danger zones. To fill our cup of misfortune almost to the brim, the heavens opened and torrential rain descended
for hours. The sight of top company management standing in the deluge, soaked to the skin and gloomily surveying
the scene of devastation from beneath the inadequate shelter of large banana leaves used as umbrellas, might have
appeared amusing under different circumstances.
 As darkness approached, flood lamps were set up on poles around the flowing
well and the work of erecting banks, installing pumps and running pipelines, continued throughout the night, it
was an unforgettable scene, reminiscent of the pioneering days of oil. The air was still and for hundreds
of yards around the roaring well the atmosphere was dense with a thick pall of gas and tiny particles of oil, through
which the floodlights glimmered weakly like street lamps in a fog.
While working in water above our knees, the stench of gas, mud, and dead fish was
strongly apparent and there was no comfort in the knowledge that trivial occurrence such as a short in an electrical
connection, or some fool lighting a cigarette, would cause us all to be fried like bacon. Those worthy staff
members who grudged a driller his pay, should have been with me that night. Daylight showed the well to
be still flowing wild, but the bubbling turmoil in the surrounding area was now centered in a crater of heaving
mud situated near the position previously occupied by the slush pits. Around this there was a heap of grey
shale thrown outwards by the eruption, providing a striking resemblance to the so-called ‘mud volcanoes' so common
in Trinidad.
 The drilling equipment had entirely disappeared and, except for the crown block and a few twisted
girders which could be seen almost buried in mud on the far side of the crater, the derrick also had vanished.
The crown block was the only useful piece of equipment ever to be salvaged and so sign was
found of the 1-in (2.5 cm) steel cable by which it had been attached to the traveling block and drawworks, two
large power pumps, two Caterpillar diesel engines, rotary table, and everything else which goes to make up a complete
drilling rig, had been engulfed by the earth. More than 3000 ft (910 m) of 4-in (10 cm) drill-pipe, along
with drill collars and reamers which had been laid out on the pipe rack on that side of the well opposite to the
final crater, had also disappeared. Strangely enough,, the concrete foundationmat over which the derrick
ad been erected remained undamaged, although the rat hole casing which had been set in a hole drilled through it
had beenblown out, along with the kelly and swivel.
 The cratered area was subsequently bailed down to a considerable depth bymeans
of a slush pump and high-pressure water jets in hope of salvagingsome of the submerged equipment,, but the only
recognizable objects recovered were scraps from the pump engines, all of which had been badly sand cut.
The well continued to flow wild for a few days at a gradually diminishing rate until
it finally sanded up, when a make-shift control head was installed. It was later cleaned out and became on
of the best producers inthat particular field.
 If this story suggests some useful morals to my fellow workers in the oilindustry, I shall consider
my time well spent in writing it. A drillingsuperintendent might find confirmation of a nagging suspicion
that a good cement job is a greater value than a few extra sacks of cement or bucketsful of additive. A tool-pusher
might be prompted to give greater credence to the bedtime stories of his junior drillers. A junior driller
might feel that it would be a good thing to alarm his pusher if he felt lonely atnight. He might even decide
that should he be confronted with the task of breaking concrete in the presence of large quantities of petroleum
gas, he should make use of a water hose and get on with the job.
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