By Lindy J. Gwinn, Mountain Valley News staff
Construction Engineer for Gunnison Energy Corporation, Dan McWilliams, takes his job very seriously. As he drove to the location where GEC has just begun drilling on Oak Mesa, he talked about some of the exciting things GEC is doing on this project; things that are different than some of earlier drilling projects in Delta County.
“We actually have some of the reclamation started before the rig was even on the pad. On this project, when we moved the topsoil for the pad, we went ahead and worked the slopes, planted the seed, and used material to hold that seed and give it a better chance for success before we even started drilling,” said McWilliams.
Delta County Oil and Gas Designee, Bruce Bertram, is also very impressed with the up front reclamation effort on this project. “This is really a neat way to do this. This location is perfect for getting ahead on the reclamation,” said Bertram.
GEC will be drilling four wells in Delta County this summer. They moved onto the Oak Mesa location over the weekend of June 26 and 27. Drilling operations began on Tuesday, June 29.
As of July 8, the well was 835 feet deep and cement trucks had just finished pumping the 800 feet of surface casing that protects any surface waters.
“This well is going to be much deeper than the previous wells we drilled on Spaulding Peak. We are drilling to a target zone of 7500 to 9000 feet. There are several pay zones in a hole depending on how deep you drill and we are looking at a different gas zone than the previous wells,” said tool pusher Ray Ash.
“The deepest well they have drilled on the Spaulding Peak area was about 3200 feet,” said Bertram.
After the Oak Mesa project the rig will be moving to an existing pad on Spaulding Peak. They will be drilling a new well in close proximity to an existing well. There are also two wells scheduled on Hotchkiss Ranch this summer.
All four of the wells will be drilled on private land.
“This location has had some logistical challenges. Since the drilling on the Western Slope has been significantly reduced in the last couple of years, it is not easy to get trucks, welders and the support services that we need for drilling operations. When things slowed down people that used to do this stuff had to move where there was drilling going on. We are getting what we need, we are just having to look harder to get it,” said McWilliams.
GEC has taken care to protect landowners from trespassers and make sure that anyone that is on the location or on the property has to pass through three gate guards.
“The landowners want to know who is on their property. We want to make sure that we are protecting the landowner and his property by identifying anyone who is on the property. We are protecting their lands by making sure that traffic stays on the roads and not driving anywhere but on the designated route in and out,” said McWilliams.
“The other reason that we have these gates on the road into the location is, there is a single lane road for quite a way up the last section. We don’t want some going uphill when the trucks are coming down hill. It’s a safety issue. Some of those trucks are carrying loads that, with a combined weight of load and truck, are approaching 140,000 pounds and it is not easy to have to back a truck up like that in this terrain and a single lane road,” said McWilliams.
“Safety is something that we focus on all the time. We want everyone on location to be safe. We want to have our vendors safe, in and out, and will take the precautions to make that happen,” said Ash.
Meanwhile, roughnecks were busy attaching the blow out preventer to the top of the well head.
“This is the thing that failed in the gulf. The BOP that we have here has both hydraulic and manual shut offs. Of course it is also accessible from the ground unlike the off-shore BOP,” said Ash.
After a demonstration and detailed explanation of how a BOP works in the event of an emergency need to shut down the well, he went on to show what other preventative measures could be used in the event there was an emergency.
“There is a secondary fail safe on this rig. Just a few steps over here you will see that there is another set of valves that can either vent gas away from the well head, or if needed, I can kill the well with mud and shut down this well,” said Ash.
