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Show A8 Wednesday, June 25, 2008 Vernal Express 11 O o m y t if""! 1 yfc TTrm LlcttULV W ylilNiiiitih l 'Hi' ' . . ' Mt "n II Ml i I' f lilir"iilT"'"i'TiiTili iii ifi, '1iniliriilWiiilMllil'lM:lMillll'WlltilWIllWM I JUtiis Mace is n JT by Kevin Ashby Express Publisher Hundreds of thousands of pounds of equipment, metal, tanks, and rigging comprise the average drilling rig now drilling in the Uintah Basin. And it takes hundreds of hours to setup, operate oper-ate and tear down. According to Milton Trosper, tool pusher and rig manager of Unit drill rig 109, it takes about six days to breakdown a rig, move it and then setup on a new location. loca-tion. And afterward, he explained that depending on the depth and the formations they are drilling through, it takes at least 30 and sometimes up to 90 days to drill the necessary depth of between 15,000 and 20,000 feet for a successful suc-cessful well. Site preparation is done with emphasis being placed on disturbing dis-turbing the least amount of land as possible while accommodating the room needed for three huge motors, trailers for the site power plant, pumps, pits, hoppers and sub-structure. Rigs used in the Basin tower above the ground around 140 feet. Trosper explained that before drilling takes place, each rig crew receives detailed instructions concerning the well specifying drilling depth, the fluids to be used, rotation speeds and other pertinent information. Most' wells are going down 16,000 to 18,000 feet and most problems are anticipated prior to the drilling. For Great Gardens! T Q S I ALL TOUR PACKS OF tOLORFUL Split Mountain Garden Cerite 10 minutes East of Vernal, Hwy 40 in beautiful downtown Jensen 789-55 12 9-6 Monday - Saturday, 11-4 Sunday r t smamim'KrdA. uaaaa ut6HK& .js ' v" i infill! ffi r J d 08 GMC ACADIA ALL NEW CROSSOVER 6 Spd. Auto, 3.6 V-6, 8 passenger, Rear Air and Heat, Onstar Nav. Option, KG26134A t i l l lit i r :i Y'rrZ2 '')- all Ext. & , I 1 : ' :y Crew Cab . r'Vf ; .loS' saljd'lke valley Hm! ' - litHfD CHtOtT BAD CREDIT NO CREDIT j ' " " - tl , . i V ft 11 ilji V I 'iZmnf '' , fifT AfPHOVfD HOW APPLY ONI IW AT '"'i ? ' ' ''-""i f jWKhSuCWM k I V. wvrwMnMrmiFfc.MC.cm -r Li i , iJ4d4Uk . V;; , (;" ' t" -' Ij 'iiaffipii atYK.ir I I tMxseH&mzmzxmeASieii WF AnE Phpfc biomal SHftpr' , laaaajinwmaMaa?MIF I L 3S'M$BM -: '"Mr" Crews are kept busy while drilling. Trosper explained that his rigs are operating 247 with two six-person crews working 12 hour shifts each day. These crews work seven days on then seven days off. Once the rig is set up then drilling can commence. Down hole pressure is light to begin with, but only needs about 3,000 Threading is carved around the casing pipe that allows it to be connected to each other while being lowered into the hole. - Your First Stop I l AMTTMP. I IlMPij- 1 r LAIN lb AND viAKUcJN Vfckliltb! Buy One, Get One FREE! .. lUj ;- -Li J ALL WHEEL MIVE ...L.v ' ., UWIIVI., S CENTRAL pounds of weight for the bit to work properly. Trosper explained that drilling drill-ing pipe segments come in 30 foot lengths and will weigh up to 19 pounds per foot or 570 pounds per piece. It doesn't take long for the down hole pipe to weigh more than the needed 3,000 pounds. At this point the rig's counter weights made up of a heavy duty i A ,f 1 BEDDING VA1 steel cable and lots of pulleys are used to hold back the weight so as not to ruin the bit. As an example, 10,000 feet of pipe adds up to about 200,000 pounds. Trosper said there are times when a rig has close to 400,000 pounds of pipe in the hole. And this weight makes for a good pull when crews have to pull the pipe out of the hole to - - Huge steel cable is used to counter balance the weight of the pipe used down hole for drilling. ThQ weight can be upwards of 400,000 pounds in a 20,000 foot deep well. , " .: Ellis,Walker run for treasurer By Prestoh McCowwe Uintah Basin News Service mil change bits, run hole tests, or to place casing in the hole. Fluid technology has become an exact science when dealing with oil and gas drill rigs. There are two different reasons to introduce intro-duce fluids into the wells. First, they are introduced into the hole as a flushing agent that picks up the drill tailings produced by the bit and pumped to the surface. Fluids are also used to secure, the integrity of the hole for the later production of oil and gas. Fluids can be mixed to weigh up to 11 pounds per gallon that are used to fill in around the pipe to keep the hole from leaking. Some muds or fluids consist of nitrogen and cement that allow a fluid to be introduced into the hole, but when it sets up has the same strength as concrete. Six person crews are used to keep the rigs operating and they consist of two floor hands, a motor mo-tor hand, pit hand, derrick hand and driller. When visiting Unit Rig 109 drilling for Questar Gas Exploration, Explora-tion, crews had just started a bit trip and were pulling 12,100 feet of pipe out of the hole. Once they pulled the pipe and replaced the bit, hole casing was introduced into the hole. They also ran a wireline log device down the hole to record core pressures and formation makeup. Wireline testing also records the various elevations where gas is being introduced into the hole. Where these locations are noted, :iA The only statewide office that appeared on the Republican primary ballot Tuesday was for state treasurer, an office that has been held for 28 years by Ed Alter, who is retiring at the end of the year. Richard Ellis, who currently holds the job of deputy state treasurer, was hired eight years ago by Alter, who perhaps unsurprisingly un-surprisingly has endorsed Ellis to replace him. Ellis is opposed by Mark Walker, a private-sector banker and member of the Utah House of Representatives. Walker, appointed to represent repre-sent Sandy in the 45th Legislative Legisla-tive District in 2004 by interim Gov. Olene Walker, is endorsed by Attorney General Mark Shurtleff and leaders in both houses of the Legislature. Both Ellis and Walker agree on what they disagree on. The job of state treasurer is to handle the state's money, with an average of $80 million a day flowing through its accounts. ac-counts. Because money comes in and goes out at different rates, hundreds of millions of dollars must be kept somewhere until payrolls and other bills come due. Instead of keeping the money in an enormous and completely liquid checking account, the state invests its money in a variety of typically shorter-term securities. securi-ties. , Last year the state's investment invest-ment fund earned $480 million in interest, accordingto Ellis; $82 million of that money went to the state, while the rest benefited school districts and local governments govern-ments that pool their money with the state fund. Walker believes he can invest smarter and earn more interest, and says he has helped oversee a fund catering to small governments govern-ments at Zions Bank, which reportedly earned a higher rate of return than the state fund. Ellis says he'll continue Alter's more conservative policies poli-cies which have earned the state a long-standing triple-A bond rating, the highest credit rating rat-ing possible. He agrees that it's possible to earn higher returns than the state normully gets, but higher returns meun'higher risk. "Right now if you were to buy Merrill Lynch, Goldman-Sachs or Citigroup, they'ro paying premium, up to a whole percent higher to Proctor & Gamble or crews will place perforated pipe in these sections to collect this gas later. When coming out of the hole, crews will pull three lengths of pipe into view up the rig. The pipe will be wedged in place while the three lengths will be spun off from the pipe still in the hole. This 90 foot length of pipe will be moved to a storage rack while the pipe is raised another 90 feet or three lengths, wedged into place and the process is repeated. Crews will average between 15 and 20 strands of 90-foot pipe art hour when pulling them up out of the hole. To pull 12,000 feet of pipe it took the crew severt hours. ' On the other hand, the rate of penetration that rigs can drill into the earth is about 20 to 30 feet an hour. Trosper explained: that to drill an 18,000 foot deep hole would take about 600 hours or 25 days if you could drill it without stopping and averaged "30 feet per hour. "That has never been the case here," explained Trosper that it takes between 60 and 90 days to complete a well. Trosper said that when the well is completed, crews place a; valve on top of the casing. Mos gas welis in the Basin are free flowing wells so all that is left is for the next set of crews to connect con-nect this valve into the collection system that gathers the gas for western states delivery. "-'"'" .... ... f, : f f 1 tt IBM," Ellis said. "But I think there's a lot of risk out there. It has a lot of exposure, which is why we've backed off the financial sector. If we wanted enhanced yield that's where we'd go, but we don't think that's prudent at this time." Walker did not return a message mes-sage requesting an interview and was not able to respond to Ellis' point, but his campaign Web site claims he has a track record of earning higher interest returns and that he could do the same for Utah's fund. The site says his "real world" experience includes being Zions Bank Manager of Government Finance. A recent Salt Lake Tribune article said Walker's actual job title is sales resource officer. According to the Tribune, Walker's job responsibilities included in-cluded "sourcingand developing prospects and new clients, selling business banking services and products and developing sales strategies and expandingreferral sources." Another controversy in the campaign arose two weeks ago after the Utah Supreme Court denied a request by Ellis to require Lt. Gov. Gary Herbert's office to immediately investigate a complaint that Walker tried to coax Ellis to drop out of the campaign by offeringto keep him in his deputy treasurer job with a 53 percent raise. Herbert's office declined to investigate in-vestigate before today's primary, citing fears that an investigation could unfairly influence the election's outcome. ,t-- ' l if,' ''tyJ L , , i.,,,, U i ! i xpress 54 North VomAl Avenue Vornal, Utah -435-71)9-3511 www.vernal.com |