When you work night shift it can be good and bad. Normally it is uneventful and quite that or every thing goes wrong. Last night was some where in between.
About 9:45 the mudman comes knocking on my door asking about my gas equipment. The company man had sent him over to tell me that my gas sniffer was on fire. I grab my hard hart and head out there to see what’s up. Thinking I’m going to have one dirty night switching out traps or something. We get up to the shakers and I check my stuff and get covered in mud in the process.
Side note: we are using oil based mud instead of water based mud. So when I say I got covered in mud think of the crud they train out of your car at jiffy lube mixed with hot chocolate. Yes it is warm. Yes it smells like lighter fluid. No I do not recommend it as a spa treatment.
My equipment is working just fine. There is mud everywhere! Looks like someone took a hose and sprayed mud on the roof, on the handrails, over the pits, and anywhere in between. The roughneck comes over and tells me that 20 bbls of mud came flying out of shaker 1, where my gas trap is, and covered everything. It was smoking and shut down all three shakers with out blowing the fuss. We look around and talk about it some more. My stuff is fine. Company man isn’t convinced yet that it wasn’t my stuff. I show him our spare and all the components and show him that there is no way it could have been our stuff. It’s all explosion prof and no way gas can build up in it. But I promise to keep an eye on it and next chance we get possibly swap it out.
After an hour or more of looking they figure out that it was the separator. ( a big can that separates the gas from the mud) apparently there was a build up of gas that finally blew out on to the shakers. I’m just glad I wasn’t up there. Poor derrickman was in the way and got completely covered. This could have been must worst. Needless to say we took the separater offline.
That was last nights adventure. Tonight’s adventures include setting mouse traps for the trailer’s newest occupant and fixing a wabbly centrifuge.
