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The Drilling of Atlantic No. 3 (Page 4)

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Cody's Spencer's experience in Wyoming in the thirties may have been a factor in deciding the course of action. According to Ralph Will, then with the Rocky Mountain Drilling Co., and Spencer's boss, a field on the southwest flank of the Big Horn basin was characterized by a depleted but extremely porous and permeable sandstone known as the Frontier. It had to be penetrated to reach the deeper pay zones. Ralph instructed Cody to drill through this thief sand with pumps running very slowly, adding sawdust all the time. Once the zone had been penetrated, normal drilling could be resumed.

Tom Wark, tool push on Imperial Leduc No. 48, says if those in charge had only listened to Lloyd Stafford the blow-out would never have happened, But Lloyd was over-ruled.

Atlantic No.3 Blow-outHughie Leiper, now a senior officer with an oil company, is another chronicler who has contributed to a better understanding of events, Leiper, a native of Didsbury, moved to Turner Valley in 1929 with his family. His father had obtained a job first on the steam rigs and then with the "Purity 99" Gas and Oil Products refinery.

Leiper recalls that during World War II, the tool pushes would line up at the high school Friday afternoons and induce the husky lads to work weekends. This put extra cash in Hugh's pocket and enabled him to consider studying Petroleum Engineering (he ultimately graduated from the University of Oklahoma). He enrolled in Mount Royal College but finances forced him to leave temporarily. It was during this time that he started his roughnecking career with Dick Harris, Hugh recalls having had to pay his way out to Many berries to work for Bob Wark, then with Can-Tex Drilling. When he was in Princess, he was approached by Frank Flewelling of G.P. who offered him a job. That is how he got to Leduc. He was on Rig #10, first at the BA Pyrcz well and then on the Atlantic wells.

Leiper remembers that he was an underling on the job and was in the cookhouse when the pow-wow was on which resulted in the drill "dry" decision.

    You know, Stafford was so damn mad he quit - did you know that? He says, 'Well, that's the decision, boys. I want no part it, I'm quitting.' And he walked out. But being the dedicated and conscientious man he was, the minute the damn thing blew out he was back into the thick of things again.12

Let's hear Lloyd's version of the meeting in a recent interview with Gibby Gibson and Harry Simpson:

    As I recall, Cody Spencer and Clarence Matthews were there. Dave Gray was there and he was the one who suggested drilling "dry". But I wasn't in favour of it because I knew if you lost circulation...in a bad zone...you are going to lose it all. And the gas will bypass you because the first pad is your big bubble of gas, your high pressure...right at the start. And the expansion of that gives you your blowout. Keeps moving up...till it gets away, then it is too late. Nate Goodman was along at the time...in the doghouse with us...they said they were going to drill "dry" and they were going to let the water run in, pumping a little down the drill pipe - that water lightens up your fluid column and any wells we ever drilled were mostly killed with water but they had to be weighted up after. I decided to... get ready to go ahead and "dry drill". But I didn't start the crews. I roamed around thinking and wondering about it, then went over to a Commonwealth rig and talked to the tool pusher over there and I wasn't happy, I didn't want to start that drilling because I didn't think I could handle it. I went back over sometime about midnight. There was a phone call. It came from the Macdonald Hotel in Edmonton. It was Clarence Matthews. He wanted to know if we had started to drill. I said, "No, we hadn't," "Well," he said, " (you had better set it on bottom and turn it to the right." I still wasn't happy about it so waited around a while and finally I said "Wel1, we will start it." I told him at the time. "I'll call you back and let you know which way it is going". We started drilling fairly steady. So I went down to camp, I had a coffee and I laid down just across in the cabin there...I had my coat and everything on just like I had come in. I fell asleep and somebody called me that the well had blown out. I went back up to the rig. They had shut off all the fires and boilers and the well was blowing. It was a nice well, I called Matthews and I told him, "It's a dandy and it's headed southeast", and it was.13

Lloyd then returned to the rig and had the crew fire up the boilers. He plugged his ears with cotton batting. Stafford knew the kelly hose wouldn't be able to withstand the mixture of oil and sand and shale fragments. He took the brake and pulled the kelly up to the top of the derrick to get the hose out of the way of the main blast, This made it possible to at least pump down the drill pipe. Oil was running back in around the rig so Lloyd ordered bulldozers out to pile up the snow and ice and create a wall.

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