Wells take kicks all the time in Alberta. The two most common reasons are hitting a big pocket of gas when the mud isnt heavy enough or having a facture in the drilling formation in which the rig loses its mud or cement into the ground outside the hole. The other reason is human error. My first week on the rigs, the rig on the lease next to us blew up. The official reason was they hit a pocket of gas but it is common knowledge that the driller just forgot to fill the whole while tripping. As soon as the pipe stared to come out it bucked and lit the whole thing on fire. That was a couple of years ago but it wasnt the last time. These kinda things happen quite a bit but you never here about it for some reason. Just like you never hear about another roughneck dying but it keeps happening every year. And no most of the time its not the crackhead that bites it. Those guys have been pretty much weeded out of the industry.
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