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If you have photos of the Kern Oil Fields
drill-sidetrack.com will bring together all the pictures photos 
of your crew working the rig, the vistas around the well, 
any that you choose, also any historical shots that you have 
in oil fields Kern County, Lost Hills area of California.

Have your own pages with photos, send a link
and we will link to you and you will link back to 
drill-sidetrack.com Kern Oil Field News.
 

An old Wooden Pumping Unit, Robert and I found while driving around. It is kool as heck. A wooden pumping unit is like the days when the derricks were wood and the men were IRON. The best thing is this is located in the Edison field (Kern County, CA) Still pumping oil and producing to this day. 
-- Rod Ross

" A Little Gasoline " 
click photo

http://www.terriclark.com
 

Taft, CA	discovery well

_________________________
The Boots and Coots 
Well Control Specialists

Fighting the blowout fire at Lost Hills - The Bellevue Resources Bellevue No. 1 (17-26S-21E), a wildcat well drilled into the subthrust beneath Lost Hills field (see cross-section below) blew out at a depth of 17,657 feet and erupted into flame on the evening of Monday, November 23, 1998. The well burned high-pressure condensate from the Temblor Formation at estimated rates of 40 to 100 million cubic feet (MMCF) of gas per day for 14 days - fueling hopes for the first major San Joaquin basin discovery in over a decade. 

Amazingly, no rig personal were hurt when the well "took a kick", erupted into flame within minutes, toppled the rig, and melted the rig, mud log trailer, and everything else on the well site. The flame shot as tall as 300 feet and was visible 40 miles away. Even Boots and Coots Well Control Specialists, despite their experience extinguishing well fires in Kuwait after the Gulf War, couldn't get the wild well under control and put the flame out. 
http://www.boots-coots-iwc.com/

Although the well snuffed the fire out by itself on the 16th day when water began flowing with the gas, anuncontrolled mixture of gas, condensate and water continued to flow for another six months. Finally, drillers intercepted the well bore of the blowout at 16,600 feet with a deviated relief well, drilled from several hundred yards away, and "killed" the gusher with 17 lb mud on May 28. The relief well was then redrilled into an adjacent area of the reservoir and completed as a replacement well to evaluate the potential of this deep, high-pressure gas accumulation, which currently is the deepest production in California. 

More on this story from: SJGS  San Joaquin Geological Society
On this topic from Hilton Petrolem http://www.hiltonpetroleum.com/newdev.htm
To read more:  news storys on the Bellevue blowout by
Bill Rintoul and others from the Bakersfield Californian newspaper. 
Blow out articles  Lost Hills blow out 


_______________________________________________  Yes I know it isn't Kern County but it is a great shot!

Eland Jennings Photo Collection
http://www.elandjennings.com/photoframe.htm

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