Price Canyon 1981
This blog has been fermenting in my mind since January when
we stayed at the Avila Bay Inn near Shell Beach. On a visit to San Luis Obispo just after
Christmas, we stopped by the Oasis
Moroccan-Mediterranean Restaurant on Broad Street for lunch. This family owned gem is run by the Dad (Moroccan
chef) and his red-headed Irish wife who works the tables. The freckled faced boys help out in the
dining room and the kitchen. The dining
room is nicely decorated and the tables are covered in hand made tile imported
from Morocco. I was very impressed with
the tile craft and each table is a unique work of art. The Moroccan Eggplant salad was amazing with
grilled eggplant, peppers, carrots, feta cheese and olives tossed in cilantro
vinaigrette. And we really enjoyed the Moroccan
Tea, slightly sweetened and made with mint.
We were so impressed we went back for New Year’s Eve Dinner, our 31st
anniversary. The Osso Bucco Tangine is a braised beef shank and garbanzos in a
smoked red pepper sauce, served with rice.
The Moroccan spices include cinnamon; garlic and cardamom are unique and
bold without being too hot.
At the end of the fishing pier at Avila Beach is a fish
market and the Old Port Inn. The views
of the beach, the hills and the ocean are amazing. At dinner they were very accommodating and
split the warm Greek salad that is loaded with fresh rock cod sautéed in olive
oil and garlic with fresh oregano, basil, tomatoes, sliced black olives and
sherry and is served on a bed of fresh spinach and topped with feta cheese. We also split an entrée, sorry, I can’t
remember what it was. But I do remember
that they did not charge a corkage fee for local wine we brought. It was so memorable, that we went back for
lunch months later. The Fresh Dungeness Crab sandwich is served on grilled sour
dough with melted jack cheese, sliced tomato and smoked tomato aioli. The chunk crab meat is awesome and fresh from
the fish market next door. The whole
sandwich is pricy $24 and plenty for 2 people.
Driving East from Pismo Beach on Hinds Street takes you to
Price Canyon Road where you can see where natural crude oil has seeped from the
road cut and gathered alongside of the road.
Price Canyon Road follows Pismo Creek flowing out of the oak covered hills
to the shores of Pismo Beach. Following
the road east there is an entrance to the historic Arroyo Grande oilfield. In 1981 Grace Petroleum owned and operated
the field. They were in the middle of
executing plans to develop the field and increase production. This included re-completing old wells which
means a work-over rig was to move onto an old well and try to make it more
productive by removing old liners down hole and re-drilling (under-reaming) the
completion zone.
Working a well that is 3,000’ to 5,000’ deep and 7” to 10”
diameter with sketchy records and decade’s old liners in the hole is a risky
business. As the mud engineer on the
job, I was given the location of the rig and the name of the company man to
report to as I would be responsible for making the drilling fluid and have it meet
the requirements to make this re-completion successful.
Jay was the Company Man and drilling engineer on the project. He was hired by Grace Petroleum to be
responsible for the re-completing this well.
In 1981, the drilling engineer was the highest paid expert on any
drilling job. Jay was an elderly
gentleman with white hair and wore leisure pants and a Hawaiian shirt. The drilling engineers I was familiar with in
Bakersfield, Texas and the Rocky Mountains wore jeans or coveralls and drove
pickup trucks. So when I met Jay in his 1976
pale yellow Cadillac with the Landau top, I thought this could be fun. As it turned out, he was as much of a hard
ass as I was used to.
I reported to the rig one June afternoon. I found the work-over rig (commonly referred
to as a bullshit rig because it was much smaller than the larger drilling rigs)
on the creek side of Price Canyon road hidden among the oak and sycamore trees
and dense brush. Jay took me on a tour
of the Mud Pit he designed and built for Grace.
“I built this mud pit. You’ll use
it to make the brine completion fluid for the rig. We have to remove the old slotted liner and
under-ream the production zone. Then we
will hang a new liner in the well. We
will need a constant supply of low solids fluid that will not contaminate the
producing zone. So we will use a viscous
fluid that is weighted with salt to keep the gas and oil out of the well bore
and keep the well from sloughing in on us”.
I had already ordered the polymer and salt and had it delivered to the
dock alongside of the mud pit. The pit
was a steel tank about 16’ diameter, open top and set in the ground with a
covered dock on one side and a pump, hopper and nozzle system to mix and
circulate the fluid.
Jay explained, “I have this frac-tank here to store the
water that you will need to make the fluid.
It holds 500 barrels. The pit
holds 300 barrels. Follow me and I’ll
show you where water well is”.
We got in his Cadillac and drove east on Price Canyon Road
to where a set of muddy tire tracks veered off the road through the brush. It ended near the creek at a power pole and
well head. Jay showed me the switch on
the power pole, “this starts the well pump and pumps the water to the
frac-tank. Make sure you keep an eye on
it and don’t overflow the tank. The vacuum truck will be standing by to pick
up the fluid, so have the mud ready by midnight”.
I was living in Arroyo Grande, so it was an easy drive to
the field at 10:00PM. Even in the
summer, the cold marine layer moves into the canyon and blankets it in fog. I drove to the plant entrance that resembled
a park entrance with shale rock and flowers.
But shortly after entering the plant in the dark, the scene was
surreal. In the fog shrouded hills, there
were numerous tanks and vessels interconnected with pipes overhead and along
the ground. Vapors emanated as steam
clouds and the boilers roared with fire and vessels chugged and throbbed like a
nest of dragons. The process plant
separating oil and water and making steam for injection wells was nestled
between the oak and brush covered hills.
The entire scene was illuminated with lights struggling to shine through
the midnight fog and steam.
The mud pit and platform were overlooking the scene waiting
for me to go to work. First things
first, I calculate how much salt and polymer it will take to make 300 barrels
of fluid of the proper weight and viscosity.
I’ll need water, so I left the plant to find the water well. Everything looks different in the dark, but I
was used to finding drilling rigs in the middle of the night so I followed the
road and watched for the mud tracks left by recent rig traffic. After activating the water pump I drove back
to the plant and the mud pit. Following
the dirt roads winding through the oilfield I was accompanied by numerous deer
that come out at night to feed. I opened
the valve at the base of the frac-tank and began to gravity fill the mud pit
with water. As soon as the level reached
the pump intake, I started the circulating pump and started lifting 100 lb.
bags of salt to mix into the water through the hopper. The salt dissolved in the water to add weight
and inhibit formation clay from swelling that can plug the producing zone. As the salt dissolved I also added 50 Lb.
bags of polymer to add viscosity to the fluid.
The viscosity helps to carry the rock and sand cuttings out of the hole
as the drill bit cleans out the hole and under-reams the oil zone of the well.
Don’t forget to turn
off the pump when the frac-tank is full.
By Midnight, I had cut open and lifted several pallets of salt and
polymer so the rig had lots of fluid to work with. Now it’s time for me to check on the mud pit
at the bullshit rig and make sure the fluid properties stay good as it
circulates through the drill pipe and back up the well. In 1981 I was experienced on drilling rigs
where the mud is clay based that washes off with water. This little bullshit work-over rig works on
producing wells pulling rods and tubing and is covered in crude oil and is a
real mess to be around. It looks bad and
smells bad and anything I touched including hand rails, valve handles,
viscosity and weight test equipment all seemed to leave oil on me.
As dawn broke at 6: 00 AM, the crews change and the crew
bosses (tool-pushers) change. I already
have my mud report finished and a copy hung in the dog house as required on all
rigs. The Mud Report documents the mud
properties, the inventory used and what to do in the next 24 hours to keep the
fluid in the proper condition. Jay, the
company man drives up in his pale yellow Coup d ’Ville to start his day at 6:00
AM. I met the rig bosses or tool
pushers, both named Dave. After a review
of the night’s events and progress (or lack there-of) on removing the old
liner, we decided to go to breakfast.
It was a short drive to Pismo Beach and Trader Vic’s
overlooking the Pismo Beach cliffs and the beautiful Pacific. Trader Vic’s (now Steamers) was a Polynesian
themed restaurant. As we entered we
walked by the tropical decorated bar fully stocked with bamboo shaped glasses
and little paper umbrellas. We took a
table at the window where we could see the waves breaking on the beach below. I was hungry after working all night and I
was surprised when Jay and the 2 Dave’s ordered Bloody Mary’s.
The 2 Dave’s and Jay were characters that I could hardly
comprehend. The company they worked for
was a Santa Maria based rig company, Haussler Oil Petroleum Service (HOPS). Their motto or mission statement was “Your
Hole Is Our Goal”. This classy statement
was on their business cards, signs and they had promotional belt buckles
declaring it. As I enjoyed the view of
the waves rolling onto Pismo Beach on a beautiful sunny morning, the Dave’s got
into it. They were both married and I
was quite disturbed to hear their conversation.
They both lived in Santa Maria and they both had girlfriends. During the conversation, I learned that their
girlfriends were friends with each other.
I also learned that their wives were friends with each other. Dave “A” apparently bought his girlfriend a
gift. And Dave “B” was pissed off
because now he had to buy his girlfriend an equal or preferably better gift
because their girl friends talked and compared notes. So anything that Dave got one girlfriend the
other girlfriend pestered the other Dave to get the same or better. I am beginning to understand what the term
“oilfield trash” means. And the bumper
sticker, “Please don’t tell my Mom I work in the oilfields, she still thinks I
am a piano player in a whorehouse” is making more sense to me.
Jay was reminiscing about the good old days. He was from Bakersfield and remembered how
his Dad and him would fly their plane from Bakersfield on Sunday and land it on
the beach at Pismo. Right out there from
where we were sitting (Riiight). They
got out of the plane and dug for the famous giant clams along the shore at low
tide. They would fill a couple buckets with
clams and load them in the plane and fly back to Bakersfield to make a big pot
of clam chowder in time for dinner. I’m
thinking to myself, this is another typical bullshit story. I just want to go home and get some
sleep.
In the afternoon they needed some more drilling fluid. That’s when I met the goat at the rig. Apparently it was wild and hung around the
rig waiting to be fed. Rough neck
sandwiches and chips were one thing to feed the goat. But the rough necks discovered that he also
liked stale donuts and cigarettes. “Watch
this”, one would say. The goat even ate the
cigarettes lit. He would take the
cigarette in his mouth and bite off the lit end, then delicately turn it around
in his mouth and bite off the filter end and eat the tobacco that was left. This is great entertainment. And when the drill bit salesman showed up to
show off his canon, I had to stick around and check this out. He set up his canon made from a 4 foot piece
if drill pipe that was rigged with a fuse and a charge of gun powder. He dropped a steel ball the size of a tennis
ball into it and let the fuse. These
people are crazy. I’m standing
back. The canon was pointed south across
the canyon. There were no houses on the
hills like there are now. A few moments after the explosion, I could see
the puff of dust on the other side of the canyon where it landed.
In 1981, there was one winery in the Edna valley behind
Arroyo Grande. It was the Lawrence
Winery. And they produced some great
Rieslings. They sold out to Corbett
Canyon and closed the tasting room years ago.
Now the valley has numerous wineries and the hills are covered with
vineyards. My favorite winery in the
Edna Valley is Kinsey. They are
producing some wonderful Pinot Noir.
Another awesome small winery I discovered in Arroyo Grande
is Toucan Winery. Toucan does not have a
tasting room but you can find their wine in tasting rooms nearby by visiting
the web site. I love Toucan Zinfandel
and Petite Sarah. They are bold,
intensely flavored and well balanced.
And they currently have a great special on the 2007 Zinfandel and case
purchases.
