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1991
Pics from the Greater Burgan Oil Field (approx 1,000 wells) - Iraqis set fire to 550 and damaged another 250 with explosives.
In the US most wells are need some sort of lift system (eg. pumpjack) to get the oil out of the ground, but in Kuwait the formation has enough pressure to naturally produce, which meant the fires would just continue to burn. It was estimated that up to 6,000,000 bbls/day ($120MM/day in 1991 dollars) were burning off.
As seen from space.
At the time it was thought that it would take between two and five years and $1 billion to extinguish and control all of them... but in came Red Adair Company, Boots and Coots, and Wild Well Control. Before this ever happened Red Adair had handled over 2,000 well fires, and had even been portrayed by John Wayne in film (Hellfighters)
So after each well was de-mined (yes, there were landmines around some of the wells also) they could start planning how to attack.
Each well they needed up to 15 people and 10,000 - 15,000 gallons of water per minute... at sites that were miles from anything. They ended up reversing the flow of the lines that used to carry oil to the ports and started using them to pump seawater back inland to the well sites.
Making a plan
Water lines. Sometimes they worked and sometimes they didnt do shit for extinguishing a fire.
So there are a couple ways of going about it. They could use a "stinger" Basically they would try to reverse the flow by pumping a metric shitload of drilling mud back into the hole.
Or if that didn't work, like blowing out a candle on a cake, they could use explosives for the blast and to remove a bunch of oxygen from the air.
Pics from the Greater Burgan Oil Field (approx 1,000 wells) - Iraqis set fire to 550 and damaged another 250 with explosives.
In the US most wells are need some sort of lift system (eg. pumpjack) to get the oil out of the ground, but in Kuwait the formation has enough pressure to naturally produce, which meant the fires would just continue to burn. It was estimated that up to 6,000,000 bbls/day ($120MM/day in 1991 dollars) were burning off.
As seen from space.
At the time it was thought that it would take between two and five years and $1 billion to extinguish and control all of them... but in came Red Adair Company, Boots and Coots, and Wild Well Control. Before this ever happened Red Adair had handled over 2,000 well fires, and had even been portrayed by John Wayne in film (Hellfighters)
So after each well was de-mined (yes, there were landmines around some of the wells also) they could start planning how to attack.
Each well they needed up to 15 people and 10,000 - 15,000 gallons of water per minute... at sites that were miles from anything. They ended up reversing the flow of the lines that used to carry oil to the ports and started using them to pump seawater back inland to the well sites.
Making a plan
Water lines. Sometimes they worked and sometimes they didnt do shit for extinguishing a fire.
So there are a couple ways of going about it. They could use a "stinger" Basically they would try to reverse the flow by pumping a metric shitload of drilling mud back into the hole.
Or if that didn't work, like blowing out a candle on a cake, they could use explosives for the blast and to remove a bunch of oxygen from the air.
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