Black Gold Makes Green

Driving into west Texas, the most obvious thing is, this is oil country, which is the whole reason we came to Texas.  John applied with a company that was recruiting for workers in Idaho.  When they were asked why they were recruiting in Idaho, the recruiters said where they were from, 'anyone who wants to be in oil industry already is and they need more workers.' He was given the option to go to North Dakota and freeze his butt off nine months out of the year or Texas and sweat his butt off nine months out of the year.  Having grown up in beautiful Tucson, Arizona, and loving the warm weather, he chose the latter with my blessing.


He drove two hours for two separate interviews, completed a 20 page application, and submitted to an ATF background check and a hair follicle drug test.  Anybody with any negative marks on their history or drugs in their system is immediately disqualified.  After a few weeks of waiting, we received the call that he would be starting in 12 days in Midland,Texas.  With short notice to his employer, we packed enough things for 2 weeks, thinking he would be back for a visit or have some days off in 2 weeks to a month.

Wireline in Action

He reported for training and quickly found out that he would not be returning home, but rather working a hard and steady schedule.  Considering the pay would more than triple what both he and I were making jointly in Idaho, he gladly complied.  What he started doing was called wireline. 


There's a lot of oil deep down in the earth, but it has to be released from porous rock, and that's where wireline comes in.   The three man wireline crew lowers explosive charges which have been packed into large pipes down a pre-drilled and cement encased well.  These charges break through the casing and into the rocks four feet deep.  Next fracing crews pump pressurized water (500,000 gallons per stage), sand and acid into the rocks to further release the oil.  This procedure is sometimes done once or in several stages (40+) depending on the well.  Some jobs take several days, such as horizontal wells which reach multiple pockets of oil.

He started working hard on a wireline crew to prove his worth to the company.  He progressed rapidly and was quickly noticed by another onsite company.  This other company has single man operations which work in conjunction with wireline crews to provide grease around the actual wire which lowers the explosives, to maintain the high pressure in the well. After learning of the added benefits and pay increase of working with this new company, he applied with Oil States Services and began working mid January, after Zoey and I arrived here in Texas.

Blowout preventers in the shop

John's official title is Field Service Supervisor and he operates a wireline pressure control unit.  The pressure control unit acts as a type of air lock for the wireline tool. It consists of about 50 feet of pipe plus various valves, blow out preventives and other "stuff" that weighs around 8,000 pounds. The actual pressure controller is a large machine that is located on a flatbed trailer and can maintain a pressure of 20,000 psi in the well.  He is in charge of maintenance, delivery, integrating it with the other equipment, and the pumping of a special grease around the wireline as it goes 15,000 feet underground.  Some assignments are short day jobs and he works a normal work day, but most jobs start early in the morning and require a commute (sometimes as far as New Mexico) so John gets up as early as 3am, and may not get home until around the same time the next morning. Initially he spent a 2 week stretch living in a job site trailer and training on multistage jobs, came home for 12 hours, and was back out for another week. He is just starting another of those rotations this week. Average work weeks have been over 100 hours and days off are few and far between, though they intend to allot more days off with the new hires coming on.

Pressure control machine and equipment.

He's still considered a trainee until he receives his Class A-CDL and has completed his Pressure Training in Louisiana, after which time he will break out on his own, get his own truck and receive full pay.  Unfortunately due to the recent oil boom, there is a month and a half waiting list to take the driving portion of the  CDL test, so he will travel out of town to take an earlier one mid March.  He likes the company he works for and is excited to be moving ahead in this industry.  The only down side is the time away from us, but we call and text daily to shorten the gap between us.  Eventually when he is on his own we will be able to take a few days to visit him if he is out of town for any extended time periods.