Kuwait; 1991

Martin Kelly, kneeling, and Danny Strong; Burgan Field. Water from a monitor is cooling the situation and reducing risk. Martin was a neat freak and didn't see the point in standing up to your knees in nasty shit. The bolts have all been broken out of this well head and they've got a bind on it with a crane. Whopping on it with a sledge hammer will break the seal and Martin just wants to see it move a little, then they can vacate the hole to safety and pull it off without getting hair lipped.

In 1934 the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (Gulf, BP, etal ) became the Kuwait Oil Company (KOC); it discovered Burgan Field in 1938. In 1991, after the Iraq invasion, it had 338 wells on fire or blowing out of control, making some 3.1 MM BOPD. When the last well in Burgan was capped in November of 1991 it was estimated 1.29G BO had been lost. Subsequent testing of key wells in the the field showed very little, to no loss of bottom hole pressure had occurred from that uncontrolled release of oil and gas. In my opinion Burgan is the perfect oil field.

Martin Kelly and Danny Strong, along with Joe Carpenter (not shown) were tragically killed on a blowout in Eastern Syria in 1995. They were my friends.