Colby Dement on Frac Plug Design, Failures, and Field Ops

Wade Spear00:00

Yeah, no problem.

Peter Brecht00:02

I had call come in. Got to Yeah, I had a call come in. It pauses recording and then starts over. That's really weird. All right, so.

Wade Spear00:05

That's right, you're on your phone. That's not fun.

Okay, I can start

Over.

Peter Brecht00:15

Okay, yeah, so ask me about Brahms. Go there. All right, go ahead.

Wade Spear00:17

Tell me when you want me to start over. All right.

So tell me, Peter, have you ever had Braum's before?

Peter Brecht00:24

Not been to Braum's. Tell me about it. What is this?

Wade Spear00:26

Okay, so Braum's is like the what Whataburger is to Texas, Braum's is to Oklahoma. So there's a, they've got a like a dairy farm down in Tuttle, Tuttle, Oklahoma. And from there, they've built tons and tons of stores all across the state. I, from what I understand, and I haven't ever seen this in print, but everybody says it like that they will never open a store more than like six or eight hour drive, something like that from Tuttle.

Because they want their milk and everything to be super fresh. I think from whenever they bottle it to whenever it gets in the store in like a day. But they also serve tons of ice cream. They've got really good hamburgers, french fries, all that different stuff. And so next time you're in Oklahoma, you got to give it a try.

Peter Brecht00:56

Well.

That's awesome.

So this is going to turn into like a foodie podcast or something at some point because like I'm just going to travel to different places and just try their hamburgers. That's really what's going to happen here.

Wade Spear01:25

Anytime that we go anywhere, my daughter plays lacrosse and I'll tell you what, like we go to Nashville, what do I do? Nashville hot chicken, right? We go to Kansas City, what do you get? You get barbecue, right? So everybody's the same.

Peter Brecht01:31

Yeah. Yeah.

100%. Yep.

I'm excited. It'll be good. Well, I think we should go to Midland at some point. Maybe not this summer, but at some point. It's a little warm.

Wade Spear01:46

I've been

Once. It's not a vacation destination, but it's been impressive. You fly in, you look out your window, the number of well sites and pump jacks and everything else, it just absolutely blows your mind. It really, it was my, the first time that I flew in, you just really got a feel for how important oil and gas was for the city.

Peter Brecht01:50

No, it's not. Okay, I had...

Wade Spear02:13

Even before the wheels touch down because of just the vast amount of oil field equipment you see out there when you're flying in.

Peter Brecht02:22

I mean, we do Google Maps analysis of certain areas, And like screenshots of different, and it is truly unique. Like, it's a different, it feels like a different world, right? When you're looking down and it's all just these squares with holes in the middle. It's pretty incredible. So yeah, I gotta get out there and check it out. And yeah, we'll probably have a couple of friends to meet up with too, which is awesome. So I just had, I had a question.

I have so many questions. We've got some good comments too. And this could be Colby's week, which is fun. But I did want to ask, and it might be simple, gamma ray logs, right? So I've seen this on a couple of different things. Are you familiar? I'm sure you are with what they're used for. Okay.

Wade Spear03:06

Yeah, yeah.

Yep, yep. So GammaRay Logs, it's a formation evaluation tool. GammaRay is a measurement that you get on almost every single well. There's always exceptions, but I mean, every well I've ever drilled, we've gotten a GammaRay Log on. It's the most basic of logging tools. And really what it is, is it's measuring the gamma emissions from the formation.

Gamma is in like down hole, it's usually coming from your organics like your shales. The usually the higher the gamma ray reading, the more organics you've got in that. Like the Woodford shale, there's some Woodford shale down in Southeast Oklahoma that I swear it's like the hottest gamma in the world. We had some guys come in that were working internationally and they were reading over a thousand API. API is the measurement for gamma ray, but it was reading over a thousand API and they thought the tool was broke.

Peter Brecht03:43

Okay.

Okay.

Wade Spear04:00

And so the GammaRay tools, measures three different kinds of gamma radiation, or the gammas coming from three different elements, potassium, thorium, and uranium. Potassium is by far the, it's what, 80 or 90 % of most of your GammaRay ratings is coming from potassium. So you run GammaRay logs, either while you're drilling, you always get them, you can get them too on wireline.

Peter Brecht04:02

Wow.

Wade Spear04:27

But it's used in a lot of different ways. We use it for geo steering whenever we're drilling our horizontal wells I know on the completion side on the frac side They'll run a gamma ray tool to tie in with their depths so that you know because wireline measurements aren't like exactly perfect So what they can do is they know that this shale shell spike right here is at say 8,000 feet So they'll run their run those tools down

And once they see that gamma spike, they'll reset their depth to 8,000 feet and then continue running on in the hole. So it's used for a lot of different things, but it's almost on, you've almost like gamma on nearly every what I'd say is recent well in the last two or three decades.

Peter Brecht05:02

Cool.

Are ESP catchers in the same category of things or is it complex? Probably completely different. We can talk about that later too. Like I just read ESP catchers.

Wade Spear05:20

Yeah, I'm not sure. ESP, I usually

Think of it electronic submersible pump, but that's more in the production. That's, Yeah.

Peter Brecht05:24

Yep, okay. Got it. Okay, production side. Yeah, because it

Goes from drilling to production to completion, right? That's the idea. The other way around. Okay. All right. Gotcha. Okay. Gotcha. Okay. Completions. I'm just trying to like, I want to really map this out and make like a chart. So like, I'm sure it's out there it exists, but like just myself, want to learn how it kind of everything flows because then you go.

Wade Spear05:31

Drilling completion is in production. Yep. Yep.

Right. Yeah. So drilling drills

The hole, like drills the hole, leaves the casing, cement, all that stuff. We're done. Completions comes in, perfs the hole, right? Perfs the casing, right? So whenever drilling leaves, it's like a closed system. You know what mean? We've drilled the formation on stuff, but there's no, we can't access oil and gas because it's a, what I'd say is competent pipe. Then Completions comes out fracks. So they blow holes in it, then they pump a lot of water and sand to connect to the oil and gas.

And then production comes in after that and they're collecting the oil and gas and water and all that stuff and selling it.

Peter Brecht06:26

Okay,

Got it. You're dealing with like the drilling mud, all those things are kind of what's going on. You're putting the well pad in, right? You're kind of starting everything that way. Okay, got it. Then, okay. And then production, where does it go from production? You're getting it out of the ground, right? So is that, that's kind of it. And it goes to midstream for marketing. Okay.

Wade Spear06:36

Right. Well, one more construction, I guess, is what you could think of. Yep.

That's it.

Yep. Yep.

Peter Brecht06:50

It's not that complicated in your head. My head, just seems like a map. Like there's it is complicated, but it seems like there's so much involved that it be more than three phases. But really that at the end of the day, it's just three simple, three simple stages. OK.

Wade Spear07:04

And those are all

Different. And the crazy thing is, you think about a drilling stage, normally, every basin is different. Sometimes it's 12 days, right? Like we've drilled 12 day wells. Sometimes we've seen wells go to 150 days though. So that's stage one, stage two completions, usually two, three weeks, depending on how many stages you're gonna do there. And then the crazy thing is production years to decades is how long that is.

Peter Brecht07:25

Peace.

It's amazing.

Cool. Awesome. Well, man, I'm so like, this has been fun.

Peter Brecht00:00

Yeah, this is just a Men with Hats episode. Colby, where's your hat from? What's the R &R for?

Colby Dement00:06

It's Riverrun, it's an ATV part. Cleanest hat I got.

Peter Brecht00:08

Okay. Gotcha.

Yeah. All right. Perfect. Sweet. Well, I'm going to send you I'll send you one of these local energy hats after everyone and probably some hot sauce. I don't know if you're a hot sauce guy, but everyone gets a gift that comes on. So all right, cool.

Wade Spear00:11

Yeah.

Colby Dement00:21

Yeah,

Wade Spear00:22

He says

That I still haven't seen mine yet.

Peter Brecht00:25

You know what, Wade, I owe you one. I don't even know where you live, man. I know you're in Oklahoma somewhere, but yeah, well, okay, that's a big, that's a...

Wade Spear00:30

Garth!

Colby Dement00:32

You're not too far at all. You're a couple hour drive.

Wade Spear00:35

That's right.

Peter Brecht00:37

Cool. Awesome. Well, today we've got Colby from Midland, Texas, chatting with us about Frac. So he had some comments on our videos and they were actually really educational. So DMed him and I said, hey, could you come on and talk with me and Wade? So before we jumped in, Colby, did you have any questions for me and Wade off the top? Maybe you want to know like what we're doing. Okay. Awesome. Wade. Okay. Awesome. Well, we'll save those.

Colby Dement01:00

Not off the top, bro. Not really off the top, no.

Peter Brecht01:06

Wade, I know we talked a little bit ahead of time just about the different types of frac plugs and think that's where Colby spent most of his career but I'll let you kind of take over and ask a couple questions and I'll follow up a few myself.

Wade Spear01:19

Alright, yeah. Well, think first off, I always like to get to know somebody. Colby, where like how long you been in the oil field? Where'd you start? What all have you been doing?

Colby Dement01:28

So I started probably four or five, six years ago, something like that. Worked my way up pretty quickly in the industry. First ever oil field job was a work over rig in a little small town of Graham, Texas. Then moved up to Pump Down and from Pump Down went into Frag Plugs and just took off.

Wade Spear01:49

I gotcha. And so what was your, what's your position like? I think before we talked, you were saying field operations manager. What does that kind of look like on a daily basis? Are you spending most of your time on location or are you coordinating jobs? Like what's that look like?

Colby Dement02:02

To do it a little different from everybody else. Everybody likes to sit in office and kind of coordinate. I'd rather be in the field, checking on my guys, checking on my product, checking on, wire line crews, company men, make sure everything's running smoothly. Everybody's liking it. There ain't no complaints. And I like, and so I do coordinate with everybody, figure out where everybody's going, what's going here, what's going there. But I like to also go out and show my face and make sure that my guys know that.

I'm not just somebody that's gonna sit in the office and boss everybody around.

Wade Spear02:39

I got you. I got you. A lot

Peter Brecht (02:39).

Wade Spear02:40

More hands on. All right, awesome. Well, so you're kind of focused or you've been focused on the frac side, right? Running bridge plugs or frac plugs and all that stuff. So let's just start out with a basic question. So what's the difference between a frac plug and a bridge plug?

Colby Dement02:42

Yes, sir.

Yes.

So a frac plug and a bridge plug, the main differences that simplify it for everybody is a frac plug, you're gonna go throughout all your stages throughout the well. Your bridge plug is gonna be either your toe or your heel of your well. So either your top or your bottom. And it's gonna be your hardest setting and hardest pressure plug that you can be able to pressure up on or like seal off the well completely and you won't have nothing that will come by.

Wade Spear03:27

Are they rated differently? Are your bridge plugs rated higher?

Peter Brecht03:28

Okay.

Colby Dement03:31

So they are

Rated differently. Most of them would be rated, about a 5,000 pound pressure difference-ish. That's an extra 5,000 pounds you can put on top of a plug. That's a pretty good difference.

Wade Spear03:44

Oh, I got you.

And now bridge plugs also hold from both directions, right? Where mainly, don't frack plugs, just kind of hold pressure from the top.

Peter Brecht03:47

Thanks.

Colby Dement03:51

Yes,

Get through.

Wade Spear03:56

Okay, gotcha. Well, that's why it makes sense, right? You wouldn't want to put a frac plug at the top of your well in case you got a lot of pressure below it.

Colby Dement04:04

Yes sir, so we use the bridge plugs like if you're doing a toe prep, we'll put one or two bridge plugs down at the bottom and then you gotta think about all the pressure you got coming down on the top of it. So it's gotta be able to hold that way. And then also all the pressure coming back up whenever you finish your well and you gotta be able to seal that off.

Wade Spear04:27

I got you. All right. Now I've also seen some stuff. I mean, there's some plugs out there, specifically Frac plugs, right? That don't use like a ball pump down. They just, they're, I don't understand. I haven't really seen a lot of that. How's that work?

Colby Dement04:38

Mm-hmm.

So are you talking about like the ball in place plugs? Okay. So the, I haven't really figured out the concept behind that because all of our plugs were ball in place. So I haven't really had to deal with, the aspect of it. But what only thing that I can see is mostly that it is gonna be just a design way.

Wade Spear04:47

Well, yes, yeah.

I got you. Okay.

Colby Dement05:13

It's whether you can figure out how to design your plug to be able to do the ball in place.

Wade Spear05:20

Okay. So just so I make sure I'm on the same page, is ball in place the ones where you don't have to like a pump down a ball after you're done with your stage? Okay.

Colby Dement05:28

Yes, so the ball in

Place is like, so when you go down and set your plug, your balls would go down with your plug. It ain't moving until, so the way that we did it, was, anywhere around about 20 to 28 barrels a minute on frac would seat your ball. So you have little shear screws on the side and then that flow would shear it and knock the pressure.

Peter Brecht05:30

Yes.

Wade Spear05:55

OK. So you'd pump it down at a lower rate and then whenever you wanted to sheer that pan or what.

Colby Dement05:59

No, so your adapter kit would cover

Your ball and so it won't go nowhere. You can pump down whatever you want and once it breaks off then the flood would break it off or break the chair pins and then set it.

Wade Spear06:05

Okay.

Okay.

Okay, huh, all right. I still feel like I have to see something. I'm a very visual person, so being able to see that definitely be helpful.

Peter Brecht06:17

So.

Colby Dement06:24

If you ever come

Out here, if you ever come out here, I'll show you.

Wade Spear06:27

Okay. I'm still trying to get Peter here on a rig in Oklahoma.

Peter Brecht06:29

Wade and I are gonna have to make a pilgrimage

Colby Dement06:33

Hahaha!

Peter Brecht06:33

No, we wait wait, we might have to go to Midland I mean, it's not quite I don't know not that anyone, you know Midland is a destination obviously But it might not be a bad place for us to go. There's so much out there

Wade Spear06:43

I tell you what, Midland's

A destination for lot of oil field hands, man. They've been traveling there for a long time.

Peter Brecht06:47

For sure.

Colby Dement06:50

Yeah.

Peter Brecht06:50

So I have a newbie question when you're talking about designing a plug, right? And again, I asked a lot of questions that I don't necessarily include on the TikTok because they're not, maybe they're too obvious, but when you say designing a plug, what does that mean?

Colby Dement06:55

Okay.

Everybody has a plug that looks dang near the same. I mean, they're not far from being different besides just the little tweaks in them. But I mean, you're have to have your slips set just perfectly to hold X amount of pressure behind them. You can do just little changes like a pump down ring. So a pump down ring is gonna be a little rubber piece on the very bottom that when you start putting water on it, it opens up like an upside down umbrella.

And it flies down the hole. It helps push the plug down and saves water, saves time, and just a bunch of other stuff. But it's just, you gotta be able to have those just specifically set in the right place for it to work. Cause I mean, if they're a thousandths off, it could just completely malfunction.

Peter Brecht07:39

Yes.

Hmm, okay. Interesting. All right. And then another question. So when you're figuring out the size for that, is that, if it's the difference of a thousandth, right? Are you, how are you able to determine what that size is? I mean, are they measuring this, the entire down hole or is just in that particular area where you want to set it? Like how do they measure for that placement?

Colby Dement08:06

Yeah.

So most of the time you can find like Conoco I know has it. I'm pretty sure Exxon has like test whales like in Houston and wherever the crap Exxon is. That you can go, yeah. That you can go in and like once you decide on your plug, you can go in and set it and see and kind of figure out what's doing what. And so you can be able to measure off of that and move it around and do whatever you need to do on that end.

Peter Brecht08:31

Yeah.

Wade Spear08:32

Everywhere.

Peter Brecht08:49

Okay, and then another thing that I kind of mentally noted was talking about Tope prep. So I've heard about this and read about it quite a few times on the comments and our videos on YouTube and TikTok and all that. But what is Tope Rep and how does that have to do with, what's that have to do with Frac?

Colby Dement09:06

So a tow prep is where you're gonna go down to the very bottom, so technically it will be your first stage of your well. So you go all the way down to your bottom, you're gonna set your bridge plug. And then on your, you're gonna set your guns, your explosive devices, and put your first perfs in the well. And then you're gonna come out and log the whole well. So most of them will have like an OD ring on the,

On the gun string, whatever, and they just log out the whole entire section to make sure there ain't no debris in there, there ain't no over-tightened collars that could get in the way or whatever. So it's just pretty much make sure your whole entire well is just clear and clean.

Peter Brecht09:51

Okay, every time I ever it's amazing. It's truly like it's incredible that that's even even possible

Wade Spear09:52

Now what's been your

When you're doing your toe prep and everything, are you doing a lot of the times, are you using toe sleeves and stuff? Are you running in on coil and doing that? What's been your experience?

Colby Dement10:07

No, it's just

Regular wire truck.

Wade Spear10:09

OK, perfect. Yeah, I know. One of the topics that Peter and I talked about one week that seemed to get everybody going was talking about dissolvable frac plugs.

Peter Brecht10:11

Okay. Okay.

Colby Dement10:25

Yeah, I remember that video.

Wade Spear10:28

Where do you fall on that? And I'll tell you, everybody falls on a different space, on a different side, right?

Colby Dement10:31

I don't like it.

I don't like them. Would, if I could, I'd choose to get rid of them all. They're just a lot more, one, inconsistent, two, just a lot more pain in the neck just to put up with. It's just, I don't see them working as good. Yes, they.

Wade Spear10:50

Right. So when you say inconsistent, when you say inconsistent,

Are you talking about setting them or what? Or holding?

Colby Dement10:58

Not really setting them on the dissolving end. Like I saw somebody commented or Peter was talking about where somebody commented like one in every 20 would still be there. That is very true. That's if you're lucky if there's one in every 20s. That's you get pure luck on that one. I've seen it to where there's three or four every 20 and it's just.

Peter Brecht11:13

Mm-hmm.

Colby Dement11:24

They're inconsistent. I don't like them. I wish they didn't get rid of them, but some companies like them for some reason.

Wade Spear11:30

Right. I got you. And some people commented, you you can see it on some of it. If you're on some of these extended laterals and you can't get coil out that far, they run those out there just because they physically physically can't reach it and they don't want to run stick pipes. But like you're saying, too, with a failure rate, higher than, man, your failure rates higher than two or three percent. You probably got a couple of plugs out there that are, you spend a lot of money drilling, fracking everything that that well for it to not, you know.

Colby Dement11:43

Yeah.

Yeah.

Wade Spear12:00

Be fully producing, so alright. Gotcha.

Colby Dement12:03

Yeah,

I wish they'd go away.

Wade Spear12:05

I don't have tons of experience with them. I you like I said, I'm primarily on the drilling side, but being around a lot of frat guys, I think they share your opinion.

Peter Brecht12:21

The other thing that I would note too is there seem to be different locations where FracPlugs dissolvables were preferred over not. A lot of New Mexico seem to be in favor of them. I don't know if the well conditions are different, I don't know. You probably have to work in New Mexico and maybe there's a little bit of a difference in the area.

Colby Dement12:39

I mean, there's a little bit of a difference, but not really. It's just more off the operator on what they're doing and how the drilling rig did the well, something messed up down there and it's kind of hard to get cool in there like Wade said. It throws in lot of variables.

Wade Spear12:59

Like you're saying too, you these things are based they dissolve based off of like temperature salinity all that different stuff You know if your formation water just super high chlorides or you're flowing back times and all that You probably got it with a higher temperature. It's probably more likely to solve them, you know But even then if they're only partially dissolved and you're trying to flow them back out It hits one that's not very well dissolved. You start plugging everything up. It's there's definitely there can be cascading problems

Peter Brecht12:59

Good to know.

Wade Spear13:28

Chasing you out.

Colby Dement13:29

Yeah.

Peter Brecht13:32

So one question I got, Colby, if you, let me kind of rephrase the question mentally here for a second. If you want to get into the industry that you're in and in your particular role, and you've been doing this for a while, how would you recommend someone to get into it and where should they start?

Colby Dement13:51

Big thing is go on Indeed and look up oil and gas, entry level jobs or something like that. Just make sure you put in entry level. That always works. Or start driving down Business 20 in Midland and start knocking doors. You will see these signs left and right, hiring now. And that is a good way to get in.

Wade Spear14:14

Somebody no called no showed that morning, right?

Colby Dement14:18

100%

% somebody no called no showed that morning and they they'd need they replace hands quicker than I mean I've ever seen before So once you get in make sure you get in good and don't be you know Don't don't come in. That's like you know anything come in act like you know nothing and you will succeed in this industry

Wade Spear14:38

When I started in 2006, was Shell Revolution was kind of really just getting going. And man, I'll tell you, like they were hiring anybody with Pulse and I just kind of walked in there just like you're saying and said, well, I got one of those, and, but I think a little bit of, if I'm reading into what you're saying too, when you start at entry level, you've got to be willing to do a lot of the things that other people don't want to do, either the...

Colby Dement14:49

Hell yeah.

It's just like the drilling rigs. The same thing on the frack end. Y'all's green has to do the same job our green has to do too. I mean, it's, they're gonna do the jobs that they don't wanna do, but they're gonna have to do.

Wade Spear15:16

I got lucky, I was MWD. Was a little bit. MWD, so Peter, if you didn't know, MWD stands for measurement while drilling, but real MWDs know it stands for movie watching dude, because it's just a lot of being in your trailer and watching computer screens and all that stuff.

Peter Brecht15:16

Mm-hmm.

Thanks.

Colby Dement15:36

That's how pumped down is. You sit there, you might touch a couple buttons a little bit and you're sitting there watching movies for the rest of the night.

Wade Spear15:43

Yep, yep.

Peter Brecht15:44

That's

Funny. What's the longest shift you pulled, Colby?

Colby Dement15:49

Three days.

Peter Brecht15:51

Okay, just that and that's just constant like checking stuff making sure things are getting done not missing anything, you're going

Colby Dement15:57

Yeah, that was,

That was a while I still kind of moving up. I hadn't fully moved out or moved all the way up yet. And I mean, it was blowing in the going. Nonstop.

Peter Brecht16:10

Okay, cool. Any fun stories that you can share and you can keep it anonymous, but any fun stories that you got.

Colby Dement16:19

Mmmhmmm

Trying to what's TikTok appropriate.

Peter Brecht16:26

You

Wade Spear16:29

I do have a question for you. Maybe this will ramble a little bit, so maybe we can edit it bit better. I follow a lot of different oil and gas accounts on Twitter. A lot of those accounts, of course, are either based out of Midland or have a very close eye on Midland and what they've been talking about. It seems like six or seven years ago, everybody from Oklahoma was moving to Midland because that's where the work was.

Peter Brecht16:38

Yes.

Colby Dement16:42

Mm.

Wade Spear16:55

And the industry was really just feeding into there and kind of what I'd say is taken from everywhere else. I we lost rigs and hands and everybody down to the area. It seems like over the past year or two, now, whenever I say things slow down, it's still extremely busy, maybe the busiest place in the country. I'm sure it is, but it seems like, I see some people posting about declining well results and all this different stuff.

Colby Dement16:55

Yeah.

Wade Spear17:21

What's the mood out there right now? Is it actually slowing down or does it feel like it's just going as fast as ever right now?

Colby Dement17:27

No, it's definitely slowing down. H &P stack, three rigs to the day that I know of. And I got some connects on H &P so I can't keep up with what their rigs are doing and kind of base the market off of that. But I don't know about everybody else, I'm pretty sure if H &P stack and everybody else has fallen in right behind them. But the market, that's where I was gonna ask, what's the market doing right now? Because I know Wade, you kind of follow the market a little more than

Or that should.

Wade Spear17:59

Yeah, oil, man, oil got down into the $50s which of course scares everybody. I mean, nobody's really excited about that except for, well, the politicians seem to be, because it's going to help the economy quite a bit. Cheap energy is going to help help investment, but it's not good for all of us working in the industry. Right. And so it's come back up. I think it's in the I haven't seen the latest. I think it's in the high 60s right now.

Peter Brecht17:59

It's up.

Peter Brecht18:22

It's at

$68 right now 68 and 49 cents

Wade Spear18:26

So

Wade Spear18:27

$68, so still not great. Probably not enough to get anybody really excited, but whenever you've been looking at 50s for a while, it's at least hope. The thing that's been interesting to me is natural gas has kind of been hovering around that $3 mark and staying above there. In Oklahoma, we were a natural gas base and very heavily until they recently found the Cherokee Shale. The Cherokee's giving everybody some hope for some oil, but.

Colby Dement18:28

Yeah.

Peter Brecht18:44

Mm-hmm.

Wade Spear18:55

Man, whenever Midland was really ramping up, Oklahoma was just dying because natural gas prices here were so low. But lately it's actually stabilized a little bit. So there's, activity has kind of plateaued and stayed pretty level for right now, despite that drop in oil. So we're seeing some rigs start falling off, but nothing too significant yet.

Peter Brecht19:13

Hm.

Colby Dement19:22

Good. Yeah, I didn't.

I go up to Oklahoma every now and then. I got a couple of buddies up there. So I go, I check in up there every now and then. Make sure, make sure the little redheaded stepchild of the old field, sorry.

Wade Spear19:28

I got you.

I got you.

I tell you, we've kind of felt that way for about the last decade. It's kind of nice to see some of the activity returning though. That Cherokee Shale out there in western Oklahoma, western Anadarko Basin, has got a whole lot of people excited. New Bern's out there, been running quite a few rigs. And there's even some rumors of some of those Permian operators sniffing around for acres. So maybe we just tell ourselves that at night so we can sleep better.

Colby Dement19:40

Yeah.

Yeah

Colby Dement20:02

Yeah,

Make sure y'all can sleep better at night.

Wade Spear20:06

Exactly,

Colby Dement20:09

Yeah.

Wade Spear20:11

See what else here, Peter.

Peter Brecht20:13

Yeah, I let Wade kind of come up with all the questions today just because, it was getting a little more technical into the details of it. But Colby, any questions for me or Wade or just?

Anything like that and if not, think we're probably good to wrap it 20 minutes and keep it clean.

Wade Spear20:33

I've got some, all right. So every company I've ever worked at, well, I don't say every company I've ever worked at, but a lot of companies, whenever drilling completes, finishes a well, we hand it off to completions and it eventually gets out there to production. Everybody always complains about the well that drilling left them, right? So what are some of the biggest complaints you've got or what are the biggest complaints you hear from others maybe about what's going on down hole?

Colby Dement20:51

Alright.

Mostly either leaving stuff down hole or over tightening collars where they're squeezing in on each other and we're catching collars on the way down. That's the biggest thing is the over tightening collar. So you might be able to explain this a little better than I can because I did a little bit on the drilling side, but not really. What happens when you over tighten the collar? Can you explain that for them how that works and why we're catching that?

Wade Spear21:25

I wouldn't know, I've never done it, man. No, really there's a lot, like we haven't seen tons and tons of issues with that. No, I've seen it before and I've heard of it before, like if you run in like torque rings. A lot of your connections, if you run torque rings in there, you're essentially, if you don't want to run a modified buttress connection.

Colby Dement21:27

Shit.

Peter Brecht21:29

Thanks.

Colby Dement21:39

Mm.

Peter Brecht21:41

Yes.

Wade Spear21:49

You can put torque rings in between these BTC connections and it's supposed to give you better sealability, higher torque ratings and all that so that you can get it down to bottom. But if you over torque those, or if a lot of times too, I've seen that those torque rings, if they're not made out of P110 material, which is the same as what the casing is, they're weaker. And so whenever it starts seeing all that torque, it can kind of mushroom out and get into the ID of your casing and do exactly what you're saying, prevent plugs from going down.

And doing all of that. So, whenever you over torque those essentially what it is, is that, it's pushing that material beyond its limits. And it's just, it's expanding out into your, into the idea of your well boards, just going wherever it can and definitely causes problems. I've heard of operators having to go down and drill out tens, tens of those, which is a huge problem. So.

Colby Dement22:42

Yeah.

Wade Spear22:47

I think all-star two, a lot of the wells that I've been drilling lately are seven inch by four and a half, so we don't run long strings. If you over tighten the seven inch connection, but you guys are out there fracking down four and a half, even if that did happen, I don't think that you guys would ever see it. We've got too much end.

Peter Brecht22:47

Okay.

Colby Dement23:05

Now, on that,

Coming from the seven to the four and a half, all the issues that I have seen has been, the tow sleeve has either been kind of, messed up a little bit or something like that. And it's kind of hard to get into it. Then it turns, yeah, it turns into a pain in the ass, but we get through it. But yeah, I've seen it to where, like when they over tighten them, they have to get a cool unit out there with a drill bit and sit there and just ream it out.

Wade Spear23:18

And I'll throw it.

We had

Colby Dement23:32

And then go to the next one, ring that one out and it's a week long event that shouldn't even happen.

Wade Spear23:39

I was joking earlier. I've heard of that happening, but I really haven't experienced it on one of our wells.

Colby Dement23:46

Yeah, ain't a everyday thing or like a every well thing for us, but it's definitely an issue that we run into more than we want to.

Wade Spear23:58

Yep, I'm with you. Well, when you do it's...

Peter Brecht23:59

Thanks.

Colby Dement24:00

Because when you're talking

About putting a plug that barely has enough room to just pick up just a little bit, when you're starting to catch stuff on the side of that casing, it definitely hinders it.

Wade Spear24:15

Yep. Yeah, because you're talking about thousandths of an inch, right? Yep, for sure. That's always been something that's amazed me about kind of what we do in the industry is the tolerance is so tight and how a couple thousandths of an inch can make such a huge difference between success and absolute failure.

Colby Dement24:19

Yeah.

Peter Brecht24:21

Yes.

Colby Dement24:35

Yeah.

No, 100%. I mean, that's kind of what I've been taught my whole Ollfield career is just you got to make sure you're right on the dot because if you're not, it can be catastrophic.

Peter Brecht (24:41).

Wade Spear24:49

Yep, and if you put it down whole, it's probably too late.

Colby Dement24:52

Yeah, if it goes down the you're screwed.

Peter Brecht24:56

That is impressive because as somebody that's you know only been looking at this for like the past five years you know you start and you're just looking at it like it just seems like there's so much brute force that goes into everything and then you start talking details and it's incredible how it's like yeah we got to get this thing drilled but it's got to be perfect you know I just it blows my mind so

Colby Dement25:16

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, it's definitely a, it's definitely an eye opener for the guys on outside. They see us throwing wrenches, throwing, chains, tongs and everything else in the world. And then it really comes down to just the smallest little detail. If you forget one screw on a whole entire gun string, that can mean, everything just falls apart.

Wade Spear25:40

Plugs preset all the different problems.

Peter Brecht25:41

Hmm. Okay.

Colby Dement25:44

Yeah, the plugs could preset. You could, if you screw up on your setting tool and for some reason, like the old base setting tools, if something happens there, that could go off and start, setting, going down the hole. Could just, there's a lot of details where you have to make sure you do it right. That's why a lot of companies are big on, you start taking pictures on everything you do. Every screw you put in, every piece of tape you put in, every bolt you tighten, you take a picture. I mean, it's,

It's starting to get to be that way.

Peter Brecht26:18

Interesting. Yeah, I wouldn't have thought about that pictures, taking pictures and videos of everything just to see where what's, what quality control, right? And some, and I'm sure it's a little, it feels a little overbearing at times. I can imagine, but at end of the day, it probably gets better results.

Colby Dement26:25

Yeah.

Done.

Yeah, it's definitely, it's like an insurance pretty much. It covers your butt to make sure nothing happens.

Peter Brecht26:35

Yeah. Gotcha.

Okay, very cool. Awesome. Well, yeah, I think we're, I don't wanna take too much time, Colby. I think I told you 15 minutes and here we are at 30. So hopefully you're all right. I know, right? As our first interview, how did it go? All right, me too, I think so. This has been awesome.

Colby Dement26:50

I I'll tell ya. I ain't gettin' nothing going.

Wade Spear26:50

Dang, that was quick!

I know the feeling, man.

Colby Dement27:04

I think it went great. I think it went

Pretty smoothly.

Peter Brecht27:11

Perfect.

Wade Spear27:12

My favorite thing is to sit

Around and talk shop.

Colby Dement27:14

Oh, 100 % and that's all the industry is. Mean at that point is you sit around just BS the whole time and maybe go press some buttons and throw some stuff and but that's about it.

The best thing in world is to walk around with the biggest pipe wrench, the biggest hammer you can find and just look pissed off and nobody will ever bother you.

Peter Brecht27:26

Love it.

That's great. Man, the insights I wasn't expecting. Well hey, Colby, thank you so much. DM me your address or text me your address. I gotta send some stuff to you. Wade, I owe you, I think the same thing. I've been promising it for weeks and weeks. But I'll send it out with Colby. Yeah, Colby, thanks man. Wade and I are gonna...

Colby Dement27:52

Hahaha

Wade Spear27:55

I appreciate it.

Colby Dement27:58

Yeah, if y'all ever want to come down

Here, just let me know. I'll show y'all around and I'll take y'all to a frac site and I'll show y'all around out there.

Peter Brecht28:06

Would love to. That'd be great.

Wade Spear28:07

I mean, what

About the charlas? Is that the Mexican restaurant that I always hear about on Twitter?

Colby Dement28:13

Maybe, I don't know. I don't eat that. I haven't, but also most of I'm eating that water burger or Chipotle. That's about it.

Wade Spear28:14

Have you ever heard of that, Charla? Okay.

I think Whataburger is pretty solid too.

Colby Dement28:25

It is. Hey, that's what we gotta get Peter on from being up there in California. You gotta get him.

Peter Brecht28:25

Mm-hmm.

Wade Spear28:30

That's right.

Colby Dement28:38

Don't be comparing and do not be comparing In-N-Out to Whataburger

Wade Spear28:40

Peter, you put that on TikTok and my gosh, I promise you it's gonna be comments.

Colby Dement28:48

Please put that part on TikTok. That's gonna get everybody

In a war.

Wade Spear28:53

Yeah, and now I'm trying to remember what my favorite, is it the Spicy Southwest at Whataburger? You know how they always bring the hamburgers on and off the menu, They alternate those four. That Spicy Southwest is, my gosh, it's one of my favorites.

Peter Brecht28:54

No, I'm not, I'm not.

Colby Dement29:04

Yeah.

Mine's

The patty melt. The patty melt with little bit of jalapenos on it. I mean it hits just right. Yeah it hits just right. I'm surprised Peter ain't over there with the protesters you know. Viva La Mexico.

Wade Spear29:12

And I about an jalapenos. I bet that would be good. Alright.

I'm

Peter Brecht29:22

Dude, I'm a Californian by like birth, but I think my heart and soul is out that way. Honestly, I just get along with folks a little bit different, that are out in Texas, Oklahoma and all that. So looking to move, but we'll see.

Wade Spear29:35

He also likes, he grew up with gear head. He likes

Working on cars and doing all that stuff. His bit in.

Colby Dement29:39

Okay.

Peter Brecht29:39

I, yeah,

My dad, my dad, my dad's a diesel mechanic by trade. I grew up around it and just like, truly it's like, I don't know, it's therapeutic for me, right? But no, I didn't make a life out of it myself, but I love being around it.

Colby Dement29:46

Okay.

Now it definitely on the California thing, definitely started, they started migrating from Texas going up to Tennessee. I was up there working for a little bit on the pad and they said they started moving from Texas up to Tennessee up there in Knoxville area. I was like, good, keep going, keep going with whatever direction that is. Keep going that way.

Peter Brecht30:09

Mm-hmm. Yep.

Yeah, no, I get it. 100%. I know there's a stereotype to it also. Right. And so my wife and I'll she's a professional surfer. So she, grew up surfing for like Quicksilver and all that. And so tough to get her to move away. You didn't know that Wade? Yeah. So I married way up, way up. Rachel Berry. But anyways, longboarding. She got we got married. She stopped surfing all our friends still do. So I go out and we'll paddle around and I've got

Colby Dement30:19

Yeah.

Wade Spear30:25

What?

What's her name?

Okay.

Peter Brecht30:40

People that are still in the world too are like surfing around me and I'm like, what am I doing out here? But it's kind of hard to find an ocean in Texas. We looked down, actually looked down on the Gulf to see if there's anything.

Wade Spear30:49

Peace out.

Peter Brecht30:59

Just missed a call there.

Colby Dement31:03

Yeah, Gulf of Mexico, let me refresh this, Gulf of America don't have it that great a wave

Wade Spear31:03

So what?

There you go.

Peter Brecht31:07

Yes, yeah, Gulf

Of America. Yeah, but the tanker surfing Gulf of America. It's weird. I'm starting to see it on contracts though that I'm reviewing like contracts and MSAs and things that come through like they're actually making the change pretty quick, which is cool. So I didn't think it'd be real, but it's fun.

Colby Dement31:11

I'm still not used to saying that.

Wade Spear31:13

That's right.

Colby Dement31:22

That's what I want to get

Into is the offshore side of stuff. I want to learn a little more on that end and go venture out out there. I need to find me somebody that'll let me come hop on a boat and see how they do stuff. Yeah, let me hop on a helicopter real quick.

Peter Brecht31:30

Thanks for

Wade Spear31:36

Or a helicopter.

Let's

Drive.

Peter Brecht31:42

It yeah, I actually I know a couple folks that are out that way. So Colby, if you ever need an introduction or want to talk to somebody, let me know. I'm sure you're well connected as well. But, one of my colleagues. Okay. Yeah. One of my colleagues does it's all offshore. That's his focus. And so he's really well qualified there. So if you ever want an introduction, let me know. And I'd be happy to do that.

Colby Dement31:50

Not on that end of mine.

Yeah, that'd be great. Because that's something I want to learn, learn better about and shit, even, work out there and do a couple of hitches out there and that'd be cool for me.

Peter Brecht32:15

Perfect, awesome. Well, I'm gonna hit stop recording here if that's okay. Let's see how this goes.

Colby Dement32:21

Ever been?