How to Stall 86 Times and Still Find Oil

Peter Brecht00:02

There we go. Okay, picked up Steven again. All right, we’re all here. Welcome to Local Energy. My name is Peter, I’m with my co-host Wade Spear, and today our guest is Steven Startz with Bionic Directional Drilling. Steven, how are you doing?

Steven Startz00:25

Man, I’m doing great. Doing great. Glad to be here.

Peter Brecht00:28

Thanks for rescheduling — I know yesterday, trying to do it from the truck on the way back from Houston, wasn’t too easy. We’d like to kick things off with: what were you doing out in Houston?

Steven Startz00:40

I was meeting with some vendors — finishing off relationships that were already started but where we’d never met in person. Just cementing things, actually getting face to face. It’s so much different when you’ve talked to somebody on the phone or through email, and then you actually get to meet them in person — like us right now, this is as in-person as we can get. Perceptions change at that point, or feelings get cemented. And it was good. It was great.

Peter Brecht01:18

Yeah. And you’re in the middle of standing up your company, right? You’ve been in this industry for 25 years — tell me a little bit about your background and why Bionic.

Steven Startz01:31

You know, I started out doing drilling instrumentation, and — not burnout, I just wasn’t paid enough. I got an opening to do MWD, and it was a $30,000-a-year pay raise working half the hours. And when I was home, I was actually home, which was awesome. Then one thing led to another and I became a directional driller.

The industry has changed tremendously, especially since COVID, and a lot of young guns took our places. Nothing against them — it’s great — but I think there’s still a place for people like me, and the people I have involved with Bionic, whom I can’t name right now, but when it comes down to it, they’ll be involved just as heavily as I am. We are a team. We are a unit. And I think we have skills and services we can provide to smaller operators — services they need that nobody else can fill right now. The big companies aren’t small enough, they’re not fluid enough to do it. Whereas we are, and we’ve seen a lot. We can walk into any basin anywhere in the world and drill a hole in the ground. We might not drill it the fastest compared to rig B over there, but by God, we’ll give them a run for their money. And by the third one, I guarantee you, we’ll be out-drilling them. That’s where we’re at. That’s our impetus.

Wade Spear03:08

Alright, gotcha. So where’d you start? You said you started out as an MWD — which companies have you worked for?

Steven Startz03:19

I started with Ryan and used them as a stepping stone, and then I went to work for Sharewell MWD. I got stuck on single-man work in Kilgore for Pipeline Corporation of America — Kinder Morgan. We were drilling storage wells into salt domes. Single-man work — the DD was worn out, dude. I’m talking this poor dude was worn out, son. We’re drilling like 700, 800 feet an hour and this dude ain’t getting any sleep. And I go, “Hey bro, why don’t you teach me how to slide, and if nothing else, you can catch a nap between surveys.” And he’s like, “Bro, that doesn’t do any good — it’s too fast, I can’t sleep. But you want to be a DD, right?” And I’m like, “Yeah, eventually.” And he says, “Okay — you teach me enough about MWD so I don’t have to wake you up in the daytime, and I’ll teach you to be a directional driller. You work nights for me.” So that’s what we did.

Two weeks later, I’m holding my own tower. And three months later, I’m sitting in the Barnett Shale, working nights, drilling one of the most complicated laterals I’ve ever drilled — the wall plot hung on Rensco’s office wall. When you walked through the door, you saw that wall plot, right up to the day they shut the doors, because what we did was phenomenal.

Wade Spear04:41

What made that one so challenging? What was so special about it?

Steven Startz04:45

The lease lines and the hard lines, man. We were set up right at the Belknap exit on 35, underneath the Mixmaster in downtown Fort Worth, drilling between a railroad yard, the Trinity River, and state hard lines. We were literally threading a needle — we had two 180-degree turns in there. Dude, it was wicked. For 2007, that was state-of-the-art crazy stuff.

Wade Spear05:17

Right. I was going to say — when you said Barnett Shale, I was immediately like, this is 2006 through 2008, 2009, when they were drilling on… we drilled a well on the DFW Airport property right there. That was interesting times. Tons of rigs down there.

Steven Startz05:37

I never got to make it to the airport. I wanted to, but never did.

Wade Spear05:40

Yeah — it was a pain every time you’d arrive or leave location. You had to show ID and do all the different things. It was a hassle, but there was a lot of work.

Steven Startz05:53

I heard it was like a nightmare getting in and out.

Wade Spear05:56

It was. Okay — so you said Ryan, then Sharewell. Anything since then?

Steven Startz06:05

Rensco — I was employee number four at Rensco. And the only reason is I was the last one to the office that day. We were the first four, man, and I lived a little further than the other three, so I was like, “Damn, I guess I’ll be number four, okay.” From there I went to consulting, basically, and I was a hired gun for several years. Then I went to work for Allis-Chalmers, which became Archer. It slowed down, and I ended up in Papua New Guinea on InterOil’s Antelope No. 2, which was wicked. I was there to see the DST, brother, and I’m going to tell you something — 705 million cubic feet a day through a six-inch flare line is awe-inspiring.

Wade Spear06:53

The velocity. Yep.

Steven Startz06:59

Dude, my bunk was 300 yards from that flow line, up on top of a hill, and it just sat there rumbling for two nights straight. It was like sleeping behind a 747, almost. Then I came back and worked for Baker for a little while in Arkansas, and then went back to just being a hired gun — which, that stuff was fun. We were drilling curves in like four hours — four hours from kickoff to landing.

I’ll never forget one day with Chesapeake, right outside of Jonesboro. I get up that morning, drink my coffee, get ready. We’re at the kickoff point about 6:15. I kick this thing off, and I’m landed by about ten o’clock in the morning. I’ve got about 150 feet of lateral drilled, and my phone rings. It’s the geologist. He’s like, “Dude, we screwed up. We’re in the wrong spot.” “What do you mean we’re in the wrong spot?” “Man, we’re about 150 feet too deep TVD.” I’m like, “Okay, well, what do you want to do?” “When you come out, we’re going to do an open-hole sidetrack and just land 150 feet higher.” Okay, whatever. So we trip it real quick, I lay it down, pick up another motor, go in, open-hole sidetrack it, get to about 30 degrees, come out, pick up the other assembly, drill it, land it.

Wade Spear08:31

You open-holed a vertical? They had to do a cement plug or something, right? I don’t know how in the world you’d open-hole sidetrack a vertical well — that’s crazy.

Steven Startz08:43

No, brother, no. I had a little bit of directional work in the upper section of the hole, so I had a nice little dogleg in there somewhere. I just picked it, and I time-drilled it for about 30 minutes, troughing, and I knew I had a ledge because it was so soft. Then I just went to controlled sliding, essentially, and we were done. Like I said, I had the second one landed by the time my relief took over that evening.

Wade Spear09:15

Oh man — it was always extremely fast out there.

Steven Startz09:16

You see some wild stuff. Yeah — especially the closer you got up to the ridge.

Wade Spear09:30

I was just going to say, companies are starting to get interested in that again out there. I think Flywheel and others — there’s some activity popping up.

Steven Startz09:43

Oh, that’d be awesome. It was always fun. Beautiful area. I used to go fishing there in Heber Springs, underneath the dam where the national trout fishery is. I’d go catch supper two, three times a week. It was awesome. But yeah — you bring up open-hole sidetracks, and dude, I can’t tell you how many open holes I’ve done over the years. A lot of it is just patience, and I think confidence has a lot to do with it. Just knowing you can do it, and doing it.

Wade Spear10:23

Right. Yep. Patience is huge in that.

Peter Brecht10:24

So Steven, with Bionic — the way I found you was actually on LinkedIn. You kept popping up on my newsfeed, so I reached out and we got this thing booked. With this new company, one of the things you’re referring to is this confidence, the tribal knowledge and experience that maybe a lot of the younger guys don’t have — and you’re assembling a group around that experience.

With that in mind, a question I got from a friend of mine — I told him I was talking to a directional driller, and he wanted me to ask: how do you diplomatically manage contractors or coworkers who have unrealistic drilling expectations? You’re going into a project, and people around you are going to have things they want you to do versus what you know you can accomplish. How do you manage that best?

Steven Startz11:33

You just take it in stride, you know what I mean? You assuage their fears, I guess — their concerns — as you’re going along. You’re like, “Yeah, we’re going to do everything we can to get that done.” And then you let the hole dictate what you’re going to do, because the hole is the only one that knows what it wants to do. And you go, “Man, we tried, and it turned out pretty close to what you wanted. We’ll try a little harder.” And then it just works, and they accept the fact that the hole is drilled and it was what it was. They got what they needed — and that’s the important part. In the end, they have what they need.

Peter Brecht12:22

Do you think those situations come up often — where there’s a divergence between the outcome and what’s hoped for? Is it common, or are most of these drills pretty much on par with what you’re hoping for?

Steven Startz12:40

That’s a tough question, quite honestly. So since the early-to-mid 2000s — go ahead.

Wade Spear12:51

Well, one of the things I’d say in regards to that is, anymore, you’re not seeing tons and tons of wildcatting. A lot of times now you’re drilling in areas that have seen a lot of offsets, so I think there are realistic expectations of what can be accomplished just based on looking at what’s been done around you. Everybody’s been so informed and hooked up anymore that there are some small things you can have differences of opinion on or need to talk through, but overall, looking at your offsets and diving into that data really sets the stage for where your expectations are.

And talking to what Steven was saying earlier — a lot of times the rock can dictate what you can do in terms of your ROP and some of those things. You try to squeak out or figure out how to increase efficiency, but at the end of the day, the physics is the physics. You deal with it as best you can and make sure, like you said, you’re setting realistic expectations based on the data you’ve got.

Peter Brecht14:19

Yeah, there’s definitely the data side of it. Steven, I’m sure you’re getting a lot of information before you go make these wells. And you’ve drilled in other countries too, is that right? What’s the most remote place you’ve drilled? [Papua New Guinea] — gotcha.

Steven Startz14:37

That was an interesting commute to work, I’m not gonna lie. It was cool, dude. To go on with what Wade said — quite honestly, anymore it has gotten so scientific in the planning phase that there’s very little room for improvement left over what they allot time-wise, honestly.

Wade Spear15:05

We set pretty aggressive targets, and —

Peter Brecht15:07

I think Wade’s still there, hopefully. Hopefully that’s a boat, not a plane.

Wade Spear15:16

It was a plane, actually. It’s weird — I can see you guys perfectly, I can hear you guys perfectly, there’s zero delay from your side. Sorry about that.

Peter Brecht15:23

Okay, all right. We’ll work around it. Steven, you got me, right? We’re good? Perfect.

So — managing people, that’s one topic, and working all over the world. A question I asked one of our last guests: do you ever think we’ll completely run out of oil? It’s such a typical question, but I have to ask.

Steven Startz16:17

You know, I don’t know, man. I’m 49 years old, and needless to say, I remember when they said peak oil was going to be like 1985 — the world’s going to run out of oil in 1985. Then they shifted it to the 90s, and lo and behold, we didn’t run out of oil. Then again in 2004, 2005 — we’re going to run out of oil. We didn’t run out of oil. As a matter of fact, that was the beginning of one of the biggest booms we’ve seen in 50, 60 years. Every time they say we’re going to run out of oil, we don’t run out of oil.

And I saw a study the other day stating there’s a very big opinion that oil is a renewable resource made in the mantle — basically a chemical reaction — and that the reservoirs refill. To be quite honest with you, I’m starting to agree with them, in a way. I can’t answer that question, quite honestly. Do I think the need for oil and gas will ever run out? No. Can I answer whether oil itself will ever run out? No, I can’t. I know we’ll always need grease. We’ll always need lubricants. Always. Even electric cars have to have lubricants. And I’m sure at that point, if we do run out of oil, we’ll come up with a synthetic lubricant that works.

Peter Brecht17:47

Yeah, at some point. Now — it’s an interesting time to be launching a business, right? We’ve got all this rhetoric going on — “it’s over,” “oil is going to zero,” whatever it is. Why are you choosing to build something now, in this environment?

Steven Startz18:11

I think with low commodity prices, that is the most important time to have good quality service. Hands that know what they’re doing, that don’t need hand-holding supervision — they’re able to go out, do their job, save you money, save you time. Because every phone call where I’m not sliding — let’s say I know I need to go slide, and we need to have a conference about it just because that’s the way things operate nowadays. I don’t need to have a conference. I need to go slide, because that’s what the well plan calls for, that’s what my calculations call for, and that’s what I’m going to go do.

So now more than ever, the smaller operators especially need efficient hands on these rigs, doing what they know needs to be done without discussion. And if a problem comes up, the people performing the job know: I need to stop, I need to call, I need to let them know what’s going on, and here’s what I suggest we do to fix it — any thoughts, comments, concerns, or do we go ahead with what I’ve said? That’s part of the reason I want to do this right now.

I’m also not just looking at oil and gas. We’re trying our hardest to make inroads into geothermal, because — I don’t know if it’s the future, but I know it’s part of the future. It is definitely a part of the future. And I think our oil and gas expertise has a major place in geothermal, because a hole in the ground is a hole in the ground. I don’t care where you’re at in the world — it’s still a hole in the ground. You use the same techniques whether you’re drilling for oil or steam. It doesn’t matter; the techniques are the same.

And just yesterday, I found out we can offer full resistivity logging-while-drilling, which is awesome. We can bring LWD precision for a fraction of the cost of the big boys, which is game-changing for us. It might give us opportunities we never had otherwise.

Peter Brecht20:38

Yeah. So the folks you’re trying to work with — I wouldn’t say mom-and-pop, but they’re independent companies going out and maybe picking up one or two locations at a time? Walk me through what that looks like.

Steven Startz20:53

Yeah, that’s kind of our real target — those guys right there. Obviously, we would love to have small and mid-size operators. We’d love it, because it’s more consistent and we can hone their drilling programs better. Because instead of just drilling one or two wells — and we’re going to do it good, don’t get me wrong. We’re going to do it good, we’re going to do it right, we’re going to do it as fast as it can get done. But when you drill five, six, seven, ten wells in one field, trust me — by that fourth or fifth one, you’re getting as good as you’re going to get, and you’ve maximized efficiency. You learn something new on every single hole. So do we want those? Of course we do, because we want to get really good at what we’re doing where we’re doing it. But we know those small guys need us. There’s a definite need in the industry, especially now more than ever.

Experience matters. Experience saves money. And at the end of the day, with oil at — what was it, $57.26 a barrel, I think, before we started this — the more money an operator can save, the more money they make in the end, and the faster they can pay back the loans they had to take out to drill that well. That’s what we aim for. We believe it’s always a partnership. Even if we don’t necessarily have money on the table, we still have a stake in it — because without them, we don’t have a job, and without us, they don’t have a way to drill the hole in the ground they want to drill. Well — they can drill a hole in the ground, but it’s not necessarily going to be the one they want. We see it as a partnership, the way it should be. I spend their money like it’s my money, and I’m a tightwad, brother.

Peter Brecht23:01

Exactly. It’s cost management from every angle. I just talked to a company up in North Dakota — well, they work across the United States — before our call, and their number one thing is managing cash flow and expenses, because you can’t grow otherwise. They want to put money toward growth, not just sustaining. It’s good stuff.

Well — going back to your LinkedIn, it seemed like you might be kind of a car guy, in some capacity?

Steven Startz23:34

I am, I am. To pay my bills in this lull, I have a mobile mechanic service. But I grew up on a farm and ranch, man, so I grew up fixing tractors and combines and cars and trucks, and it’s something I’ve carried with me. I have a VW 1600 race car that I want to bring out to your neck of the woods and race.

Peter Brecht23:56

Okay, all right! Buttonwillow would love to have you, I’m sure. I grew up around race cars — tooling around, building stuff with my dad, and I still love doing it. I don’t have the shop, but he does. He’s rebuilding a turbo right now, and man, life is good.

Very fun. Have you ever come out to California and done any drilling out here? What I’m hinging on is that California is in such a unique environment right now, politically, with really no new drilling permits — but the geothermal conversation has been popping up a bit here. Again, it’s still a hole in the ground, but it’s a different perspective on getting energy. Curious about your thoughts, and where you’re seeing the most geothermal interest.

Steven Startz25:03

You mean where I’m most interested in, or — you know, I love Europe. My wife is actually from Frankfurt, Germany. I just came back from three weeks in Europe, and I loved it, dude. Every time I go over there — I love coming home, but at the same time, I hate leaving Europe. I’d love for us to get involved in Germany. Rhineland-Palatinate — I think it is the next wave of European energy, and I think they could benefit from our expertise. Not Bionic necessarily — I’m talking about oil and gas’s expertise in drilling. I think they could really benefit from that, and from smaller organizations like us, because we’re more fluid.

Nevada, I know, is kind of the hotbed of activity in the United States, as is Utah. The Department of Energy is actually doing test wells in Utah. And you’ve got Ormat and Fervo working in Nevada — I’d love to get in with them and help them be as successful as possible. California, from what I understand, is actually in the process of ramping up drilling in the geothermal theater, if not already drilling. And I know the ability of us to add resistivity — they need that. That’s part of how you find these target zones.

Peter Brecht26:59

Let’s dig into that. You’ve mentioned resistivity once or twice already — could you talk about what that is? Start from a 101 level and then maybe get into some of the details.

Steven Startz27:10

Yeah. Resistivity essentially shoots radio waves into the formation, and those radio waves bounce back. It’s got a transmitter and a receiver, and what it’s doing is modulating that frequency and that pulse. It’s kind of like radar, in a way — or an ultrasound, a combination of them. It allows you to see porosity, temperature zones, different things about the formation. It allows you to quote-unquote “see” the formation. It’s just another method of logging it — actually seeing what’s there, what it’s capable of, how it’s formed. This is where Wade would come in really handy.

Peter Brecht28:03

Yeah, I know — I’m bummed he dropped off the call. I’m sure he’d have tons of questions. I’m checking my phone right now to see if he was able to jump back on, but I think he lost connection. He and I have talked about MWD and LWD quite a bit. This is obviously done while you’re drilling. Is it different when you’re doing geothermal — the resistivity — or is it the same process?

Steven Startz28:33

All the same. That’s the thing — it’s all the same. Now, obviously in geothermal you have to have higher-temp-rated tools, because most of the tools we work with are rated for tops around 185 Celsius. But there are plenty of manufacturers out there improving those daily, and people like me — companies like Bionic — have very easy access to all the tools necessary to work in those higher-temp environments. And that’s exciting. Really, really exciting from my standpoint — from Bionic’s standpoint — because it allows us to do things that only the Halliburtons, the Schlumbergers, and the Bakers were able to do just a few short years ago.

And I’d be excited to get involved in geothermal just to see it. I believe in it. I think it’s a great idea, a very viable alternative, and a good way to offset oil and gas — the need for it, the dependence on it. Hopefully it’s a way to reduce energy costs, especially electricity, because let’s face it, electricity has gone through the roof over the last year and a half. Obviously the capex is large on these geothermal projects, but if we get enough of it, and get into more micro geothermal plants, maybe we can bring down that cost overall. And that’s going to be a savings to people — because life’s getting expensive.

Peter Brecht30:32

Yeah — and then we’ve got all these data centers, AI, cryptocurrency going on too, which is effectively increasing everything over the last couple of years. I look at nuclear power as the answer for a lot of our problems, but a lot of people don’t agree with me on that one.

Steven Startz30:52

I look at natural gas — how clean natural gas burns and how abundant it is. I look at how much of it we flare off in the Permian Basin every day because there’s not a market right there for it. We flare it off because we have nowhere to store it. It’s a shame, because we’re still burning it. Why shouldn’t we be generating power with it instead of just burning it off? But like you — people disagree with that too.

Peter Brecht31:24

Exactly. So — you’ve got Bionic, you’re starting up, you’ve got a lot of that working. When are you planning to officially launch the company? Next couple of months? Couple of weeks?

Steven Startz31:38

First phone call we get, brother. That’s what I’m waiting on right now — basically a phone call. The industry has changed drastically, as has the whole world. Let’s face it, man — the entire world has changed over the last 20, 25 years, and it’s so much more difficult now to get in front of the right people. At my age and experience level, most of the people I’ve known throughout my career — who really know me, and know what the other guys involved in Bionic are capable of — they’re either dead or retired. And when they retired, brother, they cut all ties with everybody. So it’s a whole new bunch of faces in these offices, and it’s hard to get in there. It really is. It’s difficult.

But I’ve got good people rooting for us. They’re trying to help us in every way they can — willing to do things for us, put us in front of people, get us in touch with the right people. That’s all we’re waiting for right now — basically that first break. And once we get it, brother, I have a feeling it’s going to be like a rocket ship.

Peter Brecht32:57

Oh yeah — I have all the confidence for you. Well, we’re getting close to the end of our time. Where can people find you, and how should they get in touch if they want to learn more?

Steven Startz33:06

The easiest way is LinkedIn. Just look me up — Steven Startz, S-T-A-R-T-Z — or Bionic Directional Drilling Solutions. The phone numbers are up there, the email addresses are up there. We’ve got a website — I’m going to be honest with you, I bought the domain name and put a placeholder in there, but I’ve got so much going on that I just haven’t had a chance to build it out. It is what it is, you know?

Peter Brecht33:31

Yeah — the results will speak for themselves, I’m sure. We’ll make sure to link your LinkedIn. Thank you for coming on and talking with us, and we look forward to having you on again once you kick things off.

Steven Startz33:46

I’d love to come back. Peter, thank you for having me, thank you for pushing me to come on — and please tell Wade I said thank you very much, and that I really enjoyed it.

Peter Brecht33:49

Yeah — Wade, I’ll give the handoff for you. Thank you guys for joining us on Local Energy. We’ll see you again next week. Thanks.

After the show: Steven and Peter kept talking — and kept the tape rolling.

Peter Brecht00:01

Alright, so we're back. Steven and I kept talking after and I don't know, we just had to keep recording. So here we are. Steven, let's pick up where you left off,

Steven Startz00:09

So

Let's go with a war story. Right. And it's 2013, I want to say, and I'm outside of Carrizo Springs, Texas, right? We're doing Eagle Ford Wells and what everybody called the snow bank, because we were sliding at like 600 feet an hour, which is just insanity. And I'm in the Anacacho, which is a formation that's above the Eagleford. Right. And then you have the Austin Chalk below it.

Peter Brecht00:11

All right.

Hmph.

Steven Startz00:37

And the Anacacho is just notoriously horrible to slide in, right? Because it's like this conglomerate of just crap. I'm still, I'm sliding like 300 to 400 foot an hour and just making it happen, right? And about 7.15 in the morning, all of a sudden I have this horrible stall. Dude, mind you, at the time we were able to run about 950 pounds of diff on these motors, right? And I...

Peter Brecht01:03

Mm-hmm.

Steven Startz01:05

I'll explain that to you later if you'd like, but anyways, we're at 950 pounds of diff, right? I'm on the edge of a stall, because stall pressure on this motor is like 1,050, right? So I'm hammering on this thing, dude. And all of a sudden, wham! Pump pressure just maxes out, and I'm like, uh-oh, you know how I reach over and I kill my pumps, I pick it up real quick, I do what I need to do, and luckily I'm running an EM tool, so I don't have to wait for the pumps to sink back and get tool faces, and I just bring my pumps back up.

Peter Brecht01:08

Yeah, yeah.

Steven Startz01:35

I line this sucker up where I know it needs to be, not even with the tool faces on the display. Instead, I've got a mark on the string, right? And I line her up and I start going back to bottom with it. I'm tagging up, I'm putting pressure on it, and I'm just putting wraps in it as I'm going to bottom and just getting her done, right? I make about eight to 10 inches of hole. Bam! Again, another stall, right? I pick it up, I do it again. This goes on for 86,

Peter Brecht02:00

Okay.

Steven Startz02:05

Times.

Peter Brecht02:08

Huh.

Steven Startz02:08

At one point during the day, I'm yelling, Cafferill, dude, I'm done. I'm done. I ain't fighting this thing no more. Right. My engineer is going, I got a PDC in the ground. Right. And I say, dude, we need to jerk this thing. I need a tricone. This ain't working. We're going to destroy this motor. This, is just stupid. Right. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We'll get a tricone out there, but it's going to take a few hours. So you just keep sliding until we get it out there. Man. Really? And so I keep side.

Peter Brecht02:13

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Hmm.

Steven Startz02:39

And I keep fighting and I'm dude, am. I'm livid, right? And the driller, he's walking off going, dude, I don't even want to be around this, right? The hands won't come in the dog house because I'm just, it's bad. And so the engineer calls me at one point and goes, Hey, Steven, directional is over on that other rig. I was wondering if you mind if he come over there and just, take a look at what you're doing and you know.

Peter Brecht02:53

Yeah.

Steven Startz03:06

See if he could make a suggestion on what you could do different. And I'm like, I don't care, him over here. And he shows up, and I'm fighting it. And he just sits off in the corner of the dog house and he watches me. And he finally gets up after about 30 minutes and he goes, man, you're better hand than I am because I would have been about 15, 20 minutes to that and said, hell with y'all, and walked out, you know? He's just, fight her fair, boy, just keep her on the bottom, deal with what you're doing, you know? So I do it.

And 5 45 my relief walks in the dog house and i've just stalled it i've picked it back up i'm going back to bottom with it and i am i'm cussing like i make sailors blush at this point right i'm about to have a stroke and i'm like on my third pot of coffee and he's like how's it going and i'm like bra bra bra bra you know and he goes well here dude let me have it you know i

Peter Brecht03:55

Yeah, yeah.

Steven Startz04:07

Go down, get you some rest dude, let me have it all, I'll take over. All right, so he does. And all of a sudden it just takes off drilling, like 400 plus foot an hour, no problems, right? And I'm going, you gotta be kidding me. And come to find out we hit the North American Ash bed is what it was. And so the North American Ash bed is a blanket from a volcano that erupted, God only knows when, and.

Peter Brecht04:11

Mm-hmm.

Hmm.

Steven Startz04:35

And it's different thickness in different places. Sometimes you don't even know you hit it and other times it does exactly what I'm explaining now and I got lucky, and I got to shake hands with a North American ash bed and I was just so thankful for it, and Before this all started I was getting 12s out of this assembly and I'm you know

Peter Brecht04:39

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Sure.

Mm-hmm.

Steven Startz04:59

I'm going man this thing, you I probably lost everything. I'm going to get zero out of this if not negative yields, and we get her down and he takes that survey and I got 16s out of it, which is astounding. It's like, hold on. Not only did you get what? So you stalled 86 times, picked it up, restarted 86 times and you increased by four degrees per hundred. And I'm just like, whatever. Okay.

Peter Brecht05:12

Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Steven Startz05:29

We went on and we drove the rest of the world and it was... It was wild, dude. And it's little things...

Peter Brecht05:35

You probably

Had, yeah, your log must have been fun for that one. I mean, just and to this day, you still remember it, right? Yeah. So if you came across that again, you'd probably have, would you have the same amount of persistence or would you kind of be like that other guy and give up sooner? I don't know. Like where would you put yourself? It's such a rare occurrence. Yeah. Yeah.

Steven Startz05:42

Yeah.

I'd know exactly what I was dealing with and I'd probably just

Be like, God, this is gonna be a wonderful day, and just do what I gotta do because that's so much of directional drilling, is black magic and voodoo and trigonometry, you know what I mean? And a lot of persistence. I run on coffee and cigarettes, man. I drink like two pots a day of directional drilling.

Peter Brecht06:00

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Yeah,

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was going to ask you, it's like that or Red Bull or something, right?

Steven Startz06:23

I can't do that. It makes my heart explode. Know the coffee, black coffee, I'm good to go.

Peter Brecht06:24

You got to do one or the other. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yep. All day, every day.

Steven Startz06:31

Yeah, and I'd be on a rig for, five, six, 10, 15 wells. And they get to where they know me so good that they would just have a pot of coffee brewing constantly for me, you know. And I drink it. Yeah, so.

Peter Brecht06:41

Mm-hmm.

There you go, yeah.

Yeah, yeah,

Good stuff. Well, hey, that's I think if anyone's out there listening and that's I mean, the war stories are the ones that you learn the most from, right? So it's good. It's good. Yeah.

Steven Startz06:58

They are. Yeah, we learn

So much more when we're fighting things than when things are going smooth because when things are going smooth you're not doing anything different, you know. And I think not enough people appreciate the crappy days.

Peter Brecht07:03

Yeah.

Yep. Yep.

Yeah, no, there's truth to that. That, the weak men make make tough days, right? And then hard men make good days, right? It's that kind of you got to you got to have the skill to get it done and just persist through it. So awesome. Well, that's a great story. I'm going to I'm going to

Steven Startz07:28

Yeah, for sure.