Word: holes
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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However, K.C.L. A-2 at 15,004 feet is still the deepest hole in the ground...
...Until the visible supply of oil begins seriously to dwindle, probably no one will try to drill five miles. Meanwhile, in California's San Joaquin Valley, Continental Oil Co. has bored to 15,004 ft.-nearly three miles. This well, prosaically designated as K.C.L. A2, is the deepest hole ever made in the Earth. Having brought up oil from 13,100 ft., it is also the deepest producer...
...drilling for oil, the bit is carried on a shaft of hollow pipe, in 30-ft. lengths screwed together. A powerful steam engine on the surface spins the pipe and the bit. When a bit needs changing, all the pipe must be snaked out of the hole and then lowered again by the derrick. The pipe is kept full of mud to counteract the gas pressures below, which might otherwise blow out destructively...
...water out of the mud into a porous sand formation at that depth, so that the mud caked and "froze" the bit collar. The drill pipe was fished out with difficulty but the collar was immovable. By means of a knuckle joint the frozen collar was sidestepped, and the hole, now pinched down to six inches, went on down. Near the bottom, the weight of the pipe was over a quarter of a million pounds. The temperature was nearly...
...been tapped 13,000-odd ft. down. It was necessary to bail mud out of the pipe so that the gas pressure below could push up the oil. "We had swabbed 2,000 ft. of mud," said Superintendent Bell, "when suddenly the fluid rose 1,500 ft. in the hole. So we knew we had something. We swabbed a little more. Then it came naturally. For half an hour mud poured into the sumps, then turned to oil. I just stood there and looked...