Danger Series: Part One - H2S

Danger abounds in the oil patch, with ice storms, rogue wildlife, and out-of-control drivers - and that's just on the way to work. On your average lease, out here in the middle of nowhere, there are a number of variables that can kill you dead - or seriously spoil an otherwise relaxing afternoon.

Pt. 1: H2S (aka Hydrogen Sulphide, aka Swamp Gas, aka Silent but Deadly and other inappropriate fart jokes)

A well is either sour or sweet, and thankfully, oil companies don't make green roughnecks perform taste-tests. Aside from reminding me of the scar tissue on the sides of my tongue from crushing entire bags of Sourpatch Kids at the movies, a sour well means there's H2S present and lurking about. And this gas can murder you quick - or at least make you shit in your coveralls (seriously).

“A level of H2S gas at or above 100 ppm is Immediately Dangerous to Life and Health (IDLH)”. Well, the first sour well I worked was flowing natural gas that contained more than 500 ppm of H2S, well into the IDLH region. And somewhere Kenny Loggins was playing Highway to the Danger Zone.

STATS:

·      Colorless, flammable, extremely hazardous gas with a “rotten egg” smell:

o   Occurs naturally in crude petroleum, natural gas, and hot springs;

o   Primary route of exposure is inhalation;

o   You can smell the rotten egg at low concentrations, but at higher levels your nostrils give out (olfactory fatigue).

·      Hydrogen Sulphide is both an irritant and chemical asphyxiant (like carbon monoxide or cyanide gases) with effects on both oxygen utilization and central nervous system.

·      Measured in parts per million (ppm). So, to put in perspective:

o   1-5 ppm = “moderately offensive” odour, possibly with nausea or headaches.

o   20-50 ppm = eye inflammation, headache, fatigue, irritability, insomnia, digestive disturbances and weight loss.

o   100-200 ppm = severe nose, throat and lung irritation, “ability to smell odour completely disappears” – like Dewie Cox.

o   At 500 ppm, H2S can cause shock, convulsions, excitement, inability to breathe, extremely rapid unconsciousness, coma and death. Effects can occur within a few breaths, and possibly a single breath.

As a safety precaution, we do wear H2S monitors, and the boys do entertain themselves by farting into the monitors and competing to see who has the highest levels of poison gas.

My new co-worker is from Dartmouth (oddly pronounced Yarmuth), Nova Scotia and isn't ashamed to be a blatant stereotype: he comes from a long lineage of lobster-men (lobster-trappers, not those actual freak-show attractions with claws for hands) and he spent much of his adolescence out at sea, and the kids at school made fun of him for eating lobster sandwiches every day at lunch. Lobster-cake, lobster-salad, lobster gumbo... So, appropriately enough, I now call him Bubba.

*Fun-Fact!* A few centuries ago in New England, lobsters were considered sea-spiders and the thought of eating them grossed the puritans right out. They did, however, feed them to prisoners of insane asylums, a practice that caused some human rights activists of the time to protest the cruel and unusual punishment of feeding these poor sods lobster meat. Inject a simple reframing of perception into the mass consciousness and Presto-Changeo: lobster is now a delicacy.

Anyway the price of lobster is way down these days, Bubba tells me, and there isn't enough money to be made so that's why he's out here in the boonies, producing black gold with the rest of the part-time criminal/ full-time rednecks.

So this is one of the first things Bubba says to me out here on this IDLH lease: "Just so you know, I'm not the safest guy to work with. I don't really care for safety. I just put my head down and do my thing." Well thanks for giving me the heads up, you pirate-talkin' gongshow, I tell him.

Thing is, every hour we collect a live sample from the flow-line, opening up a valve under extreme pressure to spray a burst of gas and fluid into a small plastic jug. There's an orange windsock flapping on-site that we notice to know which opposite direction to stand when sampling - or which way to book it if there's a washout.

Bubba just stands there like a champ when he takes a sample and holds his breath.

Me, on the other hand, you see I have goals. And a five-year plan that doesn't include getting knocked down by poisonous gas out here in the bush. So, better safe than sorry and willing to be a dork, I strap on my Scott PROMASK full-face respirator, connect my line to the contained air canister, and breathe slowly and calmly. I also imagine for a moment that I can choke Bubba with my Dark Jedi mind tricks.

The last time I breathed contained air I was scuba diving in the Gulf of Thailand, floating between coral reef fish-apartments; an omniscient observer in another world, curiously analyzing the behaviour of this foreign animal society as they go about their daily routines. Actually that sounds a lot like what I'm doing out here in the oil patch: a casual participant-observer in a strange land.

As we practiced moderating our breathing by staying seated cross-legged and meditative on the sandy seafloor, a fellow scuba student with a nasty case of the ADD was performing slow and awkward backflips behind the back of Jürgen, our Dutch instructor. My buddy Moses and I looked at each other, all eyes and scuba gear, and burst out laughing (which translates as a silent burst of bubbles from our mouthpieces). FYI: Under the sea, self-contained yelling can also look like laughter. Like when Jürgen gave the finger-gun signal for a triggerfish, a quick and aggressive carnivore, and me and Moses looked at each other, all wide eyes and scuba gear and blowing bursts of nervous bubbles.

I catch myself daydreaming, walking to the manifold in slow motion with my hands making swimming motions and, all cool-like, I blast off a deadly fluid sample. H2S? NBD.

I deliberately took my time strapping on the gas mask so that eventually Bubba would just take all the samples, holding his breath out there like a professional free-diver in the extreme sport of competitive apnoea.

On day one of the IDLH sour site, I was opening a valve to flow gas from our pressure tank to the much larger holding tanks when we had a washout. Suddenly a burst of white gas blasted up from the 90° pipe, directly below my face. I instinctively leapt backwards and turned my head, while Bubba shut the other end of the pipe. All the pressure rumbling through the pipes had worn a tiny hole in the steel and I took a quick shot of exposure to the deadly stuff.

My head throbbed and I felt nauseous for the rest of the day. If it weren’t for the washout I’d have thought I was dehydrated or lacking sleep – both of which were true. But out here in the Danger Zone, the planet is putting up a fight.  

Modern-Day Outlaw

Coworker Chad (a part-time criminal/ full-time redneck in his own right), has somehow survived a vividly violent life, emerging from his fairly intense life experiences with a few scars, a bit of refreshingly-endearing wisdom, and a bunch of insane tales to tell. Seated on buckets in front of the roaring control panel of the pressure tank at work, Chad talks candidly about Gunshot Wounds, High-Speed Chases, Prison Entrepreneurship and Fatherhood - a modern-day outlaw looking to make right.

So let me guess, you love guns. 

Oh, shit yeah. I got two shotguns and a 9mm. The nine is especially fun for shootin' gophers on the farm. Just, 'hey squirrel!' pop pop. 

Anything ever get out of hand?

This one time I was partying in someone's backyard and I let a buddy have a look at my six-shooter. I was in the middle of pouring a drink for this chick I was wheelin' and I had my arm out holdin' the vodka bottle and all of a sudden I got this sting in my forearm, like I'd been burnt. Like someone had put a smoke out on me. I'm wearing a hoodie and I look down at my sleeve to see its all wet. So I put the bottle down and give my arm a good shake and, splash, I spray blood all over the chick. She starts freaking out and I pull my sleeve up for a look and sure enough, my arm is completely soaked in blood. The bullet just clipped me. It went right out the other side, see? (Shows me two crater scars on his forearm). Funny thing was, the rap song that was playing had gunshots in it and I didn't even realize my gun had actually gone off. 

Wow. So what'd you do?

Well, first I backhanded my buddy into the fence and laid a good beatin' on him. Then I used my good arm to smash the gun with a sledgehammer. That shit's dangerous! Yeah that's how I learned you shouldn't let your idiot buddies play with your guns. 

Sounds like a fairly safe rule of thumb. What other war wounds you got?

My sister and I were arguing over the remote, again, and this time she comes into the kitchen with a jerrycan and just starts dousing me in gasoline. Here I am, fryin' eggs, and she's screamin' at me, callin' me a goof, and I'm gettin' soaked. So I grab her wrist, real fuckin' tight, and try to shake the jerrycan loose. Well I just get even more covered in gas. Then she goes all calm-like. And she pulls a lighter out of her pocket. Puts it up against me. And sparks it. 

Holy smokes!

Man, I lit up like a barbecue. Totally on fire I ran out the kitchen door, flames all flyin' off me, and dove right into a snowbank. Second and third degree burns all up my side here. 

Do I even want to know what happened after that?

Well an ambulance took me to the hospital and the police questioned me. I told 'em I didn't wanna press charges but I guess they're going ahead with it, due to her past convictions. So yeah, right now she's looking at 8-10 for aggravated assault causing bodily harm. 

Dude, those are some full-on life moments!

(laughs) Oh, hell yeah. Rarely a dull moment. I also got two paddle burns on my chest from paramedics trying to resuscitate me. 

Please tell me more, you crazy bastard. 

I used to party pretty hard. I was in love with cocaine but, man, she didn't love me back. The last time I ever touched that shit was when I OD'd. I just remember waking up in the hospital with all these wires and shit sticking out of me and I panicked. I look down and I got two big burns on my chest from the shock pads. So I start yankin' out the tubes and unplugged myself. I didn't wanna stick around to talk to no cops neither, so I zipped up my hoodie and booked it. 

That is intense. How'd your recovery go?

My heart's all fucked up now. I was told it stopped beating for a bit when I OD'd. So I pretty much died. I'm getting a heart monitor in a couple days here because of an irregular rhythm or some shit. It's pretty scary actually. I got a son on the way so I just wanna stay healthy and be around for him, you know?

Oh, congratulations! That's gotta be pretty exciting. You just make sure you be the best dad you can be, you know?

Oh for sure. My old man was pretty shitty, always kickin' my ass for something and making me feel like shit. Course most'a the time I probably deserved it! (laughs) But not all the time... And he was never around. He was in jail for a bunch of years when I was growing up. 

Well it's on you now to break the cycle. Learn from your dad's mistakes. 

That is the plan! Eat lots of vitamins and be a good dad. As soon as I get my license back I'm getting a better job, driving trucks. 

How'd you lose your license?

DUI. Among other things. A few years back I ran from the cops, got into a full-on high speed chase. I'll tell ya, they sure didn't like that! (laughs)

No way. Do elaborate. 

So we left this party and I was the least messed up one of us so I get behind the wheel of this guy's truck. He's riding shotgun and we got four chicks in the backseat. Well next thing we know there's cherries in the rear view so I pull over and the guy tells me, 'Uh, ya, this truck is stolen.' So I backhand him a good one and think, shit, what do I do? I hit the gas. Then hit the breaks. I'm running through every possible scenario in my head. But I've lost the cops twice before and I figure I can do it again so I say, fuck it, and I just light those tires up and peel off.  

Wow. This is in Grande Prairie?

Yeah man, just west of downtown. Now I used to drive a tow truck so I know these roads. I'm going 100 through the residentials, just fish-tailin around corners and this cop is stuck right on my ass. I bomb down an alley and there's another cop waiting for me. My plan is to hightail it out of GP to Grovedale, where I grew up and can lose 'em on the back roads no problem. 

That's the trick hey?

Yup, 4-X'n down sled trails where cop-cars can't go. But here they kept poppin up just as I was about get outta the city and I'd have to turn around and find a new way. I cut through a park and tried to make it up a big berm but the truck went straight vertical. Out the window I just saw tree tops, then stars, then she came right back down: Bang! Fucked the rear axle. And all of a sudden there's a gun at my window and this cop is there yelling at me to get out of the vehicle. So I just fuckin throw'er into reverse and hit the gas. I peeled out in the gravel and just sprayed the cop car, right spiderwebbed his windshield.  

So you called his bluff then. 

Yeah he wasn't gonna shoot, not with all the people in the truck anyway. So I make another run for the country and this time there's a big-ass roadblock up ahead. Just, cop-car, cop-car, cop-car, cop-dogs cop-truck, cop-dogs, cop-car. So I swerve through 'em and catch a spiked strip that wraps right around the front right tire and shoots off back over the box. The girls in the back are high on E and seriously tripping out and I'm struggling with all I got to keep 'er on the road. 

Charging on adrenaline I'd imagine!

Yeah I had some crazy focus that night. I was drunk when I started but I'd swear I was stone sober during the chase. Eventually I ran the truck into a field, jumped out and tried to beat it on foot. In about a minute I was surrounded by screaming cops so I just put my hands behind my head and laid down in the grass. 

They must have been pissed! 

Oh, man. They kicked the shit out of me. Just bootin' me and pistol whipping and eventually I start yelling, 'Police brutality!' over and over. And I remember this lady cop standing back watching with her jaw dropped. And lots of dogs barking in the flashing lights. 

That is one of the craziest stories I've ever heard!

Yeah it was pretty wild. I had the entire police force after me. 36 squad cars chasin' me around for a solid 45 minutes. They wanted to lock me up for 10-12 years, with 28 charges but my lawyer knocked it down to 2 years with 3 charges. 

So you went to prison?

Yeah, I did two years at Saskatoon. 

Man... What was that experience like?

It was pretty brutal at first. I was fighting nearly every day for six months. But I'm half Native so I was in with them and it was alright. I'm claustrophobic though, eh, I get anxiety attacks sometimes. 

Ah, man. That must have added to the stress level. 

Yeah that and the whole 'no smoking' policy. But we got three hours a day in the  yard to work out and run around, blow off some steam. And I had my own room with a TV and a Nintendo 64 with some racing games. Plus I had a pretty good gig building and selling tattoo guns from scratch.

Yeah right! How exactly does one build a tattoo gun from scratch?

All you need is a Bic pen for the tube and ink, a wire for the needle, a toothbrush to connect the needle to an electric motor you pull from an old Walkman or a portable fan, and some tape to hold the shit together. Then you're good to go. 

Sounds like you're a fairly resourceful cat. 

I definitely make do. It's all about keeping a positive attitude - and making friends with the right people doesn't hurt. But I'll tell ya, after I got out, my old man had a newfound respect for me. He hasn't raised a hand since. We got something in common now and we're a lot closer because of it. 

Wow. Just, wow. Stay in school, kids. 

Dinosaur Juice - Fossil Fuel or Fraud?

I read the faded sign as we pulled into town: “Welcome to Hudson’s Hope - Land of Dinosaurs and Dams.” Stencilled beside a happy waterfall were two green brontosauri that appeared to be shooting lazer beams made of oil out of their eyes. Past and future, with this rusting hamlet as epicenter. “Land of Shit,” Shevko corrected. “Don’t blink or you’ll miss it.” 

It took me a while to draw the connection between dinosaur fossils and their oil by-products. My first thought was about extinction, exploiting our planet’s natural resources past the point of no return. Like the Delorean Time Machine in Back to the Future III, the train bridge up ahead is incomplete and we’re praying technology will save us all, before we hit that fateful precipice and magically teleport elsewhere, or tumble down into a canyon fireball. I was thinking about dinosaurs roaming these very hills, each terrible lizard a cog in the Wheel of Life. Did those reptilian heathens summon their own demise at the forefront of a life-ending comet by merely surviving? Do we not deserve an even worse finish for our deliberate consumer greed and unsustainable habits? But here in the Backyard, it’s no place for theoretical debate. We’re here to make money, exploiting that sweet, sweet dinosaur juice that simmers somewhere beneath our heavy winter work-boots.

(Jurassic Park ™ Flowchart)

Now, hold on. Does fuel actually come from fossils? I’m no scientist (although out here as a Well-Tester I pretend to be) and I don’t burn shit up on a burner, but were there really enough dinosaurs – or even plant life – to create the billions and billions of known oil reserves? Or is it just a nice story that roughnecks and oil executives tell their kids at bedtime? Well, apparently the jury is divided. Just like most other scientific “facts”, there are the mainstream theories and the fringe theories, stubbornly honking at each other like some Maiosaura protecting her eggs.

The mainstream theory of oil formation (biogenic/ fossil fuels) holds that oil originated millions of years ago in shallow seas as vast quantities of organic matter that died and sank into the mud to decompose. Over time as the source rock was buried deeper, overburden pressure raised temperatures into the “oil window” (80-100°C) enabling crude oil to form, become fluid, and migrate upward through the rock strata in a process called “oil expulsion”. The oil was eventually trapped in underground reservoirs where it was to remain, patiently awaiting Mankind’s Crazy-Straw to slurp it up, give it purpose and fulfill its destiny.

The other side supports the abiogenic hypothesis (developed before palaeontology), which argues that petroleum was formed from deep carbon deposits, perhaps dating way back to the formation of the Earth, and suggests that there exists a great deal more petroleum than commonly thought. The evidence for naturally occurring petroleum, slim as it may be, flies in the face of Peak Oil proponents, suggesting that oil is actually regenerative. I smell a Nerd Fight!

Years of production left in the ground with the current proved reserves (according to mainstream biogenic theory):

·       Coal: 148 years

·       Oil: 43 years

·       Natural gas: 61 years

Lifespan of our favourite extinct dinosaurs (according to mainstream palaeontology):

·       Velociraptor: 20 years

·       Triceratops: 100 years

·       Brachiosaurus: 300 years

Here on-site, glancing at the surrounding pipe-maze, I feel myself getting old. And I imagine the natural gas and oil being separated beneath my feet and sent off through the woods to be processed. On an average day, this lease that I'm monitoring produces about $30,000 worth of petroleum. I wonder what the equivalent is in pounds of dinosaur bones. How many Stegosaurus constitute a barrel? And what will become of the skeletons of mankind in three hundred million years? Will an advanced reptilian humanoid population employ their lot of part-time criminal, full-time rednecks to pump our remaining essence into a fuel source, full circle? 

I guess only time will tell.

Respect is a Dish Best Served Cold

The rusted iron head of the sledgehammer arced through frigid air, an unnatural extension of my core flowing energy slickly through my electric arms and into the gear's sweet spot. The pipe’s union chimed its hellish bell and finally spun tight.

“There! You see?” The Bosnian hulk in dark coveralls shouted and in the orange light from the scorching flare stack his carotid artery bulged through an ink dragon. He was called Shevko and possessed a ferocious intensity, most likely invigorated by the steroids that he also dealt. “That’s why you never give up!”

Together we had solved a puzzle, assembling the labyrinth of flow-line pipe that rushed crude oil up through the wellhead and into the pressure tank (where it’s monitored and regulated before being shipped off towards production). My sledgehammer violently secured the last tricky angle, locking the rigging into working order. Beyond the rumbling and clanking of heavy machinery, the lease was peaceful, gusts of snow spraying like geysers across the silver hunter’s moon. 

Five or six conversations into our first drive North, charging down the turbulent back-roads in his supped-up Dodge Ram, he told me about a moonlit drug deal gone bad in a vacant park: a sixth sense of approaching danger and narrowly escaping a hit squad, sliding out as three big black Escalades with 26” rims pulled up. A simple meeting to deliver a message from a friend on the Inside had apparently turned into a near brush with violence from a group that was not to be trifled with. It was the United Nations, he told me with a glance from the corner of his eye.

Gnarly, I told him, but why would a bunch of diplomats from the world’s governing body be after you? This was one of the rare occasions that I made him laugh. As it happens, the UN was also the name of a fearsome gang from Vancouver marauding through oil country: a.k.a, the Global United Nations Syndicate (GUNS). They provide the drugs and prostitutes for rig-pigs, and kill who needs killin’. Friends in high places or just different kinds of highs. Shevko looks about as badass as they come, so I took his fictional-sounding tale at face value. He said nothing about my commentary on whether life imitates art or art imitates life. Talking time was over and a hand emblazoned with a grinning skull cranked back up the System of a Down.

Eventually I learned that Shevko has a ten-year old daughter with a crack-head to whom he pays child support. He grew up on a farm outside of Sarajevo and immigrated to Canada when the war with Serbia ignited in the mid-90s. He claims to find the never-ending, desperately materialistic Pursuit for the Bigger Toy ridiculous, and calls its adherents, “Nimrods”. He hopes to take his silicone-tittied girlfriend and move to a lake someday, buy a boat that’s just fast enough. Just strong enough.

But I lost him on my oration about the excesses of capitalism.

Then a moose popped out of the snowy ditch and Shevko slammed on the brakes. The massive beast was galloping across the road at a languid 45-degree angle, its long brown legs seeming to move in slow motion behind the hulking rack of antlers that glowed in the halogen light. The truck skidded down to 50kph and for a moment kept pace with the graceful animal, its body lined up directly with the windshield. Five or six seconds after it vanished into the woods, Shevko let off honking the horn. “What a fucking shit show.” He said in his thick Slavic accent, shaking his head as we carried on towards the lease.

Just a few weeks ago, he’d hit one on this same stretch of road. One moment you’re leaning over the steering wheel in the dark before the dawn, squinting into the near distance through fourteen-hour-shift eyes. The next, a moose is crumpling your truck’s front end and you’ve went from 80kph to 5 in just over a second, as if the animal had a concrete foundation, and the moose is flying away, twenty feet through the frosty morning air and sprawling its wasted bulk at the end of your high beams. The moose tries to stand up but it’s flailing, in shock. It kicks its muscular legs a few final times. Frantic eyes search for understanding. Then it dies, as you unclip your seatbelt and stumble out into the snow to call 911. Just another casualty in man’s war against the environment.

Meanwhile, Shevko’s black market home business was booming. His ex-stripper girlfriend was processing more orders than ever, new unknown clientele referred by so-and-so, and he was beginning to sense the early stages of paranoia. I warned him about getting too big for his britches, reminded him of the tug-of-war between greed and moderation. I advised him to start using those disposable cell-phones you buy from Mac’s to make his business calls (I saw that on The Wire). The Big Brother satellite grid is omnipresent if you let it and pseudo-omniscient, able to record every cell-phone conversation and scan for key threat words. "The technology is in use," I tell him, "and while the chances of you getting red-flagged by authorities of a higher level than you may be slim, you’re better safe than sorry."

"Also," I said, "you should think about investing your dirty money into the stock market. Laundering your ill-got means through a well-diversified portfolio." I stopped short of recommending my father, an investment advisor with morals. But Shevko considered my criminal wisdom sound, and the nod he gave me indicated I’d reached the front door to the House of Respect.