On a normal Gulf evening, he would have entered the galley for a good meal after supervising the moving of pipe to the well, sometimes working shoulder-to-shoulder with the workmen on the drill floor. They were pulling pipe in and out of the hole to exchange drill bits because the formation they were drilling into, some 250 feet below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, had changed. The hole would end up 36,876 feet deep in order to hit pay dirt, and it was rumoured this pocket might contain as much as 50 billion barrels of oil.
Of course, no one could really know for sure. The last well he'd help sink went some 26,000 feet down, and all they located was 600 million barrels of oil, having expected one to two billion, so it was always a proverbial shot in the dark. While the new 4-dimensional seismic equipment promised better images and more accurate projections, it still couldn't guarantee what was actually there.
John Marx was a self-made man. He'd worked himself through Texas A & M in petroleum engineering, and later through Stanford's Department of Energy Resources Engineering, but, in the end, there was nothing like the experience of working with a dedicated drilling crew and the thrill of the moment of discovery. He'd enjoyed working on contract to Rustic Oil ever since they'd returned to jack-ups instead of the more customary and expensive submersibles. Jack-ups like Rig Twelve, the particularly tall one he was standing on, were constantly animated by the ever-present hum from the hydraulics that kept the platform steady in all sorts of seas. This jack-up had three, 400-foot long legs when fully extended, and was much more stable than submersed or floating platforms since, in an emergency, they could be plucked from the sea and moved elsewhere.
John paused on his way to an interior hatch to peer down over the rail into the beautiful, dark-blue water. Every so often he could see the flash of a hammerhead shark or the white ghost of a manatee, surrounded by all sorts of silvery, deepwater fish. The water seemed miles below yet John knew it was actually less than 80 feet to the surface of the sea.
A growl from his stomach reminding him of his earlier thoughts of a shower, food and some well-earned rest, he pulled back from the rail, tripping backwards over a small, black rectangular box lying on the slatted metal walkway on which he was standing. Looking like a malformed, two-by-two-by eight-inch black leather attaché case, John stared at it with curiosity, fully expecting it to reveal its purpose, which it clearly wasn't planning to do. Bending down, he plucked it from the rusty-red, wetted iron lattice and turned it around in his fingers. He looked both ways on the walkway to see who might have lost it. There was no one about.
On closer inspection, the padded leather box revealed the hint of a line dividing it lengthwise into two mirror halves. There were no visible hinges, stays, clasps or latch. Concluding that whatever inside was important enough to warrant a custom-made case like this, John slipped the rectangular box in a pocket, and walked the remainder of the metal walkway to the nearest door. After securing the door, he proceeded to his quarters.
The Oil Man on Amazon US
We allow you to read the first page of a book, look at its cover and then buy it, but only if you like it. Nothing beats sampling a novel. Experience the simple pleasure of finding novels that you like, fast, with BooksGoSocial.com.
