The first thing that stands out when you see

Par Five Energy Services’ yard from the road

is that there is a lot of the color orange. The

same can be seen throughout the shops,

even the company shirts are orange. The

town’s high school colors just happen to be

orange, white and black. I guess Texas isn’t

the only place they take their football very

serious.

Par Five Energy Services was established by

Curtis Tolle in January 2011. It is a state of

the art bulk plant facility and cement lab

that provides oilfield cementing and

remedial work in southeast New Mexico and

west Texas. Oil well cementing is a process

of mixing a slurry of cement and water and

pumping it through the casing pipe into the

annulus between the casing pipe and the

drilled hole. Cement plugs are also set in the

wellbore to isolate zones such as water

bearing zones. That sounds easy enough.

Grab a bag of cement, add water, mix with a

shovel or hole and pour down the hole,

right? Well as we found out, this too is a fine

science and no one cement job is the same

as the next.

Our first stop, the cement lab or as I call it

the “test kitchen” . Here the lab technicians

receive the specifications of the well to be

cemented and start testing samples for vis-

cosity. Each job requires a different “recipe”

to be mixed and the lab is where they

work on small batches to get it just right.

There was an array of canisters and contain-

ers with what looked like some serious

secret ingredients. Imagine the surprise

when we found out that one container of

powder was actually ground up beetles, an-

other was what use to be glass beads used in

jewelry and a few other ingredients were

similar to ingredients used in facials. Taking

us through the process they begin by mixing

the dry ingredients and slowly adding water

until the mixture is workable; adding bind-

ing agents, thickener and foam reducer as

needed. Once they think the recipe is right

what they need; it is placed into an ‘oven’ to

speed up the hardening and prepare it for

the compressive strength assessment to

determine the effects of pressure and

Story by: Katherine Stokes

temperature changes that will take place

inside the borehole once the cement is

pumped down the hole. The assessment can

last anywhere from 48 to 72 hours using a

cured cement sample. The technicians at Par

Five will simultaneously change the pres-

sures and temperatures all the wile taking

measurements and recording data.

It’s important that they get this sample

batch right before going into bulk

production. Among all the operations being

performed in drilling a well this would rank

at the top of the list of importance. The

durability of the borehole and efficiency of

the well production depends on a successful

and complete cement job. The cementing

process serves two purposes: 1) to restrict

fluid movement between formations and

2) support the casing in the hole. It also

protects the casing from corrosion and

prevents blowouts by quickly forming a

seal.

As is my usual line of inquiry, I ask the lab

technician if he went to school for this job.

He actually went to school and received his

degree in computer software design; which

comes in handy on this job as he walks over

to the bank of computers and shows the logs,

measurements and tests being fed into a

software system that he updates regularly.

As far as his experience with cementing;

he learned all of that on-the-job while

working at Schlumberger. He stressed

understanding basic math computation,

reading and writing comprehension

of instructions and the ability to learn

and utilize technology as the industry

is becoming very efficient in using

technology in every aspect of the drilling

process.

Next stop, the bulk mixing plant. Once the

“recipe” has been developed in the lab; it is

sent over to the bulk mixing plant where the

ingredients are mixed in large quantities for

the job. The large silos to the right hold the

concrete, sand and aggregate. This is an

automated process where the

“recipe” is entered into the system

and by pushing a few buttons the

correct amount of concrete, sand

and aggregate is dispensed. Once

all the ingredients are dispensed

it is loaded into the mobile field

bins or bulk trucks depending on

the job. As we head out to take a

look at the equipment used in the

process; we notice pallets of 50 lb.

bags of sugar. Curtis tells us that if

they have a particularly deep well

they will be pumping cement into and they

don’t want the cement to set-up before

making it all the

way down the

center of the

casing and back

up the hole to

make a complete

seal; they add

sugar. There is

nothing special

about the sugar. It

is the same sugar

you and I buy at the store to add

to our iced tea, cake frostings or

morning grapefruit.

All the dry cement mix is loaded

into the bulk transport trucks.

Depending on the job and

location; some cement is pre-

mixed and trucked to location.

Other jobs require and dry bulk

transport and a double pump

cementer with ADC. The double pump

cementer is the work horse on the job.

The The bulk transport is backed up to

rear of the double pump. The double pump

holds the water, pumps, generator and

mechanics for mixing the dry with the wet

ingredients and then pumping it down the

hole. Again, technology and computers

play a big part in the automation of this

process.

The state-of-the-art facility, equipment and

opportunity to see the work being done in

striving for energy independence was such

a privilege and I would like to thank Par Five

for opening their doors to us.

Strive to be the

best! State-of-the-

art equipment,

experienced

professionals and

high quality

services.