Later, when on the plane to Hobart, he thanked his god for the advice and intervention.

4 BRUNY ISLAND BLOW-OUT

4

BRUNY ISLAND BLOW-OUT

Haut was in his car on the phone at 8 p.m. talking to a potential investor when he heard the whoosh. He looked around to see the Shittim number-one well on Bruny Island gushing green water, gas and oil a hundred metres into the night sky.

He took charge, ordering his crew of six into action to avoid a complete destruction of the well and surrounding area. Water was hurling down in a heavy deluge.

‘Don’t let the diesel engine run out of fuel!’ he called to a driller through the rain and slop. ‘If it stops pumping the water into the well we’re in real trouble!

‘No one light anything!’ he yelled to all the crew. ‘There’s a lot of gas out there. Keep all exhaust pipes wet! If it ignites … we’re buggered!’

Haut had the presence of mind to call a blow-out contact in San Antonio, Texas.

‘Send me a blow-out pack, now,’ Haut said.

‘BOPs cost seventy thousand dollars,’ the oil man warned him, ‘and they weigh two tonnes. Really costly to freight.’

‘Got to have it!’

The expert was in Tasmania within twenty-four hours. In the meantime the crew did their best to mop up and keep the water pumping into the well to push down on the oil and gas, which was straining up at high pressure. This limited the intermittent blowouts, temporarily.

There was an agonising wait for the BOP to arrive. When it reached Bruny, the Texan expert said:

‘There is nothing we can do. We can’t plug the well.’

Al Haut had to try something. He had his crew dig a shaft next to the well. He replaced the plastic pipe with a metal one, and then bolted it to the well head. The BOP was then attached. Haut used liquid nitrogen to block off the well. Thermite—the combination of iron oxide and aluminium powder—was used to weld and encase the oil pipe.

The stabilisation of the structure, with a stronger pipe and the BOP, encouraged Haut to drill down further than the eight hundred metres it had been prior to the blow. The Texas expert was stunned. He had never before seen anyone do that after a big blow-out.

Haut rang Mineral Resources Tasmania to report the big oil discovery, but it did not have a geologist to receive the information. He had to make it official and informed the South Australian Mines Department, where Haut had good contacts, so that there was a record of a find at Bruny. ‘How’d you know to drill there?’ one of the drillers asked Haut in amazement. ‘You were so particular about the spot.’

‘Everyone told me there was no oil and gas in Tasmania,’ Haut said with a chuckle, ‘but I had a most reliable tip.’

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