One of the wildcatters was drilling in Ohio. They were using a small rig on a 'mountain top' where the science said there should be oil (that's $100,000 worth of science, bud). Other than having the blowout preventer going bad things were looking good. Then it snowed and got cold. The drill pipes froze together. So, the roughnecks solved that problem by pouring gasoline on them and setting it on fire. Problem solved, back to work. Well, subsequently they hit 'hard rock'. Tried to remove the drill pipes to replace the drill bit. Couldn't. Turns out a joint had failed. What pipes they could remove were spaghetti. They ended up leaving 4,000 feet of drill pipe in the hole and concreting it up. Do you think heating the drill pipe with the gas had anything to do with the failure? To top it off the wildcatter went off to drill somewhere else. Hey, the science didn't change.
I'm not sure if I have all my facts straight. After all, it was a TV show and one can't always see where it's going, but this was my impression.
"You can lead a person to knowledge, but you can't make him think."
