Smoke

What you see is CO2 smoke, a product emitted once crude oil is caught on fire. We use gas monitors to tell us what the gas level are in ppm. In this case the alarm indicated 60ppm CO2. The O2 level read normal so we continued to work. The troubling part was when the explosive gas reading is 0, then an ignition occurs and the reading measured 5ppm. There are no warnings when dealing with gas. You never know when gas will become present. All morning gas levels were at 0. I do constant monitoring. Crude oil with stabilize gas molecules until heat is added to the formula. We regrouped, filled the casing with water and went on about our business. Fortunately, no other events occured. Our welder had been through this before. Even so, what happened to us today was a first for him. Such is life in our industry.