This was the first challenge a deep driller on the Gulf Coast faced, but Cullen thought he had found a way through it. Once the drill bit sank into the lowest layer of gumbo, he instructed his tool-pusher to set their casings, an outer pipe that shielded the hole from water, all the way down through the salt water to the gumbo. It worked; both the salt water and the gumbo were kept out of the well. Free to go deeper, Cullen hit a pool of pure “pipeline” oil—oil so free of impurities it could be pumped directly into a big company’s pipeline.
