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Slide 26

Again the driller cements the metal pipe into hole, this time at the level of the gas bearing strata.

Note however that the cement does not go all the way to the surface this time, the way the cement “returns to the surface” for the previous casings.  It just goes to some distance above the top of the gas bearing strata.  The annular space between the production pipe and the outside of the hole above that is left open.

This open annulus is thousands of feet in vertical distance between the bottom of the cement job near the surface and the top of the cement job down at the gas bearing formation. There was not enough vertical space in the image to the right to show this distance so \\'s indicate where these thousands of un-cemented feet of open annulus would be in relation to the cemented casing.