At this point, Mensa knew he had a good idea, but the law about abandoning the well wasn't about to change just yet. Mensa decided to visit us at Kyle Equipment Co. in Sterling, Mass. At that time, we had a used Hydro-Frac® unit complete with dual two-speed Hydro-Frac® pumps, a packer inflate system, and a 12,000-pound hoist perfect for his application and ready to be mounted on a truck. Early in May of 2000, the Hydro-Frac® unit was loaded onto a ship, and in August, Jim and I headed for Ghana.

The first village we visited was Adaklu -Sofa, a small village in the Volta Region, Ho District of Ghana. There were two wells in this village that needed to be Hydro-Fracked. Before we could Hydro-Frac® the wells, a few problems needed to be addressed. These were problems that you just don't run into here in the States. For one, the suction and discharge hoses used to connect the water supply through a contractor's pump to the Hydro-Frac® rig were standard pipe thread connections, but the pump they purchased had imperial threads on them. Another problem was the packer inflate line which comes with standard JIC fittings needing 1/2-inch and 9/16-inch wrenches. Mensa's problem was that only metric tools are available in Ghana, and since the fittings are a softer steel, the small difference in size between a 10mm and a 1/2-inch is enough to round off the corners of the fittings. The third obstacle was finding a 24-inch pipe wrench. All this equipment, which can normally be found in your local Sears or Wal-Mart, just isn't readily available in some parts of the world. Pipe wrenches were eventually found, and the 10mm worked until we could get 1/2-inch and 9/16-inch wrenches sent from the States, and the improvisational skills of the Kingaka employees headed by Emmanuel Ahiayibor were incredible. They fixed problems and completed jobs with whatever was handy.

Once we got the tool problem taken care of, the only problems we faced were logistical. Trying to get to a lot of the jobs was tough; this is why the Hydro-Frac® rig was mounted on a huge all-wheel-drive army transport truck. In one case, we had to follow a footpath for almost a mile to the village. We had to tow the water truck in the entire way. Which brings us to the other problem - getting water to the jobs. Finding a local water truck is extremely difficult, and finding one that can go off road is almost impossible. The truck that we were working with carried 4,000 gallons of water, but once it left the road, it got stuck every time. The solution was to get a tractor towing a smaller tank behind it, but it had to travel so far to get the water, it made the tractor impractical. However, the Kingaka crew managed to find a way to get the water to the site every time.

At the first well, Jim and I ran the rig and pointed out to the Kingaka crew what we were doing and why. As the jobs went on, Jim and I had less and less involvement in the actual job, until we were finally just observers like rest of the villagers.

As we proceeded with the jobs, all the signs like large pressure drops, change in color of the discharged water, etc., were present. For the most part, the average pressures were about 800-1000 psi maximum for the first set, dropping down to about 300-400 psi, and 1700- 2200 psi maximum for the second set, dropping down to 500-900 psi. There were a couple of no breaks, maximum pressure build with no drop off, and a couple of wells where only one set was possible because of well depth and casing depth.

After each job was completed, no water went to waste. The villagers would all line up and collect the discharge water and the remaining water in the hoses. The villagers also came to help every time a truck got stuck. In all, we completed 12 wells in seven days, which is good by American standards, especially considering all of the problems we faced initially.