Two teams search for natural gas in the frozen ground of northern Canada and an enormous snowstorm engulfs one of the crews.
The Nabors crew encounter difficulties when their drilling goes nowhere and a huge storm engulfs the MGM crew and stops their work cold.
A spell of unexpected warm weather hits the MGM camp just as they are about to undertake the moving of the drill to a second site. The Nabors rig is finally drilling steadily but runs into a tough patch far underground.
A crew arrives to test the first MGM well site for the commercial viability of the gas there. Nabors rushes to finish drilling its first well more than a month behind schedule.
The Nabors crew are pressured to get the two wells they are working ready for final testing. The MGM crew runs into equipment problems as it looks to get its final well up and running.
Nabors looks to assess their investment with the aid of an intricate engineering procedure. MGM looks to complete its third well before the spring thaw forces them to shut operations down.