I had it coming

There is an obstacle that all MWD Field Engineers must overcome at one point or another in their jobs. Some of them may have to overcome this obstacle nearly every week. Some almost never. But it is a hurdle that is looked upon with dread and a deep groan of despair.

It is the "rig up".

Rigging up involves taking a box full of cables and miscellaneous sensors, and another box full of computers, and installing them all throughout the messy, noisy, dangerous environment of the rig and making them all work in perfect harmony. The goal is to achieve something akin to placing electrodes on a person to monitor their vital signs. With this setup, we have our fingers on the pulse points of the rig's operations, and are prepared to do our jobs.

My very first day in the field started late at night in Arkansas. I arrived to a rig through a torrential downpour and I was to help rig up for the job. The jobs in Arkansas use considerably fewer sensors and much less complicated equipment, but it was enough to get me soaked through and yet not enough to teach me anything useful.

I have been in the highly enviable position of having worked in the field for a year and a half without having to participate in any offshore rig ups. Until now.

I was the first one sent on this job, and I arrived on the rig Monday night. With the help of the rig's electrician, I accomplished the first major task: I got power to our unit (actually the electrician did all the work, and I just unlocked the door).

Tuesday morning my cell manager arrived, and we began our rig up in earnest. What ensued was a series of days where I averaged about 18 hours of work and 5 hours of sleep per day, and my cell manager considerably more and less, respectively. And this was not "stare at computer screens and type until your eyes can't focus and your wrists can't bend". This was running 300ft lengths of cabling through a complicated series of nooks and crannies. This was installing 50lb sensors 150ft above the rig floor. This was learning an unfamiliar electrical system to literally wire ourselves into the rig itself. It was checking and double checking each connection so that we wouldn't miss a single piece of information while we were drilling. It was sweaty, backbreaking, mind-numbing work that went on for days, and isn't even finished yet (all I have left now, though, is to just rearrange some of my cables to make them look neater).

There was a report written by a crew who had previously rigged up here, and their assessment was that it would take about 4 days for a crew of 4 people to complete the entire process at a reasonable pace. We had 2 1/2 days, and our third crew member wasn't able to arrive until our final half day. When it was all over I slept for 15 hour straight and showed up early to my next shift so that my cell manager could go ahead and do the exact same thing.

Theoretically these cables and sensors should remain in place for up to the next five years. Now our only hope is that the client doesn't run us off the rig and force us to rig down everything we've just finished putting up!