They changed their minds about where to stop drilling again. Surprised? I'm sure not -- the oil company's office has proved quite fickle lately. But they did choose to drill 400 feet less than they were planning yesterday, which means we'll be done drilling today. YES. I said TODAY.
I am so excited. During our pre-job meeting for this well well over two months ago, my manager said this job was expected to last 3.5 weeks and take 4 drilling runs. We're now just finishing week 7 and drilling run #8. I first arrived on this rig on the 18th of February, and I've had a total of 9 days off since then. To compare, a person who worked a regular M-F job would have had 14 weekend days since then.
All I can think about is rigging down, getting the heck out of here, finishing the End of Well Report, and then driving to my manager's office in Houston and turning in my two week's notice. I am virtually shaking with anticipation. I am so excited about leaving the oilfield and moving back north that I'm surprised I've been able to pay any attention to this well at all. I have, in fact proven a more than adequate cell manager lately. More than adequate is sufficient for me, since I am far too distracted for any superlative performance.
We have 85 more feet left. We're drilling at 10 feet an hour. I am all a-flutter I can barely contain myself. For all I know, these could be the last 85 feet I drill forever. FOR. EVER. Ah me!
Showing posts with label drilling. Show all posts
Showing posts with label drilling. Show all posts
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Will They or Won't They?
We have just about 600 feet left to drill in this well after making over a combined 20,000 feet in these past two sections (including the one where our drilling assembly fell to the bottom and we had to abandon it, cement, and restart from a couple thousand feet back). I feel like I'm watching a plot-twisting soap opera play out over how exactly we're going to finish these last 600 feet.
Sunday Morning: 1,200 feet to final depth. The inclination of the hole is getting too high! Quick, change drilling parameters!
Monday Afternoon: 1,000 feet to final depth. Oh, as it turns out, the newly-inclined direction is pointing us right back to the original (pre-cementing) target. Keep it up!
Tuesday Morning: 900 feet to final depth. But we're getting too close to the lease line -- we must pull out of the hole and run a new drilling assembly with a motor to steer away!
Wednesday 05:00 A.M.: 600 feet to final depth. OH MY GOD -- is that sandstone section the PAYZONE????!!!! FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY KEEP DRILLING!
Wednesday 06:00 A.M.: 595 feet to final depth. Oh, careful! We're getting some gas returns! We had better circulate the mud for a while before we take a kick.
My mother recently asked me if I ever was on a rig that reached it's desired payzone. The answer to that is: I'm not quite sure. I've seen areas that held gas or oil, but depending on the oil company who's hired me, they might be a bit reticent to share some of their more potentially-profitable knowledge. And just because I see oil or gas on a log doesn't mean that it's extractable. Once the drill bit is out of the hole, my job is done and the production process begins -- which is an entirely different part of an oil or gas well's life cycle.
It's possible, however, that the little squiggly lines I saw on the log when I first walked into my unit this morning are a payzone.
I guess we'll see pretty soon how this little soap opera plays out -- more plot twists ahead for sure!
Sunday Morning: 1,200 feet to final depth. The inclination of the hole is getting too high! Quick, change drilling parameters!
Monday Afternoon: 1,000 feet to final depth. Oh, as it turns out, the newly-inclined direction is pointing us right back to the original (pre-cementing) target. Keep it up!
Tuesday Morning: 900 feet to final depth. But we're getting too close to the lease line -- we must pull out of the hole and run a new drilling assembly with a motor to steer away!
Wednesday 05:00 A.M.: 600 feet to final depth. OH MY GOD -- is that sandstone section the PAYZONE????!!!! FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY KEEP DRILLING!
Wednesday 06:00 A.M.: 595 feet to final depth. Oh, careful! We're getting some gas returns! We had better circulate the mud for a while before we take a kick.
My mother recently asked me if I ever was on a rig that reached it's desired payzone. The answer to that is: I'm not quite sure. I've seen areas that held gas or oil, but depending on the oil company who's hired me, they might be a bit reticent to share some of their more potentially-profitable knowledge. And just because I see oil or gas on a log doesn't mean that it's extractable. Once the drill bit is out of the hole, my job is done and the production process begins -- which is an entirely different part of an oil or gas well's life cycle.
It's possible, however, that the little squiggly lines I saw on the log when I first walked into my unit this morning are a payzone.
I guess we'll see pretty soon how this little soap opera plays out -- more plot twists ahead for sure!
Monday, March 8, 2010
The One-hundred-and-first First
As I was compiling that list of 100 "firsts" a new first was occurring simultaneously. This new experience for me came to its stunning conclusion early yesterday morning when our drilling assembly was officially declared "Lost in Hole".
That means that there is 1.5 million dollars worth of equipment sitting at the bottom of a 9000 foot hole, and we can't get it out.
A number of days ago we were in the process of pulling the drilling assembly part-way out of the hole so we could circulate the mud and clean the hole when all of a sudden the whole rig shook (and jolted me awake from a mid-day nap I was taking in my chair). The next thing they noticed was that the weight hanging from the derrick was 100,000 pounds less than it was supposed to be. Yes, ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND POUNDS LESS. What happened to that extra 100,000 pounds? Well, it twisted off and fell down to the very bottom.
The next six days were a relaxing time for me. The tools that I am in charge of are literally screwed into the drill bit, so they would be the very last items to reach surface. The rest of the rig was in a flurry of activity, however, as they tried fishing out the tools again and again with various fishing assemblies.
The very last thing they tried was a "freepointer gun" which was lowered down via wireline. It used blasting charges to cut the drilling assembly in half, and then we were able to successfully fish the top half out. They were hopeful that they could then fish the bottom half out, being lighter for the lack of 2000 feet of drillpipe, but after six days at the bottom of the hole the drill bit may as well have grown roots; it was not to be budged.
1.3 of those 1.5 million dollars is the high-tech equipment that my company is now short. I'm currently working with my manager on the bill for the client, and it's going to be a doozy.
That means that there is 1.5 million dollars worth of equipment sitting at the bottom of a 9000 foot hole, and we can't get it out.
A number of days ago we were in the process of pulling the drilling assembly part-way out of the hole so we could circulate the mud and clean the hole when all of a sudden the whole rig shook (and jolted me awake from a mid-day nap I was taking in my chair). The next thing they noticed was that the weight hanging from the derrick was 100,000 pounds less than it was supposed to be. Yes, ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND POUNDS LESS. What happened to that extra 100,000 pounds? Well, it twisted off and fell down to the very bottom.
The next six days were a relaxing time for me. The tools that I am in charge of are literally screwed into the drill bit, so they would be the very last items to reach surface. The rest of the rig was in a flurry of activity, however, as they tried fishing out the tools again and again with various fishing assemblies.
The very last thing they tried was a "freepointer gun" which was lowered down via wireline. It used blasting charges to cut the drilling assembly in half, and then we were able to successfully fish the top half out. They were hopeful that they could then fish the bottom half out, being lighter for the lack of 2000 feet of drillpipe, but after six days at the bottom of the hole the drill bit may as well have grown roots; it was not to be budged.
1.3 of those 1.5 million dollars is the high-tech equipment that my company is now short. I'm currently working with my manager on the bill for the client, and it's going to be a doozy.
Saturday, February 27, 2010
I Jinxed It!
I was just about to start my shift this morning in a rather good mood. I had gone jogging on the treadmill in the gym after waking up, then ate a good breakfast, and I was looking forward to a nice calm day of steady drilling. As I put on my steel toed boots and braved the strong sea winds, I thought to myself "How pleasant the job is when we drill steadily for thousands and thousands of feet. The daily routine becomes solidified, paperwork is kept up-to-date, and I have plenty of time to update my blog on the relative merits of the local vegetation."
Thirty seconds later my bliss was shattered when I arrived in the logging shack to find out that they had STOPPED drilling only three hours before because they suspected the drill bit had failed. We had gone from drilling 100ft/hr to 4ft per hour in a matter of minutes, and they decided to change drilling assemblies in hopes of a better rate of penetration.
So lucky me, I got to spend all day doing the most labor-intensive aspects of my whole job, all rolled into one shift. I had to program tools, prepare paperwork, and prep them for drilling. I had to stand around on the rig floor to watch all our equipment being loaded and unloaded. I had to dump the recorded data off our old tools, process it, and write brand new log formats before I could even generate the logs to send to town. And I've got plenty more to do.
In fact I should be working on keeping all my paperwork timely right now, since its fast getting out-of-date. But I needed to detail my day's struggles and thus benefit from the therapeutic aspects of writing a blog.
We're almost back to drilling again. In 14 hours! I cannot recall the last time we turned around drilling operations in ONLY 14 hours. I'm honestly surprised I'm not dead on my feet right now from having to work that fast -- although I can't say the same for the directional driller. He's gotten less than half the sleep I have!
I look back at the post I wrote yesterday about having to juggle many different tasks throughout my shift and I LAUGH! I LAUGH at that girl who thought she knew what it was like to juggle a million different tasks at once. SHE HAS NO IDEA WHAT A MILLION TASKS IS LIKE!
I had probably better stop now before I jinx myself even worse...
Oh! And in an interesting side note: our rig was struck by lightning last night! I was lucky to be asleep at the time, because it tends to surge all of our equipment and crash all of our computers. My night hand thus had the enviable task of getting us back up and running. And kudos to him for doing such a good job at it that he didn't have to wake me up. I have such a good night hand!
Thirty seconds later my bliss was shattered when I arrived in the logging shack to find out that they had STOPPED drilling only three hours before because they suspected the drill bit had failed. We had gone from drilling 100ft/hr to 4ft per hour in a matter of minutes, and they decided to change drilling assemblies in hopes of a better rate of penetration.
So lucky me, I got to spend all day doing the most labor-intensive aspects of my whole job, all rolled into one shift. I had to program tools, prepare paperwork, and prep them for drilling. I had to stand around on the rig floor to watch all our equipment being loaded and unloaded. I had to dump the recorded data off our old tools, process it, and write brand new log formats before I could even generate the logs to send to town. And I've got plenty more to do.
In fact I should be working on keeping all my paperwork timely right now, since its fast getting out-of-date. But I needed to detail my day's struggles and thus benefit from the therapeutic aspects of writing a blog.
We're almost back to drilling again. In 14 hours! I cannot recall the last time we turned around drilling operations in ONLY 14 hours. I'm honestly surprised I'm not dead on my feet right now from having to work that fast -- although I can't say the same for the directional driller. He's gotten less than half the sleep I have!
I look back at the post I wrote yesterday about having to juggle many different tasks throughout my shift and I LAUGH! I LAUGH at that girl who thought she knew what it was like to juggle a million different tasks at once. SHE HAS NO IDEA WHAT A MILLION TASKS IS LIKE!
I had probably better stop now before I jinx myself even worse...
Oh! And in an interesting side note: our rig was struck by lightning last night! I was lucky to be asleep at the time, because it tends to surge all of our equipment and crash all of our computers. My night hand thus had the enviable task of getting us back up and running. And kudos to him for doing such a good job at it that he didn't have to wake me up. I have such a good night hand!
Monday, December 28, 2009
May you live in interesting times
Heaven forgive me if I ever complained of boredom on the rig. I had one calm day on the day after Christmas, and then WHAM! another failure yesterday causing us to make the rig stop drilling. I solved the problem relatively quickly, but the sheer volume of failures is starting to wear on everybody's nerves -- most especially my own.
Is my job cursed? Specifically, is this job cursed with the above phrase; the classic Chinese ill-wish? I have been rather lucky in my past jobs. Whatever troubleshooting has been required has been minimal and infrequent compared to many jobs. I suppose I might be paying my karmic due for such a string of good fortune.
Of course I'm more worried that management is going to see another side of this: that the one constant in all of these failures is me.
In other news, we'll be done drilling this section late tonight. That means I might get sent home while they run casing tomorrow. It will only be 2-3 days off, with an unfortunate amount of travel time to further foreshorten it (4 hr drive each way to the heliport and a night spent at a nearby hotel prior to departure), but with any luck I might be in town to celebrate New Year's -- with whomever happens to be in town as well.
Is my job cursed? Specifically, is this job cursed with the above phrase; the classic Chinese ill-wish? I have been rather lucky in my past jobs. Whatever troubleshooting has been required has been minimal and infrequent compared to many jobs. I suppose I might be paying my karmic due for such a string of good fortune.
Of course I'm more worried that management is going to see another side of this: that the one constant in all of these failures is me.
In other news, we'll be done drilling this section late tonight. That means I might get sent home while they run casing tomorrow. It will only be 2-3 days off, with an unfortunate amount of travel time to further foreshorten it (4 hr drive each way to the heliport and a night spent at a nearby hotel prior to departure), but with any luck I might be in town to celebrate New Year's -- with whomever happens to be in town as well.
Thursday, December 24, 2009
A few thoughts on Christmas Eve
At four o'clock in the morning on the day I came to this rig I entered a 24-hour CVS to grab some snacks for the four-hour ride to the heliport. While there I made an impulse buy in purchasing a strand of plastic tinsel-ated garland with foil snowflakes to decorate my offshore workspace with, for I knew with a gloomy sort of certainty that I would be working on Christmas, so goshdarnitall if I wasn't going to celebrate.
That strand of silver tinsel snowflakes now sits hangs off the bottom edge of our supply cabinets, just at the top of my range of vision when I stare at my laptop screen to type this. It has been added to by a pair of red and green tinsel garlands we gleaned from the shipment of Christmas decorations sent to the rig along with the regular grocery delivery.
So we are beset on all sides by lengths of mercilessly garish plastic. The most heinous of all petroleum products, these tinsel garlands are a fitting celebration for a Christmas on an oil rig. The silver one I purchased is small and dainty, barely offensive if given no more than a cursory glance, but the red and green garlands absconded from the rig supplies are wrist-thick swags of fake pine needles; a raccoon's tail drapery of hideousness.
And yet these glaring shades give me a sense of joy, a pure feeling resonating from whatever sense memories recall my happiest holiday moments -- which are alas too few and far between the times when I spent Christmas a whining and moping brat-- giving me a giddiness one might not expect for someone which such a dreary holiday prospect.
This is a good thing to offset the difficulties of the past week. I finally got enough sleep last night, but woke up just in time to spend the next four hours outside in the rain (and wind so hard it was blowing the rain straight down my ear canals) preparing for our next bit run. After all the equipment failures we had (two computers, one peripheral device, and a danged tape measure!) I'm working with the bare minimum to run my job and the weather is too rough (again, the wind) for the helicopter carrying the replacements to make it out here.
But writing this is putting Christmas carols in my head. So God rest ye, merry gentlemen, for I have some oil to drill for and some tunes to sing.
That strand of silver tinsel snowflakes now sits hangs off the bottom edge of our supply cabinets, just at the top of my range of vision when I stare at my laptop screen to type this. It has been added to by a pair of red and green tinsel garlands we gleaned from the shipment of Christmas decorations sent to the rig along with the regular grocery delivery.
So we are beset on all sides by lengths of mercilessly garish plastic. The most heinous of all petroleum products, these tinsel garlands are a fitting celebration for a Christmas on an oil rig. The silver one I purchased is small and dainty, barely offensive if given no more than a cursory glance, but the red and green garlands absconded from the rig supplies are wrist-thick swags of fake pine needles; a raccoon's tail drapery of hideousness.
And yet these glaring shades give me a sense of joy, a pure feeling resonating from whatever sense memories recall my happiest holiday moments -- which are alas too few and far between the times when I spent Christmas a whining and moping brat-- giving me a giddiness one might not expect for someone which such a dreary holiday prospect.
This is a good thing to offset the difficulties of the past week. I finally got enough sleep last night, but woke up just in time to spend the next four hours outside in the rain (and wind so hard it was blowing the rain straight down my ear canals) preparing for our next bit run. After all the equipment failures we had (two computers, one peripheral device, and a danged tape measure!) I'm working with the bare minimum to run my job and the weather is too rough (again, the wind) for the helicopter carrying the replacements to make it out here.
But writing this is putting Christmas carols in my head. So God rest ye, merry gentlemen, for I have some oil to drill for and some tunes to sing.
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
I'm too tired to think of a title for this one
I reached a new milestone in my career advancement. Unfortunately it's the kind of milestone that makes one want to jump overboard.
This job can be stressful at times, most especially so upon the person in charge. I have seen my cell managers go nearly cross-eyed from the stress and the sleep deprivation required by a troublesome assignment, and I always wondered if I would have the kind of commitment to take responsibility for the job that way.
Well last night it turns out I did, and now I just want to cry.
I left to take a brief nap before we picked up our tools and put them in the hole to start drilling. When I returned from my nap my night hand informed me that the entire network we had set up in our unit was down. We spent the next four hours troubleshooting it, and by the end of the night a second of our three computers had bitten the dust. Once we had the bare minimum of data processing programs running on our third and "last vestige of hope" computer, I went to bed with instructions to my night hand to wake me up when I was needed to help pick up BHA. A mere 70 minutes later at the friendly hour of 2:15am, I got the knock on my bedroom door and the next round of work began.
I've been riding waves of energy, and at my low ebbs I've snuck in a couple of cat naps in my ever-increasingly uncomfortable office chair. Pretty soon my night hand will wake up from his few hours of sleep and come out to give me relief.
The directional driller commented on my lack of sleep and as an afterthought said, "Well, this is the most critical part of the well." Right. Thanks for the reminder. Looks like I won't be leaving my post anytime soon today.
This job can be stressful at times, most especially so upon the person in charge. I have seen my cell managers go nearly cross-eyed from the stress and the sleep deprivation required by a troublesome assignment, and I always wondered if I would have the kind of commitment to take responsibility for the job that way.
Well last night it turns out I did, and now I just want to cry.
I left to take a brief nap before we picked up our tools and put them in the hole to start drilling. When I returned from my nap my night hand informed me that the entire network we had set up in our unit was down. We spent the next four hours troubleshooting it, and by the end of the night a second of our three computers had bitten the dust. Once we had the bare minimum of data processing programs running on our third and "last vestige of hope" computer, I went to bed with instructions to my night hand to wake me up when I was needed to help pick up BHA. A mere 70 minutes later at the friendly hour of 2:15am, I got the knock on my bedroom door and the next round of work began.
I've been riding waves of energy, and at my low ebbs I've snuck in a couple of cat naps in my ever-increasingly uncomfortable office chair. Pretty soon my night hand will wake up from his few hours of sleep and come out to give me relief.
The directional driller commented on my lack of sleep and as an afterthought said, "Well, this is the most critical part of the well." Right. Thanks for the reminder. Looks like I won't be leaving my post anytime soon today.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
A lot of money.... for what, really?
Good news: we finished drilling today! Just as I was waking up at 4:15pm, the rig reached their revised Target Depth (of 300 ft past yesterday's depth, just past a total of 31,500 feet of hole.
And guess what we found? Nothing! Unfortunately for the oil company, there was no pay zone found in this well. The poor guys were quite disappointed since they were expecting a nice big oil reservoir.
But this billion dollar+ operation won't be for naught. They will run some wireline logging tools into the freshly drilled hole to better develop their models for what kind of stuff is actually down there, and specifically, where the oil is. This should make their next well in this area much more efficient and hopefully more successful.
For those curious, Wireline logging is the technological predecessor to Logging While Drilling. We use the same sorts of techniques, but their tools are smaller and are simply dropped down the hole at the end of a wire instead of attached to the entire drilling assembly like ours are. Pluses of Wireline: the conditions that the tools are run in mean that there's more flexibility in tool design, so they are able to perform much more complex measurements than we can. Minuses: the rig must shut down and have nothing else in the hole while running Wireline, and you can't get the data simultaneously while drilling like you can with us.
My company was founded by Wireline loggers, however (since Logging While Drilling didn't exist back then), so it's the "darling" segment of our corporate executives.
So now I wait. I sit at my laptop, alternately updating paperwork and watching movies until my tools are out of the hole and I can start doing real work. I've spent the past 3 hours doing some particularly befuddling paperwork, so I think it's time to sit back and finish the "Die Hard" marathon I started yesterday. I was most of the way through #3 (Die Hard With a Vengeance) when they just had to go back to drilling again. How frustrating!
And guess what we found? Nothing! Unfortunately for the oil company, there was no pay zone found in this well. The poor guys were quite disappointed since they were expecting a nice big oil reservoir.
But this billion dollar+ operation won't be for naught. They will run some wireline logging tools into the freshly drilled hole to better develop their models for what kind of stuff is actually down there, and specifically, where the oil is. This should make their next well in this area much more efficient and hopefully more successful.
For those curious, Wireline logging is the technological predecessor to Logging While Drilling. We use the same sorts of techniques, but their tools are smaller and are simply dropped down the hole at the end of a wire instead of attached to the entire drilling assembly like ours are. Pluses of Wireline: the conditions that the tools are run in mean that there's more flexibility in tool design, so they are able to perform much more complex measurements than we can. Minuses: the rig must shut down and have nothing else in the hole while running Wireline, and you can't get the data simultaneously while drilling like you can with us.
My company was founded by Wireline loggers, however (since Logging While Drilling didn't exist back then), so it's the "darling" segment of our corporate executives.
So now I wait. I sit at my laptop, alternately updating paperwork and watching movies until my tools are out of the hole and I can start doing real work. I've spent the past 3 hours doing some particularly befuddling paperwork, so I think it's time to sit back and finish the "Die Hard" marathon I started yesterday. I was most of the way through #3 (Die Hard With a Vengeance) when they just had to go back to drilling again. How frustrating!
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Short on Tea and Patience
Today marks week four of my current hitch.
I am three days away from setting a personal record in number of consecutive days offshore. I am two days away from reaching 150 offshore days this year. I am a week away from my scheduled departure date.
A few days ago I had no scheduled departure date. When people asked me how long I was out here for, I'd blithely reply "When we're done drilling!". But now the problem is that nobody seems to know when or where that will be. Various estimates include: 2500 feet deeper, 1000 feet deeper, 300 feet deeper, and yesterday. In the meantime we're "Waiting on Weather" due to rough seas, and not drilling.
After a bunch of back-and-forth on prospective plans -- one possibility is to fill the last 15000 feet we drilled and kick off at an earlier point to do a sidetrack well -- I decided that enough was enough and I was going to go home at the five week mark. I've already got my relief lined up and I'm making plans to be home for Thanksgiving.
I had planned on using this hitch to learn as much as possible about nuclear operations. As it turned out, I learned some (not quite enough), and now I'm running out of energy to process all of this into retrievable memory in my brain. I have been on two jobs before where I got to see all the preparation in running a nuclear tool: programming the tool, loading the source, starting data acquisition at surface, but both times I was sent home before we got very far. I've never seen a complete nuclear run. And I'm never going to get my next promotion until I do.
But there's only so much that a person can take.
My longest hitch ever was 6 weeks in Wyoming. Just under a year ago, I spent Thanksgiving on a rig in the middle of some sandy mountains. But while there I was able to take a couple day trips to the tiny little towns that were within a reasonable driving distance, so it never really felt like a full 6 weeks of work. Comparing the length of a hitch on land to the length of a hitch offshore is like comparing apples to oranges. There is no comparison.
My cell manager's longest hitch offshore was 75 days. He was hired about 5 years ago when things seemed a lot less pleasant for people in our job. His first year alone he had more than 260 rig days. I can't even fathom that.
But now I cannot help keeping a running countdown till my estimated departure date. No matter how I try to avoid thinking about it, my brain is always tracking the days now that it's set. Depending on the drilling plans, we might even leave earlier due to finishing the well -- but I can't depend on that so I'm trying not to even consider it. Regardless, I'm leaving no later than Tuesday. For now I'm running out of tea, so it's going to be enough of a hardship to have to ration my supplies.
Until then...
I am three days away from setting a personal record in number of consecutive days offshore. I am two days away from reaching 150 offshore days this year. I am a week away from my scheduled departure date.
A few days ago I had no scheduled departure date. When people asked me how long I was out here for, I'd blithely reply "When we're done drilling!". But now the problem is that nobody seems to know when or where that will be. Various estimates include: 2500 feet deeper, 1000 feet deeper, 300 feet deeper, and yesterday. In the meantime we're "Waiting on Weather" due to rough seas, and not drilling.
After a bunch of back-and-forth on prospective plans -- one possibility is to fill the last 15000 feet we drilled and kick off at an earlier point to do a sidetrack well -- I decided that enough was enough and I was going to go home at the five week mark. I've already got my relief lined up and I'm making plans to be home for Thanksgiving.
I had planned on using this hitch to learn as much as possible about nuclear operations. As it turned out, I learned some (not quite enough), and now I'm running out of energy to process all of this into retrievable memory in my brain. I have been on two jobs before where I got to see all the preparation in running a nuclear tool: programming the tool, loading the source, starting data acquisition at surface, but both times I was sent home before we got very far. I've never seen a complete nuclear run. And I'm never going to get my next promotion until I do.
But there's only so much that a person can take.
My longest hitch ever was 6 weeks in Wyoming. Just under a year ago, I spent Thanksgiving on a rig in the middle of some sandy mountains. But while there I was able to take a couple day trips to the tiny little towns that were within a reasonable driving distance, so it never really felt like a full 6 weeks of work. Comparing the length of a hitch on land to the length of a hitch offshore is like comparing apples to oranges. There is no comparison.
My cell manager's longest hitch offshore was 75 days. He was hired about 5 years ago when things seemed a lot less pleasant for people in our job. His first year alone he had more than 260 rig days. I can't even fathom that.
But now I cannot help keeping a running countdown till my estimated departure date. No matter how I try to avoid thinking about it, my brain is always tracking the days now that it's set. Depending on the drilling plans, we might even leave earlier due to finishing the well -- but I can't depend on that so I'm trying not to even consider it. Regardless, I'm leaving no later than Tuesday. For now I'm running out of tea, so it's going to be enough of a hardship to have to ration my supplies.
Until then...
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Keep on Truckin'
Shortly after deciding not to evacuate for Hurricane Ida, the higher-ups made another gutsy decision. They decided we were going to drill during Ida as well!!
When we first reached the bottom of the hole (it took a while, being >25,000 ft deep) we made our first attempt to drill. After about thirty minutes of bouncing up and down and twisting the drill string back and forth in the rough seas they called "pause" for to wait on better weather.
Six hours later they were back on bottom, drilling ahead, and having such ridiculous fluctuations because of the still-raging seas that I was stressing out to no end over my data. When training to become a Measurements/Logging While Drilling Engineer, there is one phrase that they hammer into as if it's our religious doctrine.
"What is our most important measurement?" says the instructor
"Depth!" reply the dozens of students in perfect unison.
Without a good depth measurement, all our other measurements (surveys, formation information) are virtually meaningless. Hey, it's great if you see a pay zone on the logs, but what's the point of logging it if you don't know where it is?
Due to the rig heave we were had to keep manually changing our depth to the point where I practically abandoned any further attempts to stay accurate. Who knew where we were? Our logs were a mess, since we'd drill a couple feet normally and then shoot ahead almost ten feet so fast our sensors didn't record any info in the interval.
But eventually we got ourselves on track. And then, eventually the weather calmed down. In retrospect it seems like they definitely made the right decision by not evacuating, since they saved a few million dollars and drilled a good 1500 feet that we otherwise wouldn't have.
We've got a long way to go as yet. Of all our previous drilling runs, we made no more than 5000 feet of new hole in one go, and they're attempting to finish the last 7000 feet in one shot this time. This is an ambitious move. The hole is deep, the formation is tight, and there's a lot that could go wrong. We got stuck already once today for a brief moment, but they were able to jar the drilling assembly out of it quickly to everyone's relief.
With a nuclear source in the hole, nobody wants to get stuck. My company runs some of the only tools in the Gulf of Mexico that enable you to fish the source out while the tools are still in the hole, but at almost 30,000 ft deep, there's no guarantee that we'd be able to fish it out successfully. If the source is stuck, the entire hole must be filled with red cement and a placard must be placed on the sea floor warning any future visitors (if fish can read) that there is radioactive material down below. Then there's a LOT of paperwork and the oil company has to eat the cost of the abandoned well.
So here we go. We're at 29,000 feet now, with a planned total depth of 33,700, so I'll be keeping my fingers crossed until then.
When we first reached the bottom of the hole (it took a while, being >25,000 ft deep) we made our first attempt to drill. After about thirty minutes of bouncing up and down and twisting the drill string back and forth in the rough seas they called "pause" for to wait on better weather.
Six hours later they were back on bottom, drilling ahead, and having such ridiculous fluctuations because of the still-raging seas that I was stressing out to no end over my data. When training to become a Measurements/Logging While Drilling Engineer, there is one phrase that they hammer into as if it's our religious doctrine.
"What is our most important measurement?" says the instructor
"Depth!" reply the dozens of students in perfect unison.
Without a good depth measurement, all our other measurements (surveys, formation information) are virtually meaningless. Hey, it's great if you see a pay zone on the logs, but what's the point of logging it if you don't know where it is?
Due to the rig heave we were had to keep manually changing our depth to the point where I practically abandoned any further attempts to stay accurate. Who knew where we were? Our logs were a mess, since we'd drill a couple feet normally and then shoot ahead almost ten feet so fast our sensors didn't record any info in the interval.
But eventually we got ourselves on track. And then, eventually the weather calmed down. In retrospect it seems like they definitely made the right decision by not evacuating, since they saved a few million dollars and drilled a good 1500 feet that we otherwise wouldn't have.
We've got a long way to go as yet. Of all our previous drilling runs, we made no more than 5000 feet of new hole in one go, and they're attempting to finish the last 7000 feet in one shot this time. This is an ambitious move. The hole is deep, the formation is tight, and there's a lot that could go wrong. We got stuck already once today for a brief moment, but they were able to jar the drilling assembly out of it quickly to everyone's relief.
With a nuclear source in the hole, nobody wants to get stuck. My company runs some of the only tools in the Gulf of Mexico that enable you to fish the source out while the tools are still in the hole, but at almost 30,000 ft deep, there's no guarantee that we'd be able to fish it out successfully. If the source is stuck, the entire hole must be filled with red cement and a placard must be placed on the sea floor warning any future visitors (if fish can read) that there is radioactive material down below. Then there's a LOT of paperwork and the oil company has to eat the cost of the abandoned well.
So here we go. We're at 29,000 feet now, with a planned total depth of 33,700, so I'll be keeping my fingers crossed until then.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Ready, Set, Wait for it....
For the past couple of days we've been preparing non-stop for our next drilling section. I've been filling out the paperwork for the nuclear source, getting all of our other pre-run documentation ready, programming the tools, prepping the computers, etc, etc.
As of yesterday morning at 10am we were all set and ready to go. It was just a matter of time before the rig let us know they were ready for us. And sure enough, at about 12:30 they told us we were going to pick up tools in 30 minutes.
5 minutes after that all plans were dropped.
Why? I'll show you why:
Tropical Storm Ida seems to be moseying up our way sometime early next week. People were already whispering "evacuation" last night, and next to leaving people on a rig during a hurricane/tropical storm, there's one thing you really don't want to do: leave a radioactive source in the hole during a hurricane/tropical storm.
Side note: I was once talking to a galley hand on another rig who told me this unbelievable story about his brother who worked on oil rigs in the 1980's. They hadn't fully evacuated the rig he was on by the time the storm came, and he and a good 20 other men were swept out to sea. They spent the next 21 hours barely staying afloat in the 30ft+ high waves until the hurricane passed and they were picked up by the coast guard. There was a class action lawsuit and this galley hand's brother never had to work again. I was a little bit skeptical until I saw the photos of his brother's 3 Hummers parked outside his mansion. But when you think about it, most safety regulations out here are on the books because of mistakes made in the past. That lawsuit ensured the oil companies would do all in their power to prevent that situation from ever happening again.
If an evacuation is called while drilling, the rig has to unlatch from the drilling assembly and the riser (a giant tube extending the depth of the sea and secured to the rig floor, protecting the drilling fluid and drilling assembly from the sea -- and vice versa), and leave the entire drilling assembly in the hole. It happens occasionally upon returning to the site after a hurricane that the well can no longer be found. No riser, no tools, nothing. This would be disastrous if a radioactive source were still in the hole.
To maintain productivity while they wait on a decision, the rig decided to go back to drilling with a drilling assembly made entirely of "dummy iron" -- no expensive electrical equipment or radioactive sources.
We'll probably find out about an evacuation once the offices in town have discussed it at their first morning meetings, so by 8 or 9am I'll probably have an answer. But a rig 40 miles south of us being run by the same oil company has already gotten their orders to evacuate, so I've got a hunch about what we're going to be doing tomorrow.
I'll be sitting here watching movies in the meantime.
As of yesterday morning at 10am we were all set and ready to go. It was just a matter of time before the rig let us know they were ready for us. And sure enough, at about 12:30 they told us we were going to pick up tools in 30 minutes.
5 minutes after that all plans were dropped.
Why? I'll show you why:
Tropical Storm Ida seems to be moseying up our way sometime early next week. People were already whispering "evacuation" last night, and next to leaving people on a rig during a hurricane/tropical storm, there's one thing you really don't want to do: leave a radioactive source in the hole during a hurricane/tropical storm.
Side note: I was once talking to a galley hand on another rig who told me this unbelievable story about his brother who worked on oil rigs in the 1980's. They hadn't fully evacuated the rig he was on by the time the storm came, and he and a good 20 other men were swept out to sea. They spent the next 21 hours barely staying afloat in the 30ft+ high waves until the hurricane passed and they were picked up by the coast guard. There was a class action lawsuit and this galley hand's brother never had to work again. I was a little bit skeptical until I saw the photos of his brother's 3 Hummers parked outside his mansion. But when you think about it, most safety regulations out here are on the books because of mistakes made in the past. That lawsuit ensured the oil companies would do all in their power to prevent that situation from ever happening again.
If an evacuation is called while drilling, the rig has to unlatch from the drilling assembly and the riser (a giant tube extending the depth of the sea and secured to the rig floor, protecting the drilling fluid and drilling assembly from the sea -- and vice versa), and leave the entire drilling assembly in the hole. It happens occasionally upon returning to the site after a hurricane that the well can no longer be found. No riser, no tools, nothing. This would be disastrous if a radioactive source were still in the hole.
To maintain productivity while they wait on a decision, the rig decided to go back to drilling with a drilling assembly made entirely of "dummy iron" -- no expensive electrical equipment or radioactive sources.
We'll probably find out about an evacuation once the offices in town have discussed it at their first morning meetings, so by 8 or 9am I'll probably have an answer. But a rig 40 miles south of us being run by the same oil company has already gotten their orders to evacuate, so I've got a hunch about what we're going to be doing tomorrow.
I'll be sitting here watching movies in the meantime.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
The Bug Guy
I learned the coolest new thing today. They have a paleontologist on the rig now. He analyzes samples of the formation cuttings we get while drilling. Why a paleontologist, you might ask? This paleontologist looks at the samples under microscopes to analyze fossils of the prehistoric bugs embedded in the rock to correlate what type of rock we are drilling through. When I thought about it a bit more, I realized that it was probably a pretty tedious job. People on the rig call him "The Bug Guy" cause he looks at bugs all day. But in my head I will forever call him "The Dinosaur Guy" -- even if it is an inaccurate epithet. Because right now I'm a 10-year old kid on my first trip to the real-life "Jurassic Park".
Post For Post's Sake
When I haven't posted a blog update in a while, you can usually attribute my 'radio silence' to one of three reasons:
So I decided I might as well write SOMETHING on the blog, if only to keep Eric entertained. (Hi Eric!)
So here's an update on the goings-on in oilfield world. They're too short to make a blog post about each, but compiled together they make a nice briefing of sorts:
-- Radio Silence --
- I'm not on a rig and therefore have little to say about rig life.
- I'm on a rig and ridiculously busy with work and have no time to write.
- I'm on a rig and am bored out of my mind with no work to do and have nothing to write about.
- Reading articles on my favorite online news magazines
- Cropping, labeling, and sorting my 1,500+ family photos I scanned from the collections in Duxbury
- Napping
So I decided I might as well write SOMETHING on the blog, if only to keep Eric entertained. (Hi Eric!)
So here's an update on the goings-on in oilfield world. They're too short to make a blog post about each, but compiled together they make a nice briefing of sorts:
- While home and in Boston on vacation, I barely managed to increase my vegetable intake. I cannot say for sure that I even had a whole serving per day, so my firm resolve to up my veggies fell flat on its face. But, I eat TONS of veggies on the rig with lunch & dinner, so I can justify it, right? right?
- The wind has been quite brisk out here and the rig continues to rock, but in the way of experience mariners I seem to have developed my sea legs and the nausea has abated. Or maybe that's my sea stomach.
- We have about 3000 more feet to drill before we reach the section where we plan to run the nuclear tools, so until then I'm getting plenty of sleep. At this rate, we might never get there because they accidentally injected enough extra cement to fill an unexpected 400 more feet of hole than they planned, and we have spent the past 3 days drilling through it (That's 3 million dollars in unplanned operations costs, roughly, for those keeping score). 100 more feeet to go and then I'll actually have some work to keep me from being so bored all night.
- The rig recently received a new treadmill for the gym to replace the one that hasn't worked since before I got here in September. Now I have something to do cardio on besides the stationary bike (or the person that was going to steal the bike has now vacated it for the treadmill, either way its a win!).
-- Radio Silence --
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Speed and Satisfaction
Wow! It's been a busy few days. They have been drilling so fast out here I've barely been able to keep up. They Rate of Penetration (ROP as we call it) has been upwards of 120 feet per hour, when I was previously (both in Wyoming and on the shelf) never faster than 20 feet per hour. Back in Arkansas they smoked through the holes at 300 feet per hour, but I didn't quite have the responsibilities I do here.
While we were drilling I was constantly alert and on edge for my shift. With each new piece of pipe in the hole, the rig would pump a "sweep" which consists of a few dozen gallons of mud that are heavier than the standard mud. This caused my tools signal problems, which in turn caused us to lose about 10 feet of data every 100 feet. These gaps, while tolerated by the client (they should tolerate them after all, they wanted the sweeps so it is THEIR fault!!!) are anathema to me and ALL I have been taught as an MWD Engineer. We have been indoctrinated in the belief that gaps in data are bad. VERY VERY BAD.
So I was ever monitoring the signal, changing parameters on our computers in vain hopes that I might not lose so much data each time a sweep came around. I also would monitor our sensor readings. I was constantly on the lookout that no one had knocked off a pump-stroke counter, that the hookload sensor measuring the weight of the drillstring was still within calibration, and that the depth of the hole was being tracked accurately. Then I would submit the survey data to the directional driller, the static density values to the mudloggers, enter the sonic tool's readings into their little spreadsheet, and keep a constant log of what was happening at all times. The total time spent drilling was actually only 20 hours, but even though it was spaced over the course of a few days I am glad it's over with.
So our tools are out of the hole. I have dumped their memory, processed their data and uploaded the logs to the client's servers. I unloaded two sets of batteries in the blazing sun, and now have what feels like a slight case of heat exhaustion. Luckily I am done. There is no more work to do until tomorrow afternoon, when the next set of tools arrives on the boat. I'm tired, and I'm going to eat some dinner, submit my morning report once the clock ticks past midnight, and go to bed early because I've earned it today. It's a job well done.
Until tomorrow when it starts all over again.
While we were drilling I was constantly alert and on edge for my shift. With each new piece of pipe in the hole, the rig would pump a "sweep" which consists of a few dozen gallons of mud that are heavier than the standard mud. This caused my tools signal problems, which in turn caused us to lose about 10 feet of data every 100 feet. These gaps, while tolerated by the client (they should tolerate them after all, they wanted the sweeps so it is THEIR fault!!!) are anathema to me and ALL I have been taught as an MWD Engineer. We have been indoctrinated in the belief that gaps in data are bad. VERY VERY BAD.
So I was ever monitoring the signal, changing parameters on our computers in vain hopes that I might not lose so much data each time a sweep came around. I also would monitor our sensor readings. I was constantly on the lookout that no one had knocked off a pump-stroke counter, that the hookload sensor measuring the weight of the drillstring was still within calibration, and that the depth of the hole was being tracked accurately. Then I would submit the survey data to the directional driller, the static density values to the mudloggers, enter the sonic tool's readings into their little spreadsheet, and keep a constant log of what was happening at all times. The total time spent drilling was actually only 20 hours, but even though it was spaced over the course of a few days I am glad it's over with.
So our tools are out of the hole. I have dumped their memory, processed their data and uploaded the logs to the client's servers. I unloaded two sets of batteries in the blazing sun, and now have what feels like a slight case of heat exhaustion. Luckily I am done. There is no more work to do until tomorrow afternoon, when the next set of tools arrives on the boat. I'm tired, and I'm going to eat some dinner, submit my morning report once the clock ticks past midnight, and go to bed early because I've earned it today. It's a job well done.
Until tomorrow when it starts all over again.
Monday, April 6, 2009
Who Knew Wind Could Be So Expensive?
Early this morning we had to stop drilling 500 feet before the end of the current hole section because we ran out of mud. Due to weight restrictions, we could only keep a certain amount of mud on the rig at any time, and despite their best calculations apparently the estimated amount of mud deemed to be sufficient fell short of the mark. There are numerous barges anchored within a few hundred meters radius of the rig which serve as storage for various supplies we cannot keep on deck, and one of these boats had our hoard of mud. BUT!!! The winds were too high and the seas were too rough to get the boats close enough for offloading!
We spent 12 hours essentially twiddling our collective thumbs waiting for the weather to calm enough to make the mud obtainable. Approximate cost in downtime: $500,000.00.
So naturally there has been a fair amount of rocking back and forth with the surf. This rig has a gym (yay!), so I decided to take advantage of it this afternoon and went for a jog on the treadmill. After I got off I had that strange feeling you sometimes get after the treadmill where it still feels like your surroundings are moving. Then I sat down and I realized the room was moving! The entire rig, of course, was heaving from the waves.
We spent 12 hours essentially twiddling our collective thumbs waiting for the weather to calm enough to make the mud obtainable. Approximate cost in downtime: $500,000.00.
So naturally there has been a fair amount of rocking back and forth with the surf. This rig has a gym (yay!), so I decided to take advantage of it this afternoon and went for a jog on the treadmill. After I got off I had that strange feeling you sometimes get after the treadmill where it still feels like your surroundings are moving. Then I sat down and I realized the room was moving! The entire rig, of course, was heaving from the waves.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Plodding Along...
It's been just about four weeks that I've been on this rig for this hitch, with nary a reprieve. Luckily I have a vacation coming up soon, so I should be heading home within the next six or so days. And boy, do I ever want to not be here right now. A flu-epidemic swept our rig. I caught it, and while it's not so bad, I still have to deal with phlegmy coughs, a runny nose, and a big fat pile of fatigue. Not so much fun when I'm working 12+hour shifts.
In other news, haha! I spoke too soon! Less than 24 hours after coming back to life, our OTHER tool failed, so we had no more data at all. Then the drill bit gave out, so we pulled out of the hole. Today is the first day we've been back to drilling since then. In the meantime, well, I've been sick.
We also have an auditor out here today. She's a former field engineer who essentially got roped into the position of "rig auditor", and now that they're actually expecting business to really, truly, surely start slowing down ... any day now! the office is starting to focus a lot more on Service Quality. We were on top of the list because of all our tool failures. The audit is now about 90% done, and things look good for me (I did a self-audit last week, so I was very well prepared), and hopefully the office will get a lot of warm fuzzy feelings when reading my review.
The directional drillers went home. They're expensive, so now that we're in a section of the well where the direction we're going in isn't alllllll that important, the company decided to quit paying for them.
Now hopefully I'll get a replacement for me sent out here before Mardi Gras so I can hit up some of the local festivities. They have something like 10 parades in the city of Lafayette over the course of the past week or so!
In other news, haha! I spoke too soon! Less than 24 hours after coming back to life, our OTHER tool failed, so we had no more data at all. Then the drill bit gave out, so we pulled out of the hole. Today is the first day we've been back to drilling since then. In the meantime, well, I've been sick.
We also have an auditor out here today. She's a former field engineer who essentially got roped into the position of "rig auditor", and now that they're actually expecting business to really, truly, surely start slowing down ... any day now! the office is starting to focus a lot more on Service Quality. We were on top of the list because of all our tool failures. The audit is now about 90% done, and things look good for me (I did a self-audit last week, so I was very well prepared), and hopefully the office will get a lot of warm fuzzy feelings when reading my review.
The directional drillers went home. They're expensive, so now that we're in a section of the well where the direction we're going in isn't alllllll that important, the company decided to quit paying for them.
Now hopefully I'll get a replacement for me sent out here before Mardi Gras so I can hit up some of the local festivities. They have something like 10 parades in the city of Lafayette over the course of the past week or so!
Friday, February 13, 2009
A day of Ill luck
Happy Friday the 13th! I woke up this morning, dashed of to the safety meeting for which I was late for, and when questioned about operations I said "Things look good; drilling ahead!" cheerfully and full of optimisim.
What I did not know, was that an hour before, we had lost communication with one of our tools downhole. Another tool failure. Sigh.
The odd part is, that we haven't lost communication with the tool below it. You see we have 3 tools all connected. The one at the top sends the data uphole. The one in the middle measures the characteristics of the formation. And the one at the bottom, under the aegis of the directional drillers, steers the well. Strangely enough we can still see the data from the tool at the bottom of the stack, even though we've lost all communication with the tool in the middle. This contradicts the very laws of our tools!
The oil company running the rig has decided they wanted to keep drilling ahead anyway. There's a fair chance that our tool is still taking measurements and recording them in its memory, so we'll probably have good data once we pull out of the hole and download its memory. But in the meantime we are drilling ahead sooooooooo slowwwwwwly, that since I have only one tool to monitor now, my responsibilities are now close to nothing.
Time to pick up a new book to read...
What I did not know, was that an hour before, we had lost communication with one of our tools downhole. Another tool failure. Sigh.
The odd part is, that we haven't lost communication with the tool below it. You see we have 3 tools all connected. The one at the top sends the data uphole. The one in the middle measures the characteristics of the formation. And the one at the bottom, under the aegis of the directional drillers, steers the well. Strangely enough we can still see the data from the tool at the bottom of the stack, even though we've lost all communication with the tool in the middle. This contradicts the very laws of our tools!
The oil company running the rig has decided they wanted to keep drilling ahead anyway. There's a fair chance that our tool is still taking measurements and recording them in its memory, so we'll probably have good data once we pull out of the hole and download its memory. But in the meantime we are drilling ahead sooooooooo slowwwwwwly, that since I have only one tool to monitor now, my responsibilities are now close to nothing.
Time to pick up a new book to read...
Monday, February 9, 2009
The REAL Work Part.
I suppose I shouldn't have complained about having so little to do, for now it looks like I'm going to get a lot busier (for at least a couple of days). This afternoon, the rate of penetration dropped to less than half of what it had been before, and to one fifth of what they would prefer to be drilling at, so they have decided to pull the drilling assembly out of the hole and go back in with a new bit and new tools.
This is where I get really busy. When my tools come out of the hole after drilling, I have to stand on the rig floor and watch the rig crew take them apart to make sure they don't un-torque them at the wrong spot and thus expose the sensitive electronics to the elements. Then I have to plug into the tools and download their recorded memory, and process the data. I always have to make sure to keep my fingers crossed that the downloading goes well, and that the data is intact and accurate. Millions of things can go wrong with our tools while we're drilling, and we don't know any of it for sure until we see what they recorded.
Then I process the data, which if its problem free, only takes a couple of hours of clicking buttons on the computer screen. If there are problems, it can take up to a number of days and involve many calls to the office to troubleshoot.
Then, of course, since we're probably going to be running a new drilling assembly back in the hole, I have to have our fresh tools already prepared. I have to load the batteries (which requires multiple pieces of 50 lb+ equipment to do), program them, wait for the rig to be ready to pick them up, and then program them again. This, of course, has to happen *before* the old tools are even out of the hole, because they will want to take our new tools and go right back in as soon as the old drilling assembly is all the way out.
There's only one problem with that right now: the drilling company doesn't know what kind of tools they want to run yet. And until they do, I can't call my office to ask them to send tools, which means the technicians can't start preparing the next set of tools we're going to need, which means I don't even know if the tools we're going to need are available, which means....
It's a delicate dance. I am waltzing along with the music, but I can't quite seem to find the beat.
This is where I get really busy. When my tools come out of the hole after drilling, I have to stand on the rig floor and watch the rig crew take them apart to make sure they don't un-torque them at the wrong spot and thus expose the sensitive electronics to the elements. Then I have to plug into the tools and download their recorded memory, and process the data. I always have to make sure to keep my fingers crossed that the downloading goes well, and that the data is intact and accurate. Millions of things can go wrong with our tools while we're drilling, and we don't know any of it for sure until we see what they recorded.
Then I process the data, which if its problem free, only takes a couple of hours of clicking buttons on the computer screen. If there are problems, it can take up to a number of days and involve many calls to the office to troubleshoot.
Then, of course, since we're probably going to be running a new drilling assembly back in the hole, I have to have our fresh tools already prepared. I have to load the batteries (which requires multiple pieces of 50 lb+ equipment to do), program them, wait for the rig to be ready to pick them up, and then program them again. This, of course, has to happen *before* the old tools are even out of the hole, because they will want to take our new tools and go right back in as soon as the old drilling assembly is all the way out.
There's only one problem with that right now: the drilling company doesn't know what kind of tools they want to run yet. And until they do, I can't call my office to ask them to send tools, which means the technicians can't start preparing the next set of tools we're going to need, which means I don't even know if the tools we're going to need are available, which means....
It's a delicate dance. I am waltzing along with the music, but I can't quite seem to find the beat.
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Twiddling my Thumbs
I'm bored.
I'm really, really, really bored. I've been bored for days, and the prospects don't look to be improving anytime soon. We're currently drilling, and at this rate, we expect to be drilling for another day and a half before they pull everything out of the hole. And then, we might just go right back in again! That means more boredom. DAYS MORE.
Typically my default plan for passing the day involves reading all the internet newspapers and magazines I can get my hands on, but I am so SICK of hearing about the economic stimulus plan, I have decided a media blackout might be necessary for my sanity. I tried ignoring just the stimulus-related coverage, but skimming the headlines is even worse than reading the articles, and so I am done with it. I am done with it all.
I have dozens of eBooks I can download, but I'm currently stuck in the middle of one that is simultaneously insipid and aggravating, and yet I suffer from the inability to put it down and pick up another, more entertaining title.
I'm getting RSI from all the computer solitaire I've been playing. I even sneakily watched a few episodes of TV yesterday from a disc that I accidentally left in my CD-ROM drive when I came out to the rig. I had been conscientiously avoiding watching them, but yesterday I broke. There's only one episode left that I haven't seen yet. I don't think I'm going to last long.
I have a large number of online training courses I need to complete in order to keep my work certifications up to date. I've been trying, but the satellite internet out here is shoddy enough that despite the hours I have spent on them while out here, I have yet to complete a certification quiz and submit it successfully without my connection resetting itself.
I am COMPLETELY up-to-date on the job's End Of Well report. This is a series of documents that are not submitted to the client until the completion of drilling operations. It is incumbent on the engineers currently working on the job, however, to update all of those documents continuously throughout the run, so as to minimize the amount of preparation time necessary to complete it once its due. No one is ever completely up-to-date on End Of Well. THAT is how bored I am.
I'm really, really, really bored. I've been bored for days, and the prospects don't look to be improving anytime soon. We're currently drilling, and at this rate, we expect to be drilling for another day and a half before they pull everything out of the hole. And then, we might just go right back in again! That means more boredom. DAYS MORE.
Typically my default plan for passing the day involves reading all the internet newspapers and magazines I can get my hands on, but I am so SICK of hearing about the economic stimulus plan, I have decided a media blackout might be necessary for my sanity. I tried ignoring just the stimulus-related coverage, but skimming the headlines is even worse than reading the articles, and so I am done with it. I am done with it all.
I have dozens of eBooks I can download, but I'm currently stuck in the middle of one that is simultaneously insipid and aggravating, and yet I suffer from the inability to put it down and pick up another, more entertaining title.
I'm getting RSI from all the computer solitaire I've been playing. I even sneakily watched a few episodes of TV yesterday from a disc that I accidentally left in my CD-ROM drive when I came out to the rig. I had been conscientiously avoiding watching them, but yesterday I broke. There's only one episode left that I haven't seen yet. I don't think I'm going to last long.
I have a large number of online training courses I need to complete in order to keep my work certifications up to date. I've been trying, but the satellite internet out here is shoddy enough that despite the hours I have spent on them while out here, I have yet to complete a certification quiz and submit it successfully without my connection resetting itself.
I am COMPLETELY up-to-date on the job's End Of Well report. This is a series of documents that are not submitted to the client until the completion of drilling operations. It is incumbent on the engineers currently working on the job, however, to update all of those documents continuously throughout the run, so as to minimize the amount of preparation time necessary to complete it once its due. No one is ever completely up-to-date on End Of Well. THAT is how bored I am.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Hiatus OVER!
My computer died.
I was home from the rig for one day, and my computer got sick and died (death by virus), so I dropped it off at the IT department at my office, and sure enough, got called to go back to the rig just a few hours later.
So I was on the rig for about a week without my own computer, and forced to use my night hand's (who was gracious enough to let me). But he is the gossipy sort, and I would not put it past him to spin whatever I write here against me later, so I refrained from visiting this site.
After that I was sent home on standby, which stretched into a week-long, extremely unproductive time, and returned to the rig just this past Thursday. But things have been going CRAZY since I arrived, and I have been seeing all sorts of problems I've never seen before, which have tested my self-confidence to the fullest.
Now at last things have settled down to a more normal pace of drilling, so I can finally catch my breath and update you on my progress over these past weeks.
Thank you for your patience, and enjoy!
I was home from the rig for one day, and my computer got sick and died (death by virus), so I dropped it off at the IT department at my office, and sure enough, got called to go back to the rig just a few hours later.
So I was on the rig for about a week without my own computer, and forced to use my night hand's (who was gracious enough to let me). But he is the gossipy sort, and I would not put it past him to spin whatever I write here against me later, so I refrained from visiting this site.
After that I was sent home on standby, which stretched into a week-long, extremely unproductive time, and returned to the rig just this past Thursday. But things have been going CRAZY since I arrived, and I have been seeing all sorts of problems I've never seen before, which have tested my self-confidence to the fullest.
Now at last things have settled down to a more normal pace of drilling, so I can finally catch my breath and update you on my progress over these past weeks.
Thank you for your patience, and enjoy!
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