The Gym

The concept of exercise on a rig is somewhat similar to that of a hamster in a wheel. This is the time you get to exercise but you know you will never be truly free to go anywhere. The room you can use while away is the Gym. This is a fluid concept when offshore. Most will imagine a small spa where you sign in and the steward gives you a towel and invites you to try the Jacuzzi. I'm afraid the reality is a little different. The gym is a room with some exercise machines, some free weights and some TV's. A place to get on the treadmill and watch TV. Get on the exercise bike and listen to your i-pod. They vary from 1 bike and 1 rowing machine(from the 1980's). to the full, up to date, 3 Treadmills, 3 Bikes, Recumbent Cycle, X-trainer and full free weight suite. Water cooler occasionally working in the corner. The Gym is adorned with pictures of stretching exercises or instructions on how to use the machines. Usually the TV's are set to EmptyV or Sky(it's all blow out of proportion and usually speculation)News and are usually at full volume because most people on a rig are a little deaf. Through years of working next to loud plant and equipment. There are a number of unwritten rules in the Gym. It is always a place of silence though. Generally no one will talk to one another, unless the Driller and AD are weight training together. The TV channel shouldn't be changed without consulting anyone else in the room(just a quick "are you watchin this pish" should do). Aways clean your machine after use, there will be bottle of cleaner and towel. Anyone breaking the rules or making up their own better beware, they will become Gym outcasts. There is still a sense of togetherness about the Gym users. A kind of "were all going to be much healthier and we know how to look after ourselves" smugness shared by all who don their shorts and t-shirts and clamber into the wheel. Maybe we can't go anywhere but at least we are going.

Scribing Up.

Another fabulous day on the rig, another BHA(bottom hole assembly). This means we have changed out all the downhole drilling equipment for another set-up. Why? Well we were trying to kick off from the present well path after leaving part of another BHA in the hole. So we have to be able to steer hole away from the “fish” or other items lost in hole.
There are, as always, more than one way to skin a cat. With this BHA we are using a motor with a bend in it. Which is exactly that, a mud motor, which turns the bit and nothing else as you pump mud through it. Above this spinning bit is a bend of 1.4º that can be oriented when we get down to the bottom to point the bit in the direction you want to go. So all you have to do is be able to tell which way the bit is pointing when it is 10,000ft away.
Imagine you have a 1,000ft long drinking straw and you turned one end half a turn, how much would the other end turn? Not one bit. It would just twist up. No imagine a piece of drill pipe, same problem. There is no way you can mark up a pipe at surface and know where the end is pointing. Enter the MWD engineer. We have a tool in the hole that will tell us which way is up, using magnetometers measuring the magnetic field of the earth and its just behind the motor.
Now we get to the fun part. When everything is screwed together the bend in the motor will never line up with the reference line on the MWD tool. So we have to measure the angle between the “highside” of the MWD tool and the direction the bit is pointing in. This is the Scribeline Offset. It is a very very very important measurement. If it is wrong wells have been drilled in entirely the wrong direction, which might lead to some very probing questions.
The Directional Driller marks the highside of the motor. And then transfers this highside line up the tool to the MWD scribeline. Then he marks that line, with a torch strapped to the MWD tool or a polystyrene cup and the whole thing is lifted into the air and the line on the motor is checked with the cup or torch. Any adjustment is made an the tool lowered down again. The angle from the MWD scribeline to the Motor highside is then measured, from us to them, clockwise looking downhole. The scope for error at this point is huge, as you have just introduced a human element. At this point we are like airline pilots one wrong move could cost lives! Well, not really, but you could cut the tension with a knife. The tool is run into the well. Highside is pointed where we want to go and mud pumped through the string to make the bit, and the bit only, turn. This is Sliding, drilling without rotating, and the bit will slip slide away from the old hole into a whole new place of its own.

Parallelism, spinning plates

This seems to be a very philosophical title but there is no need to be as deep. The reason we are all here, and when I say here I mean the rig, is Money. Money we all need to pay for and fuel or homes, feed our families and provide us with a few luxuries to make spending the extra time away from home worth the while.
Some folks on the rig are happy with that life. They enjoy or have become content with consistency of their day to day work and the familiarity of their surroundings on the rig. These people are part of the institution that is every individual place offshore and this is their place. The institution makes it easy to dissociate itself with the other part of that persons life that takes place with their family and friends in a different place and time from this. It is almost as if the two existences run in parallel. For even when the crew member isn’t here there is a presence, reminders and markers of that persons place on the rig.
Others on the rig attempt to move away from this place as often as their day to day responsibilities allow them. They are living a life of escapism into worlds of computer games and movies emerging occasionally to sustain their profession or body. When they return to the other half of their lives that happens away from this place do they still try to escape from that place too? To live your life outside of reality is another parallelism. You are here but not, you are elsewhere but not. And then to be at home is a third and fourth parallel on which you live life.
The ability to cope with this parallelism is what make some people better at working away. They are able to sustain a parallel existence. A life which changes irregularly and has a blocky profile as their time switches between each parallel.
I am not a person who can live in too many parallel worlds. I am bad at keeping the plates spinning in my absence. I let them crash to the floor, one by one, until there are one or two wobbling away in the foreground my limit is three. Home(Jenny and Family), work and one other, which is usually the plate that falls off and I put back on quickly while no one watches. This means that home and work wobble and the other plate could be the first one that comes to hand as I stoop down quickly to pick it off the floor. This could be Sailing, Motorbike or Friends.
So the two or three parallels that I live on when offshore are my bandwidth, the speed of my connection with the outside world. A world of parallels on which I live, work and exist. These parallels change when I am not offshore. They drop an octave to a place where my three parallels are different again and the work plate rarely makes it off the ground…..unless I pick it up by mistake.

Agenda and Priority

Everyone has there own little agenda. They have been self programmed by life to prioritise. This is great and means that generally all the important stuff gets done and anything that is a little less important is put down to "well if we get the time, we'll get it done." Unfortunately there are stronger and weaker personalities in the world who use different manipulative techniques to "push" their agenda to the top of the priority list. They use persuasion, temptation, flattery, friendship, anger and occasionally bribery to manipulate others, swimming their way to the top of the list towing their agenda behind them.
These manipulators are usually either infuriating, charming, annoying or a combination of any of these. They spend their lives trying to get people to do their bidding and trying their very hardest to get there own way. They are focused and ruthless. They are also a little bit funny. It is amusing to think that pushing your own agenda is so important that you would push people into what ever corner they need to be pushed to get something to happen.
Surely there are different ways to motivate people. Through setting an example, through suggestion and allowing people to prioritise themselves, through discussion and agreement. And "at the end of the day" what is the point in putting yourself through all that effort to get what you want.
I watch these personalities while I'm offshore, I allow myself to indulge in a little chortle and ask the manipulators as many questions as possible to try and find out what it is they are really worry about. I always find that they are not really interested in what they are doing. This must be soul destroying, especially offshore. If you have no interest in your job out here then why are you travelling all this way. You could be doing the same thing anywhere else. Just as long as it is as far away from me as possible.

March Articles

Downtime and WOW

The old adage "If you don’t like the weather, wait 5 minutes and it will change" is especially relevant to offshore. Weather systems move through quickly, especially in the spring. The day can start off with the most beautiful sunrise of gold and amber and by 07:30 it’s all gone and the fog has decended. By lunchtime two quick showers have given way to brilliant sunshine. In the evening snow falls lightly on the deck as temperatures plummet. Four seasons in one day. The sea state changes nearly as quickly. As the wind speeds increase, the sea rises and the supply boat turns back. Then it arrives again and the skipper won’t come anywhere near the rig. This inevitably leads to waiting on weather (or WOW) which gradually loops round to hurry. The equipment needed to do the next job waits on the boat, the boat waits on the weather and the weather just keeps happening. The result of all this weather is that when things do start to get moving again everything is done at pace. Shortcuts are taken, not ever deliberately compromising safety directly but there is an indirect safety cost. If things are not found to be faulty now, when they are found to be faulty later there is an effort which has to be made to remedy the situation. This all involves extra unplanned work pushing the job along the time curve again. The longer the time spent doing one task, the longer the time spent exposed to danger. By doing a job right first time and taking a little bit more time over it then you are exposing people to a risk for a shorter "net" time and decreasing the risk of them being injured. This culture of doing things correctly is not one which is seen often in the offshore environment. That is not because companies are putting pressure on people to do things quickly. People put pressure on people to do things quickly. Peer pressure, self imposed performance criteria and a belief that if you are quick then you are good. These attitudes are born in childhood as we compete to be the best, developed as teenagers as we compete to get the girl(or guy) and continue in adulthood as we strive to provide the best we can for ourselves and our family.

Position Vacant

Wanted: Proof Reader for small internet Blog Salary: A crate of beer Skills: Must have previous experience as an internet moderator and be living with my sister. Reply to: the usual e-mail adress if you can spare the time to do some corrections please.



Offshore Convenience
There are many different types of places for you to "go" offshore. The toilets are not always the high piont of any rig. Most systems have been designed for boats. Most offshore rigs are just glorified ships. So as in any ship there are a few different ways to dispose and store waste for later collection by the supply boat. The main cubicles are in the boot room or changing room and were designed with the average American in mind. Privacy is not always guaranteed; probably back to the days when the Tool Pusher (drill crew chief) could see how many of is crews were spending too much time sitting around. The cubicles can have all sorts of instructions on the wall from the Station Bill for the rig, mentioning all the alarms and actions in case of emergency(ironic), to notices reminding you to leave the bowl the way you found it(please use the brush provided), to a small notice reminding you to wash your hands to prevent infection. Occasionally a notice saying Please do not put cigarette ends, matches or any other items in this toilet other than toilet paper. There may also be some notices posted by the rig crew themselves mainly directed at the Pusher. Most Semi Submersibles and Jack-ups use a vacuum, system. In some systems notices are posted to remind you to close the lid before flushing. Some are so powerful care is needed so you don't get you shoes washed at the same time as you flush. Remembering these rigs are occasionally forty years old the engineering used for these contraptions is often a little outdated and any repairs are a little on the fly. Press the button and you may be in for a bit of a surprise as the pipe work all tries to jump off the wall at you. Platform toilets are just like your average everyday toilet in a restaurant. Well a filling station anyway. Paper will always, without exception, be the cheapest and hardest money can buy. Don't expect Andrex here. This is probably to give you somewhere to write the next set of work instructions or the shift handover notes. You will never run out of paper though as there is nowhere on board to store it so it ends up stacked in the cubicle. While "having a rest" you may be greeted by a fellow rigger coming in next door muttering "I'm gonna feckin' clear this place." shortly followed by a small chirp of "Medic" somewhere in the background.

Responsibilties

Keeping up your end of the deal. Holding your own tower. Taking personal responsibility for what you do. These are all important, or I feel they are all important. I have my own set of values that I have decided to live my life by. Tell the truth as often as is believably possible. Do the very best that you can.
These principles may seem a little bit archaic. In modern society there seem to be less of this ethic and a higher value placed on possessions and idols. Perhaps this is the skewed interpretation that is the result of growing older. But as I think back and remember my past and the past of the people around me I realise that we were all learning and making mistakes, not knowing how to express ourselves properly. So we lashed out, we told half truths, we isolated ourselves in a vain attempt to not be hurt and we learned from the reaction of others to our mistakes. Very occasionally we listened to our peers and elders and the advice they had to give. In fact I am still doing that, maybe a lot less than I did as a teenager but occasionally I'll say something I didn't mean to say or do something I didn't mean to do.
Everyone makes mistakes, it's what makes us human. We learn from them sometimes. Sometimes we don't. I believe the best we can do with this humanity is to stand up and say, "Yes, it was me, I fecked it up." and then ask "how do I fix it." Take some responsibility for your actions and you will always gain a little respect. Even if it is just for yourself.
Earlier this week I had a BHA to do. This is when we get equipment ready to go into the well. This is probably the most stressful part of the job. If everything works then its great for building your confidence. You connect everything together with the help of the rig crew and a finger.* Once it is all connected together then you plug into the tools and program the electronics. This takes about an hour but the difference between getting it right and getting it wrong is the difference between putting a multi-million dollar formation evaluation tool in the oil well and putting a lamppost down a hole. So there is a little anxiety associated with getting it right. There should be a little anxiety with getting it right, it is an important part of the process. While concentrating on this e-mails are flying in thick and fast. Among them an e-mail regarding correction for the logs from the last section of hole we drilled. The tone of the e-mail was sarcastic and condescending. Now needless to say this is not the type of e-mail that you really want to receive when you are trying to concentrate on the important BHA. to put it bluntly it made my blood boil. I continued to program the tools and do all my pre-drill checks. The tool went in the hole.
The ownership that I take to my work is that when something needs to be done, I do it. I am responsible for making sure everything out here runs smoothly. I check and double check my work. As I double checked my inputs into the tool I noticed a discrepancy between the serial number of the tool in the hole and the surface system. My mouth dried up, thoughts started to fly, my heart raced and a mild/medium panic started. I went to try and get a little advice and some support from town. After much to-ing and fro-ing I called town and was relieved to be told it didn't really matter. All would be fine. and the weight was lifted from my shoulders.
I asked the question. I made the mistake. I felt a little foolish. When all was said and done everything was fine. If it hadn't been fine I would have wasted about 4 hours of rig time. If I hadn't asked the question it could have been days of rig time or weeks of rig time. All because it took a little responsibility for making a mistake.

* The finger pointing engineer. the knowlege that is stored in the finger is mighty. "Please connect that to that" "Could you torque that up to 66.5kilo-pounds please." Not that noe of these are questions.

The Tea Dance

The tea dance is a ritual performed on every offshore rig in the world. It is a behavioral ritual which is observed as the hive attempts to make a cup of tea for each other. The cup is retrieved from the dispenser; the tea bag is plucked from the tin and placed into the cup. At this point worker number two approaches the cup dispenser. A sidestep to the urn as a drone replaces the box of milk in the fridge. Worker two, heads for the sweetener. 1 step back to allow the OIM into the cup dispenser. And worker 1 sidesteps in front of the urn. Step to the side to watch him fill his cup. OIM approaches the coffee taking 3 steps to the side Worker 1 steps backwards and allows access to the urn. Fill cup. Step to the side for the milk worker 3 approaches the cup dispenser. OIM leaves. Until someone thinks up a better way to arrange the Tea and coffee making facilities in the galley then this little social dance of trying to get the tea made without literally treading on toe will go on.

Queen Bee!