The second job till now

After being back in town for a fed day's I was sent out to the next job. A EcoScope/ Telescope/ PD Exceed 8.5 in water injector on a rig located a couple of hours drive into the desert. I was first to the rig this time so got fully stuck into the rig up operation which means I need to move all our sensors* from the logging unit** to the rig floor which is about 50m above ground level, it was prob 30 deg hard work and hot! I also made the rookie error of running a cable the wrong way round so had to re-lay it again, not fun.

The job had a couple of problems but I was not involved and not too sure what happened but we had to run out of hole and replace the tool which was great for me but cost the company a lot of time and money I guess. But after this drilling was pretty smooth and uneventful. I had to return to town to take the entrance exam to get into the training school and then went back for 2 day's before getting some vacation for xmas.

Im now in the training school and trying to un-learn all the bad techniques I was taught on the rig and the various specifications for tools and technology's that we use to do our job's. So far it's been pretty easy going but it seems to have stepped up a gear recently.  

*Sensors: 6 in total, one measures the weight of the drill string, one the cable that raises and lowers the drill string, 2 pressure sensors for the mud, and a couple of other less important ones. This allows us to tell how deep we are, when we are drilling and when the pumps are running.

**Logging unit is a container that houses our computers and engineers - it's where I sit for a lot of time....

Arrival, typical day, ID's and rig's

My first day in Abu Dhabi actually went amazingly smoothly. I landed and there was a nice bloke waiting in the airport for me with a car and the key's to my new (and amazingly pimped) flat. After this though things switched to what I now consider normal life, i.e. I seemed to have been completely forgotten about! I eventually spoke to someone from my base after having to call the regional personnel manager, on a Friday, which is the holey day here and the day off for everybody. 

Once I had spoken to my contact at the base I got to explore Abu Dhabi and was then off to the base the next day. The first week of work basically involved introducing myself to everybody and going on a whole load of training courses for fire fighting, H2S and the famous Underwater escape from a helicopter. After this point though everything slowed down, in Abu Dhabi you need approximately 1,000,000 ID cards, this meant I had to hand over my passport which disseapperared for 3 weeks before I chased up my friend from the base to discover he hadn't even bothered to send the stuff off for processing, in the same incident I found he had also neglected to apply for my PPE and a couple of other things. Standard. 

Once I eventually got all the appropriate ID's for working out here (apparently for the first month here I could have ended up in Jail!!!) I went to a rig. I basically got there with another guy after some delays to discover that the company man had not been told I was joining them so I was booted off it pretty sharp.

Rig 2 - I arrived here and the company man was way more chilled out and invited me for tea in his sweet cabin and we talked manly stuff about cars and motorbikes for a bit, the rig's here a pretty old and I think kinda lax on the H&S aspect, this was confirmed when some siren went off, I sat for a bit wondering what the siren could be for before deciding it probably was bad - so obviously went to see! This reason was not hard to miss, one of the 4 inch in diameter power cables had burnt out it's plug and caught fire right below the mud return line. The flames were pretty big and there was smoke everywhere! I decided to make a hasty retreat. The rest of the job went smoothly and I was back to the base in just over a week.

First Blog

So this is what a lot of people are doing here to keep everybody updated back home so thought I would jump on the band wagon, Baaaaa.

I'll try to be a little more explanatory soon but I want to see how this works first of all. As pretty much everybody who reads this will know, I started work for a oil field service company called Schlumberger who sent me for two cushy week's training in Paris before shipping me off to Abu Dhabi in the middle east for a lesson in real Schlumberger life.

I have spent a couple of months on location doing lots of training and a couple off weeks on some rigs in the desert before going to the company training school in.... Abu Dhabi! Although now I am no longer a short walk from the supermarket, kabab shop or bar but out in the middle of no where 20 mins from the nearest cooling beverage. Doh!

Ill post some stuff about life out here soon but not now as it is bed time.

Hope your all well, Olie.