Life at a rig

I realized that I have yet to describe day to day life on the North Slope. I will eventually add pictures to the web album of the rig camps.

There are two ways to get to Deadhorse, Alaska (the town that houses all the workers for the Prudhoe Bay oilfield). One can drive, Ice Road Truckers, or fly. Honestly, the main way to get to the slope is to fly. Flying consists of taking an Alaskan Airlines flight, or Shared Services. Shared Services is an airline owned and operated by BP and ConnocoPhillips. The Boeing 737's are new, well maintained, and have a full staff of flight attendants. I'm not sure of the criteria for using Shared Services, but that is all that I have flown thus far. The planes land at the Deadhorse airport. Buses will pull up to the plane if you're going to certain camps that are more remote (helicopter access only, etc...).

Once you exit the plane, and pass the buses, the only other place to go is the terminal. There, you can gather your bags and bundle up as you search the parking lot for the company dog sled. The world's washed up Iditarod drivers end up working in Prudhoe as oil field transportation.

After that last comment, you should laugh; smile at the very least.

Actually Schlumberger has a company van that handles airport transportation. The van takes you to the company camp, where you can gather your arctic gear and get a company truck if you're heading to a rig camp. Schlumberger Drilling personnel that work in the field live at rig camps, leaving the shop guys at the SLB camp. This puts the cost of living on the client, not on SLB. I only stay at the SLB camp if I'm doing any work there or there is no room left in the rig camp. I'll keep this limited to my experience, versus that of other employees.

Once I arrive at the SLB camp, I check in with the big bosses and travel with the other FE's working the same job to the rig camp. Each drilling rig has a corresponding rig camp, equipped with workout facilities, spike room (24 hour food and drink access), and a kitchen. The camp chef and house cleanig crew coordinate rooms. The camps will try to have you share a room with your alternate, so you can have the room to yourself when you need to sleep while your alternate works. You do get your own bed and closet, so hot-bunking is not an issue.

I'll post more on this subject tomorrow, keep in touch.

Back in Anchorage

Well, I finally got some time off. I flew into Anchorage Tuesday (Jan-12th) night.

Since then, I have been running around with other Field Engineers from SLB and enjoying the night life. Friday night, the guys and myself visited the Alaskan Beer and Barley Wine festival. We sampled amazing beers, mead, and barley wine (essentially beer that has more alcohol in it). Saturday and Sunday were spent in a cabin at Alaska's premier (I believe only) ski resort: the Alyeska Resort in Girdwood, AK.

Before this, I had only been skiing 3 times in my life. The mountains here are beautiful, but very steep. One cannot just take easy paths down, only blues and blacks. Skiing this area was essentially "baptism by fire". Aside from my legs burning and a few bumps and bruises, everything went well.

I should be heading back to the slope in the next few days, working on different rigs. I have a web album with pics from up here. Sorry this post was pretty dry, but I'm exhausted. I should write more in a few days when I'm back up there.

Quick training update

Just found out I will no longer be doing my classroom training in Sugar Land, Tx. Instead, I will be in Abu Dhabi (capital of the U.A.E.).

Class starts the 28th of February.

Happy New Years

Sorry for not updating recently, things have been busy. The Alaska green hats flew up to the slope on Christmas Eve. We watched safety videos all day on Christmas (ouch). However, we did eat king crab legs and filet mignon (a staple for the holiday meals) that evening. I spent the first week in the shop, learning about the tools and assisting in a limited capacity. I honestly wanted to help, but didn't know the first thing to do.

I was sent two days ago to the Nabors 7-ES, but haven't done much since. We are performing some time consuming operations; couple that with the phase 3 weather that we've had and nothing much has happened.

Note: Phase 3: Visibility almost to zero, all operations at the rig stop since EMS can't get to us in case of an accident. When we convoy out during this phase, we have to follow a CAT loader with snow plow in convoy.

Happy New Year to you all, sorry for the weak post.