Edinburgh

After landing in Heathrow at 7am, I hopped on to the first flight to Edinburgh (feeling very glamorous as I bought my ticket at the airport ticket counter) which was at 8.30 and happened to be the same as Matthew's. Although yet again I got access to the business lounge but had to leave him at the door...
Had a good day yesterday discovering Donald's lovely new flat and catching up with Scott and Jonathan when they arrived in town. I feel like a character from an Alexander McCall Smith book...especially now that we are fairly close by :-)
Had a good long sleep last night and gathering strength for tonight's Burns-themed adventures...more later.

Nightmare journey

Well it is 4:50am Moscow time and I haven't gone to bed yet...
According to the original plan I would be cosily tucked up in bed in London, ready for an early flight to Amsterdam to go to 4 meetings at the office.

Instead I am still in Moscow, because of the following:
- flight from Surgut did not manage to land in Moscow due to the poor weather conditions. We were diverted to Nijny Novgorod-thank goodness I was flying in business class, with a colleague, so we could just sit and wait in the lounge. All Moscow airports as well as the Nijny one were closed after we landed
-left Nijny N after 5 hours-there were still 20cm of snow on the runway
-arrived in Moscow Vnukovo at 6 which meant I missed my original flight-had already rebooked to the next one, at 9
-got completely stuck in Moscow traffic, despite the driver's knowledge of back roads and very good zigzagging skills: arrived in Domodedovo at 10:30. Had already rescheduled flight to 5:50am today. This meant cancelling flights and meetings in Holland.
-all hotels near the airport were fully booked and I did not have time to travel backwards and forwards to anywhere else so stayed in the airport feeling grumpy about BA not opening their check-in early for business travellers so we could wait in the lounge overnight. Finally got some food though
-got to check-in as it opened to be told there was a problem with my ticket and to wait till BA agent turned up an hour later...tried phoning the BA helpline which was shut...poor employees need to sleep, to have enough energy to go on strike...grrr
-finally got a ticket after pushing the girl to try a bit harder as she was trying to send me back to my travel agent
-here I am in the BA lounge, just had a foot bath and going to grab some snacks...
-if the flight isn't delayed, I hope to get straight onto one to Edinburgh when I arrive in Heathrow...was going to go this evening from Ams but ticket now cancelled...

Nothing could be done about the situation, which was the most frustratingthing , along with the fact that colleagues flying to Moscow Domodedovo from Surgut (flight I took last time) 45mins before us managed to land-I should have been on that one!! We had planned a day trip to Moscow with Ravil, in case he missed his connecting flight (he did) so I was rather disappointed as I was looking forward to finally going into the city, and potentially catching up with Mischa.

Oh dear.
:-((

Photos from the Pad tour

I have put these in with the original post. Michal returned from the wellsite this morning bouncing off the walls-he seems to have really enjoyed his time out there!

A quiet day otherwise...Anna just went home this evening, so now it's just Sergey and I, holding fort in the office.

Gilles left on Sunday morning and CJ is only arriving tomorrow, so we made ourselves a new boss...

Friends reunited :-)

People

I really like working in a place where I know people and they know me. I like the fact that people will always say good morning to each other, and that I know someone with a bulldozer who can clear the snow away from my front steps. I like the fact that when I go back to a rig, everyone stops to say hello, and I get a hug from the cook. And I like knowing that I can ask anybody many stupid questions yet they will still trust me to answer theirs at important times, because yesterday we had a cuppa and laughed about my bad Russian.
The human touch...
Oh dear, rather too earnest, so lest I make anyone queasy...back to work.

Round trip

Yesterday mid-morning, Sergey, Michal and I went to the wellsite.
I was the designated driver, so it was back to the Niva-another one, with an interesting transmission...I could hear rattling sounds if I took my foot off the accelerator; the steering wheel was very hard to turn; the car generally pulled to the left...and those were just the obvious ones. Let's not mention trying to reverse down a road with no reverse lights...









Anyway, we went to pad 7, where things started to look like a geologist convention as all geologists and technicians seemed to appear at the same time...9 of us +Michal! I got a hug from my friend Irina in the kitchen, which was nice, though I had to tell her I was not coming back till next shift.
We left Radik and Simon to it, and drove on...we went to visit pad 5 and then took the winter road to pad 16 :-) this time I took lots of photos but they are on someone else's camera so I will post them tomorrow. Then on to pad 20 (the first one built here!) then pad 1, pad 9 and finally pad 26, where we dropped off Michal. He will be staying in the field for a couple of days to see what it's like.








Sergey and I then drove to pad 54 which was the original reason for driving out: we wanted to see a VSP-Vertical Seismic Profiling- log. It is basically a way of seismically imaging the borehole, which would have been really interesting to see. Except...yes, this is Operations, and things just don't turn out as we want them to. So we just joined the other Sergey and double Sasha for dinner.
Apparently in Russia, if you stand between 2 people with the same name, you can make a wish. So loads of things should happen to me now!!
Got back around 9pm and had an early night, but I still feel the need for a/many lie-in(s). 2 days to go...

Good Day

Today I am having a good day, keeping busy with my new end-of-well report. I am trying to set a speed record but this one won't work out: it is a complicated well where many things went wrong.

and...

I went skiing in the afternoon!!!

This was my first time cross-country skiing. Good exercise...but I can't say I enjoyed it! I spent the first 40mins failing to understand how to move forward rather then backwards, and the last 5 mins finally slipping and sliding my way out of the Taiga. Give me slopes any day...although I
will try it one more time in case I manage to do it AND find a way of enjoying it too (and if my arms haven't fallen off in the morning).

Here are a couple of photos of my patient co-skiiers-I don't know the name of the girl with the white coat. One of them is Oxana (HSE girl, organised the skiing, eating her glove), another Svetlana (standing next to me), who lives in the neighbouring room. Michal is a Polish guy on a week trip over from Rijswijk.

Fun office

I’m loving every minute in this office-whether Gilles is shouting down the phone, whistling, explaining some geology to me, eating somebody’s chocolate, negotiating even better work from loggers or flogging good French coffee to everyone. Anna just stays cool through all of it and gets through tons of work; and it’s just great to be around Sergey again. I love it!

Still here

That's it, I am officially the worst blogger in the world...sorry about the long silence.

After arriving in Basecamp I thought I would take a couple of days to settle in and find my bearings. Like in every office-even when it is just a caravan-there is a work pattern, which I like to understand before creating my own space.

I spent Wednesday working on my first end-of-well report, trying to bring together all information from the drilling part (ie what I have been collecting in the field, but in this case for wells drilled a year or two ago) as well as for the completion part (ie what the PTs do to the well after we leave it cemented; mostly perforation, which involves shooting holes into the cement/casing at the height of the reservoir, in order to produce the oil).

Wednesday was also shift change day and saw the arrival of Simon from Rijswijk, on his first rotation. He is here to look at the exploration wells but while we wait for the new rig he will be trained on the production wells. He stayed here on Wednesday night and went out to pad 7 yesterday evening, so he is now in the good care of Radik.

Yesterday was a rather busy day-I was hoping to finish my first report but after an internet-less morning some people from Rijswijk and Tyumen were visiting so a lot of the day was spent helping them get organised to go in the field, and then attending a training course from Paul vdH on reservoir fracturing. I didn't know anything on the topic so it was very interesting for me.
After that I went to a well completion meeting with the PTs to see how that goes, which was nice because all but one well discussed were wells I had just drilled on pad 5 and pad 7.
So here we are today, and I am just proudly finishing up my report...before starting a new one. Gilles will be here till Sunday and it is fun being in the office with Sergey as we can properly catch up, and Anna (TA) who is efficient as ever.








Here is a photo of some of us in the office: Sasha, new Sasha, Sergey, Anna and me.

Basecamp

Sunday was a quiet day, where we just had to control a couple of CBL logs from the bottom of the well to the top. These were performed by a bunch of Russian cowboys in true Soviet style...some of their calibrations were out by 245m!!! Fun for the geologist.
Yesterday we decided to tidy the work unit ahead of the pad 7 rig move; we took a whole load of old folders to basecamp, where Radik also did his GPA.
Today I packed up my stuff, finished off some bits with Radik and moved to Base camp. I will be staying here for a week, learning how to do end-of-well reports, which include completion (what the PT guys do to the well after we have finished with it. More on that later.
So now, after a lovely cup of Verveine offered me by Gilles, I am heading off to bed...

Snegurochka

Rather late, here is a little bit about what happens for New Year's (the one we also celebrate in the West).

Christmas here in Russia, as I might have mentioned, is not really celebrated; lately, people have started to mark the occasion as it a good excuse for another party, but there is no real meaning/history behind it.

New Year's in when it all happens. People here started wishing each other a Happy New Year around midday on New Year's Eve. This is the time when gifts are exchanged, and for well-behaved children, a visit from Ded Maroz (Father Frost) is in order. Now Ded Maroz is very similar to our own Father Christmas, except that this one takes his granddaughter along to help him give out presents to children. His granddaughter's name is Snegurochka (The Snow Maiden) and here is one of my favourite pictures of her. For anyone familiar with the works of Rimsky-Korsakov, this is the same Snegurochka.

More on Ded Maroz here.

Snegurochka features in many different fairy tales, but most have one thing in common: in the presence of warmth (eg the end of winter), she melts and dispappears...

More on Snegurochka here.

On New Year's Eve, we went to pad 54 to cheer up Sasha while he supervised the logging there. We left for a couple of hours to go to the CPF, where entertainement, food and (alcohol-free) bubbly were being provided. The show was fun for an hour, a bit less so for the next 45 mins...

It was a mix of songs, mostly traditional NY ones, of games such as drawing pictures with a blindfold, and people from the audience acting a little play being read out, involving Snegurochka being captured by a lion and saved by Ded Maroz! All pretty jolly. Also, quite a few people were in fancy dress for the occasion.

After popping the champagne and very large party poppers at midnight, we returned to pad 54 geo-unit where we had our own party.

A few days before NY, my DSV had started calling me Snegurochka, which quickly caught on...so I walked around wearing tinsel for while ;-)

And so to finish, here are a few more pics from the our little NY party...

Still alive!

Sorry about the complete lack of blogging. Time has flown over the last few days.
Logging was delayed until Wednesday night. We decided to be clever and split the task, as it was a long PEX followed by XPT. Radik controlled the PEX while I slept and I then controlled the XPT while he slept. Yuri the trainee came with me to see what XPT was like and help me with data transfer.
So I actually got about 6 hours' sleep that night, which was rather good, and started XPT at the very reasonable hour of 7am. The engineers this time were Andrey for PEX (I had met him once, on New Year's Eve, when he had been incredibly grumpy but that turned out to be related to the fact that he was in his work unit instead of at a party) and Vlad for XPT. Everything went incredibly well-PEX was very fast (we just missed a record I think) and XPT was very smooth and produced excellent results :-) everybody was pleased with the whole thing, especially this happy bunny.

So Thursday afternoon we waited for the slb boys to bring round all the data, after which we went to pad 54, who were having a disastrous logging run with Irina and Max (failed tools etc) and who were also coring (which was going badly too but we wanted to see a bit of the process). We then dropped Yuri off at basecamp before returning rather late to our pad. On the way back we checked in on pad 54 again to find that the guys there had managed to convince Max to sleep in the work unit rather than in the (very uncomfortable) Doghouse (which is the name for the Slb unit that transports their materials and acts as a place for them to sleep).





Yesterday we worked on Winlog and prepared everything for the new (and final) well here, which they are starting to drill today. In the late afternoon they skidded the rig (ie moved it so it could be above the new slot) by 40m! It was fascinating watching them pull it along, and also going out again afterwards: the whole view has changed and we are now next to the pump building.
We couldn't do much yesterday evening as we didn't have power due to the rig move. In fact, this morning the caravan was freezing-it looks like it was switched off all night, and that it was moved-despite their having told us they wouldn't need to. Luckily, nothing was broken and it is pretty warm outside so nothing got damaged by the cold in here.

Photos: Radik and Niva606 on the road to basecamp; helping the guys in pad54 with their core samples; Radik and I before the rig skid

Weather

yes, you guessed it: logging delayed. They have another drillpipe washout, near the bottom. Hopefully this means a good night's sleep though we'll have to see.

In the meantime I realise that a weather report is overdue. I was about to start whingeing about how warm it is when it got a lot colder again today. And with the cold came the sun.

So I switched back into paparazzi mode and took a bunch of photos this afternoon as I wanted to share how beautiful everything is here. When I arrived we had almost a week of -20/-30 but then overnight it warmed up to -2 and snowed for 3 days. Then it went to 0 or even +1 and things started melting a little-just enough to form the most amazing arrays of icicles everywhere.

The trees are covered in snow and look magical. It is really easy to imagine fairy-tales involving wolves and blond princesses taking place in the woods. Especially when driving through them on winter roads...(my case of Force Majeure was laziness I'm afraid).

It is so much fun to have Christmas trees covered in REAL

snow! I was hoping to get a picture of one next to a drilling "Christmas tree", which is a structure found near wells (I'll catch a pic tomorrow) but settled for this one.

Welcome sight

вода = Water

Chinese whispers

We had an good trip yesterday, starting by going to pad 5 to rescue my towel, which had got switched by an enthusiastic cleaning lady. However, they will only give it back to me in return for the other one, so I have to go back again.
After that we drove along a winter road to pad 16, so that I could see where it was, and more importantly, drive through the forest...it was really lovely and I was so annoyed with myself at not having brought the camera. I have promised myself that only a case of Force Majeure will prevent me from going along there again today.
The winter road is so named because it is no more than a track through the forest, and it was easy to imagine that this is what working here would have been like not so long ago. It is completely impracticable in the summer as it is effectively a swamp.
After this fun excursion we went along to the CPF, got the admin sorted although failed to find a mechanic for the car, which was broken, again (handbrake not working, again). By the way, did I mention that although the trusty Nivas look like something from the 70s (see earlier photo), they are actually only 2 1/2 years old?
As for the story about the lorries-well several did in fact fall off the road, but the road closure was actually caused by a silly sand truck driver forgetting to lower his tipper, which then took out half an electrical archway (cables tend to run over roads in arches as burying them is not practical)...I will try to get a photo of one of these later today.
Now though, I need to get back to work as we are drilling through reservoir. This means that logging will take place around 1am...hmmm. I might not be able to post for a little while again, especially as we are also doing an XPT run.
Oh and by the way, we have water again!!

No water

Yesterday morning several lorries fell off the road again. No injuries, but one of them was a sand truck and it crashed into one of the pylones. To cut a long story short, the main road was closed all day yesterday and is only open for a few hours today.

Unfortunately we have run out of water here on pad 7, so everyone is a bit smelly and has been eating out of plastic plates. I hope we get some through soon as I would really like a shower...and I need some laundry doing. All trivial points of course, as we haven't run out of drinking water but as always, the small things make the biggest difference!

Off to CPF with Radik now to renew our trip sheets/find out what's going on/drop off some of my old clothes in the charity box. More later...

Orthodox Christmas

Yesterday was Russian Orhtodox Christmas. This is not as big a celebration as New Year's, but everyone was still happy for an excuse to eat nice food and drink nice things.

The cooks yesterday really treated us. In the morning they had baked fresh cakes, in the form of crowns, and also made "bubliki", a type of bagel, which were strung up onto the windows. This reminded me a lot of some German traditions. The evening meal was a treat of salmon, both cooked and fresh, caviar, shrimps, rabbit, and huge chocolate cakes. There were bottles of beer and wine (all alcohol-free) to drink. Ochen vkusna! (very tasty). All in all a very enjoyable evening.

Here is a photo of some of the bits; unfortunately I could not take any photos of the loaded platters as the canteen was too busy and the food was disappearing at the speed of light...here you can see one of the Christmas crowns as well as a persimomm...first time I come accross one of these, and it is much bigger than I expected.

Yesterday we also finished off the Winlog for the well we logged the other night, while the next well started drilling. I was training Yuri as Radik was down with an upset stomach-what a day to choose for that...

I also managed to finish off some jobs that Alexey had been nagging me about, as well as complete my GPA (goals and performance appraisal) so I feel a lot better for that. Although I think I should now amend it, adding in the title of "career's advisor and GPA assistant to Salym staff"! The boys here have been asking me for a lot of help, and when I felt like a break I went to see Pasha for a cuppa and he promptly asked me to check through his too!

Cheburashka

Before I go to bed I thought I would write a bit about Cheburashka.

During one of my many tea breaks, Pasha-the-DSV mentioned "Cheburashka". Wondering what this was, I googled it and found out a lot about this lovely little creature who is such an integral part of Russian culture.

Cheburashka is a little animal who was found in a crate of oranges by a shopkeeper. When he got out of the box, he was very clumsy as he had travelled a long way and eaten a lot of oranges. So he fell off the table and the shopkeeper decided to give him this name, which effectively means "little tumbling one" (although I do realise that now somehow sounds like something you would associate with teepees!).

I have found one of the episodes on youtube, although I would like to see the first three. I have been watching this one a lot, to practice my Russian (can I manage the level of a 5-year-old??) and understand this national obsession a bit more.

The original animations came out in the 1970s, but the one I have seen is surprisingly ironic about everything being broken, etc. Or maybe that's just my post-Soviet perspective. Anyway, this is what generations of Russians have grown up with, and they name a lot of things after him, if they look in any way like his head, or simply as an affectionate term. Also he was used as the Russian mascot at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin.

He has 2 friends, Gena the accordion-playing crocodile, and Shapocliack, a crazy old lady.

This is the kind of thing I would never have found out by just visiting as a tourist...:-)

Unexpected logging

When I arrived on pad 7 I expected to have a little bit of quiet time to sort out my end-of-year review etc. This is Radik's pad, and we have a trainee with us (a PT, learning about the wellsite) so logging yesterday afternoon was due to be done by them. I was planning on sorting out some admin jobs for Alexey, then getting a fairly early night as I has stayed half the night before naughtily finishing my book.

In the afternoon though, Radik got a call from basecamp from the PTs (production technologists-they do the next stage of the well normally, to production). They needed him to oversee a process happening on pad 5. So the logging job came to me, and with it a delay which meant they only started at 9:30 that evening...yes, another round-the-clock job, but I only lasted 22 hours this time before need to sleep for an hour-after all, I had only slept 3 hours the night before!

It was nice being in control of the logging again, without being told what to do, and even more fun teaching Yuri, the trainee, who was very enthusiastic.
The logging went very smoothly and pretty fast too; the engineer only made one mistake with the data, which I was nonetheless glad to have spotted. This time we had Maxim again, and Irina, although she was only there to supervise so didn't have to interact with her too much-not that she spoke to me during the night or anything.

So this morning, after sending off various documents and going to the morning rig meeting, I went to bed for a sleep cycle and felt much better for it. The rest of today was spent trying to put the data together sensibly although slowly!

I am rather tired so off to bed in a minute...still hoping to do my goals and appraisals/end of year review...zavtra ;-)

On Pad 7

Well I mentioned to Sasha that I wasn't happy going to pad 54 and he spoke to Sergey and the message finally got through. So I spent the day yesterday in pad 54, then moved here on pad 7 last night. I am feeling a lot happier now! Especially after spending a nice long time in the shower.

There is so much I need to write about and I have no idea where to start! So I am going to fire up my laptop and write up everything I can think of, then organise it into posts.

In the meantime here is a photo of the nice food laid on at the CPF for New Year :-) (it's like this every day ;-)

Address

I have finally worked out how to receive post here :-)

Moving around

Sorry for not posting but we have been moving around a lot over the last few days.
Am about to have to leave for base camp again but let me summarise today (a bit of a frustrating one).
Firstly, though, the rig is moving from pad5 to pad 16 so we have not been drilling anymore, but they have been packin gup the rig and it looks really funny without its "insides".

This morning, then. Woke up at 8 as there was no geo-report to send. Started tidying work unit a bit, thought I would do some of that and then have a shower. Prepared to back up our latest files...and the power was cut. This was because of the rig moving...and we lost all internet and phone lines too. So in the semi-darkness we had to run around trying to get the place tidy before it became too cold...and then scuttle over to the living unit and pack everything there (yes, including giant bag!). By the time we had finished, with the help of the technicians, it was lunchtime. We drove over to pad 7 to get some food, then had to wait on the computer there, which was not working, for some documents. Then the car started playing up and we had to go to CPF to get it sorted, after which we finally made our way to pad 54 where we are now. Dropped bags off in the living unit, and now we need to take Sasha to Basecamp as he is going to spend the week there learning something new. Not feeling too excited as I don't like pad 54 (although there are now about 5 dogs) and I feel I need my own space (cabin fever, too long woth Sergey!) for a bit. I'll see what I can do tomorrow about that as I don't have the energy to move again tonight!

Happy New Year!

с НОВЫМ 2007 ГОДОМ / BONNE ANNEE / HAPPY NEW YEAR!

From:

Front row: Radik, Andrey, Ivan (new technician)

Back Row: Sasha, Sergey, Florence aka Snegurotchka

all in the geo-unit on pad 54, where Sasha was logging.

More later...