Working in Basecamp

Just thought I would post a few pics of life here...before the whole of basecamp moves to the CPF some time next week. Obviously things are quite different and rather more comfortable here, and there is a lot more interaction with people all the time, as the main caravan I am sitting in has a constant stream of visitors.
Which I love, as it means I get a really good feel for what is going on, although it does make it a bit difficult to work sometimes.




with Vassily (junior geologist), Andrey and Vavan
enjoying the sunshine












with Radik, Sergey A, Gilles and Sergey R















My desk













With Tofig (Well Engineering) and Gilles

Good managers

Last night, Harry (CEO) came round to the geologist's caravan to have a chat with Gilles about the geology, our latest wells, and the way we operate here in the field...and the future of the company in the rest of Russia, whether the kind of difference we make here and the best practice examples will be enough to convince the authorities that this model is a good one and should be replicated...
I must admit I am very impressed with this guy-apart from being a geologist :-) he seems very switched on and is a very good communicator (which is quite rare for someone of his nationality). It is nice to see people like that in this kind of position-reminds me why I joined this company in the first place...

HSE

After 1 million man hours without LTI (Lost Time Injury), which is a pretty good safety record, we sadly have had 2 fatalities in a month- one a road accident, where the driver smashed into a heavy lorry on the federal road, and the other 2 days ago when a 16m-scaffold fell down with a contractor on it. This of course is a very sad occurrence and a great shame after all this time operating safely.
Today, the CEO came to basecamp and just did a talk about the situation.
Awful circumstances aside, it was interesting to see how the management team is dealing with this situation, informing staff and stakeholders and how the problems are explained. Whether the extra entreaties to work safely will be heard I do not know, but I was very impressed with the delivery. Far more relevant and human than any HSE review meeting I have been to so far-although of course there have been no office fatalities as yet.
Something to mull over.

Software

I am just discovering Mozilla/Firefox. Nice...

Crew change

Today was crew change day so I had to say some goodbyes...

I have been taking people photos over the last couple of days, here are some with Oleg and Amit (PTs) and Anna, who all left today.

with Oleg-now I know everything there is to know about ESPs! (electric submersible pumps, which are used to help bring the oil to the surface)

with Amit - completely rubbish weather today, it actually snowed overnight and is now raining and windy and about 1 degree :-(

with Anna, integral part of the superteam in caravan 1!

Time flies...

I have finally decided to just write this offline and post it later, so that I can do it in my own time and catch up with the week. I cannot believe another week has flown by…

Starting again where I left off:

Andrey, the Schlumberger engineer, eventually came round with the data and after a few changes we signed the acceptance papers and I made my way back to Basecamp. Unfortunately it was dinner time so I didn’t eat again, but I had a collection of fruit in my room so that was fine. I got back in time to catch the second half of Touching the void, a documentary film about a couple of glacier climbers who got stuck and the extreme survival of one of them who pulled himself out of a crevasse and down the mountain with a broken leg! Amazing…and quite moving too.

The next morning, Alexey noticed that some data was missing from the logs…eek! Basically I asked SLB for the wrong logging interval and the engineer didn’t double-check it (I misread the depth because the program had changed). We had all the reservoir data though so it wasn’t too much of a problem but it was a bit of a wake-up call for me to pay more attention to the job. I find it quite tough to just drop in on a well without knowing it from drilling, so it requires a lot more concentration to get it right. Gilles asked for a small AAR (after action review) document on this so that this kind of mistake could be avoided in the future, also from the SLB side (they didn’t quite follow standard procedure in this case).

After discussing this issue with Alexey, I left for pad 3 to help Simon with his PEX-XPT job. Incidentally, communication with Alexey has improved a lot since my second shift-it was already a lot better last shift and this time I found it very helpful to be sitting in the same office as him on that level…I could just hit him over the head with a log if he started annoying me :-)

After pad 50, which was very well maintained with sand all over, pad 3 was a bit of a struggle as it was very muddy with large ruts. I decided to not even try getting in and parked at the entrance by the security cabin. It was pretty difficult walking over to the geologist’s caravan but I made it without letting mud in over the top of my boots. I did get stuck on the way to the SLB unit though and Denis-the-DSV had to rescue me :-)

The engineer was Andrey again and after discussing the depth problem from yesterday we got on with the job. We went through all the XPT procedure and made sure we were all clear about what we needed from each other. For this XPT job, another engineer, Serge, was there and although he hadn’t done XPT before he has a lot of experience with pressure testing (just slightly different tools) so it was really interesting talking to him.
Denis stayed in the unit with us which was nice; in this well the drillers decided not to do a wiper trip to clean the hole before logging, because there was a power shutdown planned for the next day and they wanted to save time and finish work on the well before it. Bad idea…we couldn't get into the hole so had to pull out and they had to do the wiper trip anyway…obviously this meant staying in pad 3 for me, which was nice as I could catch up with people and of course the cleaners made up my bed nicely straight away (the Deutag magic).
Next day, we started over again and this time, after a couple of small struggles, we managed to get in and log the hole. At this stage Andrey and I were starting to get the giggles at it seemed that we were having a bit of a Groundhog Day-especially when it turned out that another tool needed calibrating!
After that everything went smoothly with the PEX and XPT, although we were a bit worried before the job about getting stuck with the XPT tool due to the poor hole conditions. We applied all the new procedure a la lettre though and did not have any problems as we took the XPT measurements, except with the penultimate point where the cable tension got really high- almost to snapping point. There were an amazing 20 seconds in the logging cabin where no-one breathed as the operator tried to free the cable...luckily he managed and a lot of pale, shaky-kneed people heaved a sigh of relief!
Because Serge had never done XPT and Andrey didn't have that much experience they were asking me about testing rates and volumes, which was great fun :-) obvioulsy I made it clear the responsibility was theirs but they basically let me pick all the sampling volumes and rates for the points :-) with a bit of guidance on the tight formations (ie the ones where liquid doesn't flow very easily or at all). Basically what we measure is the formation pressure, by sucking out liquid from it and waiting for the pressure to stabilise again; the time this takes depends on how well fluid can move through the formation and therefore the amount taken and the speed at which you take it can really influence how well the pressure stabilises.
Anyway, another XPT job happily finished and we went back to the work unit to wait for the data from SLB. Simon had been bringing me food throughout the day, which was nice, as I didn't have time to leave the logging unit at mealtimes.

I decided to go to the car to get my book and some bits from my bag, to help with the wait for the data. Unfortunately on the way back the digger was working in the only path I knew so I had to work out another route back to the unit. My friend the moustachied digger driver(for it was he) saw me waiting and pointed me towards a dry-ish path which I followed happily until it was time to cut across to the unit. And then...it all went terribly wrong! after 2 steps I ended up completely bogged down with mud to the top of my boots :-( luckily for me, the digger was still nearby and the driver staged a rescue worthy of a princess :-) and I eventually made it back safely to the work unit.

I found Pasha near the DSV's office as he is living in pad 3 while rig 4 moves, so spent a bit of time relaxing with a nice cup of tea and ice cream :-) then back to the unit to wish Simon a happy birthday at midnight! Ivan had brought a cake back from Salym village and we even had birthday candles which were fun to light. After enjoying a slice of cake I sent the boys to bed as it seemed pointless for all of us to stay up waiting for data-especially not Birthday Boy.
The data eventually came, and after sending the boys back a few times, and an interesting conversation with Andrey (he is only 2 weeks older than me, a geologist/geophysicist and has played the piano as long as I played the violin, also in a music school, and also wants to go electric so we were discussing the merits of electric violins/pianos and how he wants to get a mixing set-up) I finally got to bed at 5:30 am!!
After a few hours' sleep, I explained to Simon how to do a full-hole CBL and left for Basecamp after lunch. The main road back has a lot of potholes and I am getting a little bit fed up with that section so I tried singing at the top of my voice to make it less boring...and make sure I stayed awake. Which luckily worked.

No time to write because...

I got up at 6 am yesterday, worked all day in BC till 10 pm, relaxed for 2 hours then drove to pad 50. At 3 am went to bed for 3 hours as the type of logging did not require my presence at this stage. I have been working since; it is 3.30pm and there are at least 4 more hours, then 1 hours' drive...and that's assuming Vassily can come over to relieve from having to wait for data/check logs.

Still busy

This shift is a lot busier than the previous one, as 3 rigs are currently drilling reservoir sections. Rig 4 is still moving and this will still take some time, which in a way is a relief as 3 rigs is quite a lot to manage already!
I went to bed at 5:30 am and slept till 11 so am feeling a little spaced out at the moment, but happy because the job went well yesterday. I have just been told I need to go back out for a while tonight...an interesting prospect.
More soon

Boris Yeltsin

Mr Yeltsin left us today...

Busy bee

So here goes-a summary of my first few days back on shift:

Day 1: Wednesday

after a long train journey with hardly any sleep due to the 3 snoring Russians I was sharing a compartment with, arrived late in Basecamp just in time for lunch. Had a good handover with Stijn, who was just finishing his time here in Salym. He will be moving on to a new posting in Oman...
He also handed over the car keys and it sounds like the good old Niva is really having a hard time. Apart from the usual accessory problems (no horn etc), the battery is playing up quite badly and the tow-rope is broken because they got stuck in really bad mud. Apparently the car lost all acceleration power on one of the days, although that has now been repaired. So the Niva768-Florence relationship is not currently one based on trust.
That evening I drove up to pad 16 with Sasha "little brother" K to pick up our gear from the living caravan. Had to park the car near the entrance as we almost got bogged down, then squelch through wellie-deep mud to get to the living caravan-quite an experience. The rig is moving so there is quite a lot of heavy equipment being shifted, resulting in thigh-deep tracks which thankfully were not filled with water. Once in the living caravan, we realised it would be almost impossible to carry all our stuff back to the car so enlisted the help of the bulldozer driver who was luckily (for us) on a break at the time. Rig 4 contacts worked again...he drove our bags round to the car for us, despite getting stuck for a while behind a bogged-down lorry that was being dragged out of the mud. Great guys.
I then drove Sasha over to pad 10, which is the new location of rig 2 (SSK). This was a different story altogether...the last 5 km of road to the pad are impracticable by car, so we had to call Sergey who was on the rig to ask the DSV to be picked up by their digger-which was promptly refused. We were told to wait for SLB to arrive, which would have meant at least a 2-hour wait (no dinner yet and a 2-hour drive back to base ahead for me!). Luckily we found out that SLB had not even left basecamp yet and managed to negociate for Sasha to be picked up. I was rather tired when I got back to base just before midnight.

Pad 16...looking rather different!

Day 2: Thursday

Another day of beautiful weather-still cool here, nothing like London last week but extremely pleasant. My new position here for my last shift is "Queen of the Field" ;-) to follow on from "Lord of the Rig" (Stijn-don't ask). Basically it means that I am in charge of organising the movements etc of geologists currently on rigs and making sure they are OK with their jobs/providing support where they don't have the experience. Currently, Sasha G (technician) is on rig 1, learning to be a geologist, so he needs training on some specifics; Sasha K is on rig 2,

apparently swimming from the work caravan to the canteen; and Simon is on rig 3, drilling away with leaking boots.
My time this shift, as agreed, will be spent 50% on wellsite geology, 50% on PT work. With this in mind, Gilles let me know about a frac job which was going to take place that afternoon. A quick chat with my good friend Ravil and I was in on the job (as an observer of course)...and Sergey R agreed to teach Sasha G how to call TD, on his way back from pad 10. Separate frac post coming up. It was a good day.

Day 3: Friday

Another beautiful day. On Thursday I thought it would be interesting to go along to all the morning meetings with Alexey, to see what it is like at that end of the phone. I did regret that decision when my alarm went off ridiculously early on Friday morning but soon cheered up when I walked outside and breathed in the crisp fresh air and saw the sun shining already.
After the meetings I helped Alexey with some documents he had to prepare, then went to sort out my trip sheet for the day...which was promptly taken from me! A bit of anger and several phone calls later, it turned out that the lovely man in charge of my driving license wanted me to sign a piece of paper to certify that I can drive in summer conditions (???) before I could get another trip sheet . I needed to be at the CPF to do that...which of course I would need a car to get to. So Alexey managed to negociate that I would go next week when I had time after my work, which is after this man's shift change so he didn't care anymore anyway. Oh dear.
When I finally had my driving license it was time to go back for the second part of the frac job, which I was determined to make despite a pending logging job in rig 1. This was planned for the same night so I decided to take some overnight things in case I needed to go straight to pad 50 but I ended up with more time than expected so went back to base anyway.

The dryest spot in pad 16...in the Good Old Days before I lost my hard hat :-( (I am very upset about this)

Day 4: Saturday ie today

This morning I woke up at 1:30, 3:30 and 5:45 to check on the logging job. I felt sorry for my roommate but had warned her that I had a night job...she is the onsite English/Russian teacher and she spends 2 days in basecamp and 2 at the CPF so I hadn't seen her yet. Seems quite friendly.
The logging job was planned at 3am, with a PEX on TLC, which means that the logging tools are fixed to a tube, not a wire as we usually do. TLC jobs are very time-consuming and we usually only use them if we have problems with wireline jobs. There was no problem here but there have been a lot on rig 2 (also SSK) and to cut a long story short, it was decided that all logging jobs in SSK should be done on TLC from now on.
However, I was happy to find out that this one had been changed to wireline because of planned power cuts tomorrow. This means a 5-hour job instead of 25 :-)
So I phoned Sasha in the middle of the night to get status updates, and ended up leaving base at 6am as the logging was delayed a little. Not the best night's sleep, but better than just 3 hours. We have just finished this job and Sasha did well for his first time. Now waiting for SLB engineer, going to check data, and back off to base. Tomorrow I will be going to pad 3 to do an XPT job-Simon's first. There is a lot of pressure on this job (no pun intended there-XPT...pressure...following?) because the XPT tool got stuck on rig 2 and had to be fished out of the hole. This was mostly because the procedure wasn't followed correctly, so I have re-written it yet again to spell out everything in minute detail, and I need to test run it again to make sure everything works ok. I have my "XPT girl" reputation to preserve as I am one of the people with the most XPT experience here. We'll see what happens.

That's it for now, more later and photos too, which I am being useless with. The problem is I have been taking pics with a very old-fashioned film camera which I came across while tidying a cupboard at home...so once that is finished I can start using modern technology again!

Paka!

Arrived happily in Siberia

I'm back :-)
The weather is gorgeous and it's great to be here again.
I have already learnt loads in 1 1/2 days.
It is very muddy in the field...but I am based in Basecamp at the moment.
Photos and updates coming soon, including posts from time off.

Week One back home

After getting the night train back from Moutiers to Waterloo we arrived home early on Sunday morning, and I headed straight for bed. Unfortunately the eurostar did not have any couchettes :-( as hoped for so this might not be an option next time.
Monday and Tuesday were taken up excitedly going to IKEA and (less excitedly) putting together loads of flat-packs, for the new TPA office in Old Queen Street. Just when I thought I had seen the back of those terrible diagrams...oh well. The new office is looking good, and is so much nicer, quieter, more spacious...and cheaper! than the old one.
On Tuesday evening I attended and said a few words at an IEA dinner with John O'Sullivan as guest speaker...I was lucky enough to sit next to him and he had many inspiring words to say.
Wednesday seemed to fly by and Thursday saw me visiting Grandmother and Uncle Robert and enjoying some sunshine in the garden (and desperately trying to eradicate the racoon markings acquired in France ;-) And that was the end of week 1-we left London on Thursday evening to spend the Easter weekend in Leeds. How time flies...

In one piece

Well, we both got home in one piece after a fun week on the pistes.
Thursday was quite a good day spent practising what I learnt from my lesson then going over to 1850 to join Matthew and enjoy the better snow ( it was starting to get into a pattern of icy mornings/slushy afternoons down in 1650). I still prefer 1650 as it is a lot quieter than 1850 and has some good runs, especially towards the top. Andy, James and I also skied over to Meribel-just to make use of our 3 Valleys ski pass! it was quite nice doing a few different pistes (including quite a tough red) but the snow was a lot worse on this side.
Friday was a difficult day for me-although all the aches and pains had gone and I was definitely feeling a lot fitter, my worst skiing technique was impossible to get rid of, especially as the snow was pretty poor and icy everywhere. It didn't help that I took a very difficult red (I suspect it was a very dark red!!) that was a real struggle and then kept bumoing in to my ski instructor every time I made a mistake :-o
The snow line receded dramatically over the length of our stay, from an all-round powdering on the trees to feeling like we were skiing in the green grassy summer!
Snow was planned for Friday during the day but it actually ended up snowing all night Friday.
Which meant that we were all up bright and early on Saturday enjoying the 35cm of lovely powder...after doing a blue which felt like off-pisting (not groomed) we went straight up following Andy's inspired itinerary to do a red...but ended up doing a black! Which was a slightly scary but in-retrospect enjoyable experience, thanks to the good snow. After that we did several reds, and I finally felt myself let go of the fear in the blues, which felt rather easy after all that!
Matthew came with us on the black and did pretty well considering he was a complete beginner at the start of the week. He is now a blue-piste skier, and I would put myself as red.
All-in-all a great trip/holiday-despite the occasional hallucinations of not having left Russia??! (many, many Ruskis in 1850).

Courchevel

I found my bag waiting for me at the bottom of the escalator in Heathrow :-) and got home safely on Thursday night.
Friday was spent unpacking and repacking as well as sorting some admin, and Saturday we were off!
We took the Skitrain from Waterloo straight to Moutiers, which was a pretty easy and straightforward journey despite the rather noisy children who got in at Ashford.

We arrived in Courchevel 1650 early evening, where Andy, James and Yasmin had already arrived and we were being cooked dinner for by Ben, our chalet guy.

The ski hire people came to visit to measure us up so we could have our skis ready first thing on Sunday. We also ordered our skilift passes and Matthew signed up for some lessons with New Generation.

On Sunday morning, we were ready to go!

The snow was lovely and the sun was shining-what more could we ask for:-) James and Yasmin are snowboarding and started by practicing on the beginners' area, which is where we took Matthew to introduce him to the snowplough before his private lesson that afernoon (as a kickstart). Andy and I then went off skiing down a few greens and found tha we are a similar level, which is great as it is always nice to have someone to ski with, and we can push each other when the need arises :-)

I went through the pain barrier on day 2 and not midweek as expected :-( I didn't do enough stretches in the evening and my calves were in complete agony the next day. In fact I have only just started walking normally again (almost). But squeezing into tight skiing boots actually made it possible to keep skiing and it has been a un few days. Matthew has made very fast progress and I decided to catch a private lesson with the ESF today before he catches me up! ;-) Today also saw me go down 2 red pistes, confidence boosted by the lesson and the lovely views (and the fact that it didn't look that steep fron the chairlift :-)

So we are all having a good time, everyone with their own aches and pains and some of us working on the badger look.

Photos to come once we get home...

Drillers

I have just realised that I haven't really written much about our friends the drillers, apart from a few comments about drilling supervisors (DSVs). And this shift I have had quite a lot to do with them, so I thought they might finally be worth a mention. Just.
As I have been working on Deutag rigs most of the time I have mostly been interacting with one team (Denis and Pasha as DSVs but also Bert who is their boss = senior well engineer). There are in fact 2 Berts back-to-back, also known as "young Bert" and "old Bert" but I only really know old Bert, who is an interesting character to say the least! Having said that, I have immense respect for him and all the other "older guys" - real oil men who know their stuff and who really care about what they do. Good stuff.
Usually wellsite geologists attend morning meetings at the rig with the rest of the drilling team, mostly in an observatory role (keeping in touch with what is going on-and learning how problems are being fixed and drilling improved) but every once in a while there are some questions to be answered (pressures measured in the reservoir, how the logging is going etc). I have had a few of those in the past and luckily have been able to answer satisfactorily - which was a relief as Bert's capacity to give people a hard time is well-known...especially if the target is as easy as a poor little geologist :-) It is always entertaining to watch the DSVs in different stages of nervous breakdown in the run-up to morning meetings.
This shift though, things got a little hairier when Bert started complaining about some depths not making any sense at all etc. After some investigation (and still no sleep, this happened during the first few days when we were drilling the special deep well) it turned out that he had been looking in the wrong column. When confronted during his visit at the wellsite (as if I were going to be shy!) he actually apologised, which I have been told is a pretty rare occurence, so I was pretty happy about that.
Next thing I knew, a strong email came round after we sent out the Winlog for the previous well (finished drilling on the day we arrived) requesting a lot more clarity. For some reason, I didn't panic (lack of sleep numbs the senses ;-) and instead got on with improving the report and understanding what the drillers (sorry, Well Enginnering) needed. It was actually a rather useful exercise in that it made our output more useful whilst helping us understand more about the well/drilling issues. A good exercise in communication-and How To Deal With A Driller.

I have found an excellent photo on the server, taken by Misha, which I feel really captures the essence of Bert so here it is:

Moscow

I am currently in the BA lounge in Domodedovo airport and all is well.
My flight this morning with UTAir (that airline) from Surgut (that airport) was perfectly fine, I slept most of the way except when it was caviar time and made sure I had checked where the emergency exits were about 5 times.

Last night we went bowling in the hotel, which was good fun. "We" in this case being Simon, Reginald, Robert-Jan and Misha (from well services). Oh, and me.

This morning I flew to Domodedovo direct with Reginald and Misha. I had seen Reg on the BA flight over here and we were also booked on the same one back.
This time I decided to actually make it into Moscow this time, and the weather looked like it was trying to make up for last time as it was really sunny and quite warm. I was far too hot in my polar coat.
So I left my bag with Reginald, who kindly offered to look after it and even check it in for me, and set off on my little adventure to meet Alexey in town.

First, I took a minibus to the nearest metro station, which cost me 50 rubles (1 pound!)- at first I was a little worried about the whole minibus experience but it was a lot easier than my previous experience in Saratov.

Then I bought a metro card for 5 trips (75 rubles) from the unfriendly cashier and went down to the platform, where I met Alexey and we headed into town. We went to our Moscow office as Alexey needed to drop off some paperwork, and went on to lunch nearby. After lunch we went to Prospect Mira for a drink with his wife Tatiana, who works nearby. She doesn't speak English so it was good for my Russian practice and Alexey helped with the translation, as she spoke rather quickly for me at times.

Alexey then took me to the Express train station, where I caught a train that takes 40 minutes to get to the airport. Unfortunately, this train only leaves once an hour and not every 40 minutes as we expected, so I managed to miss check-in by 12 minutes and they didn't let me on the plane (even though I only had hand luggage and was very willing to run for it!). So I changed my ticket to the 9 o'clock flight and came straight through to the business lounge.

I have just had a nice long shower here, which was lovely after all the running around, and have decided to update the blog a little as there are some things that I haven't posted yet. It is quite nice to have a little bit of time to relax here and catch up with emails etc...

The only problem being that I currently have Reginald's Russian mobile, and he has my bag. Which with a bit of luck will be waiting for me at LHR...?

Home soon...

Two days to go...I am looking forward to going home, and skiing next week.
Two days till the end...of this shift.
And not, dear reader, of my stint out here as was originally planned.
Yes, that's right! Crazy little me is so happy here that she will be staying an extra shift!
Next time, I will be working with the PTs a lot, to learn about completion-going out and perforating some of the wells I have drilled, and learning about production too.
So loads more to learn and a lot of excitement ahead :-)))))
The adventure goes on...

It gets worse

aaah-now we're on One Way Ticket to the Moon...time for a cuppa with the PTs :-)

Karaoke

It's karaoke time again in the SSFT caravan-Vlada loves singing away and it's quite fun. Though if I hear another rendition of Mariah Carey's Without You I might do something bad...

Cool

Three snowmobiles just drove past my caravan-I wonder if I can try???

Skating

Well life in basecamp is pretty nice as there is a good bunch of young people on shift at the moment. Sasha, Slava and I are in our own caravan, Radik has been sitting in the main SSFT caravan with Sergey, CJ and Vlada. So a slightly different crew to last time.

End of well report is coming along, with explanations from the PTs which is always good-learning.

The highlight of the day, though, tends to be the hour to 90mins after lunch where we would usually go for a nap. Instead, a bunch of us go skating on the ice rink outside the canteen building :-)

Vlada and I are both beginners and starting up was difficult but it's been great fun.
I have been skating every day since I arrived and I feel a lot more comfortable on the ice now. Yesterday was a struggle, as legs and feet were hurting (exercise? wot?) but I pushed myself and got a lot of good practice in.
Today the ice was not so good as the temperature exceeded 0 degrees today!! Although we did get a thin layer of snow again.

I feel like a young child as I am covered in bruises but it's a good feeling to be doing some sports again. And it's fun to play :-) Here is a video of our train:




I have started to learn hockey...sort of...Sasha is my coach and I can just about skate along with the stick, and hit the puck into the goal (providing the puck is in the right place ;-)

2 days ago, the CPF challenged Basecamp to a hockey match so I went along to watch and support. Poor Sasha, the best player in the team, was completely exhausted by half-time: we had been playing at lunchtime, and the basecamp team only had 4 players, whereas CPF could rotate as they had 7. We almost won ;-)

I am now sitting in the main SSFT caravan as Radik has gone to pad 16 to help the guys out there with Achimov drilling. I am looking at the correlation as they come in with Sergey-it's fun to be on this end too, although it might have been more interesting with Gilles around.

There are curently 4 geologists in pad 16, which is quite a lot! and Well Engineering are getting a little upset about this. Currently out there are Sasha (aka my little brother from the last 2 weeks on rig 4), Simon, who has moved over from pad 3 to do the Achimov drilling, Radik, who was called out for help, and Dina, who arrived on Thursday for her first shift.

I am a little disappointed not to have been able to stay with Dina, as was originally planned, but her arrival was delayed (bad weather in Amsterdam) and plans here changed slightly-I stayed on the rig last week instead, as there was no computer for me here. But she seems to be settling in fine and enjoying here time here, so all is good :-)

In basecamp

I drove down to basecamp on Thursday and am due to spend the rest of the shift here.
Working on end-of-well reports, which is a little tedious but there is a great atmosphere as most of my favourite geos are here: Radik, Sasha A, Sergey A as well as the usual basecampers of course.
More later...

Trip to pad 26

On Sunday, I took Sasha to pad 26 for a special CBL. It was very strange getting there and finding it empty bar the Christmas Trees and a hoist! Although not as strange as it had been when I went back to pad 5 on our pad tour last shift.

Here I am with the hoist, which is basically a lorry with a pullie which is used for work on the well after it has been drilled and the rig has moved.

While we were waiting for TPG to rig up, we had a good look at what was there. Sasha did an operational placement during his studies and new a bit about the control centre for the ESPs-these are the pumps that are put in the wells to help bring the oil to the surface. Here is a photo of the control centre:

And the best bit of it all, I discovered where I can find oil on tap :-))
Isn't it amazing that you can just open a tap and out comes oil all the way from 2+km below you???

Then back to the CBL truck, where they were rigging up-it was our engineer friend Anton again, so Sasha was happy and communication was good there.
Here is a little video of the rig-up:



I then left Sasha to it and returned to pad 16. It was a glorious day and I was enjoying the drive (and the car was behaving) so I decided to go back via the winter road. As I made my way down to it, I realised that no-one had been along it for quite a while. It had only snowed a little since though so I could still drive through it. About half-way along, I suddenly felt the urge to get out and stand in the sun, and enjoy the peace, quiet and sheer beauty of this wilderness. The only sounds around me were those of the snow slipping off branches, and the flapping of birch bark in the wind. I heard a couple of birds hop around but did not see any. Those were a perfect 10 minutes all to myself, just enjoying the fact that I am here and that I love what I am doing. It also helped me get a bit of peace, as I have been thinking about a lot of things recently (finally have time/mental space to really THINK), especially about what comes next...

Global Warming video

For all those Al Gore fans, and everyone else too, please watch this show, now available on youtube.
It was high time someone made a program to counter this climate change hysteria and helped people take a step back and think about it a little more logically...and dare I say scientifically. As in: real science, not the government/NGO funded Daily Mail scare stories which seem to have become the norm in today's world...
Here is the first chunk (of eight):

Books

I haven't had much time to read this shift but I just found this link and found it pretty funny...must get back to those counts and princes pronto!

Menagerie

Jaika, Cheburashka and Mishka are all well and say hello!

Pad 26

Today I will be taking Sasha to pad 26 after lunch, for a CBL job in a high-angle well (80 degrees!) which should be interesting. I will try to take some pics of the tools, if they have them laid out. After which I will leave him there, as the job is likely to take hours! So we are off to the canteen to have a good lunch and stock up on food/cake for him to eat later on.

Basecamp visit

Yesterday, we decided to go to basecamp for the afternoon. I was supposed to be moving there to do EOWR but there are no free computers...
So we decided to get there in time for the weekly quicklook meeting, which we usually have every Saturday at 3pm. This was a good opportunity for a geologist reunion and quick photo-we were tempted to asked Well Engineering to take it ;-)







Simon came to pick us up as we were car-less; all the computers (including his laptop) on pad 3 were infected by a virus and were being sorted by Vavan; also there was no drilling because of a broken top drive. So it was a good distraction for him!

About 1 hour before leaving we suddenly spotted a UNGGF truck out of the window and realised that a CEL was going to take place! A CEL is another type of Cement Evaluation Log, which we do only for a few hundred meters into the well, just to check that the cement is OK. We later run a proper CBL for more precise information.





So we ran out to meet them and managed to sort it all out (just) before going to base. Except that today we noticed that we had put in the wrong well name. Ho-hum. All sorted.


Anyway, we got back fairly late last night but...I now have my car back :-))) so I'm happy. Slava wasn't.


We were planning on seeing the Baroid guys (remember Ivan? my English/Russian practice mate-he's back on shift and invited us over) and visiting their lab/watching them make the mud etc but just then we started drilling the last conductor section so everyone was rather busy. Let's see what we can do this evening...

Reports

Almost finished the report we have been working on for the last few days-such a relief.
Yesterday we finished drilling another conductor section although TD was delayed 3 hours till midnight. We were so fed up with making reports that we decided to go and catch some samples from the bottom of the hole, just for fun (and to check we were in the right place :-)

Shale shakers:

Catching a sample:

More more more

More flowers, more chocolates :-)
Again from basecamp...this time from a different department :-)
Arrived by special Vavan delivery...

CBL finally done!

It took 54 hours for TPG to do the logging, but after the earlier cable problem, followed by a broken tool problem, they finally managed to do a good job. We are starting to know the engineer, Anton, and he was perfectly fine with our sitting in his logging unit for the important bits. Progress!!
I was trying to have a conversation with him and was despairing at my complete loss of Russian understanding when Sasha told me that Anton was speaking in colloquial Russian. No wonder...!



When we get the printout from CBL logs, we need to do some basic interpretation on them; nothing too detailed but just to capture the key points. A CBL log looks at the bond between the cement that has been pumped down the well and squirted up the outside, and the casing. It is supposed to form a bonding layer between the rock and the casing. The casing is made of metal, and the amplitude of the vibration of the casing is measured, to see whether it is unattached or attached, and therefore, whether or not we have a good cement bond. More on CBL here.



Here is a picture of the CBL printout (we need to correlate it to the Gamma Ray measured during the PEX logging, to make sure we know where we are in the well). And yes, that is the full length of our caravan!

Women's Day

Today is International Women's Day according to Russian tradition.
At 8am Pasha called the office to invite us over to the canteen, were I was presented with gifts, along with the other ladies (kitchen and cleaners). I got some chocolates and a travel iron!! :-)

Yesterday, I travelled to basecamp to see off some of the geologists (1/2 crew change, Alexey, Sergey R and Vassily went home, Sasha A, Sergey A and Slava came back) and have a bit of time off-did I mention things have been rather crazy here?!

The boys decided to throw us an advance Women's Day party as all 4 SSFT girls were around (crew change for our TAs Anna/Vlada, and Genia-the-PT also just arrived). We had tea and cake, and received roses and soft toys :-))) one more for my private zoo ;-)

All in all another nice day yesterday, even though Slava *stole* my car, hrmph!

SSFT ladies: Eyvegenia, Vlada, Anna and me

Gorgeous weather

It was -8 degrees this morning but has now gone up to about +7 degrees! It is very sunny and the sky is its usual magnificent deep blue.
It struck me that not many people are lucky enough to get this kind of view from their office window...

Drilling

Monday evening, after having a nice relaxed day for my birthday, we started drilling the interesting new stuff in the night.

To do this, we had gamma ray being recorded behind the drilling bit. For most of the drilling, the GR was at about 20m behind the bit, which meant that we had to back-calculate where we wanted to be. It was really fun seeing the data coming in directly, live, and being able to confirm what was going on straight away rather than having to wait for the logging.

Here is an action shot of us discussing the current information and geological model in Petrel:

Once we got to the point we had decided on, we stopped as there was something we were a little bit uncertain about, which could be resolved in the next stage; the drilling bit was pulled up and they removed the directional component, which allowed us to bring the GR down to 4m behind the bit. It also meant that we had to drill straight down, with no deviation, which is why we kept this section to the minimum.


Without any extra drilling, we could therefore get an extra 16m of data, which helped us work out a few answers and decide what total depth we wanted, based still on what data came in as we drilled. We were on the phone/email to Gilles and Alexey during all this, and used software called Petrel, which I had only used back in the office before. It really helped with correlating wells, to understand how similar this well was to the ones nearby, which helps to predict what might be coming in and what decision to make.

The Sperry Sun guys were very good at letting us take over their work unit (see above) during the final GR drilling and getting us the data as we needed it. The drillers listened and did what we needed, drilling slowly and carefully in the tricky bits. All in all good example of interdisciplinary teamwork at the wellsite :-) even though the mudloggers did go to lunch during the most important part of the driling...rig radio can be very entertaining ;-)

Mishka

Meanwhile Mishka has found the best place to sit in the caravan and is very happy.

Caravan move

A few days ago (how many??) we skidded the rig to drill a new well. To do this they had to move our work unit backwards and sideways. They didn't switch everything off this time, and we needed to work so they moved it with us inside, hanging on to the computer screens to keep them safe. Which is unfortunately why I couldn't take any photos of the bulldozer dragging us with toe-ropes! But it was quite fun-the roughneck in charge usually came running round to the door, shouted in "ready?" "DAVAI" we answered, and the bulldozer went for it.
They moved us quite a lot and as a result we ended up on a little slope, which apparently was not these people's business to fix.
It took 12 hours of lobbying for the toolpusher to send his men to sort it out (Sperry Sun had the same problem). During this time Sasha and I were going completely mad trying to work while rolling backwards-of course the computers were at the top of the slope...here is a little video of Sasha climbing up our work unit. And...my chair had wheels too!

Crazy cowboys

I am still on pad 16 with Sasha K, training him to make sure he can do everything on his own.

Night before last, the PTs asked us to check a CBL (full hole) log and just make sure the data is OK.

This job is usually done by a company called TPG, and last time I did this with Radik I found that the engineer knows his stuff but the methods are just mad. Last time they didn't tell us when to come and check the data, which meant we missed it-although how useful it might have been is questionable as they were several hundred metres out in their calibrations.

This job is not part of the drilling per se, but of the completion (what happens next), which is why we are doing it to help the PTs. After the wells are cemented, they are closed off while the cement dries. Some time later, they are re-opened and a crane is used as a pullie to allow the wireline cable and CBL tool to run into the hole. Here is a photo of me with the crane and the TPG logging truck.

Anyway, this time Sasha and I made sure they would be letting us know when to come and take a look, and as it was a night job, planned that Sasha should get up and check the status at about 3am. Not because I am being lazy! But I cannot communicate on that level in Russian.

So he did, and all was well till we both got up at 6 and went to check again...to find that they had got completely stuck in the hole because the operator had gone to sleep while running in with the tool!!! The cable had kept going in and become all tangled up around the winch on the truck.

Then the engineer asked Sasha not to tell anyone!! because they were waiting for a specialist from Tyumen...of course, Sasha called Pasha, who was none too impressed, and we also called Vitaly (PT in charge) and let things take their course.

Currently there are two TPG trucks here, one of whose cables doesn't work (truck 1) and the other with broken computer systems. They have linked them both up but there still seems to be a problem.

Unbelievable.

Time

I am thinking of starting a campaign group for more hours in the day.

I don't really have time to blog but I'm going to do it anyway!

I had a crazy time from Monday evening last week. The next 3 days have merged into one, involving only 12 hours' sleep between them. We drilled the special section and logged it.

After that, it seemed like everytime I wanted to finally collapse into bed someone phoned/emailed with something urgent to do.

Since then things have been crazy busy trying to finish the report for the well drilled before we arrived (we are now on the 50 000 000 th revision) as well as the one for the well we drilled last week and filling out the winlog for the current well being drilled. Every time we send in the final version of the report someone decides to change the procedure...argh.
More soon, just thought I would let you know I am still alive (just!).

Argh

They did not include sleep in the job description for a good reason.
Night of logging ahead, already surviving only on strong Turkish coffees...

Celebrity teddies

Cheburashka and Mishka in the car are becoming celebrities in their own right around here.
The photo I posted below got passed on to Gilles, who circulated it to everyone with the Daily Report. He apparently has also printed it out with a "Safety First in SSFT" caption!

Here is a video of Cheburashka on my youtube account.

Awake?

I went to bed at 9.30am and got up about 2 hours ago, a bit after 3pm. All getting a bit confusing but I'm sure sleeping tonight won't be a problem ;-)
They are still changing the bit and the gamma ray so it will be quite long before we actually go back down and see some more data to help resolve our geological disputes...

YouTube

I have finally got myself a YouTube account so I should be able to post links to videos. Now I just need to take some...

Spoilt brat

is exactly what I am becoming thanks to all my new friends here :-)

The drive to Basecamp was really amazing; as it was such a beautiful day and I was on my own I could savour every minute of it.

In basecamp it was nice catching up with Anna, Alexey and Sergey R (who is doing end-of-well reporting). They were going to organise a trip out to Salym village for the whole of SSFT and use it as an excuse for team building but they couldn't find a cafe that could take more than 10 people!! So we had cake and tea in the main caravan and all the PTs joined us and wished me a happy birthday :-)

Then I hopped back into the car and drove back just in time before dark. It was just really nice to turn up just for a cake party and go "home" again!

Apparently the cooks had been looking for me at lunchtime as they wanted to wish me a happy birthday so I thanked them for the cake over dinner. Then I went to bed as I was feeling really tired and the interesting geology started coming in at midnight, so I got up at 11:30.

In half an hour I can celebrate my real birthday based on central European time!

Apart from all of the above, I really feel like a spoilt 5-year-old because today I have eaten:

-omelet for breakfast

-chocolate

-ice cream

-cake

-more cake

-even more cake

-a bit o' dinner

-cake again



AND I received:



-a large box of chocolates from Sasha

-a packet of French biscuits I like from Gilles

-a Cheburashka soft toy (it speaks too!!) from Pasha

-a Teddy Bear (Mishka, really cuddly and soft) from Anna



the latter two kept me company on the way home :-)























Thanks for all the messages and wishes, I have just had such a nice, memorable day :-)
Just one person missing to make it 100% perfect.

Birthday Girl

My day started really well today.
I got up at 6.30 just to check on the well and realised it was going to be a lovely day...no clouds anywhere in sight. It was also -37 degrees :-)
I then decided to not do the georeport and have a nice shower instead. As we were getting ready in the living caravan, I got an early morning phone call from Sergey R, Anna and Gilles wishing me a happy birthday :-) After breakfast, I headed over to the morning meeting and was presented with a cake and everybody's best wishes :-))
After which I was invited to basecamp by the guys there, so I will be leaving shortly. Back in time for 5pm I hope, as I have invited everyone for cake and tea in our caravan.
Till then...

Still nothing

Just had the best night's sleep...it was really quiet withno activity on the rig.
In fact it was so nice I am going to go back now that I have done the paperwork...

Operations

I love operations.
There is the theory and the rules governing how things should work.
And then there is real life, where nothing goes according to plan.
This morning, the top drive, which is effectively the giant drill which drives the bit into the ground during drilling, broke.
This meant having to pull all the way out and working out how to mend the thing. There have been a few interesting exchanges on the rig radio, including an recruitment announcement for a "superman mechanic"...(it is nice to have Sasha as I understand about 3% of what goes on on that radio normally and really hate missing out on the operational info and banter).
Been busy here though, preparing for the special drilling, when it happens...(probably on my birthday...somehow better than logging though :-)

Temperatures

Just a small comment on this front...I have now broken my temperature record by 10 degrees...which means...yes, that's right, -40 degrees!!
As we landed in Surgut on Tuesday night, I was half listening to the landing announcement when I distinctly heard "minus sorak" (minus forty) and sat up in shock, to the alarm of my neighbour.
The following day, it was -38 and since then it has got a lot warmer-it is now -20 (easy peasy).
The cold was an interesting experience...didn't stay out long but could really feel the sting on my nose and cheeks, and even the Russians made an effort to wrap up and keep moving.
So there you go. Real winter at last!

Typical morning

I realised this morning that there is something else I am learning here, and that is how to deal with/manage a very stressed and stressful lead geologist on the phone. Now that I have the experience and related confidence I find I can deal with the crazy phone calls a lot better.

Yesterday I was discussing the situation with one of the Sperry Sun boys, and when I mentioned the stressed GE-A he just asked "why?". This morning as I woke up, I found myself wondering, indeed, why. And I realised that so long as I sent everything in on time and stayed informed and calm I could deal with (almost) anything!

As there is nothing too much going on I wouldn't expect any queries but I now know better so I wasn't surprised to find new-Sasha (this is not Sasha A but the one who arrived last time from our more easterly Siberian venture-I will now call him Sasha K. He is working on pad 3 but it is not up and running yet so him and Andrey are doing CBLs in pad 54. They seek refuge here during the day) on the phone looking very tense when I arrived back from the morning meeting.

Instead of getting involved I left immediately for a chat, a cuppa and a few questions with the Sperry Sun guys (who are also dealing with the Gamma Ray(GR)). Sure enough, five minutes later a breathless Sasha came bursting in needing data I had already sent an hour ago. I told him not to worry, to go back to the caravan and do his own work and not answer the phone :-)

I took my time getting the latest update and being showered in chocolate (again) and made my way back. Apparently there had been 2 angry and confused phone calls in those 10 minutes, all about non-existent problems. So I sent the latest update just as the phone rang, and I picked it up calmly, answered all of Alexey's questions whilst conveniently forgetting to mention that Simon was asleep, and then as he started berating me for not sending any data I suggested he check his inbox for emails from 1 1/2 hours ago. It was an unusually short phone call.

And that, I have decided, is my Thought of the Day. Dear reader, WHY are you so stressed? Is it really necessary? Has reading my blog really been that hard on your blood pressure?

Ramping up

Well, yesterday was quite an easy-going day, just drilling down from the conductor section. We finished off the Winlog for the previous well so it's nice to have that out of the way, and started making the current one as complete as possible.
This well is interesting and quite exciting as it goes a lot deeper than the usual wells. It is going through another reservoir, below the normal one. So it will be fun to see new rock samples, and try and see if there is enough oil down there to take it further. It is quite a delicate operation as a mistake with depth could mean a blow-out, which is the worst thing that can happen here (basically the whole thing explodes in this situation-see here for an example)
Anyway, to prevent this we need to be a bit intelligent about the geology; luckily, we have some help from the drillers here (yes, it happens ;-) as we are measuring gamma ray while drilling, which means that we can see what rocks are there as we go.
Apart from that we had a visit from our PT friends yesterday-Alex brought Luke up for his first visit of the rig, so we took him up to the drill floor and around the rest of the rig. They also went to see the older wells (the ones below the Christmas Trees) (did I post something on that or just intend to? Let me check) and Alex explained to me how to see the difference between an injector and a producer. Here is a pic of me with Alex and a Christmas Tree.

Arrived safely

Hello all,

I arrived safely in Salym yesterday-now back online :-)
Sorry about neglecting the blog, still no internet access at home, but that should hopefully be sorted by next time.

Travel over was pretty uneventful, flight to Moscow was doubly enjoyable on BA after 18hours on Thomson planes!! Ditto UTAir business class, though didn't get caviar this time...standards, tut tut...Travelled with Simon, Robert-Jan and a new guy called Luke who will be replacing Murat as a PT. Arrived quite late in Surgut as usual, only managed to sleep 1 hour before getting on the train. The train journey took 6 hours this time, one of which was spent sitting in a random village for no apparent reason...building the tracks maybe. Managed to get some sleep though luckily.

Yesterday evening Simon and I drove up to pad 16, which is the new location for rig 4...I feel like I've arrived back home :-)
Luckily there was nothing on last night so had an early night. It was nice seeing people here again at dinner and this morning. The canteen has completely changed-it is brand new and much bigger; the interaction with the cooks is slightly different as food needs to ordered through a window rather than being able to walk into the kitchen so I am rather glad that the one thing I master in Russian is food!!

Did a CEL job this morning, nothing too exciting, a rather unhelpful Russian crew so I had to put my foot down and get answers (in Russian-all good..hmmm) but nothing much else. Pasha (DSV) is well and stressed (as usual) because he has new toolpushers who are inexperienced and taking ages to do everything, so no drilling till tonight. Now is a good time for us to catch up on what's been happening...

More later. I have a bunch of posts I want to write about time off, which will come in below this one...

Dominican Republic