and a bit more

Incidentally, I just dropped by the DSV (Pasha) to have a chat and a cuppa but he was looking rather stressed and I found out that they are having problems with the casing, which is stuck quite deep down. That could quite easily have been our XPT tool *blanch*blanch*...

24 hours later

Well it's been another 24-hour job...although I did manage to catch 3 hours' sleep this morning between 4ish and 7ish.

SLB took a while to prepare everything after my last post, so I sat in their truck and made sure they had everything they needed in terms of data, and got to know them a little bit. We had 2 engineers here, one of them the main XPT specialist in the region as the other one didn't have any experience doing it.

The PEX went well, with the tool (see diagram below) jamming a little bit at the bottom of the hole but not much. We finished that just in time for dinner, after which Sergey and I chose the XPT measurement points and they started on that. This time everything went pretty smoothly with the process so I am rather chuffed about that as I wrote the procedure! Here is a pic of the XPT tool I found on the SLB website...pretty snazzy really :-)

We did have some problems though because the tension on the cable was extremely high, which means it got very close to snapping at some points and that would have been a nightmare. Gilles is only arriving tonight on his shift so I had to phone Alexey knowing full well that he didn't have a clue what to do, whether to stop or keep going. So I checked with the SLB engineers that they were OK to continue and we proceeded cautiously.

We finished at about 1.30am and after sending out some paperwork, Sergey, who was completely knackered, had a 2 1/2 hour sleep while I waited up for the engineers. Just before 4, I decided to go to bed for a bit, with Sergey sleeping int he work unit. 10 minutes later, SLB came along with the data to be checked. Sergey had to send them back 4 times due to mistakes as they were really tired; after that he told them to get some rest and it was agreed that paperwork etc would be sorted out later. Sergey started working with the data a little bit. After an hour of panic, he woke me up around 7.25 to come and help.

Basically the SLB engineers had made a mistake with their calibration and forgotten to apply a parameter to a curve, which means it was out by about 5m. The big worry was that this might have meant that all the XPT points had been taken in the wrong place...and $35,000 down the drain. Of course, we should have noticed the problem when accepting the data, but Sergey was just too tired and hadn't thought of comparing old and new curves (not a mistake we expect to happen, but isn't that the case with all major problems?).

We managed to contact the engineers via via, and they came back to see us and try to sort things out. They looked rather worried when they got back so I assume their manager had had a word! We managed to sort that, and a few other problems, out this morning and they have now left.

Yet again, I am completely knackered and not 100% satisfied, because something went a bit wrong-although not with the XPT this time at least :-)

Sergey has gone to bed already and I don't expect to see him before morning...he has the most fascinating effect on me when we are both tired and doing a night job. You can watch him physically fall apart as the night goes on, and I am convinced he has fallen asleep while standing before. He definitely has while reading out numbers to me!
Well funnily enough, the more tired he gets, the more bright and cheerful I get, which is rather surprising for me as I don't usually react well to sleep deprivation and would be more likely to try to lock him away in the sleeping caravan for lack of patience! It's almost like something is challenging me to resist, to keep going even though he is dropping like a fly.
I do hope Gilles is not reading this though as I suspect I might be doing quite a lot more night shifts in the future!!

Well anyway I have decided to stay up a little longer, and watch a film as my brain doesn't feel up to my book-although I am dying to find out the answer. I am currently reading Jeffrey Archer's False Impression ; it is the first time I read a book of his and I am really enjoying it.
Anyway, I'll just watch a mind-numbing (or is that a numb-minded) film and then go to bed. Hopefully that will kill my jetlag (yes, I am actually feeling that) as obvioulsy my recent patterns have done nothing to help...7.30 really did feel like 2.30 am this morning...

Logging still

Well, complete change of plans again. Schlumberger started logging after lunch yesterday but got stuck in the hole, so after pulling their tools out the russian company came and did the CBL logging after which the drillers did what is called a wiper trip, which effectively is a way of cleaning the hole so the logging tools can pass through.

This took all night so I had a good sleep from 11pm till 6am, got up and did the geo-report, had breakfast then went back to bed as I was still feeling completely dead. I got up at midday and had a shower and have just got in from lunch to find we are starting logging in 1 hour, with a new SLB engineer, as Irina is too tired.

So tonight will be the all-nighter, but I must admit I feel a lot better prepared for it now.

BTW if the link to google doesn't work, please go to google maps and type in "salym, russia" and drag the map so that salym is in the bottom right hand corner.

Helicopter crash

I have just read this article about the helicopter crash last night in Morecambe Bay.
Bizarrely, I dreamt of being in a helicopter crash in the North Sea last night-I had been thinking of what it would be like commuting to an offshore rig yesterday evening and my brain was obviously chewing over it. In my dream I remember surviving the crash thanks to the survival techniques we get trained for, but couldn't work out if everyone had survived.
Very sad news, and it feels all the more real now that I am working on a rig.

Where am I?

A lot of people have been wondering where the places I describe actually are. So with the use of Google maps, here is something to give you a bit of an idea:

Firstly, this links to a map where you can see Salym village (green arrow, bottom right); the image below shows a close-up of the top left hand corner of the Salym map, which is where the different pads are. You will probably need to use the rivers as a guide to finding how the 2 match up.

I have been using Google Earth online; when I get a chance I will make a much better map with the proper GE on my computer.

Logging soon

Well I went to bed at midnight last night after deciding that it wasn't worth waiting up for TD, as no-one had been supervising the reservoir section anyway. I got up at 5.30 this morning to prepare the geo-report as well as the rest of the paperwork and data for the PEX and XPT runs. Things have taken a bit longer with the drillers so we are going to start logging with Slb in about 1 hour.

Sergey Ryzhkov is here to help me-we have a rule that there should always be 2 geologists for the XPT logging. This is going to be my third one (first one where I am in charge), and after the general panic and problems with the last two, I am hoping this one will go smoothly, especially as I am the one who revised the procedure etc...I would prefer to be fresh and chirpy, which is not the case (already!) but then there's nothing like being thrown straight back in there to keep the mind focussed.

The Slb engineer is going to be Irina-not feeling very happy about that; in fact it rather took the wind out of my sails when Pasha-the-DSV told me that. He is also not looking forward to the occasion, although he will only be popping iin occasionally. She did a PEX last night with Sergey and he told me that she is overtired. With her natural sweet disposition, this will be interesting, especially as this is her first XPT...

Sergey arrived an hour ago and we had lunch. He is already looking completely knackered and it's only day 0.75...he has gone to get some sleep and I said I would keep guard, as I have had the luxury of 5 hours' sleep! Oh dear.

The weather here is cold (-25) and sunny :-) so I am happy. Still fighting the urge to go out for a walk in the sun, which is my body's natural reaction to what it thinks is nice warm or at least bracing weather. The sun is really low now, sunrise lasted about 3 hours, and now at midday it looks like about 5 pm on a normal winter's day (whatever that is). I am looking forward to a long and beautiful sunset...

I cannot resist the bed in the work unit any longer so am going to have a quick snooze as lunch is having its effect!

Arrived safely

I am now sitting on pad 5 after a fairly straightforward journey.
Set off yesterday morning at 6am and it took under half an hour to get to Heathrow! There weren't exactly many people on the road. After sitting back in the BA lounge for a bit, got on the BA flight which went smoothly; only 11 people in business class (can take up to 35 people).

The transfer from airport to airport in Moscow was fine too, with only a bit of time spent stuck in traffic. All the cars were covered in a dull black layer, which is what is put down on the roads there when it snows. Moscow temperature: -5 deg with snow.

Found Sasha in the business lounge and flew to Surgut, also uneventful. Found out that a bus had been organised the next day to take everybody to basecamp, as there weren't enough tickets left on the trains. We left at 8.30 this morning, which was quite a reasonable time.

Slept most of the 5 hours to basecamp, then spent a few hours there, were Stijn handed over and we discussed what is next. Then drove on to pad 54 to pick up a technician (new one called Ivan) then onto pad 5 where we had dinner, after which the boys left.

Here, they have had quite a few problems drilling today so everything has been delayed. Drilling was supposed to be finished today but they are still at it now, so it looks like a rather short night for me! Tomorrow there is a PEX and an XPT planned with Schlumberger, so that will take about 16 hours...due to jetlag, I am not yet tired and I assume my body will just adapt to sleeping when it can (again).

I briefly met CJ at basecamp, Gilles' back-to-back (B2B), but he has left this evening and Gilles doesn't arrive till Saturday, so we shall see how that goes-Alexey is in charge (-ish)!

When we stepped out of the airport in Surgut last night around 1am, it was -7 and snowing. As I came out I looked up to see an enormous Christmas tree...I will have had a white Christmas after all :-)

I'd better get on with looking at the well so far and preparing for tomorrow-it's now -20 here by the way so pretty chilly!

London

I arrived safely in London and am now enjoying my time here, catching up with people, making the most of the run-up to Christmas, sorting out the flat and doing loads of cultural fings too :-)

And I have blogging-withdrawal symptoms...but am trying to keep well away from computers for a bit.

Back on here in 2 weeks...

Domodedovo airport

I am now sitting in the BA lounge @ Domodedovo. It is quite modern,, with a small food and drink area, large windows, a nice computer area and a shower. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a corner with relaxing chairs where I might sit back and have a snooze...

Yesterday, Radik, Sasha and I left pad 5 after lunch and drove down to base camp, which takes about 2 hours. Yet again, the weather was amazing and it was lovely driving along the main road to base, soaking up the sun and the views of the forest.

When we arrived we went to the main SSFT unit, where the Team Leader and Lead Geo sit-it was lovely to see Sergey again, if a little surreal, as the environment we had last seen each other in was pretty much the exact opposite!

After a little while, Stijn, my B2B, showed up and I had a little chat with him to bring him up to speed. He will be working with Sergey Ryzhkov on pad 5 at the beginning so he's in good hands.

After a bit more chatting, Sasha and I headed for the bus. Radik had had to leave with Vlada-the-TA because someone had forgotten to buy him a train ticket... We met him at Salym train station and waited together in the waiting-room, which was another interesting experience. There was only one other woman there, wearing stilletos and a long fur coat. Everyone else was male, with a fur hat, a dark jacket, a rugged face and was very quiet. The train was delayed so we had to wait (in silence) a further 30 minutes. The ticket booth was a small slot in the wall-very soviet. Mind you, I expect the ticket lady had her own personal heater and was happy about the lack of gaps in her booth-it was bitterly cold outside; still about -30 but windy.

The train was announced and everyone traipsed outside. Now I had been warned this part was going to be dicey, but again it is rather hard to imagine beforehand. First we waited to see which way the train was arriving, and on which tracks. Some people were standing in between 2 tracks, ready to hop over depending on where the train came in.

The point is that the trains stops for about 1 1/2 minutes in Salym, although it has been known to stay only 40 seconds, with people still jumping on as it moved off...

When we saw the train we had to start running as we were too far down the platform; you are supposed to get on in your carriage and they check tickets as you climb in. The platform wasn't lit past the waiting-room so we had to gallop along (luckily one of the boys was carrying my suitcase) in the dark, trying to work out which carriage we were looking at.
Somehow or other we got on the train in time, although in the wrong carriage, but Sasha explained and we only got a mild telling-off by the train lady (a friendly character).

Gasping for breath (yes, a month of chocolate and cake abuse has not helped) we dumped our bags in our compartment and made our way to the restaurant, where we stayed for the 4 hours.
I quite like Russian trains, because they give a feeling of occasion. You are given a pillow, a mattress and sheets when you arrive in the compartment and they bring round food for dinner (which we gave the 2 men who were sharing our compartment). The restaurant is a proper "old-school" one, with benches, tables, nice tablecloths and a proper waitress. The trains are very high off the ground, too, which makes them difficult to get into (did I mention we had to climb into them from the tracks, not the platform?) but fun to ride in.

We left Radik in Surgut, where he lives, and took the minibus to the hotel, where we went for a drink-a bizarre experience of drinking Newcastle Brown in a random Siberian hotel full of oil men. After which I went to bed, as the minibus to the airport was going to be leaving at 6 am.

Getting up this morning was rather painful due to the cumulative sleep deprivation but things went smoothly. The business class experience in Russia is excellent-they really make things easy for you, and in Surgut airport especially. I only worked this out once I had reached the businees lounge after a bit of a confused tour of the airport but in fact you can just walk into the airport and go straight to the business lounge, where they will take your passport and ticket stub and sort out your check-in and your bags for you! After which, you are taken in a special minibus to the plane, accompanied by a very polite stewardess.

The flight was uneventful; I did get rather excited as we flew out of Surgut as I could see an amazing example of a meandering river system unfold below me, but even that could not keep me awake for too long and I slept most of the way, except during breakfast (which was offered to me in Russian and for which I must proudly say, I made informed choices all in Rusian :-)

Once at Domodedovo airport, I phoned Alexey to see if he could meet up in Moscow but I couldn't reach him. I decided against going into town on my own, without preparation or a map, as I felt too tired to enjoy the experience. So I sat down in a corner and read.
I was provided with pre-flight entertainement for a while when the builders on the floor appeared to have drilled through some water pipes. Water started pouring down from the ceiling, just far enough away for me to see but not get wet. It was rather amusing to watch various men wearing an arrray of security passes turn up, stare, start talking animatedely down the phone, disappear for a while then come back to comment on how someone else was dealing with the situation. The bag-wrapping man nearby seemed to be especially skilled in the arm-waving department and even tried to start ordering the cleaners about. Finally a female supervisor arrived and the situation was under control within 5 minutes.

I am looking forward to a good sleep on the plane as I am feeling rather wooly-headed right now and have to keep fighting the urge to curl up in a corner to sleep. Could I be jet-lagged already? And why is it that I always feel it more going West than going East, unlike everyone else?

Click!

Last week, my language neurones finally clicked into place.
I started speaking a lot more Russian, and a couple of people independently complimented me on my pronunciation/accent :-)

I put this down to 2 factors:

- I have finally managed to do what I was planning to do for the last 6 months, which was to go through my Russian lessons from the start-ie good old revision. I have been through most of the book that Galina, our teacher, made. It is all quite basic but it relly helped me to start making sentences
-A mud engineer called Ivan knocked on my door one evening for some geo-information; he mentioned that him and Matt (Brettle) used to practise conversation, so I suggested we do the same. Which is what we have been doing, and it also helps because he has been speaking slowly to me

Petroservices found out that we were doing this practice and decided to teach me more Russian too. Unfortunately they always speak too fast, and when I ask them to repeat they repeat the easy word slowly and the bit I didn't get really fast! But it's been fun.

I need to write more now too. Like this message for Galina:

галя, спаснбо за письмо. мне очень приятно. приятно посмотреть зто кино!

Leaving today

I'm off today after lunch...
The last few days have been busy. After the Russian company did the CBL, the drillers cleaned the hole out, which was supposed to finish at 4am. Schlumberger were supposed to arrive in the evening, so that everyone could get some rest before logging at 4 am. I slept in the work unit so they could let me know when they arrived...what an awful night. I woke up every hour, everytime getting a little more worried about what might have happened-had the lorry fallen off the road? I got up at 5 as I couldn't sleep anymore, and after sorting out the daily geological report, traipsed bleary-eyed along to the DSV. The second he saw me, he said "you must be wondering what happened to Schlumberger" (to be read with a strong Texan accent).
Turns out their lorry broke down twice, and they had to wait for a replacement to come out from basecamp, which takes hours. The drivers were really tired and went to sleep. So they all only turned up at 11:30, which luckily for them was just in time as the drillers here had been a bit delayed.
After all that, the logging job actually went fine, although they lost communication with the logging tool for 15 minutes and had to shut down all the power in the logging unit.
The engineer was a different one again, Fabio from Brazil, and he was also very friendly and helpful. Everytime I do a logging job with these guys I feel I have learnt a lot.
It took a while to get the results through because of SLB logistics issues so I only got to bed at 1 am...yesterday I got up really early again to interpret the log data. I caught a couple of hours' sleep in the afternoon and again went to bed at 1am. This morning up at 6am...with the surprise of another Russian log in the next well, which I hadn't planned for. However, I am all packed and ready to go, and all the work is finished.
Exhausted but happy!

People

I realise I have been bandying names around and it must all be getting a little confusing. Normally, there are 4 geologists doing their 28 days, then 4 more as their back-to-backs (B2B). Recently though there have been quite a few changes, with one Lead Geologist moving to a different office and a wellsite geologist leaving. So the one leaving had to be replaced, and Alexey Zolotarev replaced the Lead Geologist. Furthermore, Sergey had child, but it was premature and he had to go home to look after his wife and the baby so that messed up the shifts.

So here goes:

Geologists:
Sasha-B2B-Vasily
Sergey-B2B-Slava
Radik-B2B-Maxim
Florence-B2B-Stijn

Technicians:
Andrey-B2B-Vavan/Valodyia/a million other short names-why are there so many for Vladimir?
Sasha-B2B-vacant

Lead Geos:
Alexey-B2B-Sergey (both my friends from G180)

Team Leaders:
Gilles-B2B-CJ

-28 Deg C

Another record temperature this morning!

After waiting around for the reservoir for almost 3 days -delayed due to varying problems- we finally reached it at 1:30am yesterday morning. We had to stop again at 3:50am due to what is called a wash-out. Basically this is when a stand of drill pipes has a hole in it and the mud being pumped down escapes through the hole. This causes the pressure to drop under the hole and is problem that needs to be fixed immediately.

The new DSV, Slava, who arrived on Wednesday, has been very helpful and friendly. His daughter lives in Wales and he is very fluent in English-albeit with a really strong Deep South accent!! I had been warned of this but the Russian/Texan blend is rather difficult to imagine beforehand...he left Russia in 1992 and worked in the US for 9 years and the cap permanently screwed to his head really gives the game away ;-). Listening to him talk is just hilarious and a lot of the Russkis seem to find it very amusing too. Anyway, he knows I like to see how everything works and gave me a couple of photos of a broken pipe which caused a wash-out, which you can see here.

This well is a bit of an epic. Although in areas like the Caspian, wells can take a year and a half to drill, because of problems like high amounts of H2S and high pressures, wells here take an average of 10 days, with a record last week of 7.2 days. However, we are now on day 13 and still going.
The reservoir section followed the overall pattern of going wrong; when we finally reached the part where I needed samples, the mudloggers' computer stopped working properly. The problem was that the computer stopped showing the lag time, which is the time between when the drill bit reaches a depth, and when cuttings from that depth actually reach surface. Vavan had to keep trying to work it out himself, when he wasn't running to and fro the shale shakers.

So with a useless computer, an unhappy technician and no sleep at 4 am, I can't say I was too thrilled to hear about the wash-out, which made us loose 3 important samples. After describing all the samples so far, I went to sleep for an hour or so while Vavan kept an eye on operations. When I got up to do the morning report, he went to bed. I walked over to wake him up 3 hours later, came back and waited. Nothing. Phoned him on the mobile CB/phone. Waited again. Now anyone who knows me might realise that my natural impatience tends to be exacerbated when tired...so I marched over to the caravan and after 5 mins of loud banging on his door managed to wake him up again. He made it in the nick of time.

When we reached a certain formation, I had to make sure that the total depth of the well was still going to be the same-this can change because of the angle of the well. This is one of the more important responsibilites we have, simply because of the costs and mess involved if we get it wrong (too much=overspend on drilling; not enough=miss the bottom of the oil!) I had to do this for the first time at 3:30am, and luckily it was fine.

The rest of the day I spent inputing all the information gathered into Winlog and sending it on to various people. I went to bed at 9 happy in the knowledge that the CBL logging run planned for 3am was now going to be at 9am :-)

I have now just finished that; it involves logging the cemented section of the well, and is done by a Russian company as it is quite a basic op and they are a lot cheaper than SLB. Here is a picture of the lorry/unit-you can't see the wireline yet (cable they hook the tools onto) as it is lying on the decking but when taut it goes in a line from the back of their unit to about halfway up the rig. This is the same set-up as with SLB.

At midnight I will be doing a standard PEX run with SLB...good thing I got some sleep last night!

Russian music and films

I have been listening to a bit of Russian music courtesy of my Russian friends here, especially Vavan-the-technician, who actually studied music. He plays the piano and the accordion, so we have a lot to talk about...he has given me some of the music he plays and I showed him my accordion online.

The other day we watched a James-Bond type film, Russian style, called Chasing the Piranha. I actually enjoyed it a lot and understood quite a bit, with translation for the more complex bits provided by Vavan. I would say I understood about 50% on my own, which probably doesn't say much for the script ;-)

The music in it is pretty good, there is a traditional Siberian music track which is used in the film and which has been remixed as the main soundtrack (track 1). The Siberian music is really strange and gets some getting used to, but I am now fully hooked.

Temperature update

here's a little update to my original graph-as you can see it's almost winter here...

I would love a Thermocron BTW Sarah, if there is still one going...nicer than my little Excel-job here.

On that topic-come all the way to Siberia and still can't escape the dreaded spreadies!

Snow :-)

After a whole week of beautiful clear skies it is now snowing again. Over the last few days I had noticed that the snow had actually worn off the ground, rather than turned into slippery ice., just as if it were dust. Interesting effect. Here is a photo of what my work unit looks like on a day like today-mine is the white one with the stripes/SPD logo; the white&blue one is Petroservices, and anything red is Halliburton/Sperry Sun

On Wednesday afternoon, about an hour after responding to UR's post about safety glasses, I went to learn to catch samples at the shale-shaker. For this, you need your full safety kit-luckily I managed to fit the glasses over mine, although going into the building was a bit of a problem due to double-steaming-up. Unfortunately I do not have any photos of me catching the samples as the camera's battery decided to give in just then.

As I was all kitted out safely I decided to go take a look at the drill floor while they were actually drilling, which was rather fun. They just clipped on another piece of drill pipe when I was there, and then started drilling-really interesting to see the pipe going down into the hole! The motor is very high up towards the top of the rig as this is top-down drilling, and slides down as it drills.

I recognised the driller from the canteen and he seemed pretty pleased that I wanted to see how it all worked. Later at dinner-time, I also noticed friendl(ier) body language from the drilling table!

Tractors

Last night I went over to pad 26 with Radik, as they were going to log an 80 degree well (this is really high angle-normally 45-50 degrees) and for that they were going to use a tool called a tractor. Now these things usually have wheels but this one had little legs, which effectively crawl along the hole! Here is a close-up of the "legs".

There were loads of people at the site and it turned into a bit of a driller-paparazzi moment where everyone there was competing for the best pic to send back to the poor people at base who weren't lucky enough to witness this momentous event.




We brought Sasha some cakes and biscuits from Deutag canteen-he got very excited, I don't think the SSK kitchens are treating him so well...

It was a reunion of sorts as we have all been stuck on our rigs this week on our own with Vavan the technician bouncing around in the only car that works (more or less). So we took some pics before the cameras froze up and refused to work:
















and a final one of me being freezing after spending 1/2 hour @ -24 Deg C looking at what, effectively, is a metal rod with a few quirky bits stuck on:

Boots again

So there you have it. They are really heavy and I have had to practise walking in them but I still like them-the perfect solution to my permanently cold feet. Although the ladies on camp seem to think I am wearing men's shoes (all in Russian of course but that's what I think I gathered!)

The point being??

Here is a picture I took through the window; they were washing out the casing just outside my caravan:

Moonboots

I have acquired a pair of moonboots :-)




They are very large and very warm and I look like a driller-except for the fact that I don't wear overalls, and the boots are shiny clean.




Anyway, they will protect my feet better than the "cute" little brown boots which are not much use below -25. Now it's just like sticking your feet into two pillows :-)




So I decided to nip outside to take some photos of me wearing them while it was still light. I am rather cold now as I ended up walking around talking loads of pics...except of myself. So next time for the boots. But here are some more of the wellsite and surroundings. The trees show what surrounds us...everywhere.











Glad this came out...the kind of lovely things
I see every day at sunset/sunrise
(assuming the sun shows itself)











Ooh and I couldn't resist the romantic
rig pic...

Milton Friedman RIP

I have only just caught up with some articles and emails and found out that Milton Friedman died on Thursday.
His books have been an inspiration...and his ideas certainly have made a huge difference in this world.
Check out this link...
And read this book!