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.