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...