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Ask me questions about offshore oil drilling :)
Thelastwaagh
Member Posts: 92
Hello everyone, I’m setting at my office which is also an instrumentation shop which is also the room supporting the underside of the helipad. I am a 3rd year engineering student working on an offshore oil rig in Cook Inlet Alaska. This is my first year working out on a rig but I have picked up on how most of the systems work. My job here is mainly sizing and optimization projects but it also includes getting familiar with all the systems on the rig.
Anyway with the recent disaster in the gulf I thought I would post an invitation to have you guys ask me questions about how things work on an offshore oil rig. I am familiar with the production side of things but have not experienced the drilling side yet. Ask away and I will do my best to answer the questions you guys post.
-for the overmind.
Comments
Do you feel bad when the baby seals die?
Do you?
You mean like when one gets eaten by a killer whale or something? Why would he?
Do you feel bad when that happens?
How much money do you make/how much do you work?
Of course I do. Whales should be forbidden to eat seals.
How often are corners cut in the operating procedures that take place on your rig? many companies claim safety first, but never follow it
"The great thing about human language is that it prevents us from sticking to the matter at hand."
- Lewis Thomas
How did you get a job working on a rig? It's not like you can pull up in a boat, climb a ladder, and knock on a door.
Do you guys ever fish off the rig, shoot skeet, hit golfballs etc. , in your sparetime? Do you even have sparetime? How long do you have to be out there at a time? Do you have internet, is it decent speed? Do you have your own cabin, or is it shared? Do you ever see big storm waves? If so, what's the biggest you've seen? See anything cool out there, like whales and such?
I have a question;
What is the real blood to oil ratio? People keep saying that someone has to pay for it in blood, but I'd like some serious numbers, if possible.
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
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LOL omg nice
People who have to create conspiracy and hate threads to further a cause lacks in intellectual comprehension of diversity.
Do you feel bad when the baby seals die?
Do you?
Hmm unfortunately, the real answer is rather boring, there are no seals here, in fact there all almost no animals. I’m up in the north end of the inlet and the silt from all the rivers basically makes it impossible for most sea creatures to breath. I would however not feel bad if baby seals were dying, if they were over populating the area. This is not really related but I have eaten canned seal once and it was simply disgusting.
How much money do you make/how much do you work?
I’m doing engineering work but since I am an intern I am making the least money somebody can make out here which is $20 an hour. That’s what a roustabout would make after signing up. It’s better than it seems though because since I work 12 hours a day, seven days a week I get 44 hours overtime (30$/hr) and the other 40 hours at (20$/hr) so really I make $25.24 an hour.
How did you get a job working on a rig? It's not like you can pull up in a boat, climb a ladder, and knock on a door.
The easiest way to get in is to have previous construction experience, and then to be hired on as a roustabout for a service company, after about 5 years of roustabout duties the actual company will hire you and you can make your way up to operator. The other common way is to get an education as an electrician, mechanic or engineer and be directly hired on for that role. We really can’t do anything off the rig, basically everying is illigal in fact awhile back some guys got in trouble for pissing off the rig. I was thinking of trying to fish for some halibut, but I’m pretty sure it’s illegal, also the current here is some of the fastest anywhere on earth, it’s up to seven knots. I am also worried about catching one of the cathodic protection cables that run between the legs of the platform . I am working a 4 ½ week on hitch right now but generally people do a two weeks on two weeks off schedule. The internet is pretty good with 160 kBs,125 ms latency. I can only connect to the network with my work laptop computer which chevron gave me for the summer, I use a electronic badge to sign in. The quarters were sized for the drilling crews that worked here when drilling was still going on, this means that I have an entire room to myself, with five other bunks in it. I don’t really see very rough seas since I am in an inlet, A cool thing I got to do a few days ago was to climb up the 200 ft derrick to replace the old wind sock. That thing was really moving around due to the wind and the view was awesome.
I have a question;
What is the real blood to oil ratio? People keep saying that someone has to pay for it in blood, but I'd like some serious numbers, if possible.
I’ll get back to you on that boss, I’ll have to do some research, I’ll get you the answer in gallons blood/gallons crude oil and also in the converted sandard pints of blood/barrels of oil.
I’ll post some pictures in a bit, there really is some crazy stuff out here.
-for the overmind.
Thanks for the reply man. Sounds like an awesome experience! It's not every day you get to talk to someone who has an extraordinary job. Everyone is usually working in an office or factory somewhere.
edited because I tried to to post a huge spreadsheet and clearly thats not going to work... Anyway I have the answer to your blood question and have attached my findings.
-for the overmind.
1. How much off time do you actually get on a rig? I always had the impression that worker's did nothing but eat/sleep/work 24/7?
2. How do the oil rigs determine the length of the on/off periods for workers on each rig (I think you said you had 3 1/2 weeks on in your post)?
3. Are oil rigs standardized in their construction, like classes of sea going vessels, or are they all kind of one of a kind creations?
4. How do you do maintenance on the parts of the rig too deep for divers? Do you have remote-controlled repair/cleaner submersible robots...this is totally a serious question, I just can't think of a less ridiculous way of describing what I'm thinking of.
5. What determines what country's territory you are actually in when on an oil rig? Do oil rigs fly under a flag like merchant vessels?
How much off time do you actually get on a rig? I always had the impression that worker's did nothing but eat/sleep/work 24/7?
Yes pretty much, I work 12 hours a day, they feed us 5 times a day, the normal schedule is to eat breakfast at 5:00 start work at 5:30 than work till 5:30 which is dinner. Then I generally work out for an hour, spend an hour teaching myself AutoCAD, and then try to learn a little more Russian. Somewhere in there I generally get sidetracked into something stupid like facebook and realize it's suddenly eleven.
2. How do the oil rigs determine the length of the on/off periods for workers on each rig (I think you said you had 3 1/2 weeks on in your post)?
For standard workers they usually assign you to either (one week on one week off)1-1 or (two weeks on two weeks off shifts) 2-2 I'm an intern so my boss is letting me work as much as I want to.
3. Are oil rigs standardized in their construction, like classes of sea going vessels, or are they all kind of one of a kind creations?
They have standard types which are customized somewhat by their specific location. For example I have been on two rigs with the same form, basically all the major structure was the same just the equipment and internal piping were different. Basically just like boats.
4. How do you do maintenance on the parts of the rig too deep for divers? Do you have remote-controlled repair/cleaner submersible robots...this is totally a serious question, I just can't think of a less ridiculous way of describing what I'm thinking of.
Here it's only 200-300 ft deep, so we just use divers. A lot of testing and maintenance done in the legs is by wireline also called Stickline, that’s basically just a cable to which you can attach different sensors cameras and tools. It's basically a really cheap low tech submersible since it's powered mechanically from the surface.
5. What determines what country's territory you are actuallyin when on an oil rig? Do oil rigs fly under a flag like merchant vessels?
I have no idea about this.
I have attached the spreadsheet I thought I attached to my last post about that blood and oil question that I thought was pretty funny. I worked on it every few hours today when I needed a break to get something figured out in my head.
-for the overmind.
Neat. Thank you Thelastwaagh.