Author: Becky

They say timing is everything. I can attest to that. They also say plans change, again I can whole heartily agree. Timing and plans have been much on my mind of late. North Dakota is settling in to winter over for another year. I was preparing to settle in with them. I had made my plans to survive another winter here but plans change. And boy do they change! After turning down the job in Oklahoma I was content to work out my days with this company and in a year or so have a total career change and do something new. Well, the best laid plans of mice and men. A friend of mine who I have worked with, passed my resume along to her new boss and bam! I have a new job. That’s right a new job! In my field! Doing what I’m good at! I am completely shocked. Plans meet shredder, shredder meet plans…

So this new company is literally the dream job. I first heard about them in 2014 when I was working in Alaska and I knew as soon as I found out what they did that I wanted that job. I never ever expected to get it. It was a pipedream. Well it took me 5 years and making friends with people but now I have that job. What is that job you as? Well it is a being a wellsite geologist in the truest sense of the term. I will be on the rig and geosteering will be my only and full time job. The best part is that I get to go back to Alaska. Alaska is definitely one of those places that you fall in love with and either move there or come back time and again.  For me this will be the third job I will have had in the Last Frontier.

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To say that I am mix bag of emotions is an understatement. I’m thrilled and terrified of going back to AK. Thrilled, because its awesome; terrified, because I don’t want to disappoint the new boss. But at the same time I am a little bit sad to be leaving North Dakota. The work here has been good when it has been happening. I have got to explore places I never thought I would see. But most importantly the people are what make this state great. I will be leaving behind some truly wonderful friends and some great people. In the past when I have left a job or a state it has been with a sigh of relief that I will never be back there again but I have a pretty good hunch that I will be back to ND someday. But for now this is the last sunrise I will see in the Legendary State.

But for now here is my last rig picture of North Dakota and the wheels are pointed west! Few weeks R&R and then off to start the new job! Look forward to a whole new set of crazy posts about the madness that is the North Slope!

Fall came to quick and sudden end here in North Dakota today. The weather went from 75 and sunny to 32 blowing and snowing. A light switch is the best comparison to what just happened.

Rig life goes on but with the hole going slowly (oh so slowly) and the snow keeping us on location it’s time to bust out all the off time things. I recommend starting with a little arts and crafts. I finished this paint by numbers today.

After that the next best thing to do on a snowy winter’s day is to cook! A friend of mine had a pampered chief party not too long ago and I like to support my friends so I ordered a few things. And like a good friend promptly forgot about it. Well my new kitchen toys arrived just before the snow did so today I got to play with them! I have been backing up a storm! This is good in two ways it helps keep the trailer warm and it keeps me from having cabin fever! I think I am most proud of the paleo chicken pot pies But the rig crew would argue that my pumpkin cookies are the best.

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The pipes are frozen now so I can’t wash any of the dishes. Not a problem except that I had another batch of pumpkin cookies that needed to go in and the cookie sheet is in need of a scrub. This batch of cookies was going to be used for bribery. It took me months but I figure out what to do with my old pair of work boots. But an idea has come to me. They are going to become a pair of birdhouses. Stay tuned for the how to post latter. But I need to scrounge a few things and barrow a drill and a saw for about 20 minutes thus the bribery cookies. This truly is a tragedy. But I guess I will just have to work on making Christmas cards instead. After all it’s not even Halloween yet!  Time batten down the hatches and settle in for a long winter….

 The leaves are beginning to change, the nights are cooler and the days are slowly slipping away. It’s the end of August here in North Dakota and winter is on the way. The idea of another winter in this frozen land chills the heart. This summer has gone by far too quickly. It was a busy summer. Working hard and playing harder. I was luckily enough to be on some interesting projects. The favorite so far would have to be the well in Colorado. As exciting as this summer has been and how good this job can be I have had the realization that I could be doing the exact same thing ten years from now. It’s a notion that chills the heart more than the winter winds beginning to blow.  The world is full of opportunity if you are bold enough to stand up and take them. I’m not sure what the next opportunity will be but I know it is time to start looking for it.  It might be something mundane like running a hot dog stand in a beach town, or it could be something as exciting as being the cook for an Antarctic expedition. In the meantime they keep sending me to exciting projects here. Today I got to look at some formations that I had never seen before like the Broom Creak.  This came about because some areas of the Bakken are being filled in. to the point where there is no more room for wells and on the map all the squiggly lines are meeting and running out of space. Normally this means all the cool science projects are long done but luckily for us they have a few left before all the blank spots of the map are filled in.  

Sometimes the supper sciencey projects involve bigger drill bits, sometimes we get to see a core job (one of my favorite things to see) but the project I am on today involves what feels like an eternity of wire line. What is wire line you ask? Well a wireline is a special tool very similar to most MWD tools that read the radiation levels of the rock among other things, but this tool differs in that it is attached to a very thin and long wire and is then lowered into the open hole and slowly pulled out again. In a way it is like a radioactive fishing pool. You drop the hook or tool down and slowly real it back in. the end result? We sit around for days and days waiting to see what the tool will say and finally when the tool gets back to surface we get a copy of a very, very, very detailed log. Most of the time the log backs up what we know but it’s like taking a high resolution photo. You know what it will show but the detail is amazing and you can learn so much more.  But before we get the logs we have lots of down time for cooking and coloring and discussing pressing issues of the day.

A short recap of one of the big issues in North Dakota right now; the flares. They are lovely to look at and at night look like the empty prairie has life on it. But the truth of the matter is they are waist. Its energy and gas that is just being released and wasted. Why you might ask? Well it’s a complicated issue. Some of it has to do with the capacity of the pipelines and the processing plants and some of it has to do with cost. Surprisingly it is very expensive to get natural gas to market. Partly because it’s a gas. Another factor in why companies choose to flare off the excess is that they can. Right now the law says that they have to capture at least 88% of the gas. When you look at the flares and see how many are burning and how bright and realized that that is only 12% it boggles the mind just how much oil and gas is down there! Now that’s the law but with all legislation there are some loopholes and exceptions. Turns out most complies are not living up to the 88% rule. In the first year that a well comes on line they can flare without paying taxes or royalties on the wasted gas. And man are those flares big! The first year the flares sound like a jet engine! But after the first year the oil companies can ask for (and almost always get) an extension to keep flaring.  Starting the first of the year the new law will limit it to only 10% being allowed to burn. It’s only a 2% change but it is a step in the right direction.  Other sets will need to be taken as well but that is far above my pay grade. Obviously I don’t have the answers but I know when you see your hard work go up in smoke it makes you question why bother.  

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Until the rules change here are some flares on wells I drilled last summer.

Seven years ago today I got my first job in the oil field. I was young and fresh and had no idea what i was getting myself into. looking back now I can honestly say this job is not for everyone. You have to be a special kind of crazy to spend 2/3 of the year away from home, living and working in strange places with strange people. Luckily for me I have had a great support network to keep me sane. The last seven years have been very interesting indeed! I started out working in Oklahoma. In those days oil was doing well and there was lots of work to be had. We lived in modified fifth wheel trailers, where we lived and worked. There was nothing glamours about it but to me it was all new and exciting. After two summers in Oklahoma I was ready for a change and I got it in the form of a job at the extreme ends of the earth in Alaska. With that change came many more. living in man camps, working in subzero temperatures, taking a hover craft to work, having our meals cooked for us. In many ways it was much better but the work was still the same. Then the price of oil died. suddenly everyone I knew was out of a job. I was lucky again. I was only out of the business for a year. That year was great even if it wasn’t very lucrative. So with changing politics and prices back to the patch I went. This time to a new place North Dakota. In someways this was the best of both worlds. good living conditions, good pay, interesting work, and we still get the subzero winters. And that is where I am today.

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So by the numbers when I started seven years ago: the price of WTI oil was $96.15, today it is $55.52, there were 1,975 rigs operating, today there are 1,057, the US produced 5,486 barrels of oil a day, today that number is 12,300. In that time I have worked for 3 companies, in 9 states, and 6 basins. I have worked with countless people almost all of them were great. I still work 12 hours a day, give or take 22 days a month, I make more now that I did when I started but not by much.

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I have learned so much in the last seven years and grown in ways I didn’t even know was possible. I wouldn’t trade it for anything but I don’t plan on doing it for another seven years.

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I have been very lucky in my life to have the ability to make friends easily. This still has come in handy in my travels and in my work life. Some nuts are harder to crack than others but that is half of the fun. In my travels I have meet several amazing women who inspire me every day. I graduated as part of the largest female geology class my school had ever had. Those girls are out there rock it and doing great things. In the oil field I have meet some extraordinary ladies from far way places. In a field of men we usually become instant friends. Mainly because I make them like me but usually because we are of the same mind. In my travels around the world I have meet fabulous ladies from many place living and loving life to the fullest. So this little post to the nothingness of the internet is a shout out to the great friends I have! Near and far! To the ones who pick me up at the airport. To the ones who drive for an hour just to have a meal with me. The one who’s who let me play with their kids.  The one who helps me cook Thanksgiving dinner for 30 hungry roughnecks. The ones who teach me new things like whisky walks. The ones who are willing to do any crazy stupid idea we come up with. The ones who are up for anything.  THANKS! Life would be boring without you!

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But one lady in particular gets an honorable mention. This lady. Camille. Who lets me come over when every I can. Who lets me have my mail sent to her house. Who lets me come over and play with her super cute kid. Who feeds me any time I show up. With friends like this there is hope for the world!

We meet long ago and far away when we were rigging up on a Shell project set to go to the artic.  When you are crammed into a meeting room with 100 guys you find a way to say hi to the only other ponytail in the room. After that you see each other on the boat and at breakfast and pretty soon you run into each other everywhere and a whole lot less work gets done.  Then when we got to the artic she even took arty to work one day! A few years later she took me to work in North Dakota. As always “The joy of the world when you have summed it all up is found in the making and keeping of friends”!

This is a short shift because of rig move and there for a short post. Time to get back to adventuring! The critters can’t wait!

So 2019 has not worked out the way I planned in so many ways. To say that the first half of the year was chaotic is an understatement. I can honestly stay that we thrive on the unknown but it’s getting old. I know that if we ever had predictable stability we would get bored with it in about 3 days.  The first half of this year has been so ridicules that I started looking for new jobs in the hope that new would be better. After two years with one company it is time to look. Well I looked and I found. Or I guess they found me. After waiting two weeks after the interview to hear if I got it or not I found out I got it. But that was a week ago and I haven’t heard any more details since.

The job would be a two weeks on and two weeks off but it would be an office position. The time off would be great to improve my very skewed work life balance. The down side would be that I would need a place to stay while I was working and a place to park Tank while I was on days off. This new job comes with a pay cut but lots of benefits. Benefits like living in the city with traffic but a regular address, working in an office but with an onsite gym, close to an airport but not a major one. This job would be perfect if my husband was in the states and had been waiting patiently for me to be done working in the field but that’s not my husband. I wouldn’t have wanted him if it was. There is so much more to the world and we only get to be here for a short time so we can’t waist any of it.  This job would be perfect if we wanted to live in OKC and come home to our suburbia house and never see each other. So after lots of talk and a huge pros and cons list I think we are both more excited about the idea that I stay working where I am for now and make enough to get me out of this job in the next year instead of taking the pay cut and prolonging the waiting.  So with that in mind I have to change the tittle of this blog (not for the first time this year. Oh well!). The original went something like this:

But now it’s called how NOT to get a job. It was exciting and vindicating to be wanted but for me and my lifestyle it’s not right. Some might say its fear of the unknown but I honestly think it’s the opposite. I think it’s the fear of the known. I know OKC I have been there. There is more to see. Sure the field life is very much the same day in and day out and ten years from now it will look very similar today. Every time I go one days off I think there is no way they can get along without me but every time I come back I see they are doing just fine. We are all interchangeable clogs out here but we all play apart none the less. I know a place where I am missed every time I leave the room. And for me that is where the long term future is. and the rig pictures are just something pretty to look at. Enjoy!

So here I am back at work in North Dakota. It’s good and bad to be back to work after such awesome adventuring but here we are. I will get to writing about my adventures in a little while but first what is happening now. I am back in North Dakota (obviously) and in the heart of the oil patch. I am just a few miles from my one and only friend in the state and a few mile the other way to the first and oldest oil well in the state.

Naturally I am very happy to be down the road from my friend and back to work but Arty and friends wanted to go see the oldest oil well. Seeing as this is the very best time of year to be in ND I obliged. This time of year is great in ND everything is green, the fields look lovely the canola is blooming lovely yellow, the bee boxes are out, the sky is blue and best part of all its not supper hot yet. In short it is the best 3 weeks of the year to be in North Dakota.

So the story on this well is that it is the oldest well drilled in the Bakken and in ND. It was drilled in 1951 for Amerada Petroleum. Now with most oil companies the name changes. Amerada is now Hess Oil after a merger in 1969. Amerada was founded in 1919 and did well working with giant like Standard oil, Marathon, and Conoco. Amerada did well in during the depression and war years with discoveries in West Texas and other fields.  Drilling this exploration well in 1951 that led to all kinds of geologic finds. In the 60’s Amerada was very stable as far as oil companies go and then Hess came in and did an aggressive takeover of the company and now they are known as Hess Corporation. The exploration spirit didn’t die however and they were among the first to explore in Alaska. They are still around today and operate everything from rigs and exploration wells, to refineries. Recently they sold of the gas station part of the business but the toy Hess trucks are still one of the bestselling Christmas gifts apparently.

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I am not working on a Hess project this time but it’s interesting to share a little local history. It has been an exciting week back at work. I celebrated my two year anniversary with this company on Sunday. The longest I have been with a single employer (Yay me!) and on Thursday we had the 4^th of July. Always a good time. This was my 3^rd here in the legendary state and as usual the locals do not disappoint. But now the switch is flipped. I walked out of the trailer today and wondered when it had gotten so hot. Summer is upon us! Time to head to the lake!

So here I sit on my super-secret squirrel project. Things are slow today. So I’m reading a Reader’s Digest.  And there is an article about Fenn’s treasure. Now I like everyone in the west has heard of this before even if we haven’t read the poem or gone looking for the chest of gold. I had heard rumors of it for ages and had heard of people who had died looking for it.  Well thanks to the handy dandy map in Raeder’s Digest it turns out that I’m working in the probable zone, where sage and pine meet. I had remarked not too many days before that I loved seeing trees and smelling sage reminded me of my childhood. 

So here I am smack dap in the heart of possibilities. This of course gets the mind day dreaming where could it be? What would I do if I found it? How hard can it be to find? I mean after all an 80 year old man hid it. I bet the internet has figured out the clues already.  Turns out the internet has TONS of ideas as to where it could be and what it all means but no one wants to share.

I’m better at math questions than riddles so I have no idea where warm waters halt but I’m willing to go for a hike and sit in the hot springs to think about it.  IF you figure out the clues I will go look for it and we can slit it!

What would you do with a chest full of gold? I personally think I would split it. I would take some to have a wild adventure with, give some to a worthy cause (the homeless guy who hunts for the treasure seems like a good start), and then I think I would re hide most of it so someone else could find it and keep the adventure alive! But I’m sure the real treasure is the pursuit of it all. The case. Until I find it, it makes for a great day dream!

The last 2 months have been quite busy to say the least.  While working in Wyoming on a normal job I managed to collide with an antelope. The dumb buck jumped in front of me. But I got the buck that got me! Unfortunately Hank was considered totaled. I have learned some interesting things by this. Number one antelope are very very very dumb. Number two in Wyoming if the repair cost is equal or greater to 75% of the value of the vehicle it’s considered totaled. Number three car shopping is a pain. So while I was working I had to find time to take hank to the shop and then find time to figure out what to do. Finally I found a new vehicle that would serve my needs. The problem was that it was in Denver! So I had one day between working nights and working days where I was completely off for 24 hours. I took a morning red eye from Casper to Denver and test drove about three cars before settling. On a 2010 Nissan Pathfinder. Something else I learned in all this car shopping is not like it used to be and it is not as fun as the commercials make it seem. I wound up paying more than I wanted too but it is the completely right ride for me. After driving Hank for so long this new one is a beast and drives like a tank. Somehow the new name stuck, so introducing my new ride: Tank!

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Now naturally this isn’t the only thing going on at the time. The well we were drilling had more problems than footage at one point. Not only was the drama on the rig excise we had problems with circulation, we got stuck twice, hole collapse and we even had to side track twice! In short a well from hell. The problems were so bad that heads began to role. In total 8 people were run off before I was asked to leave. Yes it finally happened to me too. Without a doubt not my greatest moment.  It was a low point for sure. I had wrecked my car, asked to leave a job, and got a ‘talking to’ by the boss all in the span of a month.  Needless to say I was ready to get out of Casper for a while!

But I survived. Resilient is an understatement. With a great sigh of relief I got on a plane to spend a week exploring Nevada and Arizona with my folks. What a great trip! From Hover Damn to the Grand Canyon to Petrified Forest, to Sedona, to Valley of Fires, to Las Vegas. It was a whirlwind trip and fantastic! So much geology! Everywhere you look rocks! Most of it is sedimentary rock but it’s still pretty cool! But sadly all good things must come to an end and I had to go back to work. When I landed back in Casper to retrieve Tank I had no idea where I was going of when. Before I even finish getting gas the boss calls and says come to the office we have a job for you. So off we go! Go tearing up to billings. Turns out the job is in Colorado but they want me to take the company truck down with all the stuff needed to rig up a new job. So back thru Wyoming I go but this time I take the scenic route and get to stop in Thermopolis for a quick soak. After crossing Wyoming 4 times in less than a week I’m sitting again. This time I’m on a super-secret squirrel project that I can’t talk about. So I will have to wait until we are done to tell you all about it!

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So in honor of mud season and seeing as I’m coming up on my 7^th anniversary in the oil field I figured it was time for a new pair of boots. With great sadness and despair I say goodbye to my old faithful warriors. They have been my faithful companions for may an adventure. But the time has come to part ways. The tread is gone. The soles are worn out. The water gets in. Goodbye old friends.

The new pair comes in a shiny new box that takes ups a lot of space but is such a good box that I can’t throw it out. What came in the box is even more exciting! Look at the tread on these bad boys! They are far too clean but we will fix that shortly! You can always tell a new hand by how clean they are.

They have survived their baptism by mud and look better for it. The best part is that now when I step out into a mud puddle my feet don’t get wet!