Author: Becky

When you work night shift it can be good and bad. Normally it is uneventful and quite that or every thing goes wrong. Last night was some where in between.

About 9:45 the mudman comes knocking on my door asking about my gas equipment. The company man had sent him over to tell me that my gas sniffer was on fire. I grab my hard hart and head out there to see what’s up. Thinking I’m going to have one dirty night switching out traps or something. We get up to the shakers and I check my stuff and get covered in mud in the process.

Side note: we are using oil based mud instead of water based mud. So when I say I got covered in mud think of the crud they train out of your car at jiffy lube mixed with hot chocolate. Yes it is warm. Yes it smells like lighter fluid. No I do not recommend it as a spa treatment.

My equipment is working just fine. There is mud everywhere! Looks like someone took a hose and sprayed mud on the roof, on the handrails, over the pits, and anywhere in between. The roughneck comes over and tells me that 20 bbls of mud came flying out of shaker 1, where my gas trap is, and covered everything. It was smoking and shut down all three shakers with out blowing the fuss. We look around and talk about it some more. My stuff is fine. Company man isn’t convinced yet that it wasn’t my stuff. I show him our spare and all the components and show him that there is no way it could have been our stuff. It’s all explosion prof and no way gas can build up in it. But I promise to keep an eye on it and next chance we get possibly swap it out.

After an hour or more of looking they figure out that it was the separator. ( a big can that separates the gas from the mud) apparently there was a build up of gas that finally blew out on to the shakers. I’m just glad I wasn’t up there. Poor derrickman was in the way and got completely covered. This could have been must worst. Needless to say we took the separater offline.
That was last nights adventure. Tonight’s adventures include setting mouse traps for the trailer’s newest occupant and fixing a wabbly centrifuge.

 

Happy spring you’ll!

Today the whole earth gets the same amount of daylight seems like a good time to tell you about the weather here in Oklahoma. Hot dry and dusty! That is the weather in Oklahoma. That’s it that’s all there is to it.

Today the high was a shocking 94 degrees that’s about 34 Celsius for you European friends.

Hot, dry, and dusty. The pictures don’t do it justice. If you love wide open spaces with no one for miles do I have a place for you! Country songs always talk about gravel roads.

And here the sun sets on the first day of spring.

So yesterday I woke up to a phone call from the boss. Conversation went something like this:

Boss: “what you doing?”

Me: “sleeping. What’s up?”

Boss: “well George done burned up on location so pack up all your stuff. Your going over to Kingfisher. So pack up your stuff and start heading that way.”

Me: “ok. Who am I working with? … Ok sounds good. Thanks boss.”

Turns out what had happened was another hand had driven to our rig to drop off some samples for the geologist. When he went to leave, his truck wouldn’t start. So the best solution was for him to take my spot and for me to go where he was going to go. 20 minutes after I got the call I was all packed up and ready to head out. Got directions from my new coworker and headed out. Between dead reckoning and Google giving me almost right directions it took me about two hours to find the the new rig.

Fun fact for those of you who aren’t from Oklahoma Kingfisher is the home town of the founder of Walmart. (Yes they put that on the sign at the city limits no I didn’t get a picture yet)

Turns out my new coworker is one of the guys I trained back in the day. We get along great and work well together. The rig was time drilling when I showed up. That means they control the speed of drilling usually moving about a foot or two an hour. The reason they had to do this was to sidetrack. Sidetrack is where there is a problem with the hole and we are forced to drill around it. Sidetracks can happen for a dozen different reasons but what it means for us is a nice, quite, slow night. Just the thing I need to clean the trailer and get all settled in.

So here I am now about a half hour from OKC working on a problem rig. One week here and already been on two rigs.

This is going to be a fun one!

Yeah whoo! After almost a week I finally had a good day’s sleep! For the last few days I have been at war with the window trying to block out all the light I can so I can sleep thru the day. Ah yes the joys of night shift. Slept like a rock today. (Pun intended)

Last night I worked about as hard as one can on this rig. But the best part of last night is when they had the flare going. What happens is when there is to much gas in the mud, (because we drilled through the good stuff,)the mud is run through a separator and all the gas is piped away and then lit on fire. This is done so that the rig doesn’t catch on fire and burn down. Bad things happen if there is to much gas in the mud. It’s bad luck to talk about the bad things so you will have ask me when I’m not on location. So the gas is piped away and lit and that is what we call a flame or a flare. Last night we had one that was about 15ft of flame. Of corse I didn’t have my camera for that one! But here is what our flare looked like latter.

I personally think they always look cooler at night. Flares have been know to catch farmers fields on fire and all kinds of things. You ask around and everyone has a story about a flare that looked like it was going to burn something down or did burn something. When the wind gets blowing it can be very exciting.. They look awesome and for the most part are safe.

  

Coworker made awsome Taco Soup for dinner, and a few coworkers from other rigs came over and helped us eat it.  Life is good when your tripping!

 

 

The best part about working nights in the spring is that on one special day you get to work a 11 hour shift instead of a 12 hour shift!!! Woot!
Yesterday (3/12) at 6 PM the rig looked like this:

Today (3/13) at 6 AM the rig looks like this:

ITS SO BRIGHT!!!!!! Closes thing I get to day shift.

 

And just for fun here is an added bonus today’s sunset pictures.

 

The main parts of a mud logger’s job include dealing with the samples (catching, cleaning, analyzing, recording), monitoring, and recording the gas, recording the drilling information from the rig, and generating reports.

When a hole is drilled through anything whether it is your living room wall or the ground the process is the same. The drill bit grinds up the material and moves it out of the way so the hole can be bigger and deeper. When the bit is hundreds of feet below the surface it takes time and a little help to get the cuttings out of the way. That’s where the mud comes in. The mud acts like a big conveyer belt and whisks the cuttings back to ground level. Where yours truly is waiting for them. After washing and shaking they look like this.

I know it doesn’t look like much but to us it tells a story. I add this piece to the other pieces and the whole story starts to take shape. The other pieces are things like the gas. When the rock is drilled sometimes there is gas that is released this is also carried to the surface by the mud. It is then separated from the mud and piped directly into my shack were really expensive equipment breaks it down into its chemical components. That goes on the log too.

Other things go on the log like speed, depth, and pressure. When you add it all together we get a pretty clear picture of what the rocks look like. Are the rocks hard or soft. Do they have lots of minerals or any fossils. Is there lots of space between the grains or is it a well packed formation. And most importantly is there any oil in the rocks and how hard is it to get out. And all of that goes on into the daily report.

 

WOW! What a day! From London it was a very long 10 hour flight to Dallas. Airplane food is in fact the worst thing ever created. If you get the option don’t eat it. Take a PBandJ with you. You will be happier. We landed on time and I got through customs and baggage claim no problem. HELLO USA!!! Everyone speaks English and I can read all the signs! Woot! My parents were kind enough to drive me down a car fully loaded and ready to go. I met them at the airport and spent all of about 12 hours with them (at least 9 of those were sleep). After food, sleep and some more food it was time to hit the road North!

Note to self if traveling between Dallas and OKC avoid rush hour and construction season. The best part of driving in the South is the speed limit is posted at 75 the bad part about driving in the South if you go 75 you are going to get passed… A lot! So off I went cruising along listening to the Country station because the only other station is Christian music, and let’s face it that is not road trip music. Seemed like every other mile was road construction and I guess you got to get it done before it gets to hot but man there was a lot of it. I stopped for gas along the way and it was a bit of a shock to walk in and be greeted by such friendliness. Everyone smiled and said please and thank you and held doors open. My oh my! The cashier who rang up my new pair of sunglasses (because of course I forgot to pack mine) told me to have a blessed day. Nothing quite like the south.

I made it to Norman OK and headed for the office. The boss was glad to see me, and showed me around the new building. After signing all the paperwork and doing the dug tests, we chatted about life in the oil field and the things that had changed since I was here last. The short version is not much. They dropped down to only a few rigs with the bust but are now back up to double that. Apparently I was one of ten new/return hires this month. After shooting the breeze for a while I was given directions, a name, a phone number, and told I would be working tonight. That was the extent of my day in the office. I hopped back in my car and headed north and west.

Rule number one of the oil field is always stop at the last Walmart. I had the basics of what I needed to work hard hat, coveralls, steal toe boots but I needed food to get me through. So Walmart was my last stop before I left civilization. The last Walmart wound up being about an hour and a half from the rig. this means that if I want to go to real town it’s at least a three hour round trip from the rig. I was at Walmart for less then an hour and saw five guys and one girl in coveralls and at least another 6 or 7 guys out of coveralls that where all shopping for stuff for rig life. One overstuffed cartload latter and I too was back on my way. I can’t eat like I use too working this job. Now I crave good food like risottos and stir fry. So I’m loaded up for now anyway on healthy stuff and can’t wait to cook it.

But now the sun is closer to the horizon and almost blinding as I drive west. The setting sun also means it’s past time I was at work. I make tracks thinking I will be late and my coworker will be pissed. I don’t know now if we are drilling or not. I trade off hoping we are not drilling and hoping that if we are we are going slow.

Twisting, winding, turning, I fallow the directions I’ve been give: turn at the gas station, go 3 miles, turn go 5 miles, turn go 2 miles, turn go 1,turn go 1, and your there… I manage to find the right rig on the first try and before the sun set in a blaze of orange and pink glory. It’s almost like I’ve done this before and know what I’m doing hrmm… I walk in to our shack and we are drilling alright but it’s as slow as you can go! God bless the chert! I even have time to put my groceries away before I have to seriously work hard. Everything looks like it should. All the right tools are here. Even my coworker hasn’t changed. I have quite literally picked up where I left off here. It’s a little scary.

I jump right in to work. Catching samples, and writing up descriptions. I need a few refreshers from my coworker and he is in a good enough mood to help me out. So now I’m all caught up on work. Reports are done, samples are happy, the trailer needs a good cleaning but that can wait tell tomorrow.

Hiya from London! After biding a very difficult and very early goodbye to my life in Rome I hopped on a plane. I very bumpy three hour flight later here I am on my layover in London. I was greeted with free newspapers in English as we disembarked!!! After navigating the maze of an airport I managed to find a pub with beer and fish and chips. The fish was a little soggy and the chips needed salt bad but it’s the best breakfast I’ve had all day! I can’t get over how awesome it is to read a newspaper again!

I found this very fitting headline in the business section. In short it says renewable energy is great but not enough and we need to figure out how to coexist. Most people don’t got to work everyday wondering what chess move in world politics will affect their work, but that is the day in and day out for oil. I don’t want to get into the politics of it but thank you to all of you who drove into work and bought something wrapped in plastic.

Cheers from London! Next flight to Texas!

Hello world! After a yearlong hiatus, I am returning to the oil fields! This is very exciting partly because I have been away for a year and partly because it is an awesome job and not something everyone gets to do.  What is the job you ask? Well I am a Geologist by schooling and a mud logger by training. As a geologist there are a few jobs you can do on an oil rig; one is being a mud logger which is what I will do. I am responsible for collecting and analyzing the samples, keeping track of the amount of gas, and watching the different pressures and fluid levels as an extra set of eyes to make sure there are no problems.  I will get in to details and other jobs on the rig latter.

Tomorrow I leave my husband behind and travel for about twenty-three hours to Oklahoma City where I will be given my assignment and head out in to the field.  The last time I headed to work in the oil field I left from Washington state and was headed North to Alaska. This time I’m leaving from Rome Italy, where my husband and I have been living for the last two years. I am heading back to work for the first company that I worked for when I started in oilfield work. While it’s definitely a double-edged sword – I hate saying goodbye but I am excited to head back to work, and to take you all along for the ride! I am very much looking forward to sharing this experience with you’ll!