LeeB's offshore photos

[LeeB]

I saw some company correspondance to that effect. I never had to have one in the G.O.M. but right before I left they were starting to get pretty strict about seeing a photo ID before you could go out.

[Mr Mom]

     What do you do with the drilling mud,brine all the other stuff??
     I know that when i worked in the oil feilds(welltender) we sucked out as much water out of the mud pits and then filled them in.
     Kind of hard to do that at sea.


     Thanks Alot Mr Mom.

[LeeB]

Water based muds are sometimes dumped to the sea as long as there are no petroleum contaminates. If it is a high density mud it is recovered and used again on other wells. Oil based muds are recovered and used again. Same with brines. Produced water is seperated from the oil and gas and re-injected back into the earth. About produced water; most resevoirs are "water driven". This means that the oil or gas sits on top of a pool of water. Liquids for all intents are not compresible and the pressures tranmitted from the rock above and sometimes salt below is transfered to the water and this in turn gives the pressures in the resevoir. Not all resevoirs have enough pressure to flow on thier own and must be assisted to make the wells flow. This is what the pump jacks (horse heads) you see are for. These are not practical in an offshore invironment so Gas injection, water injection and submersable pumps are used to retrieve the oil till the production amounts become uneconomical. The wells are then cemented up and the surface equipment is removed and many time used again.

[Mr Mom]

     Is there always a ship waiting to get filled with oil or do they store it and a tanker comes and get it when storage is full??
     


     Thanks Alot Mr Mom
     

[LeeB]

Most of it is tranported via pipe line. In some parts of the world it is gathered in an FSPO (floating, storage, production,offloading) and offloaded to tankers. This is generally in the very deep water and where there is no pipe line infrastructure. This is not done in US waters do to gov regs against.

[Ianab]

Most of it is tranported via pipe line. In some parts of the world it is gathered in an FSPO (floating, storage, production,offloading) and offloaded to tankers. This is generally in the very deep water and where there is no pipe line infrastructure. This is not done in US waters do to gov regs against.

The pictures I posted on the previous page show a FPSO unit. Thats the front tanker, the big structure on the front is the turret, it has a big swivel coupling and the anchors and gas/oil pipes connect there. The whole unit swings with the wind / current. The other tanker is loading oil to take to the refinery.

With this field the original platform produced gas only, and this was piped to shore. When the second platform was built nearby they extended the pipeline and made the new platform a slave. But after they drilled the new wells (into a deeper part of the field) they struck oil as well. The oil was too thick to pump through the gas pipe ( it kept cooling and going solid ) plus there was no oil pipeline from the shore station to anyplace else. So they built the FPSO, or converted it from a  retired supertanker to recover the oil. All the seperation equipment is mounted on the deck ( big centrifuges and gas trubines to power them). The oil / gas mix comes onto the platform and the oil /gas/ water get seperated. Oil is stored, gas goes back via another pipe and the water goes overboard after it's cleaned enough.

Cheers

Ian

[LeeB]

Thanks Ian. I only know what I've read about FSPO's. Never been around them. Hop I didn't botch the info too bad. LeeB

[LeeB]

 

Finally figured a way to get a mill to work with me :D

[LeeB]

A few more pics of my real job.

Supply boat

This is the Top Drive. It turns the pipe and the bit to drill the well.

This is Assaad, one of my Egyptian drillers


Here's a view of the derrick.

This is the lifting winch, called a drawworks. Lift capacity 1.5 million pounds. This is me hard at work in my office. You can't see it too well, but i do have on my FF hat

[Tom]

Is that clock reading 9:17 OTW time? *over the water or on the well or out the wazoo or...    :D

We have some guys down at the County Prison Farm with suits that look a lot like that.  :D :D :D

In a way, I envy you working out there.  I'd be fishing.

Then again, I don't know if my heart would stand the excitement.  It could get pretty dangerous way out there. :P

[Stephen1]

I like the slippers :D :D

[Mr Mom]

     Keep the pictures comimg.


     Thanks Alot Mr Mom

[LeeB]

Tom, The time was 9:00 in the am here. That wood be 1:00 in the am there. Actually i was just finished with my shift a couple hours before. We get a good laugh about the prison garb too. The color is for visibility in case you end up in the water. We used to wear blue, but we had a man go overboard in the North Sea a fews years back and he was never found. I used to spend hours and hours fishing but thats not allowed any more. Hooks are sharp and that's dangerous. No knives either.

Stephen, the slippers are actually deck shoes. We remove our work boots in the change room to avoid tracking grunge all over the livng quarters.

Mr Mom, I got some more pics. I just didn't want to load up too many at one time. Will put on some more tonight if I ain't gotta work to hard.  :D

[Stump Jumper]

 8) a nice picture tour

[Tom]

Sure is, Stump Jumper.   I want to see more.  I like that "at sea" stuff.  Maybe we could get a tour about how the place works. 

[Norm]

Cool stuff Lee, thanks for showing us.

[LeeB]

I,ve got some more pictures that I will try to post later tonighht or in the morning after I get off.
Tom, The picture tour will be kinda tough as it's not really that easy to take pictures around here. I have to fill out permits and do gas checks and lots of other red tape stuff. I think I can do sorta one with the pics I have. It'll have some gaps, but maybe you can get some idea.

[Tom]

Just she me a lot of that Blue water!!  Birds feeding.  Ships moving.  white caps and rollers.  ;D

[LeeB]

A few more shots.

one of the four cranes and a sister rig in the back ground

  coouple of 750 horse D.C. motors for the mud pump. We have three mud pumps.

This is where we mix the chemicals that make up the drilling fluid. The "mud's" job is to transport cuttings to the surface, cool and lubricate the bit and drill string, and provide weighht to control formation pressure.

  A view of the living quarters looking from the rig floor. We usually have about 110 people on board at any given time.

  One of the three big diesel engines that run the generators. The same kind of motor used in locomotives only bigger.

  Life boat, one of two.

  A couple of tha men on break in the galley.

Drilled cuttings wating for transport to shore for cleaning and disposal. We fill several hundred of these boxes over the course of the well.

  Old Fatthi, one of our crane operators. I think he was around before Moses was born.

  This is some of the pipe used to case the well once it is drilled.

  This big chunk of iron is the Blow out preventer. A big set of hydraulic controled packing elements to contain well pressure after somebody really screws up.

This is where I lay me down at the end of the day.

[Tom]

Almost like being aboard ship, 'cept you got more room.   

I never thought of the residue from punching the hole.  I'll bet you get a lot of flack from the eco-wackos on  that job too. 

That first picture of the crane and the ocean is serene.

Creating these platforms must have put a lot of engineers in the nut house.  A whole village on stilts with enough electricity being generated to run a small town.  I'll bet they don't chinch on the food either. Is it an "open" mess or are you on a schedule?

[LeeB]

Actually we are on a vessel Tom, it just has legs. When we finish all the well work here we lower the barge to the water and get towed to the next location. If you look at the very first picturre posted in this thread you can see two structures, one grey and one red. The red one is the platofrm with all the wells and production equipment. The grey one is the drilling rig. The platform is stationary with it's legs ancored in the sea floor.
There aren't too many eco wackos here. Basicaly the Egyptian government owns the wells with an Itallian oli company as operator. The people here don't enjoy as many freedoms as we do at home, so to complain could make for much misery. I don't think most here really care one way or the other.

Creating these platforms must have put a lot of engineers in the nut house. 

Working with the stuff the engineers come up with make me need to be in the nut house. :D :D :D
There is plenty of food although I don't really care much for the Egyptian cuisine. I eat mostly thin pieces of beef, talking 1/4" or less, pan grilled and french fries. Lots of cucmbers and tomatoes, sometimes beets and carrots. They don't eat a whole lot of variety and fairly bland to my tastes. No open mess, we have scheduled meal times. Breakfast, lunch, dinner and midnight, with "tea time" at 9:00 and 3:00. They do love thier sweets.

[thurlow]

LeeB............enjoyed the pictures and the tour.  Thought I could talk a leetle bit about most things, albeit maybe unintelligently  ;  howsomeever, I don't know a DanG thing about what you're doing. 

[LeeB]

Me niether, but I got em fooled out here :D

[Tom]

I used to be on a boat.  I was pretty special too, a SPC3.   *specialized paint chipper 3rd class.  ;D

[LeeB]

I used to be on a boat. I was pretty special too, a SPC3. *specialized paint chipper 3rd class. ;D

:D :D :D
I did my share of chipping paint on the rigs over the years. Rust never sleeps. One of my Coast Guard licenses, AB/LB has me listed as a wiper. That's a fellow that wipes down the engines or so I've been told. Because we are a vessel, we have to keep a certain number of licensed people on board to meet maritime requirements.