When I was much younger, I considered working on the rigs for a summer. My father, who knew many of the foremen and toolpushes in the local area, refused to let me. He figured there were less dangerous ways of earning a paycheque. A lot of those same foremen and toolpushes were missing fingers or had suffered some similar injury.
I ended up working 3 summers in a nearby oil refinery, which had its own share of hazards including hydrofluoric acid and hydrogen sulphide gas.
Thinking back on that, I’m glad I’m too old and too smart for that sort of thing.
Definitely a young man’s game. I worked at a pulp mill in BC for year when young. I was amazed at just how many crap jobs the guy on the bottom had to do, I was the guy on the bottom.
35 years Oilfield and still counting. I’m writing this from one of the few rigs still operating now. Just in a much better work environment and from a better position than I was 35 years ago slinging that chain around drill pipe.
I worked as a lease hand on a Dbl – 1 step lower than roughneck. (5 rings on on the horn and I went a running getting samples…LOL – we were only putting in Casing)…and always seemingly doused in diesel fuel.
My last bit of duty was to shovel wet cement (lots of it), from underneath the drilling deck with 4′ overhead clearance – 2:30 AM on a December night with -20C temps. We had just finished drilling the casing piping and they were getting ready to weld on the BOP so as to actually start the Real drill.
That’s when I noticed buddy sitting in his Warm heated leather Diamond Tuffed diesel welding truck chilling and having a coffee waiting for us to finish preparing his work area when the thought hit me “WTF am I doing here…??? ”
Thus started the thought to become a welder (which happened later on) – Then to QC inspector – now QA inspector.
When I was in high school, a number of my classmates laughed at me for spending so much time studying. I was looking ahead to going to university while they figured that they could make more money than me working on the rigs.
During my senior undergrad year, two of my detractors showed up on campus. I think they caught on that I wasn’t such a dummy after all, and they signed up as freshman engineering students.
After he finished his degree, one of them ended up in Australia with a drilling company there. The last time I heard, he was closer to its head office in Europe.
The other one went back on the rigs after he graduated, but, presumably, with different duties. The last story I heard about him was that he narrowly missed being on the Ocean Ranger.
Worked rigs in the 80’s. Mostly singles and doubles. Never had the “luxury” of a mud can, a burlap bag would suffice. In the video, you see them hook a chain to drop the Kelly into the floor, that is a result of an unlevel floor.
A video of tripping in or out to circulate for logging or cementing would really give an idea of ” the dance”.
Had a driller who in winter, -20 to -40 with no mud can, used to think it was funny to pop a wet stand and cover us with mud. We would have mud amour suits from the frozen mud on arms and legs. Only the elbows and knees wouldn’t freeze. We could really move and would have beaten their connection time by a mile.
Good times.
My 2 sons did this for about 5 years. All across the west, fighting if there were no girls, drinking and partying and fighting sometimes just cuz it felt good. I gave them good home schooling on the ranch and when freeze up came they would head home and help me until break up. Usually part way through spring calving. They were always glad to get back to the rig. Better grub and the rig push was nicer than the old man.
Sorry that looks too much like work. I’ll just keep my cushy inside job with heat in winter and a/c in summer. Hats off to those dudes though!
Many years ago, I was on a logging job on a well that the company I was working for at the time was drilling. It was in the middle of winter, complete with temperatures near -40 C.
I was there representing the company, so I didn’t do much. In that business, there’s a lot of hurry up and wait and I did a lot of the latter as it takes time to run a logging tool up and down the hole, particularly when taking readings. Then there’s the time required if additional work is needed, such as perforating the casing and checking to see if there’s something in the formation.
While I was waiting, I was keeping warm in either a car or in the on-site doghouse. The roughnecks were well-dressed for their work with snowmobile suits being common apparel. Between those suits and their dashing about the rig, they didn’t have to worry about being cold.
I too worked about 9 months in 1963 for a well logging and perforating outfit. Decided it was not for me and I moved on to better things. Drove the truck to the site and operated the cable spool. Hours and schedule were long and unpredictable. Got out before winter set in.
Don’t regret it since I learned a lot on that job and it motivated me in a good direction.
That looks familiar. Most of the recording equipment was still analog when I was involved with logging during the late 1970s, but some of the data was being digitized.
That was around the time when data filtering methods such as the Fast Fourier Transform were just starting to be used. Most of the plots were far from what one saw in manuals and textbooks and, unless there were clear peaks, it was hard to tell what was represented.
Thanks for that. Canadians back then were completely unaware that any ‘oil’ came from Kanehduh, and still think that at this late date.
It wasn’t that way while I was growing up in NE B. C. Back then, there were two major industries: farming and oil. I went to school with people whose fathers, like mine, were involved with the oil business in one form or another.
Our families were the epitome of the old bumper sticker: “Oil feeds my family and pays my taxes”.
Do the oil riggers in the video vote Liberal? / s
Let me rephrase that.
Do the oil riggers vote?
Yea, we vote.
You may be surprised to learn that rig hands read and write and do math in their heads quite well. Faster than someone with a calculator at times and knew stuff that you didn’t. They always asked for newspapers, if I was going to town. Lotta stuff debated in the Doghouse when drilling 3 meters an hour, at all hours of the day or night. A lot of these guys farmed some big spreads in Saskatchewan and Alberta. during the spring/fall. Businessmen. Learned a lot about grain farming/ranching. Good with their hands too. Stock traders, as well and not the pennies although there were a few of those.
Heh, yes I get a kick out of the “Rig-Pig” stereotypes people still have. Of course there may still be some “blow throughs” on a few backwater rigs here & there (when it’s booming), but the vast majority of the Oilfield today is educated and professional.
Honestly as pointed out earlier we earn good money, pay high taxes, educate our children, read the newspaper, discuss politics and even vote (heh).
Paul:
There’s a rig parked on the grounds of the local college in Fort St. John. Apparently, that institution has a training program for roughnecks.
@B A Deplorable
I didn’t know that. I don’t think most people outside of the industry have a clue about the size and scope of the Oil & Gas Industry.
I have personally attended Certified courses and seminars throughout the years in Alberta, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Houston, Louisiana, Dubai, Aberdeen, Singapore at well established dedicated oilfield training colleges and facilities. Not to mention Industry Safety certifications in many more countries for the “standards” like First Aid, WHIMIS, H2S, Blowout Prevention, and a plethora of survival certifications HUBA, HELISEA, BST and others I can’t remember offhand. All of these Re-certifying every 2 – 3 years including dedicated in-house company certifications & “Competency’s” along with particular customer requested certifications as for Shell, Exxon, BP and hundred other producers, who have their own training camps you must attend and certify if you work on many of their facilities……………..it never stops.
Paul:
Like I mentioned in an earlier posting, many of the people I grew up with were associated with the oil industry. They either worked directly in it or in a supporting business, or at least one of their relatives or friends did. Even one of my high school teachers went to work on pipelines during his summers.
When I started university, I became aware of just how little people outside of the industry knew what went on. Some, like a lot of the Lotuslanders I got to know, particularly while I was at UBC, were smug about it.
Maybe I’m biased, having a blue collar upbringing.
Most of my formal training in the business came through mandatory safety sessions, though I spent two boring days in a course on basic reservoir engineering. The reason it was boring was that I already knew much of the material, having learned it through two undergrad courses in fluid mechanics and two more in thermodynamics. What little that was new to me could have been covered in less than 2 hours.
@B A Deplorable
You do seem to have a good grasp of the Industry and keen memory with some vivid story telling.
Myself I’m 3rd generation Oilfield, my son is 4th. It’s all I know professionally, but it has provided a good life for me and all my family. I currently have the option of an early retirement, seriously considering it after my current project finishes this fall. Thankfully conservative values and frugality combined with years of hard work can accommodate if I so choose.
Paul:
Thanks.
My total time in the oil business was less than 3 years, including my undergrad summers. I was never involved with drilling or production but preferred to be in the processing end of it as it made the most use of what I studied in university.
But, as I mentioned earlier, my father was a machinist who worked on a lot of oilfield equipment so I got to not only hear about it from him but actually see some of it at the shop.
My involvement with the business now is as an investor.
In a side story, while I was finishing my last degree about 20 years ago, I was a teaching assistant for a certain course. I found out that one of my students used to work in the industry, so we ended up swapping stories about our experiences. It was funny watching the other students give us strange looks, wondering what we were talking about (“downhole”, “TDT logs”, “wellhead”).
It’s all about the timing and strength or you could loose your life. What a great video letting people see what the Oil Rig is all about and the people who man them Roughnecks. More Canadians need to watch this especially people from Cities that want the oil field gone this is like Ontario’s Manufacturing jobs the West has Oil Fields and this is the type of work they do damn hard work!
While I was at UBC, I tried explaining to my fellow Vancouverites what it’s like in the oil industry. They thought that I was some dumb hillbilly for having worked in the business, because, apparently, I was doing nasty things to Mommy Gaia.
Most of them wouldn’t have known what real work was like.
A Dylan Thomas quote around that
“A job is death without dignity” as opposed to real work
During my time in the oil business, I got dirty a lot of times. During my second undergrad summer, I came home tired and sore after packing around tools that we needed for the repairs we made. I even had to haul welding cable up the side of a distillation column that was around 70 m high.
Many of the Lotuslanders I mentioned that to had little idea of what I was talking about.
Yep…4/0 welding Cable 50′ long got some weight….don’t ask me how I happen to know that..!!
My father collected all sorts of scrap metal, much of which he planned on using for the model engines he worked on. Some of that included old welding cable.
I sold that for scrap and made a nice chunk of money from it. I paid for a some in-town expenses for a few trips to the house I inherited.
Ever been a juggie? Pull a bit of that cable for exercise. A one time one off job, plus stomping on the jugs along the coal pits west of Edmonchuk. After a day of that, all you want to do is eat and then sleep.
Oh, and while I’m at it…ever been to sea Billy? Try hauling a 3 inch hawser across the bottom and loop it over the bollard and not breath heavy. Run to the next one.
BA @ 12:58 – Mommy Gaia filled their gas tanks in Blaine, with the same stuff run down the pipe from Edmonton showing up at the pump in Burnaby at about 35% more in price than in Blaine, Wash.
If I was Premier of AB, I’d definitely explain the laws of supply and demand, by shutting the Trans Mountain pipeline down to Washington State and the whole of BC. For a day or 7 just to let it sink in. Suddenly, no ferries to Victoria, fishing boats catching herring, air flights from Vancouver or Seattle, Tacoma, et al. No trains headed east with Chicom crap for Wally Mart or Rona and Canadian Tire. They’d be hiking up Lonsdale Ave to get to British Properties, way up there in the North Shore clouds and rain. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA1. Yeah, I’m that evil.
Nah, I feel for those outside the Lower Mainland who have to put up with the Yiippie crap that live in downtown Vancouver.
Some of the Lotuslanders I knew wouldn’t think of driving an automobile, let alone filling the fuel tank with a vile hydrocarbon liquid.
Part of their reaction to what I was talking about was because I said that I sometimes had to work outside in all sorts of weather. I don’t know if I told anyone there about doing corrosion inspections on bare steel pipe in -40 C. The fact that I would have even mentioned such a low temperature would have caused their brains to seize. After all, those were people who’d panic at a few snowflakes falling onto the street but wouldn’t think of heading off to some ski resort.
“It’s all about the timing and strength or you could loose your life”
That may be true on the surface, but what I think allot of people overlook is that each and every one of those guys, or most of them, have a real ambitions to excel and rise above those starter positions. Most of them will in a healthy Industry if they stick with it and continue to learn and grow with all the tools available to them.
Every Oil & Gas company has it’s roots somewhere on a rig floor. It’s only in fairly modern times that the big Corporate world overtook the reigns at the executive levels and have implemented protections for themselves and anyone with a BA to PhD.
Don’t show that clip to Blackie. He might get butt hurt to learn what real men do. And could do to him, given the chance, in a world with poetic justice.
I’ve heard stories about what happens to scouts if they’re caught at a wellsite. I’m sure that a crew of roughnecks might give him similar treatment.
Would you clarify what a “scout” is in this context? I don’t know, but I’d like to.
A spy. You can save millions of dollars if you know what’s in a field before you dig a hole. You might want to raise or lower your bid on some property.
Scouting is a form of legal information gathering.
A lot of information about a well is publicly available, such as its location and the ownership of the parcel of land it’s on. But, at least when I was in the business more than 40 years ago, what’s underneath the surface isn’t always clear. What looks like a promising formation in the survey data could turn out to be unproductive, so the only way to make sure is to actually drill. Even then, there’s often a lot of secrecy as that parcel of land might be on top of a large reservoir, the extent of which might not be known.
A scout is someone is hired by a competitor to figure out what’s going on. Many of them had previous experience on rigs, so they usually know what to look for, particularly if the well turns out to be productive. If so, the company that hired that person might be interested in leasing land near that site because there could be a lot of money at stake.
Usually, those observations are made from a safe location, such as a public road. The scout can sit in a vehicle and watch with a pair of binoculars because it’s hard to prevent that sort of thing.
However, I’ve heard stories of some who were a bit daring and actually went onto the wellsite and looked around. If found out, they’re quickly escorted off the property, often unceremoniously. It’s not unusual for them to have suddenly developed “car trouble” or some such thing.
As it turns out, that’s not the only form of gathering information. The company I first worked for after I finished my B. Sc. periodically circulated a form in which we were to mention if we heard any rumours about drilling activities or where certain rigs were going, as well as where we heard it.
Oil, like mining, depends a lot on scuttlebutt.
Isn’t that what a “LANDSMAN” does..??
A lot of data of what’s underground is vague. A number of features could appear as a productive region in a formation, so drilling is necessary to make sure.
When such uncertainty exists and a certain company starts drilling at a given location, competitors often take notice. There’s always the question of “What do they know that we don’t?” Scouts are hired help provide an answer.
I don’t recall ever meeting or dealing with any landsmen, but, from what I understand, they’re the people who negotiate terms and conditions with the land owners, relying on what is known or believed to be known about the formation in question.
Tight Holes – meaning “drill site is off limits to outsiders” – are where scouts would set up to spy on the competition.
MikeT:
From what I’ve heard, scouts aren’t welcome on site, regardless of the status of the well.
Then again, the company I used to work for was notoriously paranoid. Just about any information about its activities were treated as proprietary, even if that same information was freely available in the public domain.
BA 1:43
No, Scouts are definitely not welcome at tight holes. However, being such, the potential reward is too great to pass up.
I read an article where a scout claimed to be a trapper. He insisted he be given a job as he claimed the rig scared off the furry critters. That time it worked.
MikeT:
That’s a good story. The fact that he got away with it is amazing. I’ve heard of how some scouts were treated if caught. Tampering with their motor vehicles was just the start.
They are making a connection. Period. “Stabbing” anything on one of these units is done with a stabbing valve…to control a blow out, or “kick”. A kick is burping fluid (mud) out of the well bore, because the weight of mud in the hole is exceeded by the borehole pressure somewhere down below. Generally the well is “shut in” and they build up the mud weight to exceed whatever the borehole pressure below is expected to be, with a margin of error. Drilling will re-commence, when done. A blow out is when the well bore clears it’s throat so to speak and everything is blown out of the well, mud, pipe everything. That’s when you call for “Help”. I’ve seen a few kicks, some rather minor ones and some really whites of their eyes types. The eyes stick out because the rest of them is covered in grey mud and I mean covered. I only drilled a dud wildcat well once, the rest of them (all 532, from 300 m to 5700 m deep in every western Province) were drilled in known areas where the pressures are generally known. Still had a few surprises, though. Crews need to be on their toes and observant on connections for “hints”, no matter where they are.
These guys are pretty good at their jobs, like a dance really and they keep a clean work area, even while tripping, usually the messiest operation on a rig. That “mud can” helps. Still using a spinning chain, which in Canader has gone by the wayside on most rigs, in lieu of hydraulic driven pipe spinners, both top and bottom drives. Saves fingers! Up here you won’t see civvies either, flame retardant coveralls are the norm.
I also drilled a few hundred thousand feet of diamond drill holes as well in my career as a Geologist, Quebec, Ontario, Saskatchewan, BC and Yukon. I got tales and a photo history of both industries.
Hey PO’ed, I’m a 35 year service rig hand, I stuck around so long that I helped start a company with some partners. I would love to listen to your stories and see your pictures. I spent 3 years working in Siberia back in the 90’s on a project. I’ve put 3 daughters through university, paid for their weddings and put an ex-wife in a nice financial position. lol. You are right about the changes. No comparison to the old days.
The rigs weren’t the only source of good money in the oil business.
My father was a machinist and he made a lot of overtime working on stuff for rigs. He knew how important it was and that any unnecessary delays would cost money.
As a result, he paid for most of my university expenses while I was an undergrad, the rest coming from what I earned during my summers at the oil refinery. The house my parents lived in was paid off within 15 years and, whenever he bought a new truck, he earned that money back within months.
A farmer’s “second job”…water hauler, vac truck, welder, skidder driver, logger, can’t grow much in winter. If you’ve got equipment sitting in the yard, better used in some other manner and earn some more Kanuck Bucks. I spent my spare time buying and selling stocks and not the pennies. I worked as a broker for a couple of years in Vancouver when the Patch was dead and Mining was basically verboten in this country. Back and forth when the NEP was on, never was out of work if mining was still active. Today, Kan-eh-duh is a ghost town for aspiring business minded trades or professionals. Globble Warmenting made sure of that, while Chinah grew. Then we get a “trade leveler” called Peking Flu. Buying any Chinah Junk lately?
I think I’ve mentioned this before.
My ex-broker used to be a roughneck up in NE B. C., working in parts where you probably were and where my parents and I went hunting or fishing when I was younger. That put him in a good position to evaluate stocks in that business as well as those of companies that serve it.
That rig is doing it old school. There aren’t too many rigs still using chain to make connections. Many of the newer rigs are using the power tongs to make connections.
I’ve heard stories of rig accidents where the chains had flipped around a rookie’s head, tightened and then decapitated him.
In 1967, I wanted to work on the rigs. A friend of ours (who would later become my father in law) was good Liberal. Back then the Liberals were the right wing party of Saskatchewan. He phoned our MLA who had a good friend who owned a road construction company. I got a job operating a brand new TD-30 International Harvester bulldozer. Good summer job for a kid who was only 17, and had to get a fake ID just in case the Worker’s Compensation guys came along. .
In the 90’s, I had a rig next to my farm. The quarter section was owned by FCC, so they didn’t drill on my land to avoid paying damages. I spent a lot of time out there. Interesting, but not my kind of work.
PO’ed in AB wrote it better. Power tongs are used to connect pipes for a producing well.
It’s pipe. “Pipes” is like “sheeps”, Cheers.
Pipe:
“A Long cylindrical section of space surrounded by metal (or FRP – Poly), both cylindrically and throughout its length.” From 1/4″ up to 50″ +. Anything smaller is tubing – anything bigger is either ducting, culvert or a very long pressure vessel…IMO
Metallic Pipe can be seamless or welded. Plasma – ERW – SAW – Can be Straight or Spiral. Can be Extruded or U n O’d and it comes in literally hundreds of metallurgical specifications. From mild steel to Titanium.
Funny, that article makes no mention of Robert Heinlein’s novel Starship Troopers…..
After seeing that video from Rebel News yesterday with Keean Bexte escorted off of Rideau Cottage, I realized that one group I have not heard much from during the Covid-19 emergency is the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. I checked out its website and there is not as much there as one might hope for given the following: the effective suspension of Parliament until September; the Supreme Court of Canada hasn’t heard a case since March; the various bans on religious services; limits on freedom of association and limits on mobility rights between provinces. I did however find one page that might be useful to the readership: https://ccla.org/coronavirus-update-emergency-measures-by-province/
That is unexpected, brings back memories! Thank you for posting that Kate. Spent way more hours at minus 40 than plus 30 or whatever it is in this video. And yeah, had my inevitable close encounter with mortality too. Still around, clearly, thankfully. And I do remember reading in the back of the in house WCB periodical in their waiting room months later, that Mining killed a guy a week on average. Sounded about right with what I’d seen and experienced. You relied on each other to stay alive, working 12 or 16 hour shifts, 7 days a week, for 2 or 3 weeks at a stretch. Truly had a band of brothers feeling to it, and later conversations with relatives who had actual combat experience seemed to corroborate that. And also that you remember the funny stuff, like bee lining it in the “borrowed” rig ambulance and bouncing straight through the bushes in front of the Slave Lake hotel as the Mounties rolled up to, uh, end a little barroom enthusiasm that had gotten out of hand I guess. Wasn’t us!
During my undergrad summers in the aforementioned oil refinery, I saw just how easy it was to get hurt and how quickly that could happen. (There’s a reason why I always kept my hardhat on while I was out in the units.) There were times that when I went through the plant gate at quitting time in one piece, I had a good day.
And I recall my share of funnier incidents, such as the time when I managed to keep a bunch of my colleagues out of jail during a company golf tournament…..
Riots in Minneapolis Minnesota protesting the death of George Floyd again tonight.
They broke out all the windows in the Minneapolis Police Department Third Precinct. Then they decided to loot the local Target, and loot and burn out the Auto Zone. https://tinyurl.com/y93nntfq
The fourth video in the linked post is the last 10 minutes of Mr. Floyd. The EMTs written report released Wednesday said he had no pulse when they got to him. https://tinyurl.com/ydzdb67s
This was as much a murder as when Minneapolis Police Officer Mohamed Noor shot an unarmed Justin Damond when she walked up to their squad car in her nightgown.
Years ago I was at a shooting range in Sarasota owned by 2 SWAT officers. There was a small riot in the black area and one officer said to me, “Any time there is a civil breakdown it is an excuse for the blacks to go shopping.” Nothing has changed it seems.
I have been watching CNN (FREE preview) and they are horrified that Tweety refuses to apologize or lower the flag to half mast at the White House!
Earlier today, CNN’s Dana Bash got an exclusive interview today with Jolting Joe Biden in the backyard of his home. He came across as Presidential and did not sniff her hair.
I once worked on a rig in 2002 in Sundre Alberta. We were drilling for natural gas for a mid-size junior company. I saw the roughnecks do their thing at a distance. It was amazing. I went up there just the one time because my work was in the lab washing rock cuttings. The drying machine was a reconstituted ‘Shop Vac’ in a reconstituted trash bin that some genius made. Necessity, being the Mother of Invention.
It was in the month of February and my stint there was concurrent with the Winter Olympics which took place in Salt Lake City Utah that year. The ‘shack’ had a TV. I never enjoyed the Games as much as I did that time. The 12 to 18 hour days were long but time flew anyway.
Temperature at the rig was -30°C.
Not being used to repetitive work like that, afterwards I had a sore upper arm between the shoulder joint and elbow joint. The four muscles – three in the anterior compartment (biceps brachii, brachialis, coracobrachialis), and one in the posterior compartment (triceps brachii) needed regular massages to feel normal again.
Generally, it was an experience I enjoyed and will never forget. The people were quite fun and all business. And, the “Well”, in the end, was a producer!
I believe the “Shop-Vac sample dryer” was invented by someone from Kate’s home town.
Before vac-dried samples, they were dried in little pans on the propane stove. Horizontal drilling started in the early ’90s when just about everything about drilling was still old school as shown in the video. No computers, no cellphones, clockwork drilling recorders. Drying oil-filled samples on the stove was really smoky and unpleasant, and all the wellsite geologists were looking for some better way. A young guy from Arcola tried the Shop-Vac method with a funnel on the end of the hose to hold the screen full of cuttings, and it worked like a charm. It was adopted by most of the geologists working in southeast Saskatchewan within months.
I started out “old school” in the early 80’s. Fry pans and sieves, hand printed mylar & drafting pens, single optic microscope, a in-truck YJ-phone. Had to have everything printed up for the logging truck prints and then run to town ASAP. After those 30 hour wells a 6-8 hour drive, no sleep. Phone and beat on the company geologist’s door and hand it over. Job was done.
Then it was an extension cord (or book a room at the cowboy hotel) from the shuttered gas station outdoor plug, prop the fax machine in a telephone booth to send it to the company, brief discussion with town geologist. Job was done, drive leisurely home.
I once faxed from the Pierceland Bar, the old rotating fax “got that page?”…fax another sheet of downhole log…..two beers! Lot of interested Saturday night customers watching the proceedings. i used to resemble those old cross Atlantic Ocean air pioneer types, with the jerry cans in the truck box. Enough to get you there, drive to town a few times and back home. After 10 PM in those small towns, the gas station was shut. Better have backup. Then we went to Brother typewriters with the 15 pitch wheels and things got neater and faster. Speed was everything in this business. Time was money. Extra time was sleep time. There’s more.
I remember ordering the first fax machine for our oil company office. Cost $2000, and took 6 pages of justification for management.
Had a friend who was a rig site supervisor. He was able to rent a fax machine for his rig.
Result? No more copying morning reports by hand while listening to the wellsite on the phone.
Several weeks later every drilling and completion rig had a fax machine, and their we quite a few in the office.
Wellsite logs came in quickly by fax. We still got the paper copies.
One problem with some early fax machines; the ink on the paper faded. Several times we found wellfiles with blank or extremely faded reports.
When I was in the business, we used teletype (Telex or TWX) either in real time or sending batch messages by producing them on paper tape.
The oil company I worked for also made use of portable computer terminals. They were about the size of an early laptop, but they were connected using an audio phone coupler–no modems back then.
Back then, dedicated word processors were entering the workplace, though typewriters were still common.
Horizontal drilling in Sask started in the 80’s and we (Sceptre Resources) were drilling wells in the heavy oil areas (Tangleflags) in Western Saskatchewan. Several of the clever engineers wondered what the technology could do in a light oil reservoir in SE Saskatchewan and Shell drilled Midale in Aug 1989 and I drilled two wells at Gainsbourough Sask. in Sept / Oct ’89. My two wells came on producing 2400 bbl per day and 1800 BOPD and offset vertical wells that were in the 250 BOPD range. Needless to say management was pleased and we were off to the races drilling horizontally.
I used to love getting a chance to visit the rigs.
My boss asked once why I liked being in SE Sask so much and I can remember replying that driving around Calgary you get the finger all the time but driving down the road in Sask once u are off the main highways everyone u met waved hello.
Where I used to live in Medicine Hat during the late 1980s was near the city limits. I remember seeing an early attempt at horizontal drilling in the river valley across the street from the street from my building. I have to admit that I was rather surprised to see the derrick tilted at an angle.
My first directional well was SE of Calgary, out where the tumble weeds grew. SE corner of the SD, neighbor wouldn’t let ’em drill on their property, because there was nothing to indicate the rig couldn’t be spudded and the hole drilled vertically. The directional driller worked alone and basically calculated the chord for each joint of drill pipe to track his progress and be where he needed to be. I used mine to check his math and we’d compare notes on each drill down. Learned a lot on that job. Town geologist was amazed I knew what I was doing. I told him I’d been drilling “slant holes” in mining, currently this one was about number 1500 or so. Petroleum geologists aren’t taught some of the basics it seems. Things got faster and programs developed to do what they do today. I still have my horizontal/vertical drilling software program on one of my computers. All you really need is basic trigonometry to do it. I’ve got an Excell program which plots in 3D, anywhere up to 5 wells. It’s kinda big. I got taught trig by an ex RCAF navigator/bombadier. Lancasters. His nickname was (Wild) Bill Horsnall. A diminutive man, you never pissed him off in class. He’d throw you out…literally. I think he knew jujitsu or some RCAF version of it. I still remember my trig math/functions.
Rebel reporter kicked out of Trudeau press conference?
Too bad Canada never had a Bill of Rights. I guess that was too American?
well rd there is something vague about free speech in Canada but Twadels does not recognize it.
We do have a Bill of Rights. Passed by Parliament in September 1960. The PM was John Diefenbaker, a westerner. Look it up.
Thanks Sheila. I usually just mention something and someone smart always finds it.
Rebel should hire a native reporter. See if he gets the same treatment. Seriously, Canadians should be appalled at the nasty treatment a reporter is given in a country with a supposedly free press. It seems that journalists from other news outlets are quite indifferent to the way this action threatens voices that choose to criticize the government. There is little integrity left among the Canadian Press.
L L , they would have to find a native who is not at the trough. OOOOOH raciest.
LL…that is an Awesome Idea…!! make it from the Wet’suwetn…no.??
I’ve known a few natives that would do it. They loved the thought of being a sh*t disturber.
It’s some of the people you work with in The Patch that are memorable. I would work for the same oil company going on a few years, to the point you were “family” to the crews on a couple of the rigs contracted by them. I’d even Baby Sit other Geos who were screwing up on their rigs, if I had a spare moment from mine and it wasn’t too far to drive. Between wells the ‘dud’ roughnecks would be weeded out, and after several years and a few wells you’d run into some of those “duds” on the brake handle of another rig, with a whole new attitude. Some of the Tool Pushers (called Rig Managers now) were real characters to remember. Heavy on the character. Same for the “Engineers” or Drilling Supervisors now. As a mining Geologist initially, I ran the show out there as Drill Soup and Geologist especially early times in Saskatchewan, but the Drill Soup’s in Alberta and BC did the heavy lifting on the big rigs in the Patch. I got to run casing and cement surface and final as a Geologist, believe it or not.
I was hard core, old school, too. Screw up and “see that road? It’s yours, take it”. It got to a point that the roughneck in question would run himself off, just with a sideways look and a growl from me. Don’t miss a sample or screw up a core point, or casing point and the drillers loved it. I saved them a lot of paperwork. Tool Pushers, too. On some jobs the Drill Soup would just ask “Who’r ya runnin’ off tiday?’ Despite the rules, whiskey was a Nyquil and I did my share. On average I slept about 2-3 hours a day doing top hole drilling and some times 3 days would go by with catnaps, maybe on the short, fast holes in S, SE Alberta and southern Sask. Those wells were done in 36 hours. Graduating to the deeper stuff and especially Foothills wells with repeat sections, where the Geologist was relied on to “know where you are?” A common question. Nope. Hey, I was honest about it! Didn’t sleep much on those wells either. The really deep Foothills stuff were the dreams of geologists. I used to drive home from Sundre AB on bit trips, it took so long. Places like Nordegg, Hinton area would take 24 hours round trip and I did a lot of “travelling” to the hot springs and did some hikes up mountains because they were there. Some Geos went fly fishing. I drove every dirt track from Grande Prairie to Cochrane and could do it in the dark with my eyes shut. NE BC was the same. There is nothing like the whisper of the wind on a stretch of gravel and waving grain in the middle of summer….out there. Miles from anyone. You can see sometimes forever out there. Never find me spending time in an office environment much for the 30 odd years I worked as a Geologist, oil or hardrock.
Here’s a “tale” for ya. I got a call one day, just finishing up logging the well and getting ready to drive the 14 hours to Calgary, to drop everything, let the loggers finish up and do the end of well stuff and head over to another rig drilling for the company. Send your report via hotshot. Sure. That Geologist had met an untimely end on the road to town and back. DOA. Moved right in after separating his gear and started to get caught up on the work piling up, so I could pick a core point and drill to intermediate casing. Late that night, got a call on DOA Geo’s phone from some young lady who apparently wasn’t in the loop on his demise. I was expecting the wife or someone similar to give me directions on what to do with his “stuff” out here, so answered the phone. Big mistake. “Who’re you? Your voice isn’t the same.” You know the drill: “Dave’s not here.” Repeat as necessary. “Dave” had a girlfriend…ooops. She called a few more times and I managed to get it to her that “Dave’s not here. Phone the Corporation if you must, I’m a bit busy right now”. Click. Last I heard from that one. The Drill Soup had a chuckle over that, then proceeded to fill me in. Teh Patch is like a soap opera at times, believe me on that. There were a few more eye poppers on that job that I won’t reveal, maybe in a book some long time from now. Like i said…I gots “stories”.
The stories are the best PO’ed , write that book!
Did send that video link of Kate’s to my kids though, to illustrate what ‘n the heck the old guy’s grumbling ’bout every once in a while ’bout why this or that creaky old body part is hurtin something fierce…
Speaking of old injuries: I had a period of back backism. Serious stuff, too. A common affliction to rig hands of which the Company Man, an old Roughneck himself could attest to on just about every rig you worked at. Drilled around Rocky Mountain House for a while and went to the chiro there to get straightened out a few times. The worst time was way up the Alaska Highway on some job, cutting a core and even the core hand was having a bad back day. Mine was toast, as I could barely creep to the rig floor to recover that core, measure it and other stuff, couldn’t bend over so I’d get the Ruffies to do what I needed for me, sampling here there and measure it all up. I joked, now you can do my job. I slept on the shack floor and when I woke my right leg would be numb. Driving home after 4 weeks of this was tough. Stop and walk around the truck a few times, then drive some more. Took a year to work it out, using one of those Obus Form seat thingies, or I couldn’t drive. Finally licked it going to physiotherapy in between jobs (You ain’t working, you ain’t paid) over a year. Never came back, after that.
I think you and I could sit down with a good bottle of single malt and tell a few. It would be a damn good time. One of the best characters i met was a Texan who went by G.A. In the camp one night someone asked him what it was like to be from the state of Texas. Old G.A. got up and lost his shit. He said “NO!” “Texas isn’t a state!” It’s Texas.” That stuck with me and i now realize why Western Canada is in the situation it’s in.
I met a lot of Okies, Texans and Nebrask’ns …out there. Oil and mining jobs. Specialists either fishing, drilling sideways or logging some specialized tool that we didn’t run up here. Nice guys, great accents and couldn’t figure out us primitives living “Noth uff 49”. They couldn’t take the cold, even in summer. Can’t drink whiskey anymore and coffee is even off my “meds’ these days. Shed a tear for me. I’d still tell the tales, though. Boy, CAPTCHA is getting annoying, must be a Liberul.
I don’t know about the Nebraskans. I lived there for a few years and worked there for 26. The Minister of Finance is a native and has no nerve endings when it comes to the cold. He was living with his brother for a while where they kept the windows cracked in the winter and one’s breath was always visible. Sister-in-law moved into her own room. As context and when I moved there the first time, an arborist was coming to look at some of the trees in my back yard. I was wearing a shin length sheepskin and might as well have been buck naked. It was way negative Fahrenheit with minus 75 degrees wind chill. This was in Omaha which is actually in the southeast area of the state. When attempting to inhale, the wind would form a vacuum so you’d choke instead of breathe . Tree guy behaved as if I were a ‘submoron’ (stolen from Insty commenter).
Outside of extra inning night games at Candlestick, I’ve never been so cold in my life.
I remember a service hand from Texas was up on one of our completion rigs.
At -10C he said, “Fu*k this is cold!” We told him it was a warm winter day.
Next day, -20C he said “Now this is cold! We told him it was cool.
Next day, -42C and a howling wind; he meekly asked “Is this cold?” Yep this is cold we replied, but don’t worry it can get even colder.
It ain’t “cold” until the track on the snow machine don’t spin when you rev it, or the battery freezes up in an Australian Geologist’s “new/old” truck and the lights go dim. I survived -64 below at Cree Lake Saskatchewan, 1979. The trees would kaaa-pop and the ice would go skeeeeeww bang, when it split.
It’s in weather like that one needs to keep the machinery running just to make sure it still operates.
I remember being scheduled go to a certain well that was being worked on to see if it couldn’t produce. I was delayed by a few days because the crew on site lost steam as its boiler wouldn’t work due to the cold.
I was working in northern Saskatchewan in 1979, at my own drill camp when I got a plaintive call on the HF from our geotech. Did I know how to fix one of those oil space heaters? They didn’t think to pack a backup airtight wood stove in the plane. There they are, in the snow, post 4 PM winter, -40 odd below and no heat for the canvas tent to keep thing thawed while away working or even sleeping. They had 3 & 5 Stars but even so. Even the Coleman wasn’t cooperating. Flashlight only. Dimming by the minute.
Walked them through the settings on the carburetor (which was missing a few parts) and jury rigged the damned thing to get it going. I had my own issues with those damned things. If mine had an old one, I’d swap the damned thing out before heading out on a job and test it before going. Spent enough time out there at -50/60 curled around a slow burning fire and not setting myself on fire. Stars are bright though. Nothing like the north woods in the dark lit by the moon. Quiet except the odd tree pop. Oh, sometimes you hear the wolves howl. I’d answer back. Really peaks their interest.
While the whack job leader of the Ontario NDP rants about Hitler Doug Ford, True North reports that one of her MPPs is praising a Palestinian terrorist leader. Funny how the media covers her rants about Ford and ignores her Jew hating MPPs.
John, that’s because the corporate media cartel detest both Ford and pro-Israel Jews.
Now that Great Leader Kim Sung Trudeau has finished establishing his dictatorship, he can turn to other things. His bought and paid for media are excited that he will be co-hosting the UN conference on handling the China virus. Expect lots of money thrown out the door to shit hole countries. Nothing to do with that UN security seat of course.
Well it is daylight in Minneapolis.
The looting is still going on, but very desultorily.
No, the Minneapolis Police have not tried to stop any of it.
They forted up in the Third Precinct Building and defended it.
The Auto Zone business across the street? Not so much. It is a burnt out hulk.
KSTP TV 5 had a reporter and camera crew in the Target Parking lot, and they were watching groups of kids still walking out of the store with bins of loot at 6am. They showed the store early last night. At least half the stock was already looted and gone. A half dozen Minneapolis Police squad cars pulled into the Target lot, drove through without stopping, and back onto Lake Street (the main drag). The reporter described it with a bit of disgust in his voice. They have done nothing visible to secure any buildings and stop the looting.
They showed a lot of looted businesses all up and down Lake Street. They were even looting in the Uptown district, which is miles away.
The rioters burnt out a big warehouse building, and a large, hopefully unoccupied and under construction apartment building, which is a complete loss. HUGE Fires overnight. The smoke showed up on weather radar. Fires still burning this AM.
One dead. A looter shot by the shop owner. They did arrest the shop owner.
CBS National News on WCCO TV 4 is blaming the looting and rioting on the lockdown.
The most popular graffiti is FTP, or F— the police.
The news has identified all four officers. The protesters were also at the house of the officer that rested his knee of George Floyd’s neck. There was a large police presence from other departments facing down those protesters
Hey, just like the Watts Riots. What’s new?
Went out west at 19 to work on the rigs.
Scouted out rigs near Medicine Hat. Saw the top of one in a field about a half mile from the road we were on. Me and two buddies walked over to it to see if there were any job openings. We were asked by the manager how we got there. Told him we walked from the road and he told us we were walking through a firing range and that there could be unexploded shells in the area. The walk back was a little slower.
Wound up working for a pipeline company. Almost got killed twice and nearly lost 2 fingers.
Decided to go to white collar work:)
I know which area you’re referring to. I thought it was interesting that oil industry activity was allowed on the base.
This isn’t what Richard Florida means by ‘post industrial creative class’ is it ?
An enquiry from the GTA asks: ” can’t they work from home” ?
Urban bubbles are full of toxic gas.
Try and explain to the kiddies nowadays that there’s no smartphone “app” for that sort of thing. I’m sure the reaction would be a blank look or “Huh?”
There are times when one has to actually go outside and work on a piece of equipment, regardless of the weather. That hardware is likely essential for the operation of the facility it’s located in and each minute it’s idle or malfunctioning costs money.
During my second summer at oil refinery I mentioned earlier, we had to fix a heat exchanger in one of the units. It just happened to be outside, it was pouring rain, and the equipment wasn’t going to repair itself. We put on whatever rain gear we could, went at it, and got things running properly again, and, yes, we got wet. It was all part of the job.
Urban ‘bubbles’ are full of wealth creation.
Heh, the only “wealth created” in urban bubbles is circulated currency from the government and service industries landing eventually into the hands of Bankers, Insurance & real estate companies, and investment firms. Corrupt Blackfaces included as the bottom feeders here.
Real wealth is created from resources whether minerals, forestry, farming, fishing, and energy to name a few. Then its utilized in the manufacturing markets, which are nearly extinct in Canada. The rest just sucks off and circulates the actual produced wealth from there until it ends up as 400 foot yachts cruising around the Greek islands.
Some wag once said that there are two ways one can make money in the oil business. One is by drilling into the ground. The other, often more lucrative, was on the floor of a stock exchange.
Fuckin A.
” landing eventually into the hands of Bankers, Insurance & real estate companies, and investment firms.”
LOL money does not ‘land’ in the hands of those companies. They earn it and use it to create immense wealth.
“Real wealth is created from resources whether minerals, forestry, farming, fishing, and energy to name a few.”
Apparently Hong Kong and Dubai aren’t ‘real wealth’. You don’t even understand what wealth is. Protip: there’s a reason those industries comprise a smaller and smaller chunk of the economy and investment save perhaps energy. Cities are where the future is made. Get over it.
Pro tip, you comment exactly like a bottom feeder would.
Ahh, that was refreshing.
Comrade President Trump strikes glorious blow for proletariat, will force price ceiling on kulak vendors of insulin.
The $14-million from selling canabis, for Brian Mulroney, is a step up from receiving $300,000 in shoebox bribe money from Karl Heinz Schrieber.
Holy shit. Gag me with a spoon. Talk about being high on the food chain!
A dope selling dope….
Hi UnMe
A few days ago you ducked my question:
To the best of your knowledge (backed up by credible science) how much global temperature increase (in Centigrade degrees) is caused by one tonne of CO2 emissions?
1 Tonne CO2 = X degrees C
What is the value of X. No need to be precise – an answer to plus or minus 30% is fine. Cite your sources!
Obviously, unless you know this you have no way to evaluate the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of emissions reduction programs or a carbon tax.
Thanks.
P J , the only response now needed is that CO2 is necessary for life itself. If you want the planet to die and every living thing on it to die reduce CO2 to 150 ppm and you will have achieved your goal. You will of course be dead along with everything else. I use the editorial “you”.
Even before that I would like to see a conclusive proof as to what is the optimal level of earth temperature. Note, stating “it is what it was x years ago because it was so x years ago” does not constitute a proof.
Also even if we were to assume (for the sake of the discussion only) that:
1. Humans were affecting earth temperature.
2. The temperatures were heading in the wrong direction.
3. CO2 was a pollutant
What is a dominant strategy for a low polluting country like Canada given that a dominant strategy for China, India, Russia, Brazil, Mexico, Nigeria etc is to pollute regardless of whether Canada pollutes or not? Since UnMe claims to be economically literate this little application of game theory should not be a problem.
Colonialista,
Your questions about Canada’s strategic options make good sense.
My point is simpler – why do we expend enormous amounts of energy and taxpayer dollars on programs that have not been demonstrated to have any meaningful impact on global temperature?
As far as I can tell, if all provinces had fully endorsed the carbon tax, by 2022 the climate change impact would have been the equivalent of stepping on a thick carpet (air cools with rising altitude – the adiabatic lapse rate). Seriously!
I fully agree with your point.
Mine is simply that even if everything the UnMes are saying was true (and it is not) if we were to ever end up in a climate crisis then we should be as economically strong as possible going into it. Gutting Canadian economy in the face of the impending (imagined) climate crisis is the stupidest thing we could do especially when others do the exact opposite.
Well I don’t know. That’s beyond my point. My point was broader: that human CO2 is indeed increasing world temperatures.
How can you support spending billions on projects or taxes if you have absolutely no idea of whether they do any measurable good?
It looks as though Germany will have spent US $ 110 billion on solar power to defer global warming by 37 hours in year 2100. Is that a good deal for the German taxpayer and the wisest use of the money?
You can more-or-less sorta’ work it out.
CO2 is 0.04% (i.e., 4/100ths of one percent) of the atmosphere, and we bad, evil awful naughty humans contribute 5% of that. Ants contribute 10%.
And CO2 in the atmosphere is increasing – likely our fault – at the rate of 2 parts per million per year.
So statistically speaking, if CO2 is causing global warming, we’re going to be at ~this temperature for many, many thousands of years.
And bear in mind that when the UN IPCC calculates its global warming forecast, it always – only – by deliberate, stated policy – considers human causes. Or in other words, it’s doing its level best to ignore events like the California and Australia wildfires, which have only been going-on forever, and cooling events like the Sun’s current Maunder Minimum, and that it spent over 200 days last year with no sun spots. I mean FFS, they still put Michael Mann’s hockey-stick graph in their report!
Global warming – the human race’s greatest-ever scam, but wait for it……
No handouts from Popinjay today, he’s busy hustling for that UN seat.
I drilled a couple of shallow gas wells (Second White Specs) near Taber AB with a super single rig around 2000. It was a green crew except for the tool push but my drilling supervisor had seen it all. About 100 meters or so of the well drilled through an overpressured gassy but tight siltstone formation called the Milk River (some fields actually complete it to commingle in additional gas). I was on the rig floor with the crew on the first connection after penetrating the Milk River. The temporary near instantaneous 2 second geyser of drilling mud after breaking connection to pickup a new joint was a shock and everyone on the floor including me got it good. My Drilling Sup watching safely from inside the drilling shack laughed his ass off. As I quickly learned putting up with the brief kicks in the Milk River was SOP at the time for drilling shallow wells. Once the near wellbore gas was flushed there was no further well control issues (some circulating out migrated gas while tripping) but everything went smooth including cementing. It definitely paid to have experience onsite and that was one time I was literally wet behind the ears. The rig had a power swivel so they didn’t throw chains to make up or break drill pipe. But when I was drilling in southeast Sask in the 90’s I saw a lot of deft handed chain throwing…and met a few drillers and tool pushes with missing fingers. Outside of service rig work (which I think has the dirtiest most dangerous jobs in the biz) I felt the most sorry for the derrickmen who toughed it out somewhat exposed up in the crows nest during tripping ops at night in the minus 30’s in a blustery Sask prairie wind. Definitely a “No Snowflake Zone”.
I started out “old school” in the early 80’s. Fry pans and sieves, hand printed mylar & drafting pens, single optic microscope, an in-truck YJ-phone. Had to have everything printed up for the logging truck prints and then run to town ASAP. After those 30 hour wells a 6-8 hour drive, no sleep. Phone and beat on the company geologist’s door and hand it over. Job was done.
Then it was an extension cord (or book a room at the cowboy hotel) from the shuttered gas station outdoor plug, prop the fax machine in a telephone booth to send it to the company, brief discussion with town geologist. Job was done, drive leisurely home.
I once faxed from the Pierceland Bar, the old rotating fax “got that page?”…fax another sheet of downhole log…..two beers! Lot of interested Saturday night customers watching the proceedings. i used to resemble those old cross Atlantic Ocean air pioneer types, with the jerry cans in the truck box. Enough to get you there, drive to town a few times and back home. After 10 PM in those small towns, the gas station was shut. Better have backup. Then we went to Brother typewriters with the 15 pitch wheels and things got neater and faster. Speed was everything in this business. Time was money. Extra time was sleep time. There’s more.
I drilled past the 2nd White Specks in the early days (1980’s), behind casing in the Taber area. Later I air drilled the White Specks with a service rig NE of Taber in 2000+ and “logging” consisted of a video camera, rigged with the gamma tools…you could watch the gas spurt from cm thick beds and map it by pasting the vid to scale alongside your computer generated geological “log” and the GR log. Technology is every thing now, even real time with the town Geologist watching the same thing you are in the logging truck. Voice contact real time. The holes were low pressure (BBQ levels or lower, but good volume) and the gas was piped to the processing plant using just PVC pipe. Miles of PVC pipe. I lived and worked in a water hauler’s trailer, shared with the mice, hauled last to the rig site. They were already drilling the next hole when i got there. Mud tank a mixing motor in a large livestock tub. No shyte.
RCMP throws Keean Bexte out of the usurper-PM’s news conference.
RCMP is now legally the enemy of the people since it violated the oath to uphold the law.
Ask the folks in High River who the Arse Cee Em Peein’ really work for.
I dunno, was it the frothing Foth who dreamt that one up? Can’t remember now.
And now your Canadians are homophobic bastards story for today. Blacklock reports that a Catholic Church in B.C. is being taken to a human rights hearing because they wouldn’t let their parish hall be used for a pride week fundraiser. Blacklock also reports that teenagers who just graduated from high school can apply for Blackie’s free money this summer simply by sending an application in to a college. It doesn’t matter whether they actually attend the college or not.
Blacklock also reports that teenagers who just graduated from high school can apply for Blackie’s free money this summer simply by sending an application in to a college.
Things sure changed since I was on the dole during the early 1980s. During my first time, I had been unemployed for so long that my time was running out. Becoming desperate, with no job prospects in sight, I made inquiries about what was required to apply for welfare.
Boy, did I get an earful! They wanted to know just about everything about me, such as my finances, including my bank accounts. Fortunately, something came along and I never pursued it any further.
About a year later, I was back on the dole. One prospect on the other side of the country came up and I asked the federal government about getting financial assistance with travel expenses, which, at the time, one could apparently apply for. The civil service critter I spoke with took me to task, nearly accusing me of trying to weasel money out of the government, all because I asked a few questions and wanted more information.
New poll shows Great Leader Kim Sung Trudeau at 52%. Twenty more years of Great Leader and then his son Dear Leader can take over.
Brought back a lot of memories. In the 50’s my father was a Tool Push and we lived in a mobile home that followed the rigs, often on the same site. We were living on a drilling site near Swan Hills when I started school in 1960. Bus came to several rigs sites to take students into Swan Hills to school. That was before the town had side walks. Worked a couple summers on the rigs in 71-73. Dirty noisy work but at about $3.00/hr with lots of overtime it seemed like you were making a killing.
I recall that, during the early 1970s, minimum wage in NE B. C. was $1.50/hr.
During the summer of ’75, I started at the oil refinery at just over $5.00/hr when minimum wage was something like $2.50 or $3.00. Because of the pay, summer jobs at the plant were highly prized. Add in a lot of overtime, particularly during the annual maintenance shutdown, and one could go back to university with a bundle of cash for tuition and books with lots left over for pizza and beer.
Oddly enough, we had a lot of people start at the plant one day and quit a short while later. I guess they didn’t like getting themselves dirty.
PM Blackface of Rideau Cottage and Bill Lying Fuck Blair must be reGreta thinking: How Dare They!
Now we’re talking, but I’d like to see the Canadian Constitution Foundation involved.
UnMe, wait a sec! Up above you say:
“Well I don’t know. That’s beyond my point. My point was broader: that human CO2 is indeed increasing world temperatures.”
But you seem to have absolutely no interest in understanding whether or not government programs to “combat global warming” are effective!
You are comfortable with the fact that your tax dollars (assuming you pay tax) are spent on programs that may or may not have a MEASURABLE benefit. Right?
Naw, they’re thinking “Heh – our judges will show THEM!”
Wexit.
True North reports that Mayor John Muhammad Tory of Toronto has declared May 28th for women who menstruate. Is there a special flag they raise at city hall for that?
I forgot to mention that Mayor Tory is celebrating all people who menstruate, not just women.
Now that one is pure gold!
That would be a red flag, would it not?
I hope all the men on this site who have done the hard duty made time to have children. It’s important to keep your genes in the pool. One suspects civilization depends on it.
Hard duty yields good times… and everyone loves a song or two:
Manitoba premier is complaining to Big Chief Gay Eagle With No Balls, about a big annual Pow Wow to be held in violation of Covid 19 rules. In other whiny indian news, a couple of workers in the education system of an indian reserve have been charged with fraud. I guess the police didn’t get the message that Blackie got rid of Harper’s financial accountability rules.
When I was much younger, I considered working on the rigs for a summer. My father, who knew many of the foremen and toolpushes in the local area, refused to let me. He figured there were less dangerous ways of earning a paycheque. A lot of those same foremen and toolpushes were missing fingers or had suffered some similar injury.
I ended up working 3 summers in a nearby oil refinery, which had its own share of hazards including hydrofluoric acid and hydrogen sulphide gas.
Thinking back on that, I’m glad I’m too old and too smart for that sort of thing.
Definitely a young man’s game. I worked at a pulp mill in BC for year when young. I was amazed at just how many crap jobs the guy on the bottom had to do, I was the guy on the bottom.
35 years Oilfield and still counting. I’m writing this from one of the few rigs still operating now. Just in a much better work environment and from a better position than I was 35 years ago slinging that chain around drill pipe.
I worked as a lease hand on a Dbl – 1 step lower than roughneck. (5 rings on on the horn and I went a running getting samples…LOL – we were only putting in Casing)…and always seemingly doused in diesel fuel.
My last bit of duty was to shovel wet cement (lots of it), from underneath the drilling deck with 4′ overhead clearance – 2:30 AM on a December night with -20C temps. We had just finished drilling the casing piping and they were getting ready to weld on the BOP so as to actually start the Real drill.
That’s when I noticed buddy sitting in his Warm heated leather Diamond Tuffed diesel welding truck chilling and having a coffee waiting for us to finish preparing his work area when the thought hit me “WTF am I doing here…??? ”
Thus started the thought to become a welder (which happened later on) – Then to QC inspector – now QA inspector.
When I was in high school, a number of my classmates laughed at me for spending so much time studying. I was looking ahead to going to university while they figured that they could make more money than me working on the rigs.
During my senior undergrad year, two of my detractors showed up on campus. I think they caught on that I wasn’t such a dummy after all, and they signed up as freshman engineering students.
After he finished his degree, one of them ended up in Australia with a drilling company there. The last time I heard, he was closer to its head office in Europe.
The other one went back on the rigs after he graduated, but, presumably, with different duties. The last story I heard about him was that he narrowly missed being on the Ocean Ranger.
Worked rigs in the 80’s. Mostly singles and doubles. Never had the “luxury” of a mud can, a burlap bag would suffice. In the video, you see them hook a chain to drop the Kelly into the floor, that is a result of an unlevel floor.
A video of tripping in or out to circulate for logging or cementing would really give an idea of ” the dance”.
Had a driller who in winter, -20 to -40 with no mud can, used to think it was funny to pop a wet stand and cover us with mud. We would have mud amour suits from the frozen mud on arms and legs. Only the elbows and knees wouldn’t freeze. We could really move and would have beaten their connection time by a mile.
Good times.
My 2 sons did this for about 5 years. All across the west, fighting if there were no girls, drinking and partying and fighting sometimes just cuz it felt good. I gave them good home schooling on the ranch and when freeze up came they would head home and help me until break up. Usually part way through spring calving. They were always glad to get back to the rig. Better grub and the rig push was nicer than the old man.
Sorry that looks too much like work. I’ll just keep my cushy inside job with heat in winter and a/c in summer. Hats off to those dudes though!
Many years ago, I was on a logging job on a well that the company I was working for at the time was drilling. It was in the middle of winter, complete with temperatures near -40 C.
I was there representing the company, so I didn’t do much. In that business, there’s a lot of hurry up and wait and I did a lot of the latter as it takes time to run a logging tool up and down the hole, particularly when taking readings. Then there’s the time required if additional work is needed, such as perforating the casing and checking to see if there’s something in the formation.
While I was waiting, I was keeping warm in either a car or in the on-site doghouse. The roughnecks were well-dressed for their work with snowmobile suits being common apparel. Between those suits and their dashing about the rig, they didn’t have to worry about being cold.
I too worked about 9 months in 1963 for a well logging and perforating outfit. Decided it was not for me and I moved on to better things. Drove the truck to the site and operated the cable spool. Hours and schedule were long and unpredictable. Got out before winter set in.
Don’t regret it since I learned a lot on that job and it motivated me in a good direction.
At The Wellsite (1963)
That looks familiar. Most of the recording equipment was still analog when I was involved with logging during the late 1970s, but some of the data was being digitized.
That was around the time when data filtering methods such as the Fast Fourier Transform were just starting to be used. Most of the plots were far from what one saw in manuals and textbooks and, unless there were clear peaks, it was hard to tell what was represented.
Thanks for that. Canadians back then were completely unaware that any ‘oil’ came from Kanehduh, and still think that at this late date.
It wasn’t that way while I was growing up in NE B. C. Back then, there were two major industries: farming and oil. I went to school with people whose fathers, like mine, were involved with the oil business in one form or another.
Our families were the epitome of the old bumper sticker: “Oil feeds my family and pays my taxes”.
Do the oil riggers in the video vote Liberal? / s
Let me rephrase that.
Do the oil riggers vote?
Yea, we vote.
You may be surprised to learn that rig hands read and write and do math in their heads quite well. Faster than someone with a calculator at times and knew stuff that you didn’t. They always asked for newspapers, if I was going to town. Lotta stuff debated in the Doghouse when drilling 3 meters an hour, at all hours of the day or night. A lot of these guys farmed some big spreads in Saskatchewan and Alberta. during the spring/fall. Businessmen. Learned a lot about grain farming/ranching. Good with their hands too. Stock traders, as well and not the pennies although there were a few of those.
Heh, yes I get a kick out of the “Rig-Pig” stereotypes people still have. Of course there may still be some “blow throughs” on a few backwater rigs here & there (when it’s booming), but the vast majority of the Oilfield today is educated and professional.
Honestly as pointed out earlier we earn good money, pay high taxes, educate our children, read the newspaper, discuss politics and even vote (heh).
Paul:
There’s a rig parked on the grounds of the local college in Fort St. John. Apparently, that institution has a training program for roughnecks.
@B A Deplorable
I didn’t know that. I don’t think most people outside of the industry have a clue about the size and scope of the Oil & Gas Industry.
I have personally attended Certified courses and seminars throughout the years in Alberta, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Houston, Louisiana, Dubai, Aberdeen, Singapore at well established dedicated oilfield training colleges and facilities. Not to mention Industry Safety certifications in many more countries for the “standards” like First Aid, WHIMIS, H2S, Blowout Prevention, and a plethora of survival certifications HUBA, HELISEA, BST and others I can’t remember offhand. All of these Re-certifying every 2 – 3 years including dedicated in-house company certifications & “Competency’s” along with particular customer requested certifications as for Shell, Exxon, BP and hundred other producers, who have their own training camps you must attend and certify if you work on many of their facilities……………..it never stops.
Paul:
Like I mentioned in an earlier posting, many of the people I grew up with were associated with the oil industry. They either worked directly in it or in a supporting business, or at least one of their relatives or friends did. Even one of my high school teachers went to work on pipelines during his summers.
When I started university, I became aware of just how little people outside of the industry knew what went on. Some, like a lot of the Lotuslanders I got to know, particularly while I was at UBC, were smug about it.
Maybe I’m biased, having a blue collar upbringing.
Most of my formal training in the business came through mandatory safety sessions, though I spent two boring days in a course on basic reservoir engineering. The reason it was boring was that I already knew much of the material, having learned it through two undergrad courses in fluid mechanics and two more in thermodynamics. What little that was new to me could have been covered in less than 2 hours.
@B A Deplorable
You do seem to have a good grasp of the Industry and keen memory with some vivid story telling.
Myself I’m 3rd generation Oilfield, my son is 4th. It’s all I know professionally, but it has provided a good life for me and all my family. I currently have the option of an early retirement, seriously considering it after my current project finishes this fall. Thankfully conservative values and frugality combined with years of hard work can accommodate if I so choose.
Paul:
Thanks.
My total time in the oil business was less than 3 years, including my undergrad summers. I was never involved with drilling or production but preferred to be in the processing end of it as it made the most use of what I studied in university.
But, as I mentioned earlier, my father was a machinist who worked on a lot of oilfield equipment so I got to not only hear about it from him but actually see some of it at the shop.
My involvement with the business now is as an investor.
In a side story, while I was finishing my last degree about 20 years ago, I was a teaching assistant for a certain course. I found out that one of my students used to work in the industry, so we ended up swapping stories about our experiences. It was funny watching the other students give us strange looks, wondering what we were talking about (“downhole”, “TDT logs”, “wellhead”).
It’s all about the timing and strength or you could loose your life. What a great video letting people see what the Oil Rig is all about and the people who man them Roughnecks. More Canadians need to watch this especially people from Cities that want the oil field gone this is like Ontario’s Manufacturing jobs the West has Oil Fields and this is the type of work they do damn hard work!
While I was at UBC, I tried explaining to my fellow Vancouverites what it’s like in the oil industry. They thought that I was some dumb hillbilly for having worked in the business, because, apparently, I was doing nasty things to Mommy Gaia.
Most of them wouldn’t have known what real work was like.
A Dylan Thomas quote around that
“A job is death without dignity” as opposed to real work
During my time in the oil business, I got dirty a lot of times. During my second undergrad summer, I came home tired and sore after packing around tools that we needed for the repairs we made. I even had to haul welding cable up the side of a distillation column that was around 70 m high.
Many of the Lotuslanders I mentioned that to had little idea of what I was talking about.
Yep…4/0 welding Cable 50′ long got some weight….don’t ask me how I happen to know that..!!
My father collected all sorts of scrap metal, much of which he planned on using for the model engines he worked on. Some of that included old welding cable.
I sold that for scrap and made a nice chunk of money from it. I paid for a some in-town expenses for a few trips to the house I inherited.
Ever been a juggie? Pull a bit of that cable for exercise. A one time one off job, plus stomping on the jugs along the coal pits west of Edmonchuk. After a day of that, all you want to do is eat and then sleep.
Oh, and while I’m at it…ever been to sea Billy? Try hauling a 3 inch hawser across the bottom and loop it over the bollard and not breath heavy. Run to the next one.
BA @ 12:58 – Mommy Gaia filled their gas tanks in Blaine, with the same stuff run down the pipe from Edmonton showing up at the pump in Burnaby at about 35% more in price than in Blaine, Wash.
If I was Premier of AB, I’d definitely explain the laws of supply and demand, by shutting the Trans Mountain pipeline down to Washington State and the whole of BC. For a day or 7 just to let it sink in. Suddenly, no ferries to Victoria, fishing boats catching herring, air flights from Vancouver or Seattle, Tacoma, et al. No trains headed east with Chicom crap for Wally Mart or Rona and Canadian Tire. They’d be hiking up Lonsdale Ave to get to British Properties, way up there in the North Shore clouds and rain. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA1. Yeah, I’m that evil.
Nah, I feel for those outside the Lower Mainland who have to put up with the Yiippie crap that live in downtown Vancouver.
Some of the Lotuslanders I knew wouldn’t think of driving an automobile, let alone filling the fuel tank with a vile hydrocarbon liquid.
Part of their reaction to what I was talking about was because I said that I sometimes had to work outside in all sorts of weather. I don’t know if I told anyone there about doing corrosion inspections on bare steel pipe in -40 C. The fact that I would have even mentioned such a low temperature would have caused their brains to seize. After all, those were people who’d panic at a few snowflakes falling onto the street but wouldn’t think of heading off to some ski resort.
“It’s all about the timing and strength or you could loose your life”
That may be true on the surface, but what I think allot of people overlook is that each and every one of those guys, or most of them, have a real ambitions to excel and rise above those starter positions. Most of them will in a healthy Industry if they stick with it and continue to learn and grow with all the tools available to them.
Every Oil & Gas company has it’s roots somewhere on a rig floor. It’s only in fairly modern times that the big Corporate world overtook the reigns at the executive levels and have implemented protections for themselves and anyone with a BA to PhD.
Don’t show that clip to Blackie. He might get butt hurt to learn what real men do. And could do to him, given the chance, in a world with poetic justice.
I’ve heard stories about what happens to scouts if they’re caught at a wellsite. I’m sure that a crew of roughnecks might give him similar treatment.
Would you clarify what a “scout” is in this context? I don’t know, but I’d like to.
A spy. You can save millions of dollars if you know what’s in a field before you dig a hole. You might want to raise or lower your bid on some property.
Scouting is a form of legal information gathering.
A lot of information about a well is publicly available, such as its location and the ownership of the parcel of land it’s on. But, at least when I was in the business more than 40 years ago, what’s underneath the surface isn’t always clear. What looks like a promising formation in the survey data could turn out to be unproductive, so the only way to make sure is to actually drill. Even then, there’s often a lot of secrecy as that parcel of land might be on top of a large reservoir, the extent of which might not be known.
A scout is someone is hired by a competitor to figure out what’s going on. Many of them had previous experience on rigs, so they usually know what to look for, particularly if the well turns out to be productive. If so, the company that hired that person might be interested in leasing land near that site because there could be a lot of money at stake.
Usually, those observations are made from a safe location, such as a public road. The scout can sit in a vehicle and watch with a pair of binoculars because it’s hard to prevent that sort of thing.
However, I’ve heard stories of some who were a bit daring and actually went onto the wellsite and looked around. If found out, they’re quickly escorted off the property, often unceremoniously. It’s not unusual for them to have suddenly developed “car trouble” or some such thing.
As it turns out, that’s not the only form of gathering information. The company I first worked for after I finished my B. Sc. periodically circulated a form in which we were to mention if we heard any rumours about drilling activities or where certain rigs were going, as well as where we heard it.
Oil, like mining, depends a lot on scuttlebutt.
Isn’t that what a “LANDSMAN” does..??
A lot of data of what’s underground is vague. A number of features could appear as a productive region in a formation, so drilling is necessary to make sure.
When such uncertainty exists and a certain company starts drilling at a given location, competitors often take notice. There’s always the question of “What do they know that we don’t?” Scouts are hired help provide an answer.
I don’t recall ever meeting or dealing with any landsmen, but, from what I understand, they’re the people who negotiate terms and conditions with the land owners, relying on what is known or believed to be known about the formation in question.
Tight Holes – meaning “drill site is off limits to outsiders” – are where scouts would set up to spy on the competition.
MikeT:
From what I’ve heard, scouts aren’t welcome on site, regardless of the status of the well.
Then again, the company I used to work for was notoriously paranoid. Just about any information about its activities were treated as proprietary, even if that same information was freely available in the public domain.
BA 1:43
No, Scouts are definitely not welcome at tight holes. However, being such, the potential reward is too great to pass up.
I read an article where a scout claimed to be a trapper. He insisted he be given a job as he claimed the rig scared off the furry critters. That time it worked.
MikeT:
That’s a good story. The fact that he got away with it is amazing. I’ve heard of how some scouts were treated if caught. Tampering with their motor vehicles was just the start.
They are making a connection. Period. “Stabbing” anything on one of these units is done with a stabbing valve…to control a blow out, or “kick”. A kick is burping fluid (mud) out of the well bore, because the weight of mud in the hole is exceeded by the borehole pressure somewhere down below. Generally the well is “shut in” and they build up the mud weight to exceed whatever the borehole pressure below is expected to be, with a margin of error. Drilling will re-commence, when done. A blow out is when the well bore clears it’s throat so to speak and everything is blown out of the well, mud, pipe everything. That’s when you call for “Help”. I’ve seen a few kicks, some rather minor ones and some really whites of their eyes types. The eyes stick out because the rest of them is covered in grey mud and I mean covered. I only drilled a dud wildcat well once, the rest of them (all 532, from 300 m to 5700 m deep in every western Province) were drilled in known areas where the pressures are generally known. Still had a few surprises, though. Crews need to be on their toes and observant on connections for “hints”, no matter where they are.
These guys are pretty good at their jobs, like a dance really and they keep a clean work area, even while tripping, usually the messiest operation on a rig. That “mud can” helps. Still using a spinning chain, which in Canader has gone by the wayside on most rigs, in lieu of hydraulic driven pipe spinners, both top and bottom drives. Saves fingers! Up here you won’t see civvies either, flame retardant coveralls are the norm.
I also drilled a few hundred thousand feet of diamond drill holes as well in my career as a Geologist, Quebec, Ontario, Saskatchewan, BC and Yukon. I got tales and a photo history of both industries.
Hey PO’ed, I’m a 35 year service rig hand, I stuck around so long that I helped start a company with some partners. I would love to listen to your stories and see your pictures. I spent 3 years working in Siberia back in the 90’s on a project. I’ve put 3 daughters through university, paid for their weddings and put an ex-wife in a nice financial position. lol. You are right about the changes. No comparison to the old days.
The rigs weren’t the only source of good money in the oil business.
My father was a machinist and he made a lot of overtime working on stuff for rigs. He knew how important it was and that any unnecessary delays would cost money.
As a result, he paid for most of my university expenses while I was an undergrad, the rest coming from what I earned during my summers at the oil refinery. The house my parents lived in was paid off within 15 years and, whenever he bought a new truck, he earned that money back within months.
A farmer’s “second job”…water hauler, vac truck, welder, skidder driver, logger, can’t grow much in winter. If you’ve got equipment sitting in the yard, better used in some other manner and earn some more Kanuck Bucks. I spent my spare time buying and selling stocks and not the pennies. I worked as a broker for a couple of years in Vancouver when the Patch was dead and Mining was basically verboten in this country. Back and forth when the NEP was on, never was out of work if mining was still active. Today, Kan-eh-duh is a ghost town for aspiring business minded trades or professionals. Globble Warmenting made sure of that, while Chinah grew. Then we get a “trade leveler” called Peking Flu. Buying any Chinah Junk lately?
I think I’ve mentioned this before.
My ex-broker used to be a roughneck up in NE B. C., working in parts where you probably were and where my parents and I went hunting or fishing when I was younger. That put him in a good position to evaluate stocks in that business as well as those of companies that serve it.
Corb Lund, ‘Roughest Neck Around’.
Corb Lund — ‘Roughest Neck Around’
https://youtu.be/9yXzZTYjUl0
That rig is doing it old school. There aren’t too many rigs still using chain to make connections. Many of the newer rigs are using the power tongs to make connections.
I’ve heard stories of rig accidents where the chains had flipped around a rookie’s head, tightened and then decapitated him.
In 1967, I wanted to work on the rigs. A friend of ours (who would later become my father in law) was good Liberal. Back then the Liberals were the right wing party of Saskatchewan. He phoned our MLA who had a good friend who owned a road construction company. I got a job operating a brand new TD-30 International Harvester bulldozer. Good summer job for a kid who was only 17, and had to get a fake ID just in case the Worker’s Compensation guys came along. .
https://youtu.be/BP_sClCpDsw
In the 90’s, I had a rig next to my farm. The quarter section was owned by FCC, so they didn’t drill on my land to avoid paying damages. I spent a lot of time out there. Interesting, but not my kind of work.
PO’ed in AB wrote it better. Power tongs are used to connect pipes for a producing well.
It’s pipe. “Pipes” is like “sheeps”, Cheers.
Pipe:
“A Long cylindrical section of space surrounded by metal (or FRP – Poly), both cylindrically and throughout its length.” From 1/4″ up to 50″ +. Anything smaller is tubing – anything bigger is either ducting, culvert or a very long pressure vessel…IMO
Metallic Pipe can be seamless or welded. Plasma – ERW – SAW – Can be Straight or Spiral. Can be Extruded or U n O’d and it comes in literally hundreds of metallurgical specifications. From mild steel to Titanium.
“Pipes” is like “sheeps”
Heh. I should have searched around a bit before using the wrong words. PO’ed in AB will likely run me off for that.
http://insideenergy.org/2014/11/29/ie-questions-whats-a-roughneck/
Funny, that article makes no mention of Robert Heinlein’s novel Starship Troopers…..
After seeing that video from Rebel News yesterday with Keean Bexte escorted off of Rideau Cottage, I realized that one group I have not heard much from during the Covid-19 emergency is the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. I checked out its website and there is not as much there as one might hope for given the following: the effective suspension of Parliament until September; the Supreme Court of Canada hasn’t heard a case since March; the various bans on religious services; limits on freedom of association and limits on mobility rights between provinces. I did however find one page that might be useful to the readership: https://ccla.org/coronavirus-update-emergency-measures-by-province/
That is unexpected, brings back memories! Thank you for posting that Kate. Spent way more hours at minus 40 than plus 30 or whatever it is in this video. And yeah, had my inevitable close encounter with mortality too. Still around, clearly, thankfully. And I do remember reading in the back of the in house WCB periodical in their waiting room months later, that Mining killed a guy a week on average. Sounded about right with what I’d seen and experienced. You relied on each other to stay alive, working 12 or 16 hour shifts, 7 days a week, for 2 or 3 weeks at a stretch. Truly had a band of brothers feeling to it, and later conversations with relatives who had actual combat experience seemed to corroborate that. And also that you remember the funny stuff, like bee lining it in the “borrowed” rig ambulance and bouncing straight through the bushes in front of the Slave Lake hotel as the Mounties rolled up to, uh, end a little barroom enthusiasm that had gotten out of hand I guess. Wasn’t us!
During my undergrad summers in the aforementioned oil refinery, I saw just how easy it was to get hurt and how quickly that could happen. (There’s a reason why I always kept my hardhat on while I was out in the units.) There were times that when I went through the plant gate at quitting time in one piece, I had a good day.
And I recall my share of funnier incidents, such as the time when I managed to keep a bunch of my colleagues out of jail during a company golf tournament…..
Riots in Minneapolis Minnesota protesting the death of George Floyd again tonight.
They broke out all the windows in the Minneapolis Police Department Third Precinct. Then they decided to loot the local Target, and loot and burn out the Auto Zone. https://tinyurl.com/y93nntfq
The fourth video in the linked post is the last 10 minutes of Mr. Floyd. The EMTs written report released Wednesday said he had no pulse when they got to him. https://tinyurl.com/ydzdb67s
This was as much a murder as when Minneapolis Police Officer Mohamed Noor shot an unarmed Justin Damond when she walked up to their squad car in her nightgown.
Years ago I was at a shooting range in Sarasota owned by 2 SWAT officers. There was a small riot in the black area and one officer said to me, “Any time there is a civil breakdown it is an excuse for the blacks to go shopping.” Nothing has changed it seems.
https://youtu.be/9yXzZTYjUl0
Brought back a lot of memories.
“It’s 35 below or it’s 98 above…”
More from the well-head; various locations.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77ZIunjL1BU
Keep your hard-hat on and count your fingers!
Some of those incidents would have eventually made a few fishing companies some money.
Breaking news: Over 100,000 have died of Covid-19 in the USA because of President Tweety! Great news!
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/coronavirus/
I have been watching CNN (FREE preview) and they are horrified that Tweety refuses to apologize or lower the flag to half mast at the White House!
Earlier today, CNN’s Dana Bash got an exclusive interview today with Jolting Joe Biden in the backyard of his home. He came across as Presidential and did not sniff her hair.
I once worked on a rig in 2002 in Sundre Alberta. We were drilling for natural gas for a mid-size junior company. I saw the roughnecks do their thing at a distance. It was amazing. I went up there just the one time because my work was in the lab washing rock cuttings. The drying machine was a reconstituted ‘Shop Vac’ in a reconstituted trash bin that some genius made. Necessity, being the Mother of Invention.
It was in the month of February and my stint there was concurrent with the Winter Olympics which took place in Salt Lake City Utah that year. The ‘shack’ had a TV. I never enjoyed the Games as much as I did that time. The 12 to 18 hour days were long but time flew anyway.
Temperature at the rig was -30°C.
Not being used to repetitive work like that, afterwards I had a sore upper arm between the shoulder joint and elbow joint. The four muscles – three in the anterior compartment (biceps brachii, brachialis, coracobrachialis), and one in the posterior compartment (triceps brachii) needed regular massages to feel normal again.
Generally, it was an experience I enjoyed and will never forget. The people were quite fun and all business. And, the “Well”, in the end, was a producer!
I believe the “Shop-Vac sample dryer” was invented by someone from Kate’s home town.
Before vac-dried samples, they were dried in little pans on the propane stove. Horizontal drilling started in the early ’90s when just about everything about drilling was still old school as shown in the video. No computers, no cellphones, clockwork drilling recorders. Drying oil-filled samples on the stove was really smoky and unpleasant, and all the wellsite geologists were looking for some better way. A young guy from Arcola tried the Shop-Vac method with a funnel on the end of the hose to hold the screen full of cuttings, and it worked like a charm. It was adopted by most of the geologists working in southeast Saskatchewan within months.
I started out “old school” in the early 80’s. Fry pans and sieves, hand printed mylar & drafting pens, single optic microscope, a in-truck YJ-phone. Had to have everything printed up for the logging truck prints and then run to town ASAP. After those 30 hour wells a 6-8 hour drive, no sleep. Phone and beat on the company geologist’s door and hand it over. Job was done.
Then it was an extension cord (or book a room at the cowboy hotel) from the shuttered gas station outdoor plug, prop the fax machine in a telephone booth to send it to the company, brief discussion with town geologist. Job was done, drive leisurely home.
I once faxed from the Pierceland Bar, the old rotating fax “got that page?”…fax another sheet of downhole log…..two beers! Lot of interested Saturday night customers watching the proceedings. i used to resemble those old cross Atlantic Ocean air pioneer types, with the jerry cans in the truck box. Enough to get you there, drive to town a few times and back home. After 10 PM in those small towns, the gas station was shut. Better have backup. Then we went to Brother typewriters with the 15 pitch wheels and things got neater and faster. Speed was everything in this business. Time was money. Extra time was sleep time. There’s more.
I remember ordering the first fax machine for our oil company office. Cost $2000, and took 6 pages of justification for management.
Had a friend who was a rig site supervisor. He was able to rent a fax machine for his rig.
Result? No more copying morning reports by hand while listening to the wellsite on the phone.
Several weeks later every drilling and completion rig had a fax machine, and their we quite a few in the office.
Wellsite logs came in quickly by fax. We still got the paper copies.
One problem with some early fax machines; the ink on the paper faded. Several times we found wellfiles with blank or extremely faded reports.
When I was in the business, we used teletype (Telex or TWX) either in real time or sending batch messages by producing them on paper tape.
The oil company I worked for also made use of portable computer terminals. They were about the size of an early laptop, but they were connected using an audio phone coupler–no modems back then.
Back then, dedicated word processors were entering the workplace, though typewriters were still common.
Horizontal drilling in Sask started in the 80’s and we (Sceptre Resources) were drilling wells in the heavy oil areas (Tangleflags) in Western Saskatchewan. Several of the clever engineers wondered what the technology could do in a light oil reservoir in SE Saskatchewan and Shell drilled Midale in Aug 1989 and I drilled two wells at Gainsbourough Sask. in Sept / Oct ’89. My two wells came on producing 2400 bbl per day and 1800 BOPD and offset vertical wells that were in the 250 BOPD range. Needless to say management was pleased and we were off to the races drilling horizontally.
I used to love getting a chance to visit the rigs.
My boss asked once why I liked being in SE Sask so much and I can remember replying that driving around Calgary you get the finger all the time but driving down the road in Sask once u are off the main highways everyone u met waved hello.
Where I used to live in Medicine Hat during the late 1980s was near the city limits. I remember seeing an early attempt at horizontal drilling in the river valley across the street from the street from my building. I have to admit that I was rather surprised to see the derrick tilted at an angle.
My first directional well was SE of Calgary, out where the tumble weeds grew. SE corner of the SD, neighbor wouldn’t let ’em drill on their property, because there was nothing to indicate the rig couldn’t be spudded and the hole drilled vertically. The directional driller worked alone and basically calculated the chord for each joint of drill pipe to track his progress and be where he needed to be. I used mine to check his math and we’d compare notes on each drill down. Learned a lot on that job. Town geologist was amazed I knew what I was doing. I told him I’d been drilling “slant holes” in mining, currently this one was about number 1500 or so. Petroleum geologists aren’t taught some of the basics it seems. Things got faster and programs developed to do what they do today. I still have my horizontal/vertical drilling software program on one of my computers. All you really need is basic trigonometry to do it. I’ve got an Excell program which plots in 3D, anywhere up to 5 wells. It’s kinda big. I got taught trig by an ex RCAF navigator/bombadier. Lancasters. His nickname was (Wild) Bill Horsnall. A diminutive man, you never pissed him off in class. He’d throw you out…literally. I think he knew jujitsu or some RCAF version of it. I still remember my trig math/functions.
Rebel reporter kicked out of Trudeau press conference?
https://www.rebelnews.com/rcmp_grab_reporter_just_before_trudeau_press_conference_dragged_out_by_the_cops
Too bad Canada never had a Bill of Rights. I guess that was too American?
well rd there is something vague about free speech in Canada but Twadels does not recognize it.
We do have a Bill of Rights. Passed by Parliament in September 1960. The PM was John Diefenbaker, a westerner. Look it up.
Thanks Sheila. I usually just mention something and someone smart always finds it.
Rebel should hire a native reporter. See if he gets the same treatment. Seriously, Canadians should be appalled at the nasty treatment a reporter is given in a country with a supposedly free press. It seems that journalists from other news outlets are quite indifferent to the way this action threatens voices that choose to criticize the government. There is little integrity left among the Canadian Press.
L L , they would have to find a native who is not at the trough. OOOOOH raciest.
LL…that is an Awesome Idea…!! make it from the Wet’suwetn…no.??
I’ve known a few natives that would do it. They loved the thought of being a sh*t disturber.
It’s some of the people you work with in The Patch that are memorable. I would work for the same oil company going on a few years, to the point you were “family” to the crews on a couple of the rigs contracted by them. I’d even Baby Sit other Geos who were screwing up on their rigs, if I had a spare moment from mine and it wasn’t too far to drive. Between wells the ‘dud’ roughnecks would be weeded out, and after several years and a few wells you’d run into some of those “duds” on the brake handle of another rig, with a whole new attitude. Some of the Tool Pushers (called Rig Managers now) were real characters to remember. Heavy on the character. Same for the “Engineers” or Drilling Supervisors now. As a mining Geologist initially, I ran the show out there as Drill Soup and Geologist especially early times in Saskatchewan, but the Drill Soup’s in Alberta and BC did the heavy lifting on the big rigs in the Patch. I got to run casing and cement surface and final as a Geologist, believe it or not.
I was hard core, old school, too. Screw up and “see that road? It’s yours, take it”. It got to a point that the roughneck in question would run himself off, just with a sideways look and a growl from me. Don’t miss a sample or screw up a core point, or casing point and the drillers loved it. I saved them a lot of paperwork. Tool Pushers, too. On some jobs the Drill Soup would just ask “Who’r ya runnin’ off tiday?’ Despite the rules, whiskey was a Nyquil and I did my share. On average I slept about 2-3 hours a day doing top hole drilling and some times 3 days would go by with catnaps, maybe on the short, fast holes in S, SE Alberta and southern Sask. Those wells were done in 36 hours. Graduating to the deeper stuff and especially Foothills wells with repeat sections, where the Geologist was relied on to “know where you are?” A common question. Nope. Hey, I was honest about it! Didn’t sleep much on those wells either. The really deep Foothills stuff were the dreams of geologists. I used to drive home from Sundre AB on bit trips, it took so long. Places like Nordegg, Hinton area would take 24 hours round trip and I did a lot of “travelling” to the hot springs and did some hikes up mountains because they were there. Some Geos went fly fishing. I drove every dirt track from Grande Prairie to Cochrane and could do it in the dark with my eyes shut. NE BC was the same. There is nothing like the whisper of the wind on a stretch of gravel and waving grain in the middle of summer….out there. Miles from anyone. You can see sometimes forever out there. Never find me spending time in an office environment much for the 30 odd years I worked as a Geologist, oil or hardrock.
Here’s a “tale” for ya. I got a call one day, just finishing up logging the well and getting ready to drive the 14 hours to Calgary, to drop everything, let the loggers finish up and do the end of well stuff and head over to another rig drilling for the company. Send your report via hotshot. Sure. That Geologist had met an untimely end on the road to town and back. DOA. Moved right in after separating his gear and started to get caught up on the work piling up, so I could pick a core point and drill to intermediate casing. Late that night, got a call on DOA Geo’s phone from some young lady who apparently wasn’t in the loop on his demise. I was expecting the wife or someone similar to give me directions on what to do with his “stuff” out here, so answered the phone. Big mistake. “Who’re you? Your voice isn’t the same.” You know the drill: “Dave’s not here.” Repeat as necessary. “Dave” had a girlfriend…ooops. She called a few more times and I managed to get it to her that “Dave’s not here. Phone the Corporation if you must, I’m a bit busy right now”. Click. Last I heard from that one. The Drill Soup had a chuckle over that, then proceeded to fill me in. Teh Patch is like a soap opera at times, believe me on that. There were a few more eye poppers on that job that I won’t reveal, maybe in a book some long time from now. Like i said…I gots “stories”.
The stories are the best PO’ed , write that book!
Did send that video link of Kate’s to my kids though, to illustrate what ‘n the heck the old guy’s grumbling ’bout every once in a while ’bout why this or that creaky old body part is hurtin something fierce…
Speaking of old injuries: I had a period of back backism. Serious stuff, too. A common affliction to rig hands of which the Company Man, an old Roughneck himself could attest to on just about every rig you worked at. Drilled around Rocky Mountain House for a while and went to the chiro there to get straightened out a few times. The worst time was way up the Alaska Highway on some job, cutting a core and even the core hand was having a bad back day. Mine was toast, as I could barely creep to the rig floor to recover that core, measure it and other stuff, couldn’t bend over so I’d get the Ruffies to do what I needed for me, sampling here there and measure it all up. I joked, now you can do my job. I slept on the shack floor and when I woke my right leg would be numb. Driving home after 4 weeks of this was tough. Stop and walk around the truck a few times, then drive some more. Took a year to work it out, using one of those Obus Form seat thingies, or I couldn’t drive. Finally licked it going to physiotherapy in between jobs (You ain’t working, you ain’t paid) over a year. Never came back, after that.
I think you and I could sit down with a good bottle of single malt and tell a few. It would be a damn good time. One of the best characters i met was a Texan who went by G.A. In the camp one night someone asked him what it was like to be from the state of Texas. Old G.A. got up and lost his shit. He said “NO!” “Texas isn’t a state!” It’s Texas.” That stuck with me and i now realize why Western Canada is in the situation it’s in.
I met a lot of Okies, Texans and Nebrask’ns …out there. Oil and mining jobs. Specialists either fishing, drilling sideways or logging some specialized tool that we didn’t run up here. Nice guys, great accents and couldn’t figure out us primitives living “Noth uff 49”. They couldn’t take the cold, even in summer. Can’t drink whiskey anymore and coffee is even off my “meds’ these days. Shed a tear for me. I’d still tell the tales, though. Boy, CAPTCHA is getting annoying, must be a Liberul.
I don’t know about the Nebraskans. I lived there for a few years and worked there for 26. The Minister of Finance is a native and has no nerve endings when it comes to the cold. He was living with his brother for a while where they kept the windows cracked in the winter and one’s breath was always visible. Sister-in-law moved into her own room. As context and when I moved there the first time, an arborist was coming to look at some of the trees in my back yard. I was wearing a shin length sheepskin and might as well have been buck naked. It was way negative Fahrenheit with minus 75 degrees wind chill. This was in Omaha which is actually in the southeast area of the state. When attempting to inhale, the wind would form a vacuum so you’d choke instead of breathe . Tree guy behaved as if I were a ‘submoron’ (stolen from Insty commenter).
Outside of extra inning night games at Candlestick, I’ve never been so cold in my life.
I remember a service hand from Texas was up on one of our completion rigs.
At -10C he said, “Fu*k this is cold!” We told him it was a warm winter day.
Next day, -20C he said “Now this is cold! We told him it was cool.
Next day, -42C and a howling wind; he meekly asked “Is this cold?” Yep this is cold we replied, but don’t worry it can get even colder.
It ain’t “cold” until the track on the snow machine don’t spin when you rev it, or the battery freezes up in an Australian Geologist’s “new/old” truck and the lights go dim. I survived -64 below at Cree Lake Saskatchewan, 1979. The trees would kaaa-pop and the ice would go skeeeeeww bang, when it split.
It’s in weather like that one needs to keep the machinery running just to make sure it still operates.
I remember being scheduled go to a certain well that was being worked on to see if it couldn’t produce. I was delayed by a few days because the crew on site lost steam as its boiler wouldn’t work due to the cold.
I was working in northern Saskatchewan in 1979, at my own drill camp when I got a plaintive call on the HF from our geotech. Did I know how to fix one of those oil space heaters? They didn’t think to pack a backup airtight wood stove in the plane. There they are, in the snow, post 4 PM winter, -40 odd below and no heat for the canvas tent to keep thing thawed while away working or even sleeping. They had 3 & 5 Stars but even so. Even the Coleman wasn’t cooperating. Flashlight only. Dimming by the minute.
Walked them through the settings on the carburetor (which was missing a few parts) and jury rigged the damned thing to get it going. I had my own issues with those damned things. If mine had an old one, I’d swap the damned thing out before heading out on a job and test it before going. Spent enough time out there at -50/60 curled around a slow burning fire and not setting myself on fire. Stars are bright though. Nothing like the north woods in the dark lit by the moon. Quiet except the odd tree pop. Oh, sometimes you hear the wolves howl. I’d answer back. Really peaks their interest.
While the whack job leader of the Ontario NDP rants about Hitler Doug Ford, True North reports that one of her MPPs is praising a Palestinian terrorist leader. Funny how the media covers her rants about Ford and ignores her Jew hating MPPs.
John, that’s because the corporate media cartel detest both Ford and pro-Israel Jews.
Now that Great Leader Kim Sung Trudeau has finished establishing his dictatorship, he can turn to other things. His bought and paid for media are excited that he will be co-hosting the UN conference on handling the China virus. Expect lots of money thrown out the door to shit hole countries. Nothing to do with that UN security seat of course.
Well it is daylight in Minneapolis.
The looting is still going on, but very desultorily.
No, the Minneapolis Police have not tried to stop any of it.
They forted up in the Third Precinct Building and defended it.
The Auto Zone business across the street? Not so much. It is a burnt out hulk.
KSTP TV 5 had a reporter and camera crew in the Target Parking lot, and they were watching groups of kids still walking out of the store with bins of loot at 6am. They showed the store early last night. At least half the stock was already looted and gone. A half dozen Minneapolis Police squad cars pulled into the Target lot, drove through without stopping, and back onto Lake Street (the main drag). The reporter described it with a bit of disgust in his voice. They have done nothing visible to secure any buildings and stop the looting.
They showed a lot of looted businesses all up and down Lake Street. They were even looting in the Uptown district, which is miles away.
The rioters burnt out a big warehouse building, and a large, hopefully unoccupied and under construction apartment building, which is a complete loss. HUGE Fires overnight. The smoke showed up on weather radar. Fires still burning this AM.
One dead. A looter shot by the shop owner. They did arrest the shop owner.
CBS National News on WCCO TV 4 is blaming the looting and rioting on the lockdown.
The most popular graffiti is FTP, or F— the police.
The news has identified all four officers. The protesters were also at the house of the officer that rested his knee of George Floyd’s neck. There was a large police presence from other departments facing down those protesters
Hey, just like the Watts Riots. What’s new?
Went out west at 19 to work on the rigs.
Scouted out rigs near Medicine Hat. Saw the top of one in a field about a half mile from the road we were on. Me and two buddies walked over to it to see if there were any job openings. We were asked by the manager how we got there. Told him we walked from the road and he told us we were walking through a firing range and that there could be unexploded shells in the area. The walk back was a little slower.
Wound up working for a pipeline company. Almost got killed twice and nearly lost 2 fingers.
Decided to go to white collar work:)
I know which area you’re referring to. I thought it was interesting that oil industry activity was allowed on the base.
This isn’t what Richard Florida means by ‘post industrial creative class’ is it ?
An enquiry from the GTA asks: ” can’t they work from home” ?
Urban bubbles are full of toxic gas.
Try and explain to the kiddies nowadays that there’s no smartphone “app” for that sort of thing. I’m sure the reaction would be a blank look or “Huh?”
There are times when one has to actually go outside and work on a piece of equipment, regardless of the weather. That hardware is likely essential for the operation of the facility it’s located in and each minute it’s idle or malfunctioning costs money.
During my second summer at oil refinery I mentioned earlier, we had to fix a heat exchanger in one of the units. It just happened to be outside, it was pouring rain, and the equipment wasn’t going to repair itself. We put on whatever rain gear we could, went at it, and got things running properly again, and, yes, we got wet. It was all part of the job.
Urban ‘bubbles’ are full of wealth creation.
Heh, the only “wealth created” in urban bubbles is circulated currency from the government and service industries landing eventually into the hands of Bankers, Insurance & real estate companies, and investment firms. Corrupt Blackfaces included as the bottom feeders here.
Real wealth is created from resources whether minerals, forestry, farming, fishing, and energy to name a few. Then its utilized in the manufacturing markets, which are nearly extinct in Canada. The rest just sucks off and circulates the actual produced wealth from there until it ends up as 400 foot yachts cruising around the Greek islands.
Some wag once said that there are two ways one can make money in the oil business. One is by drilling into the ground. The other, often more lucrative, was on the floor of a stock exchange.
Fuckin A.
” landing eventually into the hands of Bankers, Insurance & real estate companies, and investment firms.”
LOL money does not ‘land’ in the hands of those companies. They earn it and use it to create immense wealth.
“Real wealth is created from resources whether minerals, forestry, farming, fishing, and energy to name a few.”
Apparently Hong Kong and Dubai aren’t ‘real wealth’. You don’t even understand what wealth is. Protip: there’s a reason those industries comprise a smaller and smaller chunk of the economy and investment save perhaps energy. Cities are where the future is made. Get over it.
Pro tip, you comment exactly like a bottom feeder would.
Ahh, that was refreshing.
Comrade President Trump strikes glorious blow for proletariat, will force price ceiling on kulak vendors of insulin.
https://nypost.com/2020/05/26/trump-cuts-cost-of-insulin-for-medicare-enrollees-to-35-a-month/
Thank Trump – Hopefully this will develop more domestic Insulin manufacturing and take it out of the hands of the corrupt and evil Chinese!
F*ck them and the criminal exportation of Fentanyl into North America, close the Border, Trump is on it.
Fentanyl is also made in Wuhan, Chinah. COVID was a side job, I’m guessing.
It’ll probably do the opposite.
Mulroney cashes in on Pot. As I recall Ernie Eves, Julian Fantino and other assorted lawmakers and enforcers want some pie . Mulroney is getting a large slice. I hope the Natives put them out of business
https://leaderpost.com/cannabis-news/meet-the-highest-paid-cannabis-executives-in-north-america-including-brian-mulroney/wcm/b71b0893-e68b-4afe-af6c-0a63f43830b9/
The $14-million from selling canabis, for Brian Mulroney, is a step up from receiving $300,000 in shoebox bribe money from Karl Heinz Schrieber.
Holy shit. Gag me with a spoon. Talk about being high on the food chain!
A dope selling dope….
Hi UnMe
A few days ago you ducked my question:
To the best of your knowledge (backed up by credible science) how much global temperature increase (in Centigrade degrees) is caused by one tonne of CO2 emissions?
1 Tonne CO2 = X degrees C
What is the value of X. No need to be precise – an answer to plus or minus 30% is fine. Cite your sources!
Obviously, unless you know this you have no way to evaluate the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of emissions reduction programs or a carbon tax.
Thanks.
P J , the only response now needed is that CO2 is necessary for life itself. If you want the planet to die and every living thing on it to die reduce CO2 to 150 ppm and you will have achieved your goal. You will of course be dead along with everything else. I use the editorial “you”.
Even before that I would like to see a conclusive proof as to what is the optimal level of earth temperature. Note, stating “it is what it was x years ago because it was so x years ago” does not constitute a proof.
Also even if we were to assume (for the sake of the discussion only) that:
1. Humans were affecting earth temperature.
2. The temperatures were heading in the wrong direction.
3. CO2 was a pollutant
What is a dominant strategy for a low polluting country like Canada given that a dominant strategy for China, India, Russia, Brazil, Mexico, Nigeria etc is to pollute regardless of whether Canada pollutes or not? Since UnMe claims to be economically literate this little application of game theory should not be a problem.
Colonialista,
Your questions about Canada’s strategic options make good sense.
My point is simpler – why do we expend enormous amounts of energy and taxpayer dollars on programs that have not been demonstrated to have any meaningful impact on global temperature?
As far as I can tell, if all provinces had fully endorsed the carbon tax, by 2022 the climate change impact would have been the equivalent of stepping on a thick carpet (air cools with rising altitude – the adiabatic lapse rate). Seriously!
I fully agree with your point.
Mine is simply that even if everything the UnMes are saying was true (and it is not) if we were to ever end up in a climate crisis then we should be as economically strong as possible going into it. Gutting Canadian economy in the face of the impending (imagined) climate crisis is the stupidest thing we could do especially when others do the exact opposite.
Well I don’t know. That’s beyond my point. My point was broader: that human CO2 is indeed increasing world temperatures.
How can you support spending billions on projects or taxes if you have absolutely no idea of whether they do any measurable good?
It looks as though Germany will have spent US $ 110 billion on solar power to defer global warming by 37 hours in year 2100. Is that a good deal for the German taxpayer and the wisest use of the money?
You can more-or-less sorta’ work it out.
CO2 is 0.04% (i.e., 4/100ths of one percent) of the atmosphere, and we bad, evil awful naughty humans contribute 5% of that. Ants contribute 10%.
And CO2 in the atmosphere is increasing – likely our fault – at the rate of 2 parts per million per year.
So statistically speaking, if CO2 is causing global warming, we’re going to be at ~this temperature for many, many thousands of years.
And bear in mind that when the UN IPCC calculates its global warming forecast, it always – only – by deliberate, stated policy – considers human causes. Or in other words, it’s doing its level best to ignore events like the California and Australia wildfires, which have only been going-on forever, and cooling events like the Sun’s current Maunder Minimum, and that it spent over 200 days last year with no sun spots. I mean FFS, they still put Michael Mann’s hockey-stick graph in their report!
Global warming – the human race’s greatest-ever scam, but wait for it……
The most remarkable aspect of this interview between the CBC’s Heather Hiscox and epidemiologist, Dr.David Fisman is that there is no mention of contact tracing in how to deal with Covid-19. Just lockdown, lockdown, lockdown until there is a vaccine or herd immunity.
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/release-of-covid-19-hot-spot-data-in-toronto-can-help-prevent-spread-of-coronavirus-says-epidemiologist/vi-BB14HSOr?ocid=spartanntp
No handouts from Popinjay today, he’s busy hustling for that UN seat.
I drilled a couple of shallow gas wells (Second White Specs) near Taber AB with a super single rig around 2000. It was a green crew except for the tool push but my drilling supervisor had seen it all. About 100 meters or so of the well drilled through an overpressured gassy but tight siltstone formation called the Milk River (some fields actually complete it to commingle in additional gas). I was on the rig floor with the crew on the first connection after penetrating the Milk River. The temporary near instantaneous 2 second geyser of drilling mud after breaking connection to pickup a new joint was a shock and everyone on the floor including me got it good. My Drilling Sup watching safely from inside the drilling shack laughed his ass off. As I quickly learned putting up with the brief kicks in the Milk River was SOP at the time for drilling shallow wells. Once the near wellbore gas was flushed there was no further well control issues (some circulating out migrated gas while tripping) but everything went smooth including cementing. It definitely paid to have experience onsite and that was one time I was literally wet behind the ears. The rig had a power swivel so they didn’t throw chains to make up or break drill pipe. But when I was drilling in southeast Sask in the 90’s I saw a lot of deft handed chain throwing…and met a few drillers and tool pushes with missing fingers. Outside of service rig work (which I think has the dirtiest most dangerous jobs in the biz) I felt the most sorry for the derrickmen who toughed it out somewhat exposed up in the crows nest during tripping ops at night in the minus 30’s in a blustery Sask prairie wind. Definitely a “No Snowflake Zone”.
I started out “old school” in the early 80’s. Fry pans and sieves, hand printed mylar & drafting pens, single optic microscope, an in-truck YJ-phone. Had to have everything printed up for the logging truck prints and then run to town ASAP. After those 30 hour wells a 6-8 hour drive, no sleep. Phone and beat on the company geologist’s door and hand it over. Job was done.
Then it was an extension cord (or book a room at the cowboy hotel) from the shuttered gas station outdoor plug, prop the fax machine in a telephone booth to send it to the company, brief discussion with town geologist. Job was done, drive leisurely home.
I once faxed from the Pierceland Bar, the old rotating fax “got that page?”…fax another sheet of downhole log…..two beers! Lot of interested Saturday night customers watching the proceedings. i used to resemble those old cross Atlantic Ocean air pioneer types, with the jerry cans in the truck box. Enough to get you there, drive to town a few times and back home. After 10 PM in those small towns, the gas station was shut. Better have backup. Then we went to Brother typewriters with the 15 pitch wheels and things got neater and faster. Speed was everything in this business. Time was money. Extra time was sleep time. There’s more.
I drilled past the 2nd White Specks in the early days (1980’s), behind casing in the Taber area. Later I air drilled the White Specks with a service rig NE of Taber in 2000+ and “logging” consisted of a video camera, rigged with the gamma tools…you could watch the gas spurt from cm thick beds and map it by pasting the vid to scale alongside your computer generated geological “log” and the GR log. Technology is every thing now, even real time with the town Geologist watching the same thing you are in the logging truck. Voice contact real time. The holes were low pressure (BBQ levels or lower, but good volume) and the gas was piped to the processing plant using just PVC pipe. Miles of PVC pipe. I lived and worked in a water hauler’s trailer, shared with the mice, hauled last to the rig site. They were already drilling the next hole when i got there. Mud tank a mixing motor in a large livestock tub. No shyte.
RCMP throws Keean Bexte out of the usurper-PM’s news conference.
RCMP is now legally the enemy of the people since it violated the oath to uphold the law.
Ask the folks in High River who the Arse Cee Em Peein’ really work for.
I dunno, was it the frothing Foth who dreamt that one up? Can’t remember now.
And now your Canadians are homophobic bastards story for today. Blacklock reports that a Catholic Church in B.C. is being taken to a human rights hearing because they wouldn’t let their parish hall be used for a pride week fundraiser. Blacklock also reports that teenagers who just graduated from high school can apply for Blackie’s free money this summer simply by sending an application in to a college. It doesn’t matter whether they actually attend the college or not.
Blacklock also reports that teenagers who just graduated from high school can apply for Blackie’s free money this summer simply by sending an application in to a college.
Things sure changed since I was on the dole during the early 1980s. During my first time, I had been unemployed for so long that my time was running out. Becoming desperate, with no job prospects in sight, I made inquiries about what was required to apply for welfare.
Boy, did I get an earful! They wanted to know just about everything about me, such as my finances, including my bank accounts. Fortunately, something came along and I never pursued it any further.
About a year later, I was back on the dole. One prospect on the other side of the country came up and I asked the federal government about getting financial assistance with travel expenses, which, at the time, one could apparently apply for. The civil service critter I spoke with took me to task, nearly accusing me of trying to weasel money out of the government, all because I asked a few questions and wanted more information.
New poll shows Great Leader Kim Sung Trudeau at 52%. Twenty more years of Great Leader and then his son Dear Leader can take over.
Brought back a lot of memories. In the 50’s my father was a Tool Push and we lived in a mobile home that followed the rigs, often on the same site. We were living on a drilling site near Swan Hills when I started school in 1960. Bus came to several rigs sites to take students into Swan Hills to school. That was before the town had side walks. Worked a couple summers on the rigs in 71-73. Dirty noisy work but at about $3.00/hr with lots of overtime it seemed like you were making a killing.
I recall that, during the early 1970s, minimum wage in NE B. C. was $1.50/hr.
During the summer of ’75, I started at the oil refinery at just over $5.00/hr when minimum wage was something like $2.50 or $3.00. Because of the pay, summer jobs at the plant were highly prized. Add in a lot of overtime, particularly during the annual maintenance shutdown, and one could go back to university with a bundle of cash for tuition and books with lots left over for pizza and beer.
Oddly enough, we had a lot of people start at the plant one day and quit a short while later. I guess they didn’t like getting themselves dirty.
Cold Dead Hands
https://calgaryherald.com/news/calgary-gun-shops-file-constitutional-challenge-to-federal-government-firearms-ban/wcm/3761422f-bd33-4e1a-8e18-a116456a6a78/
PM Blackface of Rideau Cottage and Bill Lying Fuck Blair must be reGreta thinking: How Dare They!
Now we’re talking, but I’d like to see the Canadian Constitution Foundation involved.
UnMe, wait a sec! Up above you say:
“Well I don’t know. That’s beyond my point. My point was broader: that human CO2 is indeed increasing world temperatures.”
But you seem to have absolutely no interest in understanding whether or not government programs to “combat global warming” are effective!
You are comfortable with the fact that your tax dollars (assuming you pay tax) are spent on programs that may or may not have a MEASURABLE benefit. Right?
Naw, they’re thinking “Heh – our judges will show THEM!”
Wexit.
True North reports that Mayor John Muhammad Tory of Toronto has declared May 28th for women who menstruate. Is there a special flag they raise at city hall for that?
I forgot to mention that Mayor Tory is celebrating all people who menstruate, not just women.
Now that one is pure gold!
That would be a red flag, would it not?
I hope all the men on this site who have done the hard duty made time to have children. It’s important to keep your genes in the pool. One suspects civilization depends on it.
Hard duty yields good times… and everyone loves a song or two:
Chad Cooke Band – “Oil Man”
https://youtu.be/zOs7Hi8Vt50
Waylon Jennings Sings “Oilmen” with Earl Scruggs Band
https://youtu.be/eCyA_Tm0T08
No it’s not and no it doesn’t. Civilization depends on intellect.
Ok, Karen.
The expanse of Canada is on full display as rather than one pandemic, we have multiple regional epidemics.
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/canada-a-series-of-regional-epidemics-top-doctor-says-as-provinces-hit-snags/ar-BB14Hr8W?ocid=spartanntp
Manitoba premier is complaining to Big Chief Gay Eagle With No Balls, about a big annual Pow Wow to be held in violation of Covid 19 rules. In other whiny indian news, a couple of workers in the education system of an indian reserve have been charged with fraud. I guess the police didn’t get the message that Blackie got rid of Harper’s financial accountability rules.
Greetings citizens,
Calgary welcomes you to their 311 snitch line.
https://twitter.com/cityofcalgary/status/1266151955199483904?s=20
Hi Kate
Thanks for the memories.
Garbage Science.
Chris Martenson PhD tackles Lancet’s recent hit job on HCQ.
https://youtu.be/IUD_wvkNhnk
Heres a twitter feed with additional info.
https://mobile.twitter.com/Arkancideisreal/status/1264032084944814082
“Civilization depends on intellect.”
LOL – did you ever win the lottery then.