Reduction in the work force
You commented that the number of editors in 1961 was 45 and that now you have only 18 (OGJ, Sept. 8, 2003, p. 17). This 60% reduction in the number of people doing roughly the same amount of work is symptomatic of our industry. Computers have increased individual productivity immensely. Reductions in the workforce have followed the individual productivity increase.
However, the work load of the remaining individuals is so much greater that many barely have time to think through the problems that must be dealt with. I see dozens of explorers who spend more time making PowerPoint presentations than working their data. Many of the younger explorers are computer geniuses but can't visualize the subsurface in three dimensions or even tie 2D seismic.
The computer giveth productivity and the management cuteth away the workforce.
William W. Gray
Velocity Databank Inc.
Houston
Barranca refinery
In looking through some old copies of the Journal I read again your article (OGJ, Oct. 14, 2002, p. 15). You write about the Williams North Pole Alaska refinery and how it is used to get just a part of the products from the crude oil. This reminded me of a job that I worked on once in South America.
During the years 1951-1955, I worked at the refinery at Barrancabermeja in Colombia. Up river from Barranca several hundred miles, near a town named La Dorada, was a crude oil producing field from which oil was normally barged down the river to the Barranca refinery. Refined products were then barged back up to the La Dorada area.
The management at Barranca decided to build a small topping plant at La Dorada so that naphthas could be retained there for blending into a low-grade gasoline for use in the area. This saved a bit of the barged transportation effort back and forth. The plant that was installed had a fractionating tower with only seven trays, and it worked quite well for the purpose.
After a year or so of use, they decided that diesel fuel could also be obtained from that plant. I was part of the effort of installing a dropout pot and another nozzle on the tower for this purpose. I don't remember which tray it was installed on but probably Tray Number 5 or 6. I believe we also revamped one of the bottoms heat exchangers to cool the diesel product. The topped crude (minus the naphtha and diesel) was blended back into the overall crude steam and the quantity as a percentage of the total stream was low enough to be hardly noticeable.
Warren O. Carlson
Los Altos, Calif.
