The oil and gas industry has many contrasting realities, from operations in hostile environments and remote frontiers to the local project, and from the latest high-tech tool to the tried-and-true.
Amazing industry
The 2002 Offshore Technology Conference held last month presented the Individual Distinguished Achievement Award to Bruce G. Collipp for developing the first semisubmersible floating platform.
During his 33-year career with Shell Oil Co., he and his colleagues paved the way for new mobile drilling vessels designed to float and remain nearly motionless in the most severe weather.
Collipp paid tribute to the offshore petroleum industry as he accepted the award, saying that it had the finest engineers, managers, welders, roustabouts, roughnecks, electronics technicians, computer programmers, barge captains, marine engineers, and oceanographers. "You name it, and they've got the best," he added.
Collipp said, "There is an industry that knows more about this planet that we live on than any other industry. Three quarters of it is covered by water. This industry knows more about what's on, under, and in the oceans and seas of this world than any other.
"There's an industry that knows no geographical borders. I've had the privilege of working with people from at least 30 different countries," said Collipp, adding that there is not a country in the world that does not have someone associated with the offshore oil industry.
Referring to Robert Peary's North Pole discovery, Collipp said, "Had he waited just a couple of years, rather than that long cold trekellipsehe could have stopped off at some of our installations in the Arctic Ocean.
"If a guy named Magellan had just waited a few years, rather than (having) a mutinous crew at the bottom of South America, running out of food and water, and fighting storms, he could have tied up at one of the platforms and rested up for the rest of his circumnavigation," said Collipp.
He added, "It's an amazing industry; it's full of the finest people. What does this award mean to me? It means that I've got a piece ofellipsebronze here that says I'm one of you."
With his speech, Collipp did an excellent job of honoring the industry that was honoring him as the audience painted mental pictures of unusual jobs, far away places, wild weather, and contrasting times.
Tough job
Leaving Denver City, Tex., north on state highway 214, travelers pass through an oil field called the Willard San Andres Unit.
Looking left and right from the highway, one sees neat rows of pump jacks disappear over the horizon.
In the late 1970s, due to a streak of good quality reservoir, the unit operator had completed a particular row of wells with 31/2-in. tubing, larger than the 23/8-in. and 27/8-in. tubing installed in most of the other wells.
Pulling units pull sucker rods and tubing from those wells on occasion for repair and minor workovers.
During a lunch break, while recount ing stories of smashed fingers and sore backs, one of the pulling unit crew members referred to the row of wells with the large tubing as "death row" because of the physical effort demanded of the crew to pull and rack the pipe.
This story presents a striking contrast with today's drilling scene, with its modern land rigs with modular construction and mechanized BOP handling equipment and of drillships where crews drill wells in record water depths while sitting in front of computer screens.
The cold
Operations had run late on the frac job near Hobbs, NM, on a 1978 winter day.
The sun fell below mesquite shrubs on the horizon. The temperature dropped below freezing.
The pumpers finished the last fluid after dark. With numbed fingers, the crew began breaking connections and rigging down.
Ice crystals forming in water puddles on the well pad crunched as the crew knocked hoses loose from the frac tanks, placing them on the blender's shoulder-high racks. Faces hurt.
Small streams of water from each hose drenched clothing. Gloves and shirtsleeves became stiff as they froze. Cold soaked to the person's core.
Stopping to get dry and warm up was not an option as the frac crew hurried to get the convoy packed and on the road.
The thought of routine operations in the Arctic, from this perspective, is interesting. It's probably an easier place to stay warm.
