1-Nov-04 to 5-Nov-04 - I'll show you my rig if you show me yours!

My first trip to the rig started out with a rather special two day drive south through the desert. I headed out of town early in the day with James, who is one of the completions supervisors in Oman. In no time at all I became acquainted with a vociferous safety system that it turns out has been fitted to all of the cars on this project in Oman. Most of our driving here in Oman is on un-sealed dirt roads. In order to keep us all safe from the treacherous perrils of these roads, a speed limiting safety system is fitted to all of the work cars. When you're car reaches the outlandish speed of 80km/hr a warning alarm screeches inside the car at a most unreasonable volume. If you ignore this and your car gets up to 85km/hr, the fuel system cuts off and you slow down whether you like it or not. As your car slows down to below 80km/hr the screeching alarm cuts off, and then when you reach 75km/hr the fuel system begins to pump again.

Now dear old James has been doing this job for about 100 years and I find out in no time that he's totally oblivious to the treats of this safety system, and therefore drives with his right foot to the floor the whole time. As a result we have an 8 second cycle happening in the car: 4 seconds of screeching BEEP, BEEP, BEEPs; followed by 4 seconds of no alarm. In the middle of the 4 seconds of BEEPs, the fuel cuts out, so we lurch forward as the car suddenly starts to slow down; and of course in the middle of the 4 alarm-free seconds, the fuel cuts back in and we are pushed back in out seats as the car suddenly takes off again.

Now as if this is not a big enough treat, our car only has a tape deck and James has a tape - ONE tape. Just what you need for 4 days of driving! Coming from a part of India called Kerla (which I'm assured by many is the most beautiful area of India), my dear pilot speaks Malayalam, which is a local Kerlan dialect. So on top of the safety system, we were rockin' to Malayalam christian tunes. To my good fortune, James was kind enough to translate every last song just so that I wouldn't miss out on any of the pearls of wisdom they espoused.

What a delight! A two day drive each way with an 8 second cycle of beeps screeching on and off, Malayalam christian tunes with the volume cranked up so that you could hear them clearly over the noise of the gravel road, and an even louder translation which was delivered in earnest at a volume intended to top the lot! If the truth be known, he only translated the tape once, but was kind enough to leave it in the tape deck the entire time we were gone, which was two full days of driving in each direction and 2 weeks at the rig (with shorter daily drives around the rig site and camp).

Enough of the delights on the inside of the car, here's some photos of what we passed on the outside! The first thing of interest that we came across was one of the locals on the side of the road.




The next item of interest illustrated the need for the wonderful safety system I've just told you about. You will have to scroll over to the right to see all of this picture.



Next was a very rare sight out here - A TREE! I went up for a close look at this one and found out why this tree had survived the camels. The spikes were longer than the leaves, so the poor camels got nothing but prickled lips if they tried to munch this tree.




We finally made it to the rig. Here it is in the distance as we approached it.


After a few formalities at the rig, we headed back to the rig camp. The camps where the rig crew stay are always a couple of kilometers away from the rigs. I think this is to keep the noise down. Anyway, here is the camp in the distance as we're driving up to it. You might have to scroll to the right to see all of this picture.


And here's me standing in front of the camp.


This next photo is a 180° panorama. Here I'm standing at the front of the camp and looking back at the road we drove down to get to the camp. You may need to scroll right again to see all of this picture.


A few days later I took some photos on the rig floor. Here's the "tongs", which are the things they use to tighten and loosen the drill pipe joints.


Here's me standing next to the rotary table, the round bit on the floor where the drill pipe actually goes through.


I took this next picture standing on the rotary table looking up. It looks up the centre of the mast. To the right are the 90ft stands of drill pipe waiting to be used, and the big yellow thing is the crane hook that picks up the 5km long drill string in the hole.


Here are some of the guys from the rig crew that were standing around watching me take pictures.


The next picture is looking out what is called the V-door, which is hardly a V in shape! This gives an idea of how high off the ground the rig floor is. This V-door is where all the drill pipes and stuff are dragged up onto the rig floor.


Here's a fuzzy picture of me standing at the driller's console, which is on the rig floor too. This is where the driller sits and runs the whole show.


Here's a picture of the ramp which goes up from the ground level to the V-door. All of the drill pipes are dragged up this ramp. It also shows how high off the ground the rig floor is.


This last one is a panorama shot I took from the rig floor. It looks out over the rig offices and towards the rig camp, although you can't actually see the camp in the distance.