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17 years in construction and equipment in Prudhoe and Russia.

What refinery down there?

Lyondell - the one shutting down within the next year.

Gotcha. The industry up and down the Gulf Coast and on the ship channel is nothing short of amazing.

I led the shutdown and set up demo of our (Shell) little refinery in Odessa. That grew into construction management years this one flying out to our man made island in the Caspian Sea. Helicopter shot.



My home on the retired Russian cruise ship Schotov. The 28/12's rotation wasn't bad.

Worked in the downhole tool business.

Still live in the oil patch.

It is a good place to make some good money but most when they get the money let it go to their head.

When the patch has a downturn a lot of them have not saved any money and their toys go up for sale.

A viscous cycle,some never learn.

Spent one year rack testing tubing in Western Ks. after high school. I was 18 years old and could see the 30 year old guys who's bodies were already shot. One guy slept on the floor because his back was so bad. That was enough to convince me there was no future in that and I better get my butt in college.

G23

28years, 24 with bp. All but the last 3 in Prudhoe. In the Permian now, overseeing production at the 3 bpx midstream plants.

Pad construction Single and multipull up to 15 holes, reworking single pad straight holes for horizontal redrill. some pipeline and support cat or excavator on plant setup or teardown.

Norm

Wife is one of the managers for a company that builds subsea trees. They send her all over the world.

Old school Texas panhandle roughneck here. Did 30+ years straight in the Anadarko basin, from the bottom up. The last 5 as an independent consultant. Hung up my hardhat in 2016 and opened a BBQ/Catering business, sold that and retired last spring.

Good times offshore and on.

The 3 companys I worked for the company men were God on the rig and could run off tool pushers or the whole crew.
I guess it depends on who you work for. An exception would be if some one called for Stop Work Authority for a Safety or Environmental issue. And that was just the last few years.

No, they can run off third party employees or companies, but they don't have the authority to run off any righands. Only the drilling company can do that, I've had them try when I was pushing tools but my boss always had my back.

I have seen the whole drill crew put on the boat and replaced. Maybe not with the companies you worked for. The companies I worked for offshore they could and did. If the company man wanted someone off the rig they were gone. I am not making any of this up.

Local kid wanted to be a special forces airborne sniper green beret type.

He decided to be an underwater welder in the gulf.


Nobody had the heart to tell his mother that he chose the much more dangerous profession.

My secretary's son does that and she told me it was super dangerous, but I didn't realize how much.

Pretty much.

But it goes through the ladder, too. The Co. Man gets ahold of the Superintendent for the oil company and explains the problem and why he wants them gone, and the super can make a decision then, or kick the question upstairs to his bosses at the corporate level.

Sometimes drilling and production dictate what can and can't be done. If running off a guy, crew or company would mean suspending drilling and production for an unknown time, the company man may not get his wish right away.

I knew a guy who was an underwater welder, he made a lot of money and then quit when he was around 35, he said he was stopping before he became a statistic.

I've seen it happen too, but the drilling company did the firing, not the consultant. Either because they knew their people were at fault and deserved it or because the Drilling Supt. was just plain chickenshit and wouldn't stand up for his people. Which is usually the case.