oilfieldbasura

"Wot’s all this then? Wot’s all this?” said Frank. I kept a perfectly straight face and said: “It’s the Sabbath”. It was 5 o’clock in the morning and we were both in the galley for breakfast. What was animating my supervisor was that I was dressed in a dark wool suit, a white shirt and a tartan tie. Frank and the rest of our crew were more casually dressed. My choice of attire had been inspired by a talented story-teller from Arbroath. He had been the life and soul of the coffee-shop on another rig. One tale was of a ship crewed by hard-drinking blasphemers from the western isles. For six days and nights they would drink and swear with skill and enthusiasm. Then, on the sabbath, they would dress up in good quality suits and, Bible in hand, would reveal a hitherto unseen side of their character. After breakfast we assembled in a Mechanic’s Workshop prior to going out on deck. It was here that I began my ministry, Bible in hand. The guys were still sleepy and no-one doubted my s...

Johnny ‘The Skull’ was not a handsome man. He pushed his way through a crowded bar at Aberdeen Airport and caught the barman’s eye. “Bartender, gimmee a beer,” he said in a southern-states drawl. Then, without looking, he pointed to his left and said: “And one for the Niggah.” The barman looked confused and said: “Sir there’s nobody there.” The noise in the crowded bar dropped a little. Johnny looked to his left and then behind him. At the back of the room stood a large dark-skinned man. Johnny called him over: “Hey Niggah come on over here”. Turning back to the barman he added: “And bring them bags.” The large man with two large bags moved through a hushed room to take his appointed place at the bar. Johnny said: “Siddown and drink yo beer”, without looking at his compatriot. The dark man said nothing as his middle-class English accent would have spoiled the whole charade. Needless to say, The Skull was as Scottish as Alex Harvey or Niall MacKenzie. The Skull and his dark-skinned...

“All you need is sugar and yeast and something to flavour it with”, asserted the Master-Story-Teller. To illustrate his point he went on to explain: “I once made a drop from grapefruit-juice. It was a bit dry at first but you soon got the taste for it.” We were drinking home-brew made with tins of brewer’s-malt that a Baker had ordered for making brown-rolls. The catch was that it was made with baker’s-yeast which gave it a bit of a rough bouquet. We were North-Sea-Tigers so we persevered and our palates adjusted fairly rapidly. Mick was an alcoholic who had begun his drinking in London’s eastern suburbs. His London-stories were set in the sixties, an era that is famous for playing tricks on the memory. One night of light-social-drinking brought our Hero and his friends to a certain night-club. A young Scottish-Singer was the centre-of-attention. Mick felt it to be his duty to ask her up for a dance. On the dancefloor the ungrateful-young-hussy asked him: “How did you-lot get in...

Copyright © Reader’s Digest Association Far East Ltd The artwork by Reader's Digest is based on a photograph of an Aker semi-submersible-drilling-rig. You can read the name Maersk Vinlander, just below the port-side crane. I worked on the Vinlander in 1995. The first unusual item that catches your eye are the 'barber-poles' at bow and stern of the rig. It was soon explained to new arrivals that these flexible fibreglass poles were designed to keep the lifeboats away from the rig's hull while they were being launched. This was not another case of spending money on delusions-of-safety. Off Canada's east-coast sea-ice can build up around the rig's legs and interfere with the lifeboat's journey to open water. This particular Aker-rig had been built in St. John, New Brunswick, Canada. She had originally been called the Bow Valley III. I soon found another Canadian link on the drill-floor. In a shack at one side there was a large and carefully-designed t...

At a time when the Transocean Deepwater Horizon was still in the news an old comrade from my tong-swinging days told me: “They blew out their own casing, that’s why they couldn’t shut the BOPs”. It is difficult to understand how any moderately competent drilling-rig could allow casing from below the sea-bed/wellhead/mudline to be pushed upward with sufficient force and velocity to obstruct the BOPs, which sit immediately above the wellhead. I didn’t lose too much sleep over the story but it saddened me a little that it had become more difficult for me to get the inside-story and compare it with the official truth-lite-spiel.   British Petroleum were the operators of the Deepwater Horizon in 2010 when 11 people died and a large-scale pollution incident took place. I like to read books which is good because I have plenty of leisure time while the human-resources-scum greet about skills shortages. Greg Palast wrote  Vulture’s Picnic  which relates the Transo...

I began my offshore career on the Ocean Kokuei. It was the summer of 1975 and the older guy who was with me in Aberdeen Buroo assured me ‘Roughpainters’ would be a job painting trawlers in the harbour. The very small office in Tullos was a hive of activity. I filled in a clearly American application-form and waited to be called into the inner office for my interview. I was nineteen and the first question was a tough one: “What size boots do you take?” The Kokuei was drilling for Burmah when I joined her but she went on to drill for Chevron ; when Burmah went bust. I’d like to tell you more about that story but the material facts are obscured by a sea-mist of bull-droppings. Jim Sillars once spoke about Scotland being the only country in history to find oil and become poorer. Burmah in 1974 found the Ninian Field and went on to become insolvent. Odeco had four rigs in Scottish waters at the time. The Ocean Victory had a steady crew with a slow turnover of personnel. The Kokuei a...

An ex-Aladdinaut and former merchant seaman once said of Jebsen's “the offshore side was real good”. I wouldn’t quite go that far but I stuck it out longer on Jebsen’s Aladdin than I did anywhere else. She must have had something going for her. One factor in the Aladdin story was Atle Jebsen. The maximo honcho of Jebsen’s Shipping was also on the Board of B.P. Norway. In 1982 B.P. Norway was looking for a semi-submersible drilling rig to work in Norwegian waters. The Norwegian Government did not operate a protected economy at that time, (or so they said). They would allow a token foreign flag rig or supply boat to operate in Norwegian waters; from time to time. These vessels were usually old and technically inferior (on paper). Their license to operate could easily be withdrawn by requiring some of the bells and whistles that were being fitted to Norwegian new-build rigs and boats. This was not done to protect the jobs of Norwegians; it was a matter of “safety”. Th...

The Gothic Musk was anchored close to the Murray coast when we arrived. It was a Friday and the drilling rig was rolling in the swell. Further out to sea a storm was causing the water to lift up and down in a repetitive and ancient dance routine. The weather at our destination was too rough to run anchors. So the rig couldn’t go to work and we would be paid the same money to do a bit of painting, tidying up and looking busy. What more could a North Sea Tiger ask for? As a general case it was an ideal first day on a new rig. For myself I could manage a few regrets over how I came to be here at all. The previous rig was one where I should have been able to get on with everyone. Yet my dismissal seemed to have been orchestrated. Whether this was for trade union activities, political preferences or ethnic considerations made no difference. My days on the Gothic Musk were numbered. Junky Jordy and I had fallen out years before. He was the other Toolpusher, fortunately not due back for t...