10 weeks of great company, parties, studying, sightseeing and lot of fun wasn’t difficult to left and continue with my work life in Coca. This training was better than collage. To me was hard to flight back to Ecuador, but that is how life works, right?? You have an amazing time there and now you should come back and work, so you could have money to pay all your bills.
My first small solo job after my school was in Machala, it wasn’t something big. The work was to pull out of the hole (POOH) a Safety Valve, it is a safety device for the well. When it is a lot of pressure coming from the reservoir, this device will close its valve and it will not allow that the oil or gas would spill into the ocean. It is an easy job; however, I waited more less 1 week to retrieve that tool from the hole. The client had some issues with the snubbing unit (a big and strong machine that will allow to perform the work of removing the safety valve and other stuff from the hole to the surface). Sometimes my life could be a little complicated, because you don’t spend with your family and friends in the special moments but then you comfort yourself when you appreciate a sunrise or sunset.
After that job I continued working hard and being prepared for my big solo job. Until something terrible happen in June. That day changed everything even my sleeping habits. The lead supervisor, the operator and I were at the field running in hole (RIH) a dual completion. At 4am a safety clamp failed (see the picture below) and the completions (some tubing + pumps + accessories) went down to the hole immediately, just in par seconds the completions got stuck into the hole. Everyone started to run because in that moment all the place was in danger. It was the first time that I saw something like fireworks but the difference was that these fireworks were coming from the ground and it could explode in anytime. In that moment, I thought that all of us would die, and would get fired. I was in shock, I didn’t move from my place because to me everything was unsafety, until the Pump supervisor saw me and he grab my hand and lead me to a safety place called “the doghouse”.
The instant I found myself out of risk, I called my brother. I knew it was stupid because I could concern my mom and my dad, but I wanted to talk with someone that will understand my situation or at least will imagine how I was. The supervisor told me to call our boss, consequently I call my boss at 4:30am or 5am (I can’t remember the exact hour) and I told him everything, also I said that we were ok and that no one need to go to the hospital.
In a couple of hours everyone knew about the situation in our well. You could see managers arriving at the wellsite and starting to ask questions and trying to understand how this accident could happen. Now the first thing to do was to retrieve all the equipment that was in the hole. The person in charge for that type of job was an old experience guy, the previous supervisor was there too. Where were I ?? my manager decided that I need to be out of the well and I was in Coca again. My assignment in the moment was checking the others safety clamp, help doing the investigation report and then wait for the big quality managers that will interview me. Lot of things, also great pressure.
The night of the incident I wasn’t sure how I will sleep, I was tired but every time I close my eyes, I listened again how the completion string fell and how paralyzed I was. I decided to go out of my room and I walked in the balcony, when I saw a friend outside too and we started to talk and I told him everything even how I felt in that moment. Talking with someone that is not from my segment help me a lot and he gave me tips to sleep. After our conversation, I decided to use his technic, I found great music in YouTube, then I played it. I guess it took me like 45 minutes to sleep. Since that day each time I have sleeping problems, I played music in my cellphone or iPad.
Another critical time for me was 1 week later my fireworks moment at the field (I know I shouldn’t laugh about it, but now it is more than 5 years from that, therefore I can make jokes about it), my boss told me to go to the wellsite and help the best operator to POOH a dual completion and guess what I need to use??? I will use the safety clamp. I knew the point of my boss; though I wasn’t sure if I will be a good support. Anyways I went to the field and help the operator, we did a great performance and nothing critical happen during our work.
At the end of the investigation the final report said that we were working without any procedure, because there wasn’t an approved procedure written, the supervisor got a warning letter. As well it said that there must be always 4 people during the job, this will benefit to start doing shift and nobody will be awake again for more than 24 hours. The good news about all this incident is that the conditions during a dual completion and any other work will get better. We got written procedures, for any type of job. But the clients didn’t so much the failure and they didn’t call us for any other dual completion, at least for 3 months we were with little activity. The good news is that the bad days doesn’t stay forever, the dual completion activity started to raise again in September, beginning of October.
What I did all this months? I spent one month in Colombia preparing for an upcoming dual completion job, then I came back and started to RIH other type of jobs, selective completion, single completion, Y-Tool completion and went to Fracture and Acidizing jobs, too.
The months passed and we were in December again. I spent more than 20 days at home, so I knew the ugly truth. I would be at the base for Christmas and New Year. This time my 25th of December was quiet, too different as my last year (click here to read about my first holiday away home). I haven’t friends to celebrate because most of them were working at the well. But my new year eve was a little bit excited. On December 29th, I went to the wellsite, the type of work was a simple RIH of a Packer, the purpose was just for injecting the well and see if the reservoir accepted the fluid. I didn’t want to be at the well on new year eve at the field (exactly in the middle of nowhere). Imagine my happiness on December 30th, when the job was finished and the company man said that I could go back to the base. I couldn’t be in my hometown with my family, but I was with my second family, my friends the base. The moment I arrived was late because they were having a party since early morning, then we just went to our camp, changed our close and went to place to have our special dinner as always meat, chicken at grill. Later we drove to the pier because there is a lot of bars, also there would be a show. We celebrate our new year at the beginning of the pier and said happy new year to everyone that was close to us; at 2am we return to our camp and we continue with the celebration. I remembered that I went to bed at 5am.
My 1st of January of 2012 was amazingly great, my friends and I were at the swimming pool all day. The reason: our bosses were with their family and there wasn’t any work at the field. I got our single day off. I’m so excited to share with you more about my travels and trainings during 2012.
