Oil Field Trash and Proud of it!

Hey Bruce (BeauBayou) -
Didn't want to cut into the Saline/Larto thread. Are you drilling or production? I was both for Gulf Oil and then Chevron. Fished on the job a lot in both capacities, too.
Glad to know some of the "Bros" here on CDC are of the same inclination. "Digging deeper cheaper!"

I'd include you, too, Randy, but we always figured your breed (Reservoir engineer or geologist) were science-fiction writers! :Rofl And then your bunch would cuss me for drilling a dry hole! But it was sure fun back then. :highfive

Hope it still is - at least a little.
Pete

Pete, I cut my teeth in the oilfield. Rough necked in High School in West Texas. Wanted to go to the University of Texas but went to A & M only because I needed to work full time while going to school part time (I come from a very poor family). The Austin Chalk was booming back then around College Station. I was a driller for Delta Drilling. After I graduated went to work for Sperry Sun as a directional driller (back then they only hired engineers). Did that for many years all over, experienced a lot of nice places. Taught at UL Lafayette Petroleum Engineering for a while, now in Reservoir Engineering.

I am proud of it as well Pete. And, you're right, it was fun.

Man, Randy, you have a fine pedigree! You can share my boat anytime - redfishing, mind you! :fish
Pete

Thanks Pete, I would enjoy swapping stories with you.

If it weren't for us pipeliners, you oil field trash (Pete's words, not mine) would not have a market for your product. My Daddy was a pipeliner for about 40 years and it was my privilege to work with him and other crews for 10 summers back in the pipeline heydays of the 60s and 70s. I've always said it was getting up at 5:00 a.m., working 10-12 hours a day, seven days a week in dust/mud and 100 degree weather that kept me in school. Every young person today ought to be forced to work at least once in a real manual labor job to appreciate how easy most of them have.

hey guys(those 3 that have posted).....this looks like an "Off Topic" to me......what do you think....

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by prefers shiners

hey guys(those 3 that have posted).....this looks like an "Off Topic" to me......what do you think....

---

Yeah yeah yeah, I'll quit - just touching base.
Sure like Didi's osprey pics. :hatchet:
Pete

http://www.crappie.com/crappie/images/icons/icon1.png

Man, Randy, you have a fine pedigree! You can share my boat anytime - redfishing, mind you! http://www.crappie.com/crappie/images/smilies/E-1.gif
Pete
Now that would be a yak full! Both ways, boat yak and talking yak. rotflAnd all I did for 33 yrs was take some of the product and turn it into something useful, rubber. Used in almost every thing plastic, roofing, wire insulator and motor oil additive for viscosity indexing. Thanks you guys for finding and providing it. PS move us if you must, no prob.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by sneakypete

Yeah yeah yeah, I'll quit - just touching base.
Sure like Didi's osprey pics. :hatchet:
Pete

---

don't quit.......always glad to see you posting.....Didi said thanks....now, ya'll continue on......I like the story....

I don't know a thing about the work you guys did. I was a construction carpenter and worked refineries. Left that to become a millwright and ran across a lot of young people starting into construction. Myself and some of the older hands would tell them that this was the time for them to get their rears back in school and learn to do something else because our kind of work would make an old man out of them quick. I told my wife the other day that when I started college I almost went to become a social worker. Wish I had I would be in better shape now I think. But hey with out you guys I would not have had a job in the plants. Thanks to all of you. My stepson is a motorman.

FISH ON:fish

Pete I have been in drilling most of my life, but never worked directly for the majors. I have always been on the service end of drilling. Started out working summers for The Analysts, after high school started full time. Then there were the in house office jobs for Pennzoil, Force Energy, and Goodrich Petroleum. If you have been around a long time the first rig I worked on was the mighty Nicholas 20 in Galveston Bay. This is a hole new thing for me with the SIMOPS. I know now what an older man was talking about when he told me that he had read the Bible several times and that he never could find it but he knew someplace in Bible it said that drilling and production shall not lay together. I am now understanding what he meant by that.
Randy my brother in law has been at Sperry for years and years, Lee G and the best man in my Wedding Jeff C.
Tbone I agree 100% on the labor, I pulled a lawn mower with my bicycle to make money in junior high and bought my first 2 cars from cutting grass and I am still kicking it didn't hurt me at all.
The oilfield is a small brother hood and getting smaller all the time.

One last thing Randy are you going to 10' us until we take a kick or stick pipe?...LOL

Bruce, a kick is no problem if your ducks are in a row, makes life interesting. Stuck pipe is, lots of jewelry in the hole now a days...LOL. You know what I mean. Pete laid down the kelly when the kelly existed I believe, not sure. A lot of hands today wouldn't know how to throw a spinning chain when work was work. I have a couple in one of my utility trailer's tool box here. I think of that when I have to pull one out for some reason or another. I actually threw one around a small tree a couple of months ago for fun. Didn't wrap as nice as it did decades ago. Thank you for what you do.

Guys, I know you don't understand the lingo in this conversation. The oilfield is a small brotherhood like he said. Thanks for your post Bruce.

:popcornThis is what I do...didn't want to be left out....the oil rig I was on for 10 days felt unsafe...I was back in school in a year and the rest is history.

I just as soon add my 1 1/2 cents worth. Started welding right out of high school in ship yards. Moved over to offshore construction and help put together and install many oil platform for McDermott. Went from there to land based shop work building piping to be use offshore on production platforms. When oil field went bust in the early eighties I move over to our machine shop (Benoit). I learned to thread drill pipe and production tubing which I did for a number of years. I move up in the company to inventory manager to handle all the logistic of the company and kept track of millions of dollars worth of tubing. I retired from the company after 35 years. I've had some good days and some bad days but wouldn't change any of them. Seems like many of us are tied together somehow.
"gene"

Randy no kidding, if you asked some of the younger guys about a spinning chain you will get a deer in the headlights look. I sure hope you still have all your fingers too. Then again with all the video games out today, it is no wonder the younger guys are so good at "Cyber Drilling". I remember bucking the company I was working for when we first started using computers and trying my best to stay away from them until they put it to me point blank either learn to use the computers or find another job. That pretty much motivated me to learn to use there computer and programs.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Beaubayou

Randy no kidding, if you asked some of the younger guys about a spinning chain you will get a deer in the headlights look. I sure hope you still have all your fingers too. Then again with all the video games out today, it is no wonder the younger guys are so good at "Cyber Drilling". I remember bucking the company I was working for when we first started using computers and trying my best to stay away from them until they put it to me point blank either learn to use the computers or find another job. That pretty much motivated me to learn to use there computer and programs.

---

I fought the same battle with the computers as a draftsman......when it first came out, I said it would never fly.....I felt secure on my drafting table....long story short, when I retired we were modeling in 3D.....all I was doing then was checking the final 2D drawings.....amazing stuff.....especially when designing something as complicated as a chemical plant, oil refinery, etc....I have spent many hours in plants from Pascagoula to Houston......

I still have my functional drafting table and stool though in my workshop......makes for a good workbench.....

LOL When I first started in the mud logging business we had to draw our logs using a Leroy set, being left handed that threw me for a loop.

I'm currently oilfield trash, like currently on the rig, I would much rather be on the Mermentau, but somebody has to pay the bills. I do however know all about a Kelly. I know about 2 years of spinning chain but I don't think that qualifies you as being pro. My old Driller used to tell me that one day those things would be gone and I would be glad I was able to see them. Boy was he right, @ 31 yrs old with 12 years in wow have things changed. What used to be used to weed out the weak now is a crutch called safety for the ignorant. Who ever heard of 3 write ups before you can fire somebody, that used to be accomplished by two words. When I rough necked, I was proud of what I did and took pride in my work. That's hard to find now days. My company doesn't allow us to lift more than 50 lbs. I can remember offloading 100 lb sacks of gel on the pits because the forklift was down. The derrick man would load one on each of you're shoulders so you only had to make half as many trips up the stairs. Hazing and the word worm were concurrent with breakfast and you tried you're best to be better than the next guy so they would give him hell instead of you. Now days those practices are dead. In an age where a good hand gets sued because a person gets offended killed it. Squirting a man in the man rider with a hose is a safety issue and sending a guy to the crown with a five gallon bucket to fill the water table is grounds for termination. God forbid you pull a knife and cut a sack of gel on someone, you might wind up in prison for attempted murder, I'm sure the guy with the hose would be an accessory to the crime. Nowadays we drill from an air conditioned cabin with two different radios a computer and a phone. Some days I miss my old brake handle, tarp tied between the draw works and the leg. At least back than a man had a chance to cuss you honest lol. I guess some things are for the best. I'm positive not all of it is. There is one thing that has remained the same since day one and I'm sure will remain, You can't fix stupid lol.

Shallow Runner, I remember the grief pipeliners used to give the new hands. If you were a new welder's helper, the welder would suddenly stop and start cussing. When asked what was the matter he said he had broken his arc and would have to use pipe stretchers to close the gap between the two pipes. The newbie would be sent down the line to look for the foreman and ask him where the pipe stretchers were (and catch heck from everyone for days). If the new hand was a bit cocky one of the men would bet him he could lay on the ground with his arms stretched out and let the new guy and somebody else lay on his arms and he could pick them both up off the ground. When they did, both of the old hands grab the rookie while someone else pulled his pants down and took a grease gun to his private parts. He had to work like that the rest of the day. If the new man took it good naturedly, he was accepted by the crew. If he didn't, they'd find other ways to break him in.

Like the oil field, there were few safety concerns on pipelines either. Everyone wore cowboy hats or baseball caps, no hard hats; no dust masks; no safety procedures or meetings; etc. We'd even bring an arsenal of guns on the job to shoot during breaks. That being said, there were a lot of injuries and the occasional death. Unfortunately a lot of the old hands suffered debilitating lung problems later in life from all the dust they inhaled over the years.

Production hand here, been in the Gulf for 12 years.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Beaubayou

LOL When I first started in the mud logging business we had to draw our logs using a Leroy set, being left handed that threw me for a loop.

---

I learned Leroy in 1960 working for Corp of Engineers in Savannah, Ga.......I have a complete set in the wood box....picked it up at a garage sale for $15.....it's an antique now.....we were doing the concrete dams for the Hartwell and Clark Hill reservoirs in Georgia...I can see a problem with the left handed....

PS, Ya'll did a good job with the Hartwell Dam. Back in 1968 I worked on a pipeline that crossed the Savannah River about a mile below the dam. When we blasted the ditch across the river through the rock they had to stop traffic on the highway there to avoid falling rocks. After work we'd go swimming in the beautiful lake you helped make.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Shallow Runner

Some days I miss my old brake handle, tarp tied between the draw works and the leg. At least back than a man had a chance to cuss you honest lol.

---

Back when I was at Delta Drilling, an automatic driller was an empty dope bucket tied off the brake handle with flange bolts in it. Up the derrick with a five gallon bucket for the water table - that goes way back, folks have been doing that for years. How about the key for the V door? We all paid our dues, it's what makes us how we are today.

I am really enjoying these stories. Thanks for sharing everyone. We are all tied together somehow.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by fishervet

:popcornThis is what I do...didn't want to be left out....the oil rig I was on for 10 days felt unsafe...I was back in school in a year and the rest is history.

---

You're not left out Tal, you tend to our puppies:

http://www.sherv.net/cm/emoticons/jo...y-emoticon.gif

We need you for sure :)

Thanks, Pete and Randy. One of the best non fishing threads in my year on c.c