That seems to be a pretty cool title. Like I mentioned in my last subject material on the forum. I just got back from the Hibernia gravity based oil drilling and processing platform. It really is a fascinating piece of engineering technology. Unlike jackup rigs or semi sumbmersibles. This one is actually a permanent made island of concrete and steel. 300 feet of concrete to the bottom with a few thousand tons of steel on top with the 2 drill towers reaching 500 feet. Each tower has 32 drill slots to go through and to move the tower either north south, east west to the next slot is called to skid the rig. I am not technologically advanced enough to put a picture of the platform in here. So if interested, just google Hibernia and you will see the first ever gravity based platform. The whole thing can not ever be moved, unless destroyed where it would then end up on the bottom as a massive pile of scrap which would then make a contaminated sanctuary for marine life.
Now getting back to the industrial specialist. When not commercial diving as my occupation. I am now working on the various oil platforms off the coast of Newfoundland. Working as an industrial specialist. It sounds fancy but as industrial as the job is. It is not fancy at all. Mike Row has no idea of what a really dirty job is untill he has done what I have been doing on Hibernia and will be doing on the Sea Rose as it is being towed to Belfast for dry dock repairs. Sea Rose is a FPSO or floating production storage offloading ship. Other than drilling like what Hibernia does. It does the rest. It connects to predrilled well heads with a spider buoy into a turret that processes, stores and then offloads to tankers that takes the oil to land. After sitting out there for ten years it needs to have its stern seels repaired and after a 100 million in research. The only answer was to come off station and go to dry dock at another huge cost for the down time. And before it goes into dry dock. The entire ship has to be gas free. That is a big part of my job. After the lines and tanks have been drained. Time to gas free them. Like what I did on Hibernia. When the hydrocarbons come out of the earth. They go through a process of turning the carbons into bulk grade oil. 2 coalescer and one degasser vessel had to be cleaned. With H2S, Benzine, and natural occuring radio active material, (NORM ). I had to be suited up pretty tight with contamination gear, double hearing protection on and supplied breathing air. Then go into these vessels knee deep in hydrocarbon sludge with a three inch vacume hose with amazing power and suck that sludge out. Coming out of those vessels I was covered in that sludge as you basically have to get in it to move it with shovels to the vacume hose or move the suction to the sludge. Dirty, slippery and real damn thick. Then with suction fans and high pressure hot water we then go back in and clean it all down to steel.
OK that is just the job. But I guess the main point I wanted to get accross is that when in the middle of this platform. You are litterally inside a massive industrial maze. Not just side to side but up and down as well with the huge sounds of the processing all around. Some very sudden and loud. Some very pulsing, ongoing and throbbing. Basically, the sound of turning hydrocarbons into money. It is very easy to get lost in amongs all of that and yellow hats have to be accompanied by white hats or they will indeed get lost. About a thousand stairs a day going back and forth during coffee and lunch breaks. And it takes at least two weeks to get to the point where you will not get lost. Following the white hats is one thing. But you got to pay attention to the many passage ways back and forth, with stairs that go up and down even if staying on the same level. On the same level when going from one spot to the next. You still have to go down then up again. Crazy and confusing. With drill casings, production lines, high pressure air sources, and water systems for work or fire deluge. Hibernia is definately one of the most intense and busyest industrial mazes I have ever been in. Next time on Hibernia I am going to get some samples of those sounds and give to a friend out west. Maybe one day you can hear some of Hibernia on DG. Anyways, as dirty as the job is. That is the title the upper echelons gave to us. Industrial Specialists. Go figure that one eh. With my life as a welder/pipefitter, commercial diver, and now industrial specialist. No wonder this is the kind of music that gives me reason. And now I have to go change the oil in my truck. How fukin readneck eh. And there sure are a few rednecks in Newfoundland. Just not enough sun to turn there necks red. Again, no wonder this kind of music gives me reason.
