Packing for Africa

Packing for any trip is hard but packing to move abroad into an unknown situation is even harder.  I have been in this position several times but never like this. Everything I need needs to fit into two pages that weight less that 50 pounds.  I decided that I would be taking one large duffle and my hard sided trunk. 

I had to shrink 22 years’ worth of stuff down to 100 pounds or less. It was amazing to see how much stuff I had acquired just over the 4.5 years of college.  I had to sort through it and decide if I was going to keep, trash or donate it.  I spent several days sorting that and condensing two rooms’ worth of stuff down to one room that is semi-organized. 

For those who know me, I mostly where T-shirts and never really thought about how many T-shirts I actually had.  I had stopped buying T-shirts at places but that did nothing to slow down my collection.  During the laundry short, I discovered that I had over 75 t-shirts.  I went though and if they were from high school they immediately went to the goodwill pile, from there the ratty shirts were made into rags.  That got right of about a third of them.

Back to packing, I was hired as an International Mobile Employee with an emphasis on the mobile part.  SLB works in over 90 counties and I could be sent to work in about 80 of them.  The ones I can’t are for the being female issues or the being a US citizen. Currently I am working 4 degrees above the equator but there is nothing stopping me from going on load to North Sea.  This makes packing hard because I had to decide what types of clothing and how much clothing of each type to bring. 

In the end, I decided that I would focus on the warm weather gear.  For the most part it was light weight clothing for work and my time off.  I threw in a jacket for air conditioned buildings but the rest of my beloved jacket collection stayed in my room in the United States.  I packed enough clothing for about a week and half between doing laundry as well as some clothing for hiking and going out.  I also threw in my sleeping bag, hiking boots, and trekking poles.  After that I was left with what other entertainment items did I want to bring.  I bought a kindle paperwhite so that had reading materials covered, other than that I brought my DVD collection, and my personal laptop.  

~And that has made all the difference.~

Off-shore Platform Life

This is the Jade Platform.  I am currently living here.
Photo Credit: Solar Navigator

From talking to people rig life various greatly from rig to rig, from location to location, from on-shore to off-shore.  Here on the Jade Platform, it’s fairly simple and minimalist.  Since I am working night shift, my day starts at about 4:30 pm.  I get up and go pick up my laundry.  Laundry one every shift so a clean set of clothing is waiting for me every shift. This means that you don’t need a lot of stuff out on the rig. 

After getting dressed, I go down to the galley and eat breakfast or dinner for breakfast.  At 5:30, I attend the daily Drilling Safety Meeting.  Everyone who is part of the drilling night shift is required to attend.  We go over some of the recent safety issues and some of the problems day shift had.  After that, everyone heads out to do handover and start work.

What I actually do during my shift depends on what the rig is doing.  If the rig isn’t drilling and all the prep work is done, then its move or goof off time.  But when the rig is drilling, I am watching sensors, tracking and correlation measurements, and downlinking for tools.  Sometime between 11:30 pm and 1:00 am is a 15-30 minute break for lunch.  Then it’s back to work until 6:00 am when day shift shows up.

The food is a step or two above normal cafeteria food. Due to the visa situation in Equatorial Guinea, most of the staff is American.  There are some other nationalities but I would guess the ratio is 70% American 30% other nationalities.  Compared to most rigs (at least in Africa), the male to female ratio is quite high.  Of the 135 people on-board, 5 are female.  Currently, 4 of them are from SLB.  I am paired with the other female MLWD field engineer.  

  

For the time off, we have a TV room, pool table, and weight room.  Most of the night shift goes to bed shortly after we get off shift. Because I am female, my room is at the top floor of the accommodations and I only have one other person in my room and a bathroom shared by four people.  Because my roommate, the female directional driller (DD) works day, I have a room to myself.  This is way better than the male accommodations where its communal bathrooms and 4 people per room.

One of the biggest issues off-shore is safety.  The oil and gas industry has had it fair share of injuries and deaths.  For this reason, safety isn’t taken lightly because there are plenty of things out here that can and will kill.  For this reason, any time we are out of the accommodations personal protective equipment or PPE is mandatory.  This includes hard hat, eye protection, steel toe boots, fire resistant coveralls, impact gloves, hearing protection.  Another thing is that one must always be aware of what’s going on around you both above and below you.  On the Jade platform, there are four cranes and two hoists that can be lifting stuff at any time.  One always has to be careful not to walk under anything being lifted.  The whole rig is a choreographed dance.   Everyone watches out for each other, and if something is unsafe any person from the lowly trainee to the company man has the power to shut down the rig.

~And that has made all the difference.~

Off-Shore for the First Time

From Solar Navigator

After 7 weeks in Malabo, I finally got the chance to go off-shore.  As an International Mobile (IM), most of my career will be spent working off-shore.  Going to a rig is a highly recommended part of SLB’s pre-training, since most of a MLWD field career is spent working split shifts on a rig site. 

Due to the location, logistical, and expense issues in EQG, it is hard to get trainee’s off-shore.  This was one of the main reasons that I hadn’t had a chance to go off-shore before now.  The other was that about three weeks after I arrived in EQG, the rigs had finished drilling their current wells and went into completions mode (preparing the well to start producing oil).

So last Saturday morning, I walked into work and stopped to say good morning to one of the project managers.  He asks me what my plans are for Monday.  My response is my usual working on reading the training material and working in the shop.  He says wrong, I’m getting on a helicopter. This is the conversation I have spent the last two months waiting for. He tells me that after a long negotiation with the company man by one of our Directional Drillers (DD) that he said I could go.  I was to bring with me as part of my 60 lbs of luggage 30 lbs of shrimp, and I would be rooming the female DD.

I spent the next day packing up my hotel room and moving everything that I wasn’t bringing to the rig to the office.  I was unlucky and had a 7:00 am flight so I was unable to bring the shrimp with me but they would be coming later in the day. 

I had to check in to my flight an hour early, which meant I had to leave the hotel at 5:45 am.  Once at the heliport, I got checked in and we had a safety briefing on the helicopter and escape methods.  Due to some lighting we were delayed an hour but it was finally time to get on the helicopter and take the 20 min flight out to the Jade Platform.  It was exciting but scary.  I couldn’t wait to see the Jade for the first time.  The helicopter landed at the Jade, and disembarking with the rotor blades still spinning was an experience.  Once below the helideck, I took a moment to admire the view and the Jade. 

The first thing that stands out is the 100 ft flare off the side. It’s an impressive site.  After a couple mins, I headed down to the arrivals lounge to get our room assignments and to await my rig safety induction.  I am in a double room with a shared bathroom (one of the perks of being female in the oil industry) on the 5^th floor of the accommodations.  After the induction, I meet up with the day shift DD and my MWD mentor for a quick tour of the rig, some introductions, and our unit, and then it’s off to bed.  I am going to work night shift with the other female MWD field engineer.  This means that I have a room to myself since my roommate the female DD works days.

Switching to night shift was a little hard but I rapidly figured out some benefits too it.  That 100 ft flare produces a lot of heat and we are about 4 degrees north of the equator so that means it gets really hot in general and add in that flare its almost unbearable.  I really enjoy getting to see what I will be doing after my training school and to experience actual rig life. I will do a post about rig life in a day or two.

~And that has made all the difference.~

The Power of Football

Football is one of the most popular sports world wide both to watch and play.  I am not talking about the wimpy American version with helmets but the European version.  Every Saturday afternoon, there is a weekly SLB employee game.  The island has several actual football fields.  The two grass fields leave a lot to be desired but small artificial turf field is the perfect size for 5v5 games.  We usually have enough people to field 3 teams and just play a round robin style.  If you score you stay in, and the loser switch.  Once my manager and the other field engineers (FE) came back from off-shore and days off, I had a way to get there. 

Once again, I was the only female and needless to say the locals don’t really expect much skill out of the American Expats.  They pretty much assumed I wouldn’t have a clue and would be useless.  Little did they know that although I hadn’t played in 5 years, I had 14 years of playing experience.  I spent almost all my high school career as a defender so needless to say the first one who tried to show off by dribbling around me found himself without the ball.  I stole it right out from under him and passed it to a teammate who put it in back of the net.  With that I had just proved I wasn’t useless.

A several games later was where I really earned my stripes.  I was playing striker for me team and one of my teammates over shot a pass and I decided that I keep going.  The keeper bobbled the ball and I managed to put it between his feet and scored.  I speak very little Spanish but I do understand enough to know that the keeper took a fair about of crap over getting scored on by the female.  About two games later I managed to score a second time, it was off a pass from a team mate so it wasn’t as embarrassing for the goal keeper.

The real amazing part of the whole experience was the next week at work.  The local staff wasn’t unfriendly but it was clear to me that I was still an outsider.  After soccer, they got a lot friendlier and seemed much more relaxed around me.   Over the next week, I was asked pretty much every day if I was planning on playing the following week, and was told by both the soccer captains that I was going to be on their team.

I wish I had some pictures but was having too much fun playing to bother with my camera.

~And that has made all the difference.~

A Cash Society

I saw an article the other day that said that a recent study showed over 60% of Americans no longer carry cash.  I can’t say that is at all surprising.  Back in the states, I hardly ever paid cash for anything.  I preferred to use my debt or credit card.  On the advice of my father, I always had $20.00 in my wallet just in case.

The move to EQG, it was a little bit of a shock to be in an almost entirely cash based economy. Other than the three large hotels and maybe the airlines, nothing takes credit or debit cards.  It has been interesting that I always have to check how much cash I have before going out to make sure I have enough to cover my expenses.  As well as having to think about the price to see if it is reasonable for what I want.  This means having to convert from XCFA s to dollars. 

What is a XCFA of XAF? XCFA stands for Central African Francs.  XCFA is a common currency between a decent percentage of the central African nations.  The name is common but each countries prints their own XCFA, so some countries using the XCFA doesn’t accept other countries XCFA.  I haven’t run into this yet but I am sure I will someday.  The exchange rate for XCFA is fixed with the Euro such that 1 Euro = 655.957 XCFA.  This makes the exchange rate with the dollar fluctuate but currently its $1.00 = 481.138 XCFA.  Most of us expats just assume its 500 XCFA per dollar so it makes the conversion easy.

Getting XCFA is easy, the hotel, banks and casino will gladly take your dollars and give you XCFA, but the will not give dollars for XCFA.  This means it’s a balancing act between how long I am going to be here and how much XCFA do I think I will need during that time. 

Even with the exchange rate, some things cost more, others cost less than in the States.  Here are some common stuff and the XCFA and dollars.

• Can of Coke Cola (at the hotel bar) - XAF 2,000.00 = $4.16
• Bottle of Water (at the hotel) - XAF 1,800.00 = $3.74
• Breakfast Buffet (at the hotel) - XAF 18,000.00 = $37.41
• Club Sandwich and drink (at the hotel) - XAF 14,000.00 = $29.10
• Jar of Nutella -  XAF 1,500.00 = $3.12
• Bottle of Shampoo - XAF 2,500.00 = $5.20
• 1L Smirnoff Vodka - XAF 5,000.00 =$10.39
• 1L Bacardi Black - XAF 8,500.00 = $17.67
• Bar of 80% Dark Chocolate - XAF 2,000.00 = $4.16

~And that has made all the difference.~