I chickened out on camping thanks to a dicky knee and the weather forcast.
Whimp i know...
I shall now try to explain some of what can only be described as a circus for you.
Sadly, no pics, but I am sure you can picture stupidity for yourselves.
Names are being left out to protect the stupid etc etc.
The job we were doing was to do inspections on the existing oil or gas pipes which are Sub Sea, below the sea bed. The pipes are lengths of steel pipe and have concrete weight coat around the outside to make them heavy and to ensure they don’t float up.
Oil companies conduct periodical inspections on these pipes with a variety of methods, an easy method is to send some thing down along the pipe which is known as a “Pig”. One of these Pigs is a tool which is sent along the inside of the pipe and can measures the wall thickness and reports any concerns.
This type of check had been done recently and some concerns were identified.
The oil company then finds various contractors with the specialist tools to do the additional checks and rectification works.
For me, I work for a company which has the diving ship and divers. The special tools are from 3rd party contractors.
The 3rd party contractors on this job were all found by the oil company.
There were 3 of these 3rd party contractors which make up the circus story.
1. The 1st company were on-board to provide various bit of general machinery, which they hire in for the occasion, and then they find guys from around the place and put it all together on-board and send them out to make it work. The machines were 650 cfm (cubic foot per min @ 10 bar) compressors, grit blaster and various hydraulic power packs. The 2 guys they sent were nice blokes, but were stuck trying to make rubbish work. The equipment is not checked in the yards before being sent away. The thing is, the yards where this equipment is found is in the US of A, we were in Trinidad. Out of all the equipment supplied by this company, only the most basic hand tool or hose reel functioned. EVERYTHING else was in need of repairs to make it function.
This is where I come in, as a dive tech, remember there are a few of us, we get the call on the phone to attend the deck and make what ever it is work. So this recent project, it was me out 4 nights a week to sort rubbish out. I’d be robbing stuff from one machine or joining other machines together. Remember the wonderful bush mechanics show on the telle with the guys sorting cars out in the bush, that’s me, in the multi gazillion $ oil industry. These machines I am referring to are what can be found on any large building site in Aus, but would never be allowed on site due to be crap.
2. The 2nd act of the circus is a mob of 6 hill billies from gawd only knows where in the US. They were on-board to oversee a special tool which cuts an exact length of weight coat from around the pipe outer surface with out causing any damage. These guys are over paid specialists technicians in the use of this 1 tool. They spent 3 weeks on-board the vessel loitering in the TV lounge rooms hogging all the couches; they were the 1st in the mess room and due to where they are from, the loudest sods by far.
Twice a day at the various project meetings they were asked if the equipment was ready and fit for use?
The answer was always Yes, and for 3 weeks it was the same thing each day.
Until we went to use it………
Nothing worked.
They had no idea how to operate it.
It was then discovered it was the wrong equipment.
The tool is a hydraulically driven motor powering a cutting disc, it needs large volume of oil, at low pressures. It was connected to hose which is far too small for the job, a ½” rather then ¾” and there is 300 meters of it. So to compensate for the small hose, they turned the pressures from the pump up to max.
This caused the oil to overheat, all 1,000 litres of it, to the point where it was boiling in the tank and we had a full blown fire drill out on the back deck. Best thing is, on top of this over temp oil tank is the 100 litre fuel tank. Thankfully it was just a drill where us regular vessel crew guys got prepared for the possible outcomes.
Now, ya don’t get this sort of fun in normal sensible work places do you?
It was over to me to sort it out, plugging their equipment into other machines, building a cooling system which meant hanging a long length of hose over the side of the ship, and just typical “She’ll be right” sorting of stuff out.
Funny thing is, the first hour of this gear being in the water, the boss called me up and asked to meet in the dive control room. I showed up to find him very unhappy, he asked if I could attend the back deck to sort it all out, and throw these guys over the side.
In the world of hydraulics, no matter what your language or culture is, there is a uniform code for various functions in Hydraulics, the most basic 5 are: Pressure line = P, Return or Tank line = “T”, bleed off lines or control lines back to tank = “D” then the thing your controlling from the valve is either A or B, that is up or down.
Well it was this until I had to work with these yanks. Pressure is now apparently A, I can’t begin to describe how much that confuses things when trying to communicate over the top of loud engines.
The specialist tools they sent out to the job were not compatible at all, think of it like this. Take a Great looking Kia Family Wagon, 25’ of bushmaster offroad caravan, and a standard 750 kg garden trailer tow coupling. Each are a great bit of kit in the correct use, but try to join all 3 together and then drive the CSR. It aint goona happen, well, that is what this specialist company had supplied for the job.
3. The 3rd and final act comes from some folk who provide a tool which clamps the outside of the pipe to add some strength and then a special adhesive in injected inside this clamp holding it all in place. These guys, 2 of them, had 2 weeks resting in the Hyat Hotel, which has an infinity pool with bar, on full $ per day whilst waiting to load the equipment from the key side to the vessel.
There was 2 weeks to check it out, make sure it is there, make sure it works, make sure they know how to use it.
Guess what???
Getting the picture???
No, it didn’t work, nor did they know how to sort it out, nor did they check if everything is there. A Vital bit of specialist gear was left behind back in the UK.
These guys managed to overheat a hydraulic machine as well, giving us another fire drill……
Welcome to the world of offshore work, please don’t ask why it is this way, but if the average citizen knew about the $ being wasted they’d be horrified.
