Views on a Rig at -30 C

So my current cold record is -40 degrees (which is the same in Celsius and Fahrenheit). These pics were taken at around -32 C. That, dear friends, is cold.

I thought I might explain a bit more in depth what the work is that I do. I am not going to go into the physics of the measurements that I make, but rather the physical rig-up of the cable on the job. First the cable attached to the truck pictured below (where the data is read and recorded) is run to a wheel on the drill floor:

From that wheel (on the right in the pic below) the cable strung up about 60 feet into the derrick:

A similar wheel hangs in the derrick and holds the cable like a pulley as the cable plunges back down to the ground next to the pipe on the left:

For the type of job I was working on here, the cable travels paralell to the drillpipe for a while until it is fed into the pipe itself where it is connected to the downhole tools that are actually making the measurements. Sections of drillpipe are lowered by a huge crane to push the tools deeper and deeper into the ground. The pipes are screwed together by the large machine on the left:

And that is basically the path of travel for the wireline cable in a job involving drillpipe (without drillpipe it's as simple as lowering the cable attached to the tools into the hole from directly above.

But there were some great looking shots while I was on the rig. Like this of the sunrise:

And this of the sunset:

Here is an assortment of the tools that sometimes get used.

And this is the view from the drill floor (as is the first pic).

And that is the rig at -30. A note on what that feels like: your breath freezes as you inhale so it burns as you breathe and your toes begin to freeze after about 30 minutes regardless of what high-tech footwear you are issued. Fortunately, I can warm up frequently (on the order of 15 minutes every hour).

Anyhoo, have a happy holiday season everybody. I'll likely get back to blogging after the new year.

my roflcopter goes soisoisoisoisoi

I went on a very long job to a remote location for one of our clients that is not a national oil company. This is the means by which I got to the job:

From the town where the helicopter was leaving from (we stayed 3 nights there):

A view from the helipad:

What I saw on the way to the job:

Apparently there are some winter roads that lead through the forest that we could have taken if we wanted to go the long way around:

Pasha, one of the operators I was working with:

Pasha was calling me Michael for a while. Which I fine I suppose, since to me it seems all the Russians are either Sasha, Misha, Dima, or Vanya and I confuse them all the time.

What one of the helicopter operators was wearing on his feet:

More of what I saw from the window:

X marks the spot:

How we were transporting all our equipment:

An abandoned hut at the well site:

This is Ivan, a pen pal I made there: