THE HIP

A Thinker's Shared Spot of Stories of Living



Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Kurau Field Trip VIII - Day 8 - Day 16

by Eko Prasetyo @ 5:57 AM

Where was I? Day 7? That would be sunday..day 7 was a sunday, and I forgot what I have done in sunday. In fact, I seemed to forget the exact time of what I did in day 8 to day 16, all I can remember now is the fact that I did things simultaneously.

First of all, there was that re-perforation thing. To re-perforate means to remake the punctures from which the produced fluid of a well flows out of its reservoir. Reperforating is done if the produced fluid is not enough and must be pumped more.
Perforating (and reperforating) is done using a detonator that sets off charges assembled into a perforating "gun". This is not a gun in terms of pistol and rifles (barreled and such), this is a gun in term of the fact that it is a detonator assembly thing that has charges flying off it when eectrified.

Anyway, the reperforations were done with tools from a prominent service companies. I shot 2 same intervals just as the main office engineers told me to do. Firs reperforation went quite nicely, but the second reperforation needs to be re-done beacause the first one were not detonated (its wire got shorted).

In the same time as the reperforation, I was doing a mobilization of heavy equipments from a part of an island to another part using Landing Craft (LCT) ship. It is basically a cargo ship that allows mobile heavy equipments (such as Cranes and Trailers) to be moved into and the landed off from by driving into the ship.

First off, I needed to gather the equipments needed. Boy, to gather those equipments, I had to thread carefully when doing the talkings and negotiations. The equipments were scattered in various places and under supervising of different divisions. Talking to various supervisors could bring headaches and quite a mental fatigues for an introvert-type man such as me. Numerous phone calls, radio calls, walking miles, arguments, and days later, all the equipments needed could be gathered.

Finally I was able to load the equipments into the LCT by help of crane and trailers. Watching tons of containers, well-testing units, diesel-fueled electric generators, huge fluid tanks, and large pumping unit being moved from trailer to an LCT and arranged nicely so that all could fits was quite an experience. And watching crane and trailers being driven and parked into the landing craft was another different, cool experience

But loading into the LCT was not the final task. There were still the processes to unload them and moved them to the destinated well site. It will be another long story, so take a rest now and feast your eyes on this Harumi Nemoto girl



Who says east asians can't have huge, delicious looking breasts?

And speaking about huge things, I have mentioned that I was doing mobilization of hunge things, right? And I said I had loaded them into an LCT, right? Guess I have said it.

But I haven't said about shipping, unloading, and transported them to a well site, right?

So, here are the rest of the story.

So, with the things loaded on the ship, it's time to let the ship sail. The sail was quite a new experience for me too. LCT ship is very different from fibreglass jetboat. LCT is bigger, all-metal, diesel engine propelled thing. And watching the waves from the helm while the ship moves to the destination was a hell of an experience.

The waves were calm. The current was fast but moving into the direction we headed, so we have a boost of speed. In about an hour or so, we arrived at the jetty (a small landing port) of our destination.

The time came to maneuver the ship so that it's landing rampway could match the landing pontoon to enable the trailer and the crane to be driven out of the LCT.
After a roughly 15 minutes of maneuvering, the rampway finally mathced that of the landing pontoon, and the crane and trailer were driven out by their respective drivers.

And another time came to maneuver the LCT so that it could be parked with its starboard facing the landing pontoon in order to enable the crane to lift the equipments off the LCT and into the trailer.

And after some equipments were unloaded from the LCT and into the trailer, it was time for both crane and trailer to go into the very remote well site to unload and position them on the wellsite.

It took 3 journeys back and forth to unload, transport, and position all the equipments on site. Two journeys were done on the day the LCT sailed, and another one was done on the morning of the next day.

After all of the equipments were positioned on the site, my job was not done. There were still testing needed to be done, personnel to take care of, logistics to organize, and failed equipments to repair.

In short: it was a nightmare that last for another 3 days.

Well, I did it in the end. The equipments were all there, poised ready to be used by the testing engineer, and I am ready to go home.

Home.

16 days in the field doing various things that were all very differents from each other was a very mentally exhausting assignment for me. I'm just glad to be home.