Memoirs of a GDC intern

Rig down is the process of disassembling all connected components of the drilling rig, and putting them apart for transportation to another demarcated patch for the next well. It is the duty of the infrastructure team at GDC to prepare patches called drilling pads or well pads for the drilling team to start working on. There is always a drilling plan followed by the drilling team led by the drilling supervisor and the tool-pusher to ensure that logistics of drilling set-up and rig transfer are made in the correct manner.

During this day, after participating in the safety meeting, the agenda was lowering the substructure and mast. Both tasks are done with respect to check lists to ensure nothing goes wrong during the procedure. None of us believed the substructure could be lowered from where it was held, high soaring above us to a lower level till we attended the procedural meeting where the checklist was read and confirmed as we took our positions to alert the required personnel incase we saw anything unusual.

As an intern, GDC does not give you an opportunity to recommend much but I would recommend that there should be a clear means of communication between any personnel on the ground and those on the rig floor in case someone has anything to report because of an incident I witnessed at Rig 2 where the hydraulic ram that is used to lower the substructure subjected huge pounds of force on some part of the structure and went through it. We could scream as loud but the floor personnel operating the YHCX derrick and substructure buffer control box could not hear due to the noise, till the damage was done and yet we saw it all! This is very bad, not because we couldn’t help but because there are no channels of communication. Why not have some linked microphones and headphones during such billion shilling operations that put the rig at risk? I just hope someone is reading this….

Anyway, the substructure is lowered by two persons, the driller in the driller’s cabin and the personnel operating the derrick and substructure buffer control box that remotely controls the hydraulic ram during this operation.

I remember perusing some items in the ZJ70/4500D 2010-106 Mast inspection Checklist and I was impressed. It is just a list to ensure that everything is in its secure position to ensure there is no damage to the very expensive equipment.

Having done that, I spend the rest of the day inspecting drawworks chains and fixing some safety pins that had come out. Some of the endplates had also been pushed out of place during running of the 2 drawworks DC motors.

How old is this technology? I don’t know, but using the 8 pen Drilling recorder to log drilling/well data on very huge graph papers? Wow, I did not see any of these drilling recorders at work and I would understand that pretty well. I’d rather use the data logged in by the computers.