Dirk's Work Thread.

[dirk diggler]

It's been requested so here is a start!

Current location: Ulsan, South Korea.

I took a few pics at work tonight. I'm not actually allowed to take pics here but I wondered off to the quay-side for a piss and being a Saturday night the place was deserted so I took a few quick pics. Shit quality as night time but I basically stood on the spot and took 4 pics covering about 180 degrees.


So, the platform that is now on the orange barge there is the last project I worked on and posted some pics to the post a photo a day thread before. Loading up now and sailing on Monday. So they say.


Here we can see 3 modules that is part of my current project. 58 modules in total, each the size of a small offshore platform, that are all part of a LNG plant that is being built/assembled in Western Australia. For each module you see there is another behind each of them then the main road through the shipyard.


Here we see another 2 modules. My equipment is set up just behind the yellow crane and we are currently working on 4 modules there but we have another setup elsewhere that is about to focus on an urgent module that they expect us to complete in 5 days. Dreamers.

We are basically looking at about 6 weeks per module and settled in for rotating here until at least 2016. Project is already 18 months behind, nothing to do with us.


And here to the right we have the Ocean Black Hornet Drillship. It looks quite impressive in the flesh. Not sure if it's a new build or in for some work but I did spot a heap of scaffolding on it. Maybe just a paint job. I think it is owned by Diamond drilling.


Here's a view from my bedroom window.

Our apartments are pretty good. I'll get some pics up later. Hopefully get some extracurricular pics up soon too.

Cheers,

Dirk.

[rickschoppers]

Dirk, I have heard one can make a pretty good living out on the drilling platforms, even though it may be on the dangerous side. How long have you been doing it and is it really that hard to get into that line of work?

My son is a mechanical engineer with Halliburton and I have been wondering if he will ever venture out to one of their rigs. Right now he has a land job and has received several promotions and doing quite well.

When I was younger, many of my friends went up to Alaska to work on the oil rigs, but I was working for the US Post Office back then and stayed in the lower 48.

Good luck to you and now I understand why you like machinery and motorcycles so much.

[jizzybloke]

The Blackhawk is a new build, seems to be way behind too!

[jizzybloke]

From that picture, you must be living above and right of SeaSketch..


looking again it must be just along a bit further!

[dirk diggler]

I started when I was 17 with a 4 year mechanical apprenticeship and was kept on after as a CNC Integrex machinist and done 8 years in total for that company.

My first venture offshore came in '07 when I got a job as a well tester and relocated to Perth, Oz. All that work was on drillers, semi-submersibles and jack-ups and some desert work too.

I changed profession and was laying pipelines in the gulf of Thailand for a bit on a barge then changed to my current line which was working on offshore platforms and now working on new builds in the Korean shipyards.

I'd say your Son is more advanced than field work. I'd imagine there are plenty others in his position that have been there, done that and progressed to the office so they can go home every night to their wife and kids/stop flying on super pumas/have a safer lifestyle etc etc.

I'd say it's very hard to get into this work with no prior qualifications. Every kid in Aberdeen for example has ambitions to work offshore so they pay well over £1,000 to get their tickets then they are in the same boat as all the others looking for a start.

As for the money, sure, you go home with a lump after spending very little. But, if you take that lump and divide it into 12 hours per day, 7 days a week for maybe a 42 day hitch it's really not that much as an hourly rate. Not what you'd expect.

If I add 1/365 annual salary + on location day rate + daily meal per diem and divide it by 12 I'm on £2 less per hour than I made as a workshop machinist.

Yet I take home more money.

It's a lifestyle and I love it. I feel like I'm on Megastructures.

[dirk diggler]

The Blackhawk is a new build, seems to be way behind too!

The one in my pic is the Ocean Black Hornet.

From that picture, you must be living above and right of SeaSketch..
looking again it must be just along a bit further!

I'm basically behind Lotteria, closest bar is Red Ball bar. Different gaff from last trip, which was next to Neptune the Flip bar.

[rickschoppers]

^
Interesting stuff.

My son is 25 and single with no real ties to home. I told him now is the time to push for advancement to see where he lands. He would not hesitate to go elsewhere in the world, so he has a good opportunity.

As long as you are enjoying your line of work, that counts for a lot. I have always told my boys to try and work in a career they enjoy and have a passion for. Makes things a lot easier in life, IMO.

[jizzybloke]

They are all new builds, Hornet, Hawk, Rhino and I can't remember the other one...

[jizzybloke]

I'm basically behind Lotteria, closest bar is Red Ball bar. Different gaff from last trip, which was next to Neptune the Flip bar.

Didn't go into red ball and only ever been in Neptune once.

Used to go to Laguna for a quiet drink.

[dirk diggler]

I've been into Laguna a couple of times. Friendly bunch.

As far as nightlife goes it's pretty quite to be honest. Weekends even more so as everyone seems to head downtown.

[socal]

Nice thread Dirk

On average, how much dog fucking and standby days do you get ?

Or is it a
workplace ?

[dirk diggler]

My actual position within our crew means I always work night shift.

Day shift are in for the 12 hours every day with a possible half day Sunday.

Night shift is different as we are fighting for time slots. So we generally go first, get our scheduled work done and GTF outta there. If we have no scheduled work we may go in for an hour or more than likely not go in at all.

As soon as the x-ray/radiography/NDT boys start setting up their fertility killing equipment you wont see us for dust!

There are other reasons for days off such as public holidays, adverse weather or temperature too low, large operations such as balance testing/big lifting/turning the boat etc.

I have seen a dog meat restaurant but I've not been in. Looks a little ruff...
I'd try it if they had a stall selling skewers or something.

[Boon Mee]

There are dozens of rigs - floaters, drillships & jackups being constructed in Korea right now. A lot of them in Pusan. Transocean, Seadrill and a scad of other companies are building the next generation.

Good thread, Dirk!

[dirk diggler]

I've been asked for some daylight pics which I don't have here but here is some pictures from my first trip to Korea, I flew to Busan and a driver took me South to Okpo which is on Geoje Island.

First some pics of the ride to Geoje. I love landing in a new place that I know nothing about. Sussing out the terrain and getting a feel for a place.

I turned up here with only 5,300 baht to my name. I also went home with it as there was nowhere to change it.






Didn't take long before I started to feel the industrial side of things.





We went through a few under water tunnels. In one tunnel the driver came to life and started counting down the meters in depth even though I could read the signs too. At maximum depth he got excited explaining 48m. I told him he was lucky as 2 more meters and he may have to pay to fix my watch and he thought about it, started as if to speak then didn't. And he stayed silent the rest of the trip.









Here we are about an hour and a bit later arriving in Okpo. My Hotel (short time/love Motel, not listed) is at the far end of the road on the left.

Cello Motel



Check out the decor!








That was my home for 10 weeks.

[dirk diggler]

A few more out of hour pics and then I'll get onto the work stuff.

There was a bar round the corner called Mayas. It was a good shout for us as we had some non-drinkers and the bar had a pool table and darts. And loads of random props too.

[nigelandjan]

Good interesting thread Dirk.

You deserve to take home a good wedge working those kinda hours,, I must admit when another member on here recently told me the hours per day he worked, how surprised I was.

Good health to you so you can enjoy the end result

[dirk diggler]

Cheers Nigel.

To be honest, for many guys in this game the work time is the fun time and the home time is the quiet, well behaved home with the wife and kids time.

There's only 2 of us from Aberdeen here and everyone else is from Singapore with a few guys here and there from Indo and Malaysia. And we have a few Koreans too.

We have good times, memorable times even.

The winter is coming in fast now though and it's bloody bitter out there!

[stickmansucks]

Thank you, interesting ! More girls please ?

[jizzybloke]

The winter is coming in fast now though and it's bloody bitter out there!

Not looking forward to that, I'm due back early January..

[dirk diggler]

Ok, back to the graft!

The Daewoo shipyard in Okpo is owned by DSME, Daewoo Shipping and Marine Engineering. It's pretty big like the other S. Korean shipyards it's run quite regimental.



Our project here was an FPSO (Floating Production Storage and Offloading) and was so fucking big I don't even have a single picture of the whole thing. 330m long. that's 1/3 of a kilometer in comparison.








Bikes everywhere


Can you imagine climbing to the top and back all night long when the elevators (that only go to the bottom deck) are not operational?


On top now


This is an air driven flange facing machine tool. In this case skimming the face of an RTJ (ring type joint). This is not my job but due to my machining background I often help out when I've not much on or whenever their work scope is more urgent than ours.


All you can see here is the middle section of the vessel. Maybe this will give you an Idea of the absolute fucking massiveness of this thing.


Here we are decanting liquid nitrogen from a storage tank into a working tank.

Quick lesson - LN2 101:

The tanks are basically big thermos flasks. LN2 is kept cold under it's own pressure. It boils (flashes) to gas at -195.8 degC and has a liquid to gas expansion rate of 696:1. The air you are breathing right now is 78% nitrogen, 21% Oxygen and 1% Argon.

Nitrogen is distilled through the air therefore it is cheap. it is inert, non-flammable, non toxic - in fact it is completely harmless except in the case cold burns from liquid and oxygen displacement (asphyxiation) from gas.




Punted onto night shift now. This is the central walkway on the vessel. It's not just the way the photo is, you cannot see one end from the other.


Taken from the top of the elevator (stairs)


Taken from our office block and shows you maybe 2/3rd of the length.


More N2 ops

[CNF55]

Thanks for the pictures.

Good stuff, really impressive project.

[baldrick]

My son is a mechanical engineer with Halliburton

My son is 25 and single with no real ties to home.

he may need a few more years experience as a mech eng doing oil/gas design if that is what he is doing with Haliburtons

but he should be applying for jobs with oil/gas eng/design companies - Haliburtons should have a division that does that , but also other companies that do EPCM.

but the really cushy numbers to aim for are on the client side for companies such as chevron , BP etc

[dirk diggler]

Here is my main man learning fast. Not only did I teach him everything he knew, the bastard wrote it all on the back of a postage stamp, took it to school in Aberdeen then came back and now keeps telling me the errors of my ways. More than one way to skin a Singaporean, young man.

So anyway, here's the deal with the N2 stuffs. We convert the liquid to gas using this here N2 Converter Unit. The one in the above pic is a bad example of this equipment as it is actually a converted cementing unit. Small.

So, we convert to gas and pump it into systems (tanks/piping/vessels/all of the above etc) to the required test pressure. Anything from 0.5 barg to 600 barg. As we pressurize the system we also introduce 1% helium (He) into the line.

Helium has the smallest particles of all the elements and is an escape artist. just what we are looking for. It is becoming rare with demand exceeding supply and I believe about 90% of the world's He comes from the same place in America. He is the most common gas found in Space.

So, after test pressure is achieved (and holding) we start probing (sniffing) all joints (flanges, connections etc) in the test system. Each joint has been taped up prior to this and the probe is used to pierce the tape and sniff inside. The air is sniffed back to our test cabin and into a mas-spectrometer that calculates the He leak rate of each joint.

Allowance here on new builds is 50 scf/y (50 standard cubic feet per year). Every joint leaks a bit. Leaks over 50 scf/y are common. They will then have to rip it all apart, change the gasket and rebolt it all back together for a re-test.


Here's me. Caught short without a proper mask during grit/sand blasting operations.


One of the many fabrication workshops knocking up bits of boats etc.





Some pics taken from on top.

[socal]

[dirk diggler]

As I remember it some Noggie asked me to do something with the tooth picks in only 3 moves and when he came back from the toilet he found that this was the best I could do.