Industries
Oil & Gas
Halliburton & MI SWACO (Schlumberger)
Port Fourchon
A look towards C-Port 1 on a busy day in Fourchon.
Tanks and Tanks of Drilling Mud
In addition to testing all inbound and outbound mud, I was also responsible for managing it's inventory. Most outbound fluids had to be blended via mass balance in order use virgin inventory.
Deepwater Nautilus
Spent 1 year on the Nautilus as a Drilling Fluid Engineer and Compliance Engineer. Drilled the Glider 07 well in Green Canyon for Shell GOM.
The Deepwater Nautilus is the sister rig to the Deepwater Horizon. My time on the rig was only 4 years post BP Macondo, so well safety was still very top of mind for the facility.
This well took a long time to drill due to hydraulic issues with the top drive, which subsequently resulted in drill pipe being stuck in the hole. BSEE Incident Report
Responsible for the facility's NPDES Permit. 100% successful audit review by BSEE.
Learned a ton about drilling from the Shell representatives and our Sr. Drilling Fluid Engineers.
If you've never worked offshore, the best way to describe it is managing a construction project, with changing variables, with limited real estate for resources. It's like project management, construction engineering, and process engineering wrapped into one site.
Olympus TLP
I was fortunate to be selected as part of the team that would drill out the first well under the Olympus platform. Construction of the rig was originally awarded to Nabors , but somewhere in the construction process, the relationship went south and Shell bought the asset from Noble and sold it to H&P.
There were 24 wells heads predrilled under Olympus. I actually helped supply the drilling mud for the Bully 1 to spud in and set the well heads from my time at Halliburton.
After about 2 months of getting the mud lab, offices, supplies on the platform, I wrote the displacement procedure which had two big challenges.
Making sure the right fluids go where we want.
Cleanly displacing the well.
Working with the derrick hand, we quadrupole checked all the piping lined up to circulate fluid from the bell nipple back to the mud pits. With construction transferring from Nabors to H&P, there was risk of misalignment. One example would be leaving a blind flange in a pipe joint along the way that prevents flow.
Cleanly displacing a well that hasn't been circulated in a couple of years is also really tough when you're not familiar with "normal" for that rig. The mud could separate, with the weighing agent (barite) dropping to the bottom and packing off. There are times during displacement when you want turbulent flow and laminar flow with the goal being as little "intermingling" or channeling of the two fluid types.
After 72 barrels of mud pumped downhole, we began seeing returns in the mud pits. The entire displacement wasn't perfect, but under the circumstances it was successful.
Sunrise from Olympus looking over to the Mars TLP.
The culture and commitment to safety was top notch working with Shell GOM.
I would have enjoyed drilling several more wells on this TLP and with the team. Unfortunately, I was let go on February 10th, 2016. The price of WTI started to decline July 31, 2014, dropping under $100 per bbl and eventually dropped to $26.19 per bbl on February 11, 2016. I made it to the absolute bottom before I was caught in the boom/bust cycle of oil & gas.
In our group, there were 6 pay grades of drilling fluid engineers. (7-12). When I was let go, I was at pay grade 8. There wasn't anybody left below a grade 10 except me. I was great at my job, but also on such an important well it wasn't worth the risk to change personnel. Still not sure if this was a Shell decision or MI SWACO decision. Either way, I enjoyed the ride.
Power Generation
Fluid Flow Products & BWF Envirotec
From the basement sump pumps to the top of a stack, I've worked all over power plants.
