Long days, great pay for risking my life everyday at work
Williston, N.D.
Williston, N.D.
By Brent Brattlof
For the day shift I would get up at 5 a.m. and drive in the dark about 20 minuets until I would come over the hill and there I would see the lights to my Rig, 149. Pulling in to the Rig Site, seeing the Top Drive moving fluidly up and down drilling our hole and meeting our quota made me wake up without even taking a sip of my coffee.
Being to work by 5:30 a.m., putting on my fire retardant coveralls and steel toed boots. These are one-piece suits, not breathable, and I was not allowed to roll up the sleeves to feel any gust of the wind that was present. Have a safety meeting and discuss the quota for the day. After that it is about 6:15 a.m. and I got to go on my own and play. I check my portion of the rig and make sure everything is running smoothly. Fill up oil, check for leaks, spray out the shakers (separate the water from the cuttings). This would be considered a smooth day of drilling.
Our holes would be drilled 2 miles straight down and 2 miles in the direction of the oil pocket. Other people would calculate that out way before we even got there. I was interested but when you’re making $25/hr starting out, there were no complaints.
I started out working as a “floorhand.” This was the bottom of the totem pole, the gopher or the bitch. Everyone had me do whatever they wanted me to do, at any time during the day. I would be eating lunch and my co-workers would ask me to do something. It was kind of my initiation into their world. As the way things would go, typically someone would go from Floorhand to Motorhand, Derrickhand, and then Driller. There are a few other spots in between but there usually aren’t that many workers on a rig to fill, so we all kind of did everyone else’s jobs. I surpassed a few positions and made my way to the Derrickhand. Contents of this job would make a grown man shake in his shoes.
The Climb up to the Monkey board
170’ – 200’ above the rig floor, comparable to being at the top of Tamarack Hall, and even higher when you’re at the top, will give you quite a view. The rig floor itself is 30’ off the ground. I would have to climb up and detach from the stairs using a harness, monkey clips and, staying 100% tied off, climb all over this “derrick” taking things apart, tying things down, breaking parts down or put them up on rig moves. This was the exciting part of my job. And I loved every second of it. I am what you would call an adrenaline junkie.
When I was first learning this job I was up this high with my derrickhand and he was showing me what to do. I detached and he had to pick me up so I could reach something to fix. My leg was shaking so much he had to call down to our boss and say “everyone needs to get off the floor just in case Brent shakes something loose.” Made me laugh and then I was fine. But that is how I had to learn, and it is how I do learn, by just doing it.
Building the curve, change the tool, ream the hole or push down collars is when it got to be fun. This is what we would call tripping in or tripping out of the hole -- Instead of taking our pipe joint by joint and laying it down and moving holes, we would stack our pipe in 90’ stands on our rig floor. The Derrickhand (me), would climb up into the derrickboard, which is 170’ above the ground, strap myself in and just wait.
When I say that you would pull back pipe while you are tripping out of the hole, you would literally have to wait till the 90’ section of pipe was detached from the rest, have the driller and floorhands set the pipe where they want it on the rig floor, then I would detach it from the top drive, which is the mechanism that would drill the hole, have a rope around 90’ of pipe weighing in at about 700 lbs a piece, total about 1 ton of pipe and pull it back into my derrick board and tie it off. Now needless to say I enjoyed this very much, it got you away from everyone and into my own little world. It was pretty much a 12 hour work/workout day all alone. There would be other duties that would make my knees shake, so I wasn’t 100% unafraid of it.
There was a lot of down time where it got pretty simple. I would have to check out “mud” weight which is what would take all the cutting from our hole and pull it out. It had to stay at a certain weight and we would have to add a lot of chemicals to it. Also I was responsible for the top drive motors which would pump the mud into our system. Another fun job with having to change parts and hoping that someone doesn’t turn the pump on and cut off a limb or two. I would also have to teach the newbies how to work on the rigs. This was another job all in itself. I kind of liked it because I didn’t have to do everything alone anymore; I had my own personal gopher.
Typical Flare off of all Rigs
All in all with everything that I would have to do and everyone that I worked with made this job, by far, the best job I ever had. To this day I still get calls from my old co-workers, asking me to come back. Brandon, my Derrickhand, said “Once I get my Driller card I want you to come work for me and you will have control of the rig, you can do whatever you want.” Kind of hard to refuse an offer like that. Once I get my degree who knows, maybe I will. But until then it will just be a memory and a hefty bank account! Also the way we worked was a week on and a week off. So I got to spend my hard earned money. It was worth every second!
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