I have been working down by Lethbridge for the last week. It was another one of those ambiguous job starts, not really knowing when the location had to be done by, but knowing from past experience that it is always prudent to err on the side of "Get the damn thing built A.S.A.P.!"
So hard to find a contractor in the extreme south of Alberta that even knows how to build a lease anymore. The industry had for the most part gone to minimal disturbance drilling. A whole lot of accumulated knowledge has been lost. I wonder if the industry realizes this? I called a handfull of contractors I found online or in the yellow pages, the answer was always the same: "Nope, can't help you, haven't built one in 15 years and only have a few old-timers on the payroll that even know how anymore". I have to admit I was hoping for a bit more interest, but can I really blame them? With the stroke of a pen government regulators and industry decided minimal disturbance was best. The unintended outcome was many companies left the field and pursued other earthmoving activity or went out of business entirely.
Well what do you know? An oil company decides to drill with oil based mud down here and we are left with the only option of actually protecting the soils and surrounding land, by building a real honest to god lease. And that brings me back to Jay.
I met Jay when he worked for me up north around Rocky Mtn House a good 10-12 years back. Sometime ago he left that part of the country and took a real cowboy job on the Birdseye Ranch which abutts Waterton National Park. I found him again about 3 years ago when we drilled a few wells on the ranch. He knows what he is doing and the ranch had some equipment so he built the sites for me. Anyway on this latest job near Lethbridge I got Jay back yet again.
In my own defense we started construction on Saturday and I didn't know for sure until Monday that the rig wasn't coming till Thursday...the only problem was I told Jay when we started that it was coming on Wednesday. You know I hate deadlines, but for once it was nice to make someone else think the heat was on, and they work so quick, but I get called a fucker! Oh well, I can take it, and now Jay has the whole day to himself tomorrow to make everything look pretty with no pesky rig move happening around him. Its good to be the boss sometimes...
No comments:
Post a Comment