I thought I would do a post about what it is that I do. I am a construction supervisor for oil companies, a "consultant", "rep" or to put it simply the eyes and ears for the oil company in the field. What is a lease? The lease is the wellsite/location where an oil or gas well is drilled. It is called a lease because the oil company rarely actually owns the land they drill on, they "lease" it from private land owners or the government. Public land in Canada is considered "crown" land. There are different standards when constructing on private and crown lands.
In a perfect world I get direction from the oil company to accompany a survey crew on the initial planning and spotting/scout of the lease. We decide the best way to access it, the size it will be and how it will be constructed. This is important. I have to know what the drilling rig requires for space, how it will set up and when it will drill the well. Winter operations are very different from summer. While spotting the wellsite sometimes I have to contact with the oil company's geology department if the co-ordinate they want is impossible to place in the field. This can sometimes be a drawn out and tedious process for a variety of reasons, like landowner concerns or terrain not conducive to construction (it sometimes seems they always pick the wettest holes known to man). Geology folks want to drill where they say for a reason, their decisions are based off of seismic information, so our lease usually can't be shifted very far or the well is not feasible. Once these decisions are made I provide a cost estimate for construction. Good consultants have a +/- 10% of estimating cost to actual costs. But on the other hand bad consultants simply hike the estimated cost and spend or steal until they reach that number.
Once the lease is ready to be constructed I am notified and receive a land package consisting of all the information I need to construct the lease. In this package are all the landowner/3rd party agreements. I am usually required to contact the affected parties and notify them of the impending construction. I also do a "first call" or "Dial before you dig" which is a phone call or online notification to an organization that has a database of registered underground utility owners. They contact those owners and inform them that we will be doing construction in a given area, if we are in proximity or crossing underground structures, the owner usually needs 48-72 hour notice so they can arrange marking them. This is where I find I have most of my troubles because the oil company usually thinks that as soon as they tell me to start construction, that I can. Not always true, but good consultants can get things done regardless, through previous contacts, polite phone manners and a little BS. Bad consultants mess things up and aggravate the situation by pissing off 3rd parties through missed notification, bad phone etiquette or in the worst case, hitting an underground structure through ignorance. Due diligence is very important. at this stage.
At the same time that the first calls are being done I also arrange to have a contractor to do the construction. Sometimes I am allowed to call who I like other times I am required to get competitive bids from 3 or more contractors. Good contractors with good operators are like gold, they are after all the people who make the job a success or failure. As the oil company rep I am also the guy that ensures the work is done in a safe and cost effective manner. I am required to orientate the workers to the oil companies safety culture and make sure that it is followed. I personally like working for the smaller "Junior" oil companies rather than the majors. It is not that the smaller outfits are more lax/unsafe, but it has been proven, time and again, that junior operators get things done cheaper, faster and more logically. The big ones are weighed down by their own bureaucracy and in some cases will farm work out to the juniors so that even they don't have to deal with it.
Once the job starts I go to the site daily and will stay the whole day unless I have more than one project going on. Bad Consultant Tip: They hardly ever visit the job, prefering to play golf or hang out in the lounge, getting the contactor to phone them a cost at days end. I don't believe in that, we get paid to do a job and the litigation if something goes wrong would be a bitch. The neat thing about my job is that the final product is "my" vision. You have to know what the thing will look like, how it will be built, what kind of machines to use and how to incorporate functionality that will make the drilling or production easy on the people that do that work. Having a background that includes actual experience operating the equipment is the biggest advantage I have.
I stay in contact with the drilling department and depending on how they have scheduled things my life is easy or it is a hectic gong show trying to get the lease done on time. One of the worst faux-paus I can do is promise a completion time and not deliver. It is always best to know early on that the work will not be done in time and tell them that rather than praying with crossed fingers down to the last minute. If I am wrong and the drilling rig move gets delayed there can be huge costs incurred both from the trucking company and drilling rig. In the very worst case a drilling license could be lost due to a delayed spud (start) date. Unfortunately many oil companies seem to wait until the term of the license is nearly expired before they decide to drill. Once the well has been drilled it is either put into production, left in a "standing cased" status or abandoned. In all eventualities I have work to do cleaning everything up, building production pads or total restoration back to the way it was.
In a perfect world I get direction from the oil company to accompany a survey crew on the initial planning and spotting/scout of the lease. We decide the best way to access it, the size it will be and how it will be constructed. This is important. I have to know what the drilling rig requires for space, how it will set up and when it will drill the well. Winter operations are very different from summer. While spotting the wellsite sometimes I have to contact with the oil company's geology department if the co-ordinate they want is impossible to place in the field. This can sometimes be a drawn out and tedious process for a variety of reasons, like landowner concerns or terrain not conducive to construction (it sometimes seems they always pick the wettest holes known to man). Geology folks want to drill where they say for a reason, their decisions are based off of seismic information, so our lease usually can't be shifted very far or the well is not feasible. Once these decisions are made I provide a cost estimate for construction. Good consultants have a +/- 10% of estimating cost to actual costs. But on the other hand bad consultants simply hike the estimated cost and spend or steal until they reach that number.
Once the lease is ready to be constructed I am notified and receive a land package consisting of all the information I need to construct the lease. In this package are all the landowner/3rd party agreements. I am usually required to contact the affected parties and notify them of the impending construction. I also do a "first call" or "Dial before you dig" which is a phone call or online notification to an organization that has a database of registered underground utility owners. They contact those owners and inform them that we will be doing construction in a given area, if we are in proximity or crossing underground structures, the owner usually needs 48-72 hour notice so they can arrange marking them. This is where I find I have most of my troubles because the oil company usually thinks that as soon as they tell me to start construction, that I can. Not always true, but good consultants can get things done regardless, through previous contacts, polite phone manners and a little BS. Bad consultants mess things up and aggravate the situation by pissing off 3rd parties through missed notification, bad phone etiquette or in the worst case, hitting an underground structure through ignorance. Due diligence is very important. at this stage.
At the same time that the first calls are being done I also arrange to have a contractor to do the construction. Sometimes I am allowed to call who I like other times I am required to get competitive bids from 3 or more contractors. Good contractors with good operators are like gold, they are after all the people who make the job a success or failure. As the oil company rep I am also the guy that ensures the work is done in a safe and cost effective manner. I am required to orientate the workers to the oil companies safety culture and make sure that it is followed. I personally like working for the smaller "Junior" oil companies rather than the majors. It is not that the smaller outfits are more lax/unsafe, but it has been proven, time and again, that junior operators get things done cheaper, faster and more logically. The big ones are weighed down by their own bureaucracy and in some cases will farm work out to the juniors so that even they don't have to deal with it.
Once the job starts I go to the site daily and will stay the whole day unless I have more than one project going on. Bad Consultant Tip: They hardly ever visit the job, prefering to play golf or hang out in the lounge, getting the contactor to phone them a cost at days end. I don't believe in that, we get paid to do a job and the litigation if something goes wrong would be a bitch. The neat thing about my job is that the final product is "my" vision. You have to know what the thing will look like, how it will be built, what kind of machines to use and how to incorporate functionality that will make the drilling or production easy on the people that do that work. Having a background that includes actual experience operating the equipment is the biggest advantage I have.
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