Wednesday

Wednesday starts at 12:01 with us still working out where to lay our cables on the rig.  During the time it took to get the permission to start working, David comes to us and tells us that they can’t put the work trailer in the original location we thought.  This changes how we decide to rig up our sensors.  Everything connects to a box that we lay usually at the bottom of the rig.  Then we run a cable from that box to our trailer. But if the box and the trailer are further away than our cable will reach, then we have to change the location of the box. We decide it will probably work but decide to run the cable to the trailer first just in case it’s too far. 

Luckily, we have just enough cable to get to the trailer. This is a relief for us because our box location means the other cables will be very easy to lay.  If we changed the box location we would have a much more difficult time with the other cables.

During this entire time, our food has been sitting in our van without refrigeration while they work on installing the generator to our living camper.  Finally, we have power.  I immediately start unloading the van and putting all our cold stuff in the fridge and freezer.  It still feels pretty cold, so I don’t think we’ve lost any food. With that, our driver can finally make his trip back to Villahermosa after sitting and waiting for the camper and trailer to be ready. 

We also discover a slight hitch.  In a bizarre coincidence, this camper and trailer are the exact same ones that Paula and I were using at our last job.  We locked everything up and took the keys back to the office, but since they moved the trailer directly to us at this new rig, they don’t have the keys and we don’t either. They managed to break into both the camper and the trailer, but this means we can’t lock anything.  It makes us nervous, especially as we’ve already had a sensor cable go missing and we haven’t even been on the pad for 6 hours.

While all of this has been going on, Paula has been working to lay our sensor cables.  I go and help her finish up, but we still can’t install any sensors, the rig is still using all its parts.  We move on instead to putting the rest of the food away in the camper. David comes and tells us that can’t get the generator hooked up to the work trailer.  Instead he brings the work computers to the trailer and we sit at the kitchen table and start setting up everything.  We also take a sandwich break.  By this time it’s about 3 am.

Finally, David comes back and says we have power in the work trailer. He eats and we finish up the last of what we need to program the tools. We move everything to the trailer and lock up the computers here. Then we check the batteries for one tool, unload the dummy batteries the tool is shipped with, and load the real batteries.  In another bizarre coincidence these tools are also the exact same ones Paula and I ran at our last job.  We program, starting with the MWD (measurement while drilling, this sends me the information uphole) and then move on to the LWD (logging while drilling, this is the tool that collects the information the MWD sends me).  Paula programs, she just came back from school a few weeks ago and needs to gain experience so she can start going on jobs alone. David supervises and I try to get as much set up in our computer system to make it easier when we’re ready to start using the tools.

At about 5 am it looks like there’s nothing left that we can do. We've been up for about 22 hours straight, working non-stop for the last 9 hours. We go to bed.

And at about 11am they wake us up.  The last company that did our job is taking out their sensors and so we can put ours in right after they take theirs out.  This makes everything easier, so we get out of bed and get dressed fast. I mostly stand around and pass tools as David installs the first three sensors since they’re either heavy, high up or require more strength. Paula and I go and install our last two sensors, which are easier.  We check progress of the rig. Two important parts of the crew didn’t show up the night before and they’ve been using substitutions all night.  This means they’ve been working pretty slowly and haven’t made as much progress as we thought.  We go back to our camper and have breakfast, then go back to sleep.

You wouldn’t think it would be hard to sleep all day, but after a minimum amount of sleep it’s hard to stay asleep.  We all wake up on and off during the day to eat, shower, read, and check on progress. They tell us we should be ready about 9pm. 

9 pm rolls around and we’re ready. But the rig is not.  Finally at about 11 they finish.  And decide to wait for the crew change at 12:30 before starting to build the bottom hole assembly our tools will go in. This happens a lot more than you would think with Pemex crews. We will frequently spend an hour or so waiting for the crew to change before picking up/laying down BHA.  This makes me think that it’s not really that bad when I hold up the rig for an hour trying to get my tool to work. We spend midnight checking last minute stuff before picking up.