Where I work;

I am an oilfield contract operator current on contract with Chevron USA.

I work in the Gulf of Mexico on a 7 days on and 7 days off rotation.  It is a nice way to work with 7 days off every other week, but not a good way to race pigeons, my favorite hobby.  I do have time to work on getting top breeders and breeding top pigeons for many other lofts with the help of my wife while I am at work.  The results of my breeding program has been tremendous for many lofts across the USA.  Many of my friends and customers have asked me about what it is like working this way, so I've put together a few pictures of where I work and a few sites in the gulf.

This is Chevron's West Cameron 196 production platform, where I am currently assigned.  We produce mostly natural gas and some oil, called condensate that natural gas wells produce as sort of a by product.  The platform itself is currently under some corrosion repairs and repainting, mostly from hurricane damage and years of being exposed to adverse weather and saltwater.  In the photo above you notice a main facility where the living quarters and producing wells are located.  The smaller of the 2 is an auxiliary platform which is where the separators and compressors are located.  After a few years of producing wells they usually loose a lot of the original pressure they originally had when they were drilled, which in this case is in the area of 3,000 psi to 6,000 psi.  The sales pipeline that carries the natural gas to the shore base and refineries usually has about 950 psi, so when the wells get down to 1,000 psi we need a compressor (a very large one) to pick the pressure back up and inject it into the sales pipeline.  With the use of these compressors, we can then 'pull' the wells down to 100 psi and get most of the natural gas and oil still in the formations below.

Many people ask me if I work on rigs in the gulf, the answer is no, I work on a fixed platform that produces the oil and natural gas you use every day.  Below are pictures of drilling rigs they use to drill the original wells, then a platform can be setup to produce those wells. There is no use drilling the wells if you cannot produce them and send the product to the refineries.

This is a semi submersible drilling rig.  This is a floating platform that is usually used in deeper waters where a jack up rig cannot be used.  The cost of using one of these rigs runs from $150,000 a day to $500,000 a day depending on the size, capable drilling depth, and technology available on board.  The rig above is a medium sized rig.

This is a jack up rig.  It is a floating barge with legs to raise it out of the water to make a stable platform then has the capability to "skid" over the drilling section of this rig and skid it over a production platform to drill more wells or work over problem wells.  This is a small drilling rig and as you can see is able to only drill in shallow water 10' to 80' deep.  If the oil company that leases these rigs needs to drill in deeper water, they must use a much larger jack up rig, or a floating rig such as the semi floater above.  You can tell about the size of these rigs and platform by the crane in use on them, these are very large cranes.

Find out more about Chevron and drilling in the depths of the earth at their website - Chevron.com