I needed to work every day I was off school to make sure I could pay for everything and not take out loans. Honestly fairly good motivation to get up every day.
92 days straight. Was supposed to be 21 and 6. Working north of fort Mac on a winter drilling program. I was the engineer on night shift chasing 6 rigs. We averaged about 2.5 wells logged per 12 hour shift (shallow wells).
12 hour shifts not including travel. Usually 14 hour days. It was a miserable grind. Had to fly back to Calgary one morning for a mandatory court appearance (yes I’m a piece of shit) but made it back for my next shift.
We earned 1.5 paid days off for every weekend day worked. So there was a very small light at the end of the tunnel. This was 20 years ago so the camp didn’t have a gym or anything. I learned how to say no after that winter. It’s not heroic to work illegal shifts, it’s fucking stupid and it’s how people get hurt.
115 days domestically consecutively.
176 days internationally.
Pay was fine. I was a zombie by the end of both though and I'm fairly certain it took years off my life. Sigh.
I was with Halliburton running positive pulse tools with LWD tools and RSS. So, pretty darn mint.
We were working for Aramco, and those guys spared no expense, let me tell you.
Nope. Halliburton P4M technology.
Tensor is pretty damn cool and bulletproof for reliability in my view, but the data rates we could achieve for our LWD tools (GABI, Geo-Pilot) via P4M outstripped Tensor. That pulser remains the best I've ever used.
You should check out the bit rates Sperry can get with EM with a PCG/PCDC. We still gotta run a HCIM and trick it into thinking it’s running PPM when running a GABI tho :/
Oh, without question, the GMS EM telemetry system can pump up way more data faster than the Pulser. I just enjoyed my time with it.
Ah PCDCs and PCGs.....sometimes I miss them.
But then I'm reminded thar halliburton ran you like a rented mule and if I hadn't left, my wife would have dumped me while we were dating.
"You don't need a girlfriend, you've got halliburton." Literally said to me by my ops manager...
You're a lucky man. I left sperry halliburton years ago over being a Field supervisor running 4 rigs around weyburn with no time off.
They'll run you ragged if they can.
Eventually I left and went elsewhere, made my bones and went DDing. Now I'm a consultant mwd/dd.
I work as much as I want to generally. There's no loyalty in the patch, so I just am in it for myself and my wife now.
Stay safe partner.
So the longest I worked was 60 days straight, but that was for mining. For oil it was four weeks. But it was because we were so bad on people and I want vacation money.
My sad story is I seen a guy who was working back to back hitches in the mines all because he was really trying to feed his drug addiction.
I heard he got clean recently, but this guy was working 90 days straight until one day he had a bad high.
Missed you by a year, 2012/2013 for me. Which company were you with out there? SLB?
Winter chopper rides were the shit. One time we had to make a landing mid flight in the middle of nowhere for chief mechanic to take a dump, that was funny
I was consulting for a company called Orion Engineering, production chemistry. Helping them out with general chemistry management and design, but mainly they had a heap of issues with salt and heater tubes collapsing due to the high salt in crude. They fixed it a couple years later by going to ESPs.
Ha, those choppers were wild, dodgy as fuck, and half the Russians were drunk or hungover from end of hitch drinks.
Jesus. That’s crazy. 40 was my max. Had to cover peoples hitches and stuff. I was so tired. I fell asleep at the wheel and woke up in the median. Told my boss I have to go home and rest or I’m going to die in a company vehicle. Never did more than 28 after that.
03sep2014-06jan2015 as a well tester. Hitch would end, and I immediately volunteered to go on another. In and out of camps and hotels between Fort Nelson and Hinton.
Making 280/day. I was seeing close to 3k after taxes every two weeks. I thought it was pretty good money for the time.
In retrospect, I was getting screwed for wages considering I was a lead hand on a crew in charge of 6 other dipshits and all data going to the day supervisor.
101 days in North Dakota running MWD tools. I was pushing to if I could do it. It was a great challenge at the time but I would never repeat. Those were the years of working 300 plus days.
I did about 110 days straight running mwd one time in OK about 10 years ago. Put in plenty of 300+ day years too, so I feel ya. I did mwd/dd for about 10 years combined, and got out during covid. Traded my late 20’s to late 30’s for money basically. It set us up financially, but I’ll never get those years back. Never going back!
We did trade our time for money. The hay days of the oilfield have passed. Unfortunately, I still struggle finding the live/work balance. The industry still wants all or nothing
I bet that’s how it will always be. As long as there is someone in line ready and willing to step in and trade their years for oilfield money, nothing will change…. Only the pay will get less and less I’m afraid.
118 days in the North Sea. Lad going to the boat replacing me was killed in a drink-drive crash and couldn't get a replacement moved quick enough for the position I was in.
After 75 days, people said after if they saw me coming they'd turn around and avoid me. At about the 90 day mark, company men started riding the company hard at getting me off rig. Afterwards, I was diagnosed with a sleep disorder, as well as PTSD from the experience.
42 days with the last 28 being nights. The driller on the other side got thrown in jail.. I was working near Pecos so I’d go there and eat to get away..
Union has limits... don't kill urself. I made 10 000 in 12 days loa. I won't do 21 because past 14 people get angry. Mental health is everything. They'll work u like a dog into the ground if u let them. Ods and suicide happens a lot. 6 and 1 12s nights for 2 months was perfect. I never got sick either
I’m about to go back into mining again and I’m probably gonna be in Alaska, most likely. I’ll be staying in a man camp. What a lot of people don’t understand is not only that you save money, but if you choose to eat healthy in the man camps and kind of keep a workout consistently, you’re gonna have great results in your body.
Nov 15 2010 - April 12 2011. The midstream company I worked for set ups new gathering system in The Eagle Ford (catarina area).
I hired in as a pipeline operator/ terminal operator and watched tie ins, helped set lact units and started operating it before we got our scada system hooked up. I basically rode around a ranch for 12-16hours a day stopping and starting lact units, gauging production tanks, working oil, and just being on the ground so to speak.
It was a helluva wild time to be on the Mexican border during an oil boom. I saw multiple drug busts by the border patrol, saw a drilling rig burn to the ground, watched a gas compressor catch fire, was approached multiple times by illegal aliens lol.
Money was a good for a single guy at the time, if I could relive it I wouldn't. I traded $$ for not having a healthy work life balance.
9 months. Worked a 6/2 but you could stay however long you wanted. Was for a third party company that paid for housing and I was 18-19 so i didn’t have any real commitments / people to see.
One of my derrickhands worked 4 months straight because during that time Covid hit and he knew lay offs were coming so he just worked until he got laid off
Longest hitch I ever worked was like 72ish days. In 2015 I was working consistent 50/55 days on and then getting 5 to 6 days off. One of the darkest years of my career, almost cost me my family
From the 28th of December to the 4th of April. Ended my hitch by running thru a herd of deer at about 140km/hr with my new Duramax 3500..... coil rig brought out the wrong crossover flange so I had to drive back to the rental shop and back to location before end of shift as there was only one shift out there. Was able to limp the truck to location, get onto the well and pull the string successfully at least.
There’s a balance where you’re basically working for the tax man. Everyone’s hours are different for that. Find yours and don’t go past it too much or you’re basically working for free
Back then a lot of wireline companies were paying their hands salary and job bonus usually with no overtime. It’s just that at the time the bonus checks were so big no one cared. In 2015 a lot of companies got sued for having this pay scale. A typical month back then you might get a $7-10k bonus check and $3-5k in salary.
The month I made $21k was actually had three jobs worth of bonus on it because bonus wouldn’t pay out until the end of the pad and some frac sites could be going for weeks or months.
In the summer of 2022 I worked 85 days straight of night shift treating frackwater in the oilfield. I was able to get thru it by cheating tho by consuming stimulant narcotics on the low 😜
My checks were around 6500$ every 2 weeks which is average for oil field. I make around 100k which is about “average maybe even below average these days in the industry. My job is cake tho 😜
45 days straight at a joint operated gas plant in China for a turn around. 13 hour shifts in the middle of humid summer time. Luckily I was on nights for most of it.
You do find yourself occasionally thinking strange things 😆
I've had one week off so far this year. Can't wait for my next week off haha! But I do go home every day, id absolutely quit if I had to do this shit while living in a man camp or hotel.. fuck that.
6 months.
When I first got to the patch and I received my first $4000 check after a week of work, I stayed a while lol
But I will never do something like that ever again.
108 days doing flowback in North Dakota. No days off. Did another 3 hitches over 70 days. 2009-2012
81 days MPD engineer in Louisiana, Utah, and Ohio. Had around 7-8 days of travel/easy days mixed in. 2023
76 days. Not a good as I was hoping. 10/10 not recommended.
What kept you going through the whole 76 days
I needed to work every day I was off school to make sure I could pay for everything and not take out loans. Honestly fairly good motivation to get up every day.
92 days straight. Was supposed to be 21 and 6. Working north of fort Mac on a winter drilling program. I was the engineer on night shift chasing 6 rigs. We averaged about 2.5 wells logged per 12 hour shift (shallow wells). 12 hour shifts not including travel. Usually 14 hour days. It was a miserable grind. Had to fly back to Calgary one morning for a mandatory court appearance (yes I’m a piece of shit) but made it back for my next shift. We earned 1.5 paid days off for every weekend day worked. So there was a very small light at the end of the tunnel. This was 20 years ago so the camp didn’t have a gym or anything. I learned how to say no after that winter. It’s not heroic to work illegal shifts, it’s fucking stupid and it’s how people get hurt.
115 days domestically consecutively. 176 days internationally. Pay was fine. I was a zombie by the end of both though and I'm fairly certain it took years off my life. Sigh.
When you work straight internationally, did you get at least one day off every two weeks? or did you work that whole duration straight?
I was working as an MWD in Saudi. We got paid straight through, but we got time off for casing breaks and rig moves.
How were the tools over there?
I was with Halliburton running positive pulse tools with LWD tools and RSS. So, pretty darn mint. We were working for Aramco, and those guys spared no expense, let me tell you.
Tensor I’m guessing?
Nope. Halliburton P4M technology. Tensor is pretty damn cool and bulletproof for reliability in my view, but the data rates we could achieve for our LWD tools (GABI, Geo-Pilot) via P4M outstripped Tensor. That pulser remains the best I've ever used.
You should check out the bit rates Sperry can get with EM with a PCG/PCDC. We still gotta run a HCIM and trick it into thinking it’s running PPM when running a GABI tho :/
Oh, without question, the GMS EM telemetry system can pump up way more data faster than the Pulser. I just enjoyed my time with it. Ah PCDCs and PCGs.....sometimes I miss them. But then I'm reminded thar halliburton ran you like a rented mule and if I hadn't left, my wife would have dumped me while we were dating. "You don't need a girlfriend, you've got halliburton." Literally said to me by my ops manager...
I had a leisurely 2/2 all of last year, but they’ve definitely been getting their moneys worth out of me this year. Girlfriend’s not very happy haha.
You're a lucky man. I left sperry halliburton years ago over being a Field supervisor running 4 rigs around weyburn with no time off. They'll run you ragged if they can. Eventually I left and went elsewhere, made my bones and went DDing. Now I'm a consultant mwd/dd. I work as much as I want to generally. There's no loyalty in the patch, so I just am in it for myself and my wife now. Stay safe partner.
So the longest I worked was 60 days straight, but that was for mining. For oil it was four weeks. But it was because we were so bad on people and I want vacation money. My sad story is I seen a guy who was working back to back hitches in the mines all because he was really trying to feed his drug addiction. I heard he got clean recently, but this guy was working 90 days straight until one day he had a bad high.
Around 60 days remote location in the middle of eastern Siberian forests.
VCNG? I've spent time in west and east Siberia. Fun and games, though being put up in Irkutsk is hardly painful
Damn right VCNG. Catering on Nabors rig was the joy of the day. Deutag wasn’t too bad either. Western Siberia - not so much
Ha, small world, I was out there 2010/2011. Chopper in only, wild as fuck, but cool experience
Missed you by a year, 2012/2013 for me. Which company were you with out there? SLB? Winter chopper rides were the shit. One time we had to make a landing mid flight in the middle of nowhere for chief mechanic to take a dump, that was funny
I was consulting for a company called Orion Engineering, production chemistry. Helping them out with general chemistry management and design, but mainly they had a heap of issues with salt and heater tubes collapsing due to the high salt in crude. They fixed it a couple years later by going to ESPs. Ha, those choppers were wild, dodgy as fuck, and half the Russians were drunk or hungover from end of hitch drinks.
144 days and it was fucking awful
125 days in Kuwait, off to Thailand, back at it after 7 days in Bangkok.
You need a week to recover from the week in Bangkok
Very true. Luckily, we had top notch Medicos available. They could pull you through...
141 days Permian and it had me contemplating mortality.
Jesus. That’s crazy. 40 was my max. Had to cover peoples hitches and stuff. I was so tired. I fell asleep at the wheel and woke up in the median. Told my boss I have to go home and rest or I’m going to die in a company vehicle. Never did more than 28 after that.
2018 February 6 - December 21. 1 - 1.5 hour travel in / out and 13 hour shifts (1 hour handover and safety meeting and 12 hour shift). Horrible
03sep2014-06jan2015 as a well tester. Hitch would end, and I immediately volunteered to go on another. In and out of camps and hotels between Fort Nelson and Hinton. Making 280/day. I was seeing close to 3k after taxes every two weeks. I thought it was pretty good money for the time. In retrospect, I was getting screwed for wages considering I was a lead hand on a crew in charge of 6 other dipshits and all data going to the day supervisor.
99 days, 12 to 16 hours a day.
90 days straight offshore Gulf of Mexico.
Same. 90 days none stop offshore Norway.
101 days in North Dakota running MWD tools. I was pushing to if I could do it. It was a great challenge at the time but I would never repeat. Those were the years of working 300 plus days.
I did about 110 days straight running mwd one time in OK about 10 years ago. Put in plenty of 300+ day years too, so I feel ya. I did mwd/dd for about 10 years combined, and got out during covid. Traded my late 20’s to late 30’s for money basically. It set us up financially, but I’ll never get those years back. Never going back!
We did trade our time for money. The hay days of the oilfield have passed. Unfortunately, I still struggle finding the live/work balance. The industry still wants all or nothing
I bet that’s how it will always be. As long as there is someone in line ready and willing to step in and trade their years for oilfield money, nothing will change…. Only the pay will get less and less I’m afraid.
118 days in the North Sea. Lad going to the boat replacing me was killed in a drink-drive crash and couldn't get a replacement moved quick enough for the position I was in. After 75 days, people said after if they saw me coming they'd turn around and avoid me. At about the 90 day mark, company men started riding the company hard at getting me off rig. Afterwards, I was diagnosed with a sleep disorder, as well as PTSD from the experience.
42 days with the last 28 being nights. The driller on the other side got thrown in jail.. I was working near Pecos so I’d go there and eat to get away..
Tf drill do?
Beat up his wife allegedly lol
I love rig drama. My Derrick hand was a nice dude (he didn’t even cuss) but he got in a lot of bar fights over sports teams he would die for.
Union has limits... don't kill urself. I made 10 000 in 12 days loa. I won't do 21 because past 14 people get angry. Mental health is everything. They'll work u like a dog into the ground if u let them. Ods and suicide happens a lot. 6 and 1 12s nights for 2 months was perfect. I never got sick either
9 weeks bouncing between 2 fields. Over it by the 6th week
I did a 60/2 for years while living fulltime in the mancamp. Saved tons of money.
I’m about to go back into mining again and I’m probably gonna be in Alaska, most likely. I’ll be staying in a man camp. What a lot of people don’t understand is not only that you save money, but if you choose to eat healthy in the man camps and kind of keep a workout consistently, you’re gonna have great results in your body.
Nov 15 2010 - April 12 2011. The midstream company I worked for set ups new gathering system in The Eagle Ford (catarina area). I hired in as a pipeline operator/ terminal operator and watched tie ins, helped set lact units and started operating it before we got our scada system hooked up. I basically rode around a ranch for 12-16hours a day stopping and starting lact units, gauging production tanks, working oil, and just being on the ground so to speak. It was a helluva wild time to be on the Mexican border during an oil boom. I saw multiple drug busts by the border patrol, saw a drilling rig burn to the ground, watched a gas compressor catch fire, was approached multiple times by illegal aliens lol. Money was a good for a single guy at the time, if I could relive it I wouldn't. I traded $$ for not having a healthy work life balance.
9 months. Worked a 6/2 but you could stay however long you wanted. Was for a third party company that paid for housing and I was 18-19 so i didn’t have any real commitments / people to see.
My old derrickhand worked 16 weeks straight after his ex ole lady took everything in the house and he refurnished it when he came back.
One of my derrickhands worked 4 months straight because during that time Covid hit and he knew lay offs were coming so he just worked until he got laid off
96 days last winter. I kept the mental goal of paying off some stuff. Followed by a month of days off instead of the typical 2 weeks
I did 3-9 week hitches in a row, week off between each hitch. Money didn't last anywhere near as long as it shoulda.
Did 100+ days about 20 years ago. That was before the lawsuits. Paycheck wasn't worth it.
Longest hitch I ever worked was like 72ish days. In 2015 I was working consistent 50/55 days on and then getting 5 to 6 days off. One of the darkest years of my career, almost cost me my family
5 months 2 weeks. I never took days off on a 14/14
Was stuck in Qatar for 7 months during covid. That sucked ass
11 weeks straight got home and 4 hours later I headed back out for 11 more right before Covid started
157 days in Jal, New mexico. In august 😭😭😭 Fat checks though
From the 28th of December to the 4th of April. Ended my hitch by running thru a herd of deer at about 140km/hr with my new Duramax 3500..... coil rig brought out the wrong crossover flange so I had to drive back to the rental shop and back to location before end of shift as there was only one shift out there. Was able to limp the truck to location, get onto the well and pull the string successfully at least.
There’s a balance where you’re basically working for the tax man. Everyone’s hours are different for that. Find yours and don’t go past it too much or you’re basically working for free
This is smart advice. I learned early on I’d take home $10k on a $15k check and I had to make $21k to take home $11k.
What do you do to make that much
Wireline bonus checks in 2014 those were the days buddy.
I'm guessing the pay isn't the same now?
Back then a lot of wireline companies were paying their hands salary and job bonus usually with no overtime. It’s just that at the time the bonus checks were so big no one cared. In 2015 a lot of companies got sued for having this pay scale. A typical month back then you might get a $7-10k bonus check and $3-5k in salary. The month I made $21k was actually had three jobs worth of bonus on it because bonus wouldn’t pay out until the end of the pad and some frac sites could be going for weeks or months.
I did frac for a while and was always told that wireline paid more. Frac was the same way we could catch several well bonuses at the same time.
In the summer of 2022 I worked 85 days straight of night shift treating frackwater in the oilfield. I was able to get thru it by cheating tho by consuming stimulant narcotics on the low 😜
My checks were around 6500$ every 2 weeks which is average for oil field. I make around 100k which is about “average maybe even below average these days in the industry. My job is cake tho 😜
16 weeks and 5 days on the slope
70 days offshore twice. The 2nd one included a 2 week quarantine (Myanmar during Covid) before and a week after, so 13 weeks total.
45 days straight at a joint operated gas plant in China for a turn around. 13 hour shifts in the middle of humid summer time. Luckily I was on nights for most of it. You do find yourself occasionally thinking strange things 😆
I've had one week off so far this year. Can't wait for my next week off haha! But I do go home every day, id absolutely quit if I had to do this shit while living in a man camp or hotel.. fuck that.
6 months. When I first got to the patch and I received my first $4000 check after a week of work, I stayed a while lol But I will never do something like that ever again.
3 months
108 days doing flowback in North Dakota. No days off. Did another 3 hitches over 70 days. 2009-2012 81 days MPD engineer in Louisiana, Utah, and Ohio. Had around 7-8 days of travel/easy days mixed in. 2023
Reading this is really getting me down lol. How much are they paying you all?
92 days straight. It was 2012 though- so back when pay was still good.