In addition to hazards described in the first part of the article, there can be operational and domestic hazards, and also personal risky actions, which we will discuss in the second part.
Vlad Belousov, member of the Union of translators of Russia, author of text-books and training courses for oil and gas translators and interpreters.
Operational hazards. Having entered the oilfield, each worker or visitor must attend a safety induction session. In the process of staying in the field and implementation of works it is also required to visit periodic briefings by type of activities and in occupational safety. Despite that, incidents and accidents still take place, though not very often. In most cases they are caused by errors and carelessness of people.
One of key sources of hazards in the field is hydrogen sulfide often present in well products. Hydrogen sulfide or “sour gas” is colorless gas, which in small concentrations has acrid odor of rotten egg, and in big concentrations you cannot smell the odor because smelling is paralyzed almost instantly. A single breath is enough for poisoning, and consequences can be unpredicted, up to lethal effect.
Once one of our translators within a group of six people went to a well pad. They opened a well. It was not an oil well but a water well, in which no gas was expected. However hydrogen sulfide was present, and almost instantly all six of them fell unconscious. And later they were sent to Moscow for medical examination and treatment. Of course, a safety man is always present at a drilling site, who conducts safety briefings for work in hydrogen sulfide environment and provides personal protective equipment, including self-rescue units. However he cannot continuously stay by your side, therefore you should always remember about this key operational hazard in the field.
Another serious hazard at a drilling site is an oil and gas blowout from a well under very high pressure resulting in destruction of equipment, fire and explosion, human fatalities. It may occur if, as a result of human error, pressure of drilling mud column in a well is less than pressure of fluid in the reservoir. In order to prevent blowouts, special devices called preventers are installed on wells, and drills for their timely closing are periodically conducted for drilling crews.
One of key problems in terms of safety is falling of objects from height, mainly from derricks of drilling and workover rigs, for example, tools when people work on platforms of derricks. By the way, height of workover rig derrick comprises 22 meters, and drilling rig derrick – 58 meters, therefore it is unlikely that a hard hat mandatory for all working on the rig floor can help in case of wrench falling from such height. Normally all people are removed from the rig floor to a safe location for the time of repair on the derrick.
Electric current also is a potential source of hazards. It is clear that you should not temper and try to open or disassemble live equipment, however sometimes such hazard can find us itself. I remember one case from my practice in the oilfield. That time I assisted our American paramedic with communication, and also when rendering first aid. Together we went to road accident locations in an ambulance.
One day we received an emergency call because a man received an electrical shock. We came to the location and learnt the following. Dump sand truck came to the construction site. In the process of unloading the truck contacted a power transmission line with its body and electric current of 10,000 Volts passed through the truck body. The driver remained in the cabin and was protected, but one of workers rushed to rescue him and touched the cabin door handle. The electric current passed through his left arm and heart, and came out of his right heel. When we came he was alive. We rendered first aid and brought him to the town hospital, but unfortunately he died later.
These are key operational sources of hazards. There are also others, for example, pressure equipment operation or equipment in the process of pressure testing. If such equipment does not hold the set pressure, that may result in a rupture, therefore it is prohibited to come close or step on it.
In any case, the most important for a translator is to attend a safety briefing, strictly follow its requirements and avoid places with restricted access.
Domestic hazards. Taking into account severe conditions in the tundra, particularly in winter time, we cannot consider domestic hazards as something insignificant. Well, for example, trivial disconnection of power supply due to an accident in the grid. It should seem to be nonsense. Let’s wait when they switch it on. However taking into account field camp isolation and its remoteness from the town, such situation can be very hazardous. And once it happened to our camp, when the temperature outside was -420С. A wooden building in such conditions cools down just in several hours, and that means only one thing – evacuation of personnel if you have sufficient number of vehicles. But we did not have them too. Then the situation was saved by an emergency generator which was brought from oil treatment facility, but in general it is rather dangerous.
This is also related to use of inoperable heaters in wooden buildings and shacks. Short circuit – fire – and that’s all, you are outside exposed to the frost. Or, for example, icy roads. It is a big problem to evacuate a casualty with broken leg to the town at the distance of over one hundred kilometers. All these issues comprise responsibility of not only safety man, but also all who live in the camp.
Personal doubtful risky actions. Due to lack of knowledge or personal stupidity some people can be involved into risky adventures or actions with very high price to pay. And sometimes the very circumstances create such risks.
During several rotations I used to work as a translator of drilling supervisor, who was Hungarian. Some time before the event he had noticed an old Russian drilling derrick standing at the distance of a couple of kilometers from our well pad, and was eager to go to the very top of it. All members of the Russian drilling crew refused to accompany him, and were right in that, because the derrick was suspended and in emergency state, it was waiting for disposal. But I agreed to go there for no good reason.
When we came up to the derrick, I saw that all manways and steps were removed, so that nobody could go up. However that did not stop us. We climbed up the supports, reached the stairway and began our way to the top. The drilling derrick was very rusty, most of handrailing was gone, and the very stairway was very unstable under our feet. Nevertheless, we went up to the full height of the derrick – 60 meters, remained there for a while delighted by tundra views, and successfully returned to the ground. But did we really need to do that at an emergency facility? By the way, once I saw how a similar drilling derrick in the tundra inclined, and then fell down.
One Russian comedian Mikhail Zadornov once joked that only Russian guys are ready to drop a kettlebell of 32 kilograms from a skyscraper just to see: “And what will happen?” It seems like not only Russian guys. Hungarians too.
Another case. One sunny day our American paramedic in the field camp got to know about existence of a farm for reindeer slaughtering located in a couple of hours drive from us. For a long time he persuaded me to accompany him in that trip in order to talk to the Nenets workers of the farm, and eventually talked me into it.
The first thing that we saw upon arrival was a big fenced site with peacefully walking reindeers, and also several wooden buildings. As we learnt later, all of them were designed for one purpose – slaughtering of reindeer. Only two Nenets were in the yard, who slowly came up to us with very unstable gait. To be honest, their appearance frightened me. They were small in stature, as usual they were wearing deerskin parkas, but their faces in gathering darkness looked rather ominously. In addition, in their hands they were holding blood-stained knives with at least half a meter length, looking like machetes, which the trifled over during the conversation. And the most important – both of them were under strong alcohol intoxication, and could hardly keep their balance. In other words, we left rather quickly in order to complete one more risky action.
By the way, concerning alcohol. As it was earlier discussed, normally “dry law” is established in oilfields. However there are always people ready to violate it. My advice – make it a rule to follow instructions and safety requirements, then everything will be OK with you. If it is prohibited to use alcohol – do not do that in order not to be involved into even more risky actions, for example, taking an ice plunge in the tundra at the temperature of minus 430С. I used to see such actions as well. First ask yourself – do you really want to do that?
It is well known, that alcohol always leads to problems and disasters, and abuse of surrogate alcohol may result in fatality. During my work with an ambulance, once we delivered some guys with very strong intoxication from the oilfield to the town hospital. They told us, that on that day one of them had birthday, and they decided to celebrate.
As long as they could not find alcohol in the field, it was decided to use glycol that is used to prevent freezing of pipelines. Glycol mixture includes alcohol, but it is methanol that may cause blindness and death. They made it really funny: laid the celebration table, and poured the glycol into empty bottles. So civilized. They had a shot of it and… called the ambulance. There is a well-known saying: “The most expensive thing in life is stupidity, because you have to pay the highest price for it”.
So, after all the above-mentioned, are you ready? Then welcome to the team! Actually, work in the oilfield is really interesting and cool!