I can knock the oilfield being safer.

Comment by Jamie Zenner on April 16, 2011 at 7:34am

Amen!!

Comment by Big O on April 20, 2011 at 10:16am

I agree and the large companys don't look at the smaller service companys trac records from the past like our companys have been in business longer than them. Even if you have great employees
that have been working a long time with you its all about dtest- wcomp-cert ins-forms of all kinds now subjected to credit checks among other things maybe im getting old but didn't we forget the old days when a handshake & promise to do the best job posible for someone was the way it was done.

Comment by DP Consultant on April 20, 2011 at 10:50am

Good points, added regulations don’t always make it safer, but oil company safety guys aren’t the only ones to blame. In my opinion, drilling contractors come up with at least as many dumb rules as the oil companies, for the same reason - your reason – incompetent people with authority. I constantly see reactionary decisions made to respond to a symptom or single event, no matter how unlikely it is to ever happen again. We can all think of decisions based on opinion and emotion, without any numerical analysis. When a proper cost/benefit analysis is applied, the best action is often no action at all. You often find that one man made a mistake. If you question everyone else and they knew enough not to do – whatever – making a rule that they must do what they were going to do just wastes time, and it won’t help the guy who didn’t know what to do. He STILL won’t know what to do. As an industry we have been taken over by remote management who are “reactionary accountants”. Somehow they think rules will guarantee skilled hands, (and training and experience have no value). How many of you have ever seen a hand with a policy manual open BEFORE an event (it’s always open afterwards to write the cover story). This brings up another related issue. I get called for emergencies all the time. The usual response of the “reactionary accountants” is to cry loudly that the rig has inadequate “emergency procedures”. So, how many people run to the bookshelf during an emergency to read the procedure? You better know what you are doing BEFORE the emergency. I have to admit that I do use this excuse to get consultants off my back, then I make sure the guys get trained.

Comment by solberg on April 20, 2013 at 10:40am

I've gotta challenge this. The quality of hands has gone down because people can make a living in other industries - finance, law, or whatever. Back in the 70's in Alberta, Drillers made more than doctors and lawyers, and some still do. Even within the patch, you have more options - as a Derrickman you can go directional drilling, MWD, pressure testing, or any other oilfield service. Also, finding good people is not a problem confined to the oilfield - all industries have trouble finding good people, even with standards as low as "Can you pass a p*ss test?" because that is knocking 25% of candidates off the list first shot.  It's also laughable that "no worker is allowed to be exceptional anymore".  What do you mean by that? Riding the blocks up to the monkey boards and dying? Is that exceptional? Oil companies now consider exceptional to be related to how the work is done rather than what gets done. Can you move a rig without a spill or pinched finger? A broken finger costs the drilling company $20,000 in Canada. Depending on the market and profit margins, that can equal 10 days of rig down time before the rig is back contributing to the bottom line.  A guy breaks a finger, and everyone's all like "oh, that sucks", but geez, a hydraulic pump fitting goes and we have to wait 4 hours for a hotshot to deliver a fitting and everyone's pulling their hair out. Finally, if I had a dollar for every old timer I heard talking about finding good help, I'd be able to buy my own rig. But my old man told me two things: When you point a finger at someone, there are four of your own pointing right back at you, and, if the learner hasn't learned, the teacher hasn't taught. Maybe instead of whining about "hands these days" we should look to the quality of the mentoring and job instructions given by the experienced hands. Has anyone ever taught them how to train people? 

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