The Company Man

The story of KOC’s Kuwaiti Rig Operation Engineers in North Kuwait

We reached North Kuwait by mid-morning, and despite high noon being more than an hour away, the temperature outside was quickly approaching 50° C. Our destination, KOC Rig Site SP-283, was many kilometers away from the nearest city. While the rig was quite literally in the middle of nowhere, the area was somehow still bustling with activity. Outside, a man in a yellow bulldozer moved sand across the site methodically while engineers on the rig directed a crane operator carrying material to the platform. Nearby, engineers on the ground surveyed and checked various pieces of equipment, all under the blazing sun of a Kuwaiti summer.

 

At the site, we were greeted by a man in blue coveralls, KOC Drilling Engineer Majed Al-Gharib, who would be our guide for the day as we learned more about the ground-breaking work Kuwaiti employees from KOC are conducting in the field. The story that follows is, in their own words, an account of the daily life of Kuwaiti Rig Operation Engineers – also known as Company Men – in North Kuwait.

 

 

Majed Al-Gharib, Drilling Engineer: The position of Rig Operation Engineer is not a common one at KOC. This job, which was initiated about four years ago, has a different type of contract that requires you to work here at the rig site. Many Kuwaitis prefer not to work in the field, so KOC implemented a Kuwaitization model for this designation. When the Company floated this position, we had around 120 applicants, and from this number, a portion of them were considered able to truly handle working on the rig. In our team (Development Drilling & Workover Team VIII), we have two rigs that are handled 100% by this program, and a third rig is on the way.

 

An important thing to understand is that this job requires proficiency in a number of fields. For example, candidates should have some background in logging, they should understand differences in the various rig components, they should understand how systems work at the rig, and this includes the different mechanical systems and generators. On top of all of this, they must also understand how all these systems work together in harmony, because if we have failure in one system, we have to stop everything. Sometimes this is critical, and failures have a very real possibility of leading to serious injury or death. Our Rig Operation Engineers need to know when to stop operations, continue operations, or pull out entirely as a safety precaution. Engineers face many obstacles at the rig site, and these include everything from dealing with heavy equipment to the very real danger that H2S gas can pose to human life. We have given our young engineers the responsibility of handling these rig sites, and they have risen to the challenge and accomplished our goals, which is a major achievement that we want to focus on.

 

 

Yaqoub Al-Ali, Rig Operation Engineer: I joined KOC in August of 2013 after graduating from the University of Arizona in 2011, where I studied civil engineering. When I first joined, the first program I was enrolled in here at KOC was a safety program. This was followed by visits to the rig before I became an Assistant Company Man, a position I held for a year. During that time, I learned quite a bit from my mentors. This was a very valuable learning experience for me, and after the training period was completed, we were assigned to the rigs by ourselves.

 

The way work is divided here at the rig follows a four days on, four days off schedule. We work in shifts, from 6 AM to 6 PM or vice versa. We hand off our work to our teammate here at the rig, as there are two of us here, and this goes on for four days before we hand our work off to our other Kuwaiti colleagues. 

 

 

Majed Al-Gharib, Drilling Engineer: The Development Drilling & Workover Team ensures young engineers attend critical training courses. However, simply having the knowledge is not good enough, because it cannot be applied without practical experience. Earlier, Yaqoub said that he trained with someone for a year in order to learn how to run the business. However, the challenge is how can we choose the right person who is willing to acquire this knowledge in a very short time and then apply it? To overcome this issue, we give new Rig Operation Engineers one to two years to learn from an expert Company Man, and they also receive support from the office. This is very important – our engineers in the field have 24 hour support from the office in case they need any information or require assistance.

 

 

Yaqoub Al-Ali, Rig Operation Engineer: On the last well we were working on, we had a flow where formation fluids were coming into the hole and coming out. This is a very risky, dangerous situation. Because this scenario was a very critical one, we needed to shut the well in order to make sure no dangerous gases or fluids got out. Then, in our communications with the office, we discovered there were some things we could do with the drilling fluid. For example, we raised the mud weight to kill the well, which basically means we controlled the well. We raised the mud weight so that it was heavier than the fluids coming up out of the formation.

 

Majed Al-Gharib, Drilling Engineer: The situation Yaqoub just described is one of the more common and risky situations that can be faced on the rig. Basically, while drilling, we are not drilling into an ideal formation. This formation may contain gases, and once you penetrate through these pockets, the gas can migrate through this hole. We are talking about pockets that were made three million years ago, so we don’t know exactly what is down there.

 

Say you have an apartment complex. You’re on the roof, and you want to drill down to a certain apartment. The situation is similar out here in the field – we are drilling thousands of feet down and trying to hit a target that falls within a range of a few feet, and if you don’t penetrate within a layer, depending on your luck, your investment is gone. This rig, 282, and the other we are visiting, 283, are classified as super rigs that can drill complicated wells. The operations here are difficult and complicated, and we specifically chose these wells for our KOC engineers because we wanted to challenge them so they could learn how to do this type of work. We didn’t want to assign our employees to easy wells.

 

 

Majed Al-Gharib, Drilling Engineer: The uncertainty. In most cases, what you plan for and what you actually face are totally different. You may not have an even formation and you may only have minimal knowledge of offset wells nearby, and this can affect your approach. Perhaps we reach a certain depth and encounter a problem – maybe we can predict these problems based on past information from nearby wells, but this is not always the case. Sometimes we can face a problem in one location, but 50 feet away, there is no problem. In some cases, we have abnormal solutions, but in every case, we always make sure that we never cross our HSE boundaries. The last thing we want to do is endanger the lives of our employees at the rig site. 

 

 

Yaqoub Al-Ali, Rig Operation Engineer: In my experience, the most dangerous thing that we can face here at the rig site is H2S. If we encounter H2S, we have to stop operations and inform the office, and then we have to determine if the H2S content is high or low. Do we continue drilling? Do we stop? Do we kill the well? These are the questions we have to answer. Encountering H2S has been the most dangerous scenario in my time at the rig; however, we are adequately equipped with H2S sensors, of which we have seven on the rig. H2S detection usually happens at least once at every rig, so it is something we are constantly watching out for.

 

Majed Al-Gharib, Drilling Engineer: H2S is one of the many problems we can face. Depending on the severity of the situation, there are a number of ways for us to deal with H2S. For example, sometimes we can flare it, other times we can divert the flow and continue drilling. There are also many other problems that can occur at the rig site. For example, formation backup is one – by drilling through rock and sand we cannot be sure that the hole will be intact when drilling, meaning the hole can collapse. We have to be aware, to the best of our ability, of what is going on down there so we know how to approach a problem if one occurs.

 

Hole stability and H2S are our main challenges. A drill pipe becoming stuck is another. In a case like that, we have fishing tools that can help extract the pipe, but if you drop something at 9,000 feet and want to extract it, you have to grasp it blindly. By reading information coming from the well such as weight, torque, and a host of other factors, the Company Man can gain knowledge and learn how to see in the hole without actually being there. These are some of the challenges we face, and to be honest, there are no smooth operations. Challenge is part of the job and part of the Company Man’s life.

 

 

Majed Al-Gharib, Drilling Engineer: To be honest, nothing is easy. We have to be fully aware of what is going on. There is so much work that must be done and followed up on, the machines need maintenance, and we have to choose the ideal times to render that maintenance, and we haven’t even discussed the 40 lives at the rig that we are responsible for. We have to make sure they are safe, and we have to make sure our decisions do not affect them. One of the jobs of the Company Man is to make sure no dangerous shortcuts are being made, so he has to be constantly aware of everything that is happening at the rig site.

If you drill a well from A to Z and produce, this is a big achievement. Perhaps employees from other departments do not feel that success or believe we are dealing with something easy, but once you look at the obstacles we face, our accomplishments are a big achievement. This is especially true when considering we have done this with young engineers who have worked very hard to rise to the challenge.

TKD: After a long shift, how do you spend your time here in the field?

Yaqoub Al-Ali, Rig Operation Engineer: To be honest, when you finish your shift, you are usually just so tired that all you want to do is sleep. However, we have many facilities at our disposal here to keep ourselves busy. We have an excellent selection of food, we have a gym with all the required equipment, we have satellite TV, and of course we have our laptops as well. However, the most important thing for us to remember is that we get eight or nine hours of good sleep so that we can be ready to handle the rig from 6 AM to 6 PM.

 

 

TKD: Thank you for welcoming us here to the rig. What can you tell us about this particular rig site?
 
Abdullah Al-Quood (Rig Operation Engineer): First, I should note that this particular well is an injector well, not a production well. What that means is that its purpose is to optimize the field by raising pressure. The difference between the rigs in North Kuwait are dependent on the objectives. For example, the operations for a particular rig site may call for production, horizontal drilling, or injection.

Abdulaziz Al-Rushoud (Senior Drilling Engineer): Some of the most advanced rigs are used here in North Kuwait, and it is true that the job is very challenging. However, I am very confident that our engineers are up to the challenge. In fact, they are achieving their benchmarks, which is proof that the work they are conducting has been at the level of our expectations, and in many cases, they have exceeded our expectations.

 

 

Abdulaziz Al-Rushoud (Senior Drilling Engineer): Once we agree to do this job, we accept the challenge that comes along with it. This is a tough job, and it is not an easy one. However, once we have completed a shift or difficult task, we get the sense that we have achieved something big – and that is what keeps us going. Here at the rig site, engineers are dealing with heavy equipment, and people’s lives are at stake. At its essence, this job truly is the core of Kuwait’s economy. When we accomplish something, we feel proud that we have not only registered a success for the Company, but we feel that we have done something good for our country.

 

In terms of daily life, it is true that we are dealing with critical issues on a daily basis, and this can take its toll on engineers in the field. That is why a lot of effort has been put into making the rig site as comfortable as possible. The reasoning behind this is that engineers who have good facilities and who are well-rested will perform better during their shifts. This is why you can see we have good accommodations here with new furniture, up-to-date appliances, TVs, a gym, and so on.

 

 

Abdullah Al-Quood (Rig Operation Engineer): We have a system in place that keeps track of the daily drilling reports. These are transmitted to the office and include a report of everything that has happened in the past 24 hours. This data should be close to 100% accurate so that we can make informed decisions about what kind of work needs to be conducted next at the rig site. These reports include the mud data, all the numbers, costs, and other relevant information that is useful for us. The daily reports are useful for us because we can then create benchmarks that will allow us to challenge ourselves.

 

At the end of the day, this is a difficult job. Not only is the actual work in the field very demanding, but the hours we work naturally make it difficult to find an ideal life/work balance. But there is something that keeps us going, and this is very important. Our job is unique in the sense that when we are done with our shift, we don’t feel like all we’ve done is sent a paper or a fax somewhere – no, we’ve done something huge. We drilled a well. We have contributed something to our Company and our country. That is what keeps us going, and that’s what makes this job so rewarding. This is a challenging job, but once you start doing it, it’s hard to imagine doing anything else. While the work is difficult, we have the full support of KOC’s senior officials, which we of course are thankful for.

 

Abdulla Mohammed (Rig Operation Engineer): Personally, the dust is the biggest challenge for me. I can deal with the heat, but the dust is the biggest challenge, especially if it is coupled with high wind speeds. For example, if there are high wind speeds and lots of dust, this can affect visibility, and it may become unsafe for engineers to work on the rig. In cases like that, we have to halt operations, because we sometimes have engineers working at heights of more than 30 meters. Safety is a major priority at the rig site, and we make sure HSE guidelines are followed.

 

In terms of my social life and work/life balance, a job like this will definitely affect how you can spend your time. As a result, you have to understand and define what your priorities are. For me, my family comes first. If I have free time, I have a small group of friends that I spend time with, but we have to be conscious of how we are spending our time and utilize that time in the best way possible.

 

 

Abdulaziz Al-Rushoud (Senior Drilling Engineer): I would like to add that some people in the Office Complex do not know there are KOC employees working in the field for four days straight away from home. Perhaps some of them think we work 12 hour shifts before going home, but of course that is not the case. A lot of our fellow employees may think this is an easy job, but they don’t know that we spend four continuous days in the desert. I would like them to know there are KOC employees in the field who are working round the clock, making important decisions, monitoring operations, and ensuring KOC’s production is on target. It’s a difficult job, but knowing we are contributing to KOC and Kuwait makes it worth it.