Monday, May 4, 2026

Draugen Platform. Would you work there?


10 comments:

  1. That rig is off the west coast of Norway and is facing the North Sea. I’d have to think twice before signing on with that outfit

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  2. Started production in 1993. Gravity base concrete structure. Pretty durable, even in the North Sea. Shell has been a technology leader in the offshore industry for a very long time, for reasons with long track records.

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  3. If I was not retired and if they'd pay enough, I'd give it a try.

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  4. Interesting. When I worked on platforms off the California coast you got from the water taxi to the rig by swinging from the boat via a rope on the rig to a platform on the rig. Timing (and a good grip) was everything because of the ocean swells. Reversed this to get off the rig. This looks like a "beam me up Scottie" arrangement.

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    Replies
    1. Big helipad on the left side. I know a few helicopter pilots who made good money ferrying people to and from offshore rigs. I'd work there all winter and drive my new convertible all summer long.
      Al_in_Ottawa

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  5. I’ve never been offshore but have made a career on a pipeline system in Alabama. One company I worked for lost some hands and the pilot when the bird went down in the gulf. I can’t remember how many but none survived. Mid 80s maybe. They never found a reason, or never made any known.

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  6. September 1979 to September 2006 7 on - 7 off on production platforms in the GoM. Great part time job and we caught some fish!!!

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  7. Was a welder on experimental drills, it was 30 days on/off, fully paid transpo each way, early 80's, the pay was first rate back that period, a mud engineer friend got me on, it was great having a friend on the test rigs. Funny stuff though, like no women allowed, but asian men dressed as woman whores was permitted, (no thanks, extreme flamers, and they were creepy as all get out), off shore rigs they provided 24-7 full time chef's, anything you liked any time, put in your order and it came to you top shelf cuisine, pretty short order also. One chef made the finest cheeseburgers ever passed my lips, tasted like he used prime A prime rib with the rib fat. A test hole in Tunisia produced very sweet crude, good enough we fixed up a filter system to use straight in our equipment. Jumped to another hole, the engineers found an aquifer, dug a large pit, they bored a short hole with a core drill, used a "package", what they called them loads, set if off, created a crystal clear sand bottom swimming hole, ended up water levels dropped in everyone's wells, almost started a local war, wells for miles went bone dry, caused a lot of trouble, couple engineers got fired over it, the best part was the food was to die for, more so after a 24 hour shift, but gave it up cause I could feel it wearing me down. The long shifts wore me out, wrecks your circadian balance all to hell. Think it was what killed my friend, he did too many, too long, wore his system out and he died real fast from cancer. Wrecked his immune system or something.

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