Stranded on the Delta.....

As some might know the oil field in which I work is the newest oilfield to be brought online in the US, we started production in November of 2000. It is nice to work in a place that is new and has state of the art equipment, however with todays environmental standards there are many challenges. For starters our whole production facility, living quarters, 1 drill site (all of the wells), maintenance facilities, warehouse, water treatment, wastewater treatment plant, airstrip, and heli pads are all sited on a 90 acre gravel pad in the middle of the Colville River Delta. We have one drill site in production that is two miles away that is currently producing oil and one about four miles away that is near start up. Right now I am at our newest drill site (called a sattelite field) this one is about four miles north of Alpine in sight of the Arctic Ocean, but the catcher is that due to the vast amount of wetlands we had to make it roadless. It is only accessible by air in the summer. There are several flights in the mornings and several in the evenings to get out here to work. The catcher is that it is the foggiest place on the Delta and when there is fog there isn't transportation to or from the pad. So, since it fogged up about an hour before time to go we are all still here. The living quarters are not like the ones back at Alpine. There is an Emergency Living Quarters (ELQ)on the pad that serves as an office, sleeping quarters, and kind of a kitchen. There are two things that I am not really excited about, the first is sleeping in the same room as seven other men (but I can get over that), the second is that there is not any potable water, water supply or waste water handling. That being said, my least favorite thing is the incinolette. What is that you say? Let me tell you, it is a toilet that burns what is left in it so there is no disposal. I won't go into details but it makes life interesting. Things could always be worse. Like had someone not had the foresight to order a gas grill for out here, or had Mark Dugas not had the forsight to bring a case of hamburger patties out last week we might not have enjoyed such a nice dinner.




The cage (bars) behind me is to keep the polar bears out of the ELQ (no kidding).

Well I am off to sleep.......