Eddie Offshore

 When you get your chance to be come one of the elite offshore TIGERS, and you will if you try hard enough and follow what I recommend. As I’ve said before you will love it or hate it but you are half way there to gaining oil rig employment simply by looking at this website today.

Now I will tell you about life on a rig, it’s similar to a small close knit village or town, at the head of the community is the O.I.M. (Offshore Insulation Manager) who is lord & master…The guy everyone is nice too. 

Then the oil rig community is split into basically four sections or families. Firstly, there are the oil company men who either work directly for the oil rig company or through recruitment agencies. 

These people look after the day to day running of the oil rig making sure that the oil flows smoothly which includes the general day to day management of the rig. They also run the control room where they make sure the right valves are open or closed so that the sour gas is being flared off correctly. 

They also have health and safety managers (safety officers) who are responsible for the overall safe running of the rig. They coordinate with the control room and maintenance teams before any a work permit is issued and any work is carried out on the rig. 

With in this family group there are also engineers whose responsibility it is to look after maintenance of the oil rig either day to day maintenance, break down or a planed shut down. 

The next three families come in no particular order as they are all as important as the next, but I will start with the maintenance crew as that’s what I was part of all my years offshore working as a multi coded welder. 

The maintenance team or super heroes as we called ourselves…

This team would normally be made up of a supervisor who would liaise with the maintenance engineer before passing the planed work load onto his team (known as the bears). 

The bears would normally be made up of the following trades, welder, pipe fitter, or plater, two riggers and a scaffolding team plus their back to backs. Basically we were there in case any think broke and we would fix it. 

If there was any modifications to be done that was also our job, if there was a planed shutdown for maintenance we would all work together as a team to have everything rigged up and ready to go on the start day, no ifs or buts it would get done. 

Now we come to the catering and helideck crew which are sometimes employed by the same company for this example we will say they are. The helideck crew are the first people you meet when you disembark from the chopper normally it’s the H.L.O

(Helideck Liaison Officer) who opens the choppers door, he will then escort you to the heli admin where you will be given your berth and if you are lucky a bottom bunk

So if you follow what I recommend and you gain a start on the oil rigs, make sure you are very nice to this person…In the mean time the rest of the helideck crew will have taken your bag to the reception where you collect them and go to your cabin (there are no bell boys). 

You have to change in to your work gear as you have to start work straight away unless you are put on night shift, if you are in luck the galley may be open for lunch or dinner. 

This brings me to the catering team led by the camp boss who is responsible for over seeing every thing from the food to cleaning the toilets and the duty free bond or the weekly game of bingo…Don’t laugh you get to look forward to it.

His team is made up from Chefs, cooks, bakers and bottle washers, each one as important as the next one as they feed you clean your cabin and do your laundry and generally keeping the rig ship shape. 

It’s a bit like having your mum out there well may be not but you get the idea…One person I nearly forgot about is the medical officer (the medic) who’s there to look after you if you get injured so this is one person you don’t want too see much of.

Last but not least are the boys at the sharp end of things and what I rate as the hardest job on any oil rig. THE DRILLING crew which includes the Driller (Boss man). Assistant driller, Derek-man, roustabouts and roughnecks.

Now these boys are out in all weathers no matter what, sometimes they do get covered in the black liquid gold…I really admire these lads, there’s not a shirker amongst them and the way they work for each other has got to be seen to be believed and when they come down from that drill floor you can tell that they have done a hard shift It’s the type of job that you really do need to be cut out for. 

When you speak to the boys they love it, seriously, they say it’s like a second family and look forward to bad weather and problems so they can test themselves out… 

Seriously, if you have not got a full trade and you want to get on an oil rig this could be for you. It is the hardest of all oil rig jobs but provides the most satisfaction as they truly work for each other 24 hours a day. It really is a pleasure to watch.