Monday, October 17, 2011

2nd Notes from oilfinder

I have had a rather busy time - chasing rainbows. Last year's plan was for me and team (after this shall be referred as we or us or our) to drill one (1) exploration well in 2011. By July we has an offer we cannot refused :D (read: we have been asking for it and we got one of the biggest marginal gas field in Peninsula Malaysia). The condition for the award meant we need to fast-tracked our activities and we ended up agreeing to drill 2 wells in 2011.

End September saw us drilling our first well (well-1) searching for oil - down dip of the discovered gas (oil leg -our jargon). After having some share of good fortune with drilling (read: not too much non productive time, no loss time incident or wait on weather/tool/personnel) -we have not been too successful with our search for oil leg in our primary reservoirs ( read: finding only gas and water). While drilling through a deeper (yet to be tested) reservoirs -our secondary objectives -our ever so cheerful petrophysicist has already casted her pessimism that all deeper reservoirs accumulate only water or the reservoirs are water wet (dry - our jargon).

We have not been so fortunate with our 'borehole' - we can not take procedures to ascertain the fluid contents of these reservoirs in normal way - using wirelines. We have to use TLC {not "tender loving care" but tough (conditions) logging tools} that not only cost more but also requires more time to successfully perform the required tasks.
The well is a successful well after all - 'our last ditch' effort saw us adding an estimated resource of about 7 million barel of oil from 0.8 metre of sand. This also meant that we have proven ' the concept of oil container' - and may in all finality add a few "tens if not hundreds' million barel of oil that can be recovered from that field.

The oil from Well-1


We hardly have time to breath our sigh of relief as a week after we reached the final total depth of the first well, we spud our second well using the same drilling rig. We kept on adding new 'data to be acquired' plan for our second well since we wanted this well to be last well to be drilled in a radius of 4 km circle i.e. we want to acquire all required data to allow us to 'handover' the area to development department to develop and produce the oil.
Then came a bombshell- a well planned to be drilled after our second well in another region is not ready to be drilled and guess who have to 'salvage the situation'. I quickly informed the team about the situation and some dissatisfaction have been voiced out on this fast tracking thingy. We even called ourselves 'pasukan bomba dan penyelamat'.


Not to be outdone, I dropped my own bombshell - 'let's get another three wells ready to be drilled by Q1 2012 ' ;P.

They negotiated here and there but they relented when I told them that I will personally be doing all the documentation for these three wells. Unknown to many I have already solicited 5 wells from the other three units in the team- with this decision we will have at least 8 well candidates to push us into 2012 and beyond :D.

Last weekend saw us in Awana Genting discussing our Exploration Project Meeting where we discussed and laid down our past & future projects and analyse our performance. I did not commit any the 8 wells, knowing very well I will again be called upon to play the role of 'pasukan bomba dan penyelamat'. ;)

Saturday night, after a whole day exhaustive meeting, we have 'Retro Gala Dinner'.

The bosses were asked to show their talent at a karoake session.
Future bosses were also welcomed to show their talent.


Ayoh Wang was also secretly asked to render a song by the MC, who also happen
to be a member of our team. After hearing so many songs and knowing that I could not do worse damage to the party, I relented and obliged them with a Malay song, I popularised in Sudan as "tayammum" - It was not 1970 song and as you can see I did not even properly dressed for the occasion - trying hard to keep out of the limelight. Not too successful though...


I must have been singing rather badly.. as you can clearly see.. there was another guy in the background trying his level best not to allow me to 'spoil' the party with my rendition ;).

There .. I have sufficiently told you that I was bogged down in this search for oil thingy... another one of my feeble attempts to apologize to my blogger friends for not 'contributing comments' to their many postings.

Have a nice week ahead..

14 comments:

Al-Manar said...

You are an artist as well! And I am thinking of drilling a couple of wells too,( marginal field) with slightly brackish product being close to the South China Sea. May need your advice to keep you busy.

The Tea Drinker said...

i do wonder... could we get fossils from oil wells?

Fadhil said...

Hmmm... camne rentak lagu tayammum tu?

Lee said...

Hi Wan Sharif, very interesting. Looks like lots of money for the government exporting the oil.
You sure got one very interesting job.
Hey, you look good on stage sining, nice shirt too.
Have a nice day.
Lee.

Mulan said...

keep drilling ayoh wang, the national pahlawan...

dapat minyak pon untuk rakyat jugak.. so u r the pahlawang la ayoh wang..!!

may Allah bless u forever...

Wan Sharif said...

Abang Hassan dearest,
It was noted that most of those who sang during the retro gala dinner night were those who have worked in Sudan before.. We do not have too much of life in Sudan, not to mention night life.. Hence the reason for karaoke activities. I used to sing in the hostel's bathroom but I was told that whenever I sang .. Lagu rancak jadi slow and lagu slow jadi basi.. A bathroom singer indeed!.
So abang Hasan wanted to drill wells as well .. We can always deliberate on the issue over a cup of teh o!

Wan Sharif said...

Dearest The Tea Drinker,
Interesting question.. I believed all the fossil has been converted to oil in the oil well and as such.. the chance to find fossil in the oil well can be concluded as near impossible !

Wan Sharif said...

Oldstock dearest,
I do expect somebody will ask on that tayammum song.. it is actually Saleem Song "Suci dalam Debu" but was jovially called as tayammum in Sudan as debu was used in tayammum to cleanse.. untuk mengangkat hadath..

Wan Sharif said...

Brother Lee Dearest,
My job as oil finder is interesting s well as rewarding.. now at later stage (in fact rather very late) of my career.. I get to share the accumulated knowledge with the aspiring geo-scientist.
As for my singing ability ..I did write about it in my first comments above. Nothing to be proud of ;).
You take good care of all the Lees you loved.. now that winter is around the corner.. Oops the christmas is coming... Have a grand time.. Lee.

Wan Sharif said...

Mulan Dearest,
oh how do I appreciate your way of looking at my job.. hopefully it is counted as amal ibadah in HIS 'view'.
Thank you for your very kind wish.
May Allah bless you and yours with HIS Maghfirah and Pleasure.. sokmo sokmo

ninotaziz said...

When one works with passion, the rewards go a long way.

And outweighs monetory rewards by a mile.

I was wondering - all that experience. I hope there are the young ones to learn from your expertise.

Wan Sharif said...

There are three old men (pensionable age ) in my team.. Two old men are shared between my team and other teams. I used to quote three old men although some preferred three musketeers or stooges.. We are supposed to pass our knowledge and skills to seven youngsters in the team.. They are learning the rope but much too slowly for my liking though.. So much so that I sometime have to say "hello! I do have to go sometime.. You do not expect me to work till a ripe old age..do you?" however the management will normally send my protegees or mentees (after two or three years in the team) to oversea assignment after which they will come back and maybe be my future boss ;).
We are unfortunate to lose many talent due to the fact that outside I can get at least two to ten time what I am getting now.. Ten time if I go middle east O&G Companies ;((

ninotaziz said...

Maybe you need a diverse group of mentees. Engineers and geologists with poetry background, mixed racial group - are there girls on your team of mentees? Inbreeding , and I mean inbreeding in terms of thought, education and exposure, in management and operations, if it happens, is not good.

Wan Sharif said...

Yes, we do have diverse group and from many petroleum related disciplines.. Not sure about poetry background though;)). Not too worried about in breeding as the geoscientists will have to learn a whole gamut of topics/ discplines to gain higher grade or acceptance. They will have to learn the trade from a lot of people and will be exposed to many petroleum basins locally and internationally.