A Day in the Life of a Mud Engineer

I have had several requests for more details about my job and daily life on the rig…so here it is. A recap of a typical day:

5pm: My alarm goes off.  I shut it off as quickly as possible so I don’t wake anyone else up but then I notice Ditta, one of my three roommates and the only other one who works nights like me is already awake and in the shower.  I get dressed in my coveralls and pull my things together and when she gets out of the bathroom I brush my teeth and wash my face.  By 5:20 I am on my way down to the second level and the mess room.

I walk into the big dining area and take a look at the wall to the left of the door where they have the menu posted for the day.  They have several items every meal but today it is all beef and chicken so I grab a bowl and head to the salad bar (probably 75% of my meals come from here).  I throw a combination of vegetables in the bowl…cucumbers, tomatoes, green peppers…and top it off with some cole slaw they make on the rig.  Today they have a three-bean salad so I throw some of those in the bowl too and top it off with a little tuna for some added protein and flavor.  I grab a glass of water and sit at the corner table with the toolpusher, Dene, the tourpusher, Brad, and the barge captain, Glenn.  We chat for a while about nothing important, every once in a while slipping up and talking about the rig operations.  The meal is interrupted a few times as Dene is paged over the intercom for one reason or another.  At one point they call for the mud engineer, but I don’t get up to answer because it it 5:40 and my shift doesn’t start until 6.

At 10 til 6 I head upstairs to the service office.  I meet with the day mud engineer, Munawar, and he tells me we are drilling ahead and fills me in on the rest of the stuff that happened since I got off shift.  We chat for a few minutes and then he goes off to have his dinner.  I go outside and grab my hard hat and put on my steel-toed boots and do a quick round of the lab, mud tanks, and shakers (where the mud returns to the pits from the well) and then return to the service office.  I linger on the deck for a while and watch the sunset before going back inside.  I check my email, set my fantasy baseball lineups for the day, check Facebook, and catch up on my Words with Friends games.  At 7:30 I get a page from the watchstander; the boat that is alongside the rig is taking some containers for backloading.  We have some empty chemical drums so I tell him we will send those back and go into the office to fill out a manifest for them.

At 8pm I put all my safety equipment back on and head down to the mud lab.  I grab a sample cup and go out to the mud tanks to fill it with the synthetic drilling mud we are using.  I bring it back to the lab and spend the next 45 minutes running test on the mud.  I test it for chloride content, alkalinity, gels (how thick it gets if you let it sit still), the oil to water ratio, and the fluid loss.  When I have finished my tests, noted all the values,  and I am cleaning all the equipment I get a call from the cementer who asks me to test the chloride content of the seawater.  This is no problem, because that test takes about 2 minutes once I have the sample.  I call him back with the value and finish cleaning up.  Then I make some notes in a notebook about chemicals that need to be added to the mud based on my test numbers.  I talk to the mud tester about it for a bit and then he goes to mix the chemicals and I head back up to the office.

It is 9:15 now, and the mess is open again so I go down and grab an orange and some hot tea and bring it up to the office with me.  When I have finished my break I go to the PE office and input my test results into their computer for their daily report.  Then I head back to the mud lab where it is cool and quiet and I can see the drilling  operations on a screen they have in the corner.  I pull out my Kindle and continue reading the book I started yesterday (A theoretical novel about what would have happened if JFK had survived his assassination).  Things are going smoothly so nothing much happens for the next few hours.  At 11:30pm I head back up to eat “lunch” (or whatever you want to call the meal I eat in the middle of my shift at midnight).  They have grilled salmon and some cauliflower so I ask for a plate of that and sit and talk to Shane, the driller who is just finishing up his shift (most of the crew on the rig works 12 to 12).  I usually try to drag this meal out as long as possible and so I am happy when Ditta, my roommate who is a directional driller comes in.  We talk for a while and she tells me about her boyfriend who I can hear her talking to every morning.  He is a PE on another rig, one that is close enough for us to see.

It is 12:30 now and things are still going smoothly so I decide to watch a movie on my computer.  I just finished downloading Moneyball, and I am in a baseball mood since the season just started so I watch that.  I get interrupted once with a call asking how much mud we have on the rig.  It is just after 2am now and I am distracted for a little while chatting with a few of my friends about their Easter back home.  At 3am I go back to do another mud check.  I typically wait until 4am to do my second check, but the Rockies game starts at 4:10am today and the internet is decent for the first time in a few days so I might be able to watch it.  I finish my mud check and head back up to do the report.  The mud report, which is submitted by 6am and 6pm on a daily basis, consists of the mud check values, mud volumes, solids control equipment, and rig operations and is sent off to a list of supervisors and rig personnel.  I start the report as the Rockies game starts, so it takes me a little longer than usual to finish it up because I am distracted by the game.  When I am finished with the report I save a copy and email it off to the list.  At 5 am I head down to the mess for “breakfast”…usually an orange and a yogurt and sometimes a piece of toast.  I eat quickly so I don’t miss much of the game and head back upstairs to finish listening.  At about 5:45, Munawar comes into the office and I tell him what is going on, how deep they are, how fast they are drilling, and what I mixed in the mud last night.  Then I head off to my room to listen to the final part of the game.

At 6:30 I head down to the lowest floor on the rig to a room the size of a large closet where they have gym equipment.  I am training to run a 10k when I am back in Colorado in May and today my training schedule is for 4 miles.  When I finish my run I do some light weight lifting and then head up to my room for a shower.  Ditta is already in bed when I get out of the bathroom, but I can hear her talking to her boyfriend on the phone so I don’t worry about being quiet as I get dressed and stuff my dirty coveralls and clothes into the canvas bag where she has already put her clothes.  I leave the bag outside our door (our clothes will be washed and folded for us by the time we get up) and turn out the light.  I head to my bed and close the curtain and read a few more chapters about JFK before turning out the light.