A great adventure! I got to help audit the Western Monarch, one of WesternGeco's vessels that pulls the equipment that our factory builds, in order to map out the geophysics of the sea floor. Then our customers decide what's going on with the oil and gas fields, and what to do next.
To get to the Monarch, we started at Brønnøysund, Norway. That is 500 miles north of Bergen, along the Norwegian Sea coast. It was sunny with gorgeous blue-green water and white sand beaches. So much beauty that you almost can understand living up that far north! (But not quite.) The link is to some beautiful pictures.
In the morning, we four auditors showed up at the heliport at 6:30 am, as instructed. It was closed. We called the agent at 7 am and woke him up, so he could call heliport people and wake them up! A little communication problem there. But we got checked in, watched the helicopter safety video, got into our survival suits, and climbed aboard the Sikorsky S-92 helicopter. Norway's helicopter safety rules are very tight, so we weren't sure whether the trip would even start. The Monarch helipad was outside of the spec limit for movement. But we finally lifted off. It was so gentle! Then the helicopter started forward, out west north west.
19 seats in this helicopter. It's really big.
Me in my survival suit with my earphones. They had semi-decent music to listen to during the 50 minute flight. The zipper pull by my left ear was the only uncomfortable thing about this stylish outfit.
The view out my window as we left Brønnøysund. See how calm it is, with the reflections?
There's the Monarch! You can sort of see the streamer spread that they are pulling. It is 8 streamers wide by 3.2 km long. (Link about the vessels)
The Norne production and storage vessel. The Monarch is surveying the oil and gas field that the Norne is drilling. Is it not amazing that a ship can stay still enough to drill undersea?
The picture is during a close pass, which is tricky. Ocean currents are unpredictable, and different depths have different currents. Wrapping a streamer around underwater parts of the Norne would NOT make the customer happy. Of course, our wonderful crew handled it like pros.
The vessel has roughly 50 crew on board from roughly 20 countries. They're almost all men. The audit team talked to more than half of the crewmembers. We also got to observe a reconfiguration from 8 streamers to 6. They had done a workshop earlier this year to make this process leaner. I saw very little wasted motion, and the back deck and instrument deck worked well together. It took a full day from last shot with 8 streamers to first shot with 6. With less streamers, they can get even closer to the Norne. The crew works 12 hour days, 7 days a week, for 5 weeks in a row, then they get off 5 weeks while the alternate crew takes over.
Oh, I should show you the cabin and gym!
This is a 2-man cabin with bunkbeds. I had it to myself. The bathroom is shared with the next cabin.
I slept like a baby with the rocking of the cradle - sorry, the ship. Part of it was probably the working hours though. The first day we worked from 8 am to after 9 pm. The second day was 8 am to after 11 pm. The third day was from 8 am to after midnight. 45 hours in 3 days! Monday and Friday, travel days, we had team meetings, too. We had to rush off the vessel because bad weather was predicted, shortening our schedule by 7 hours. We didn't want to be stuck because the helicopter couldn't land.
What were we auditing? We asked questions about how they know how to do their jobs, what are the processes for dealing with quality problems, do they get personnel reviews regularly, what was the last safety drill about, and that kind of thing. They did well. The engine room was clean enough to eat in. People were happy and cooperative. I am really glad I got to see what customers do with the stuff our factory builds!
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