Hi , been plumbing for 6 years in the commercial game mixture of plumbing and pipe fitting anyone left it and gone on the rigs , decided it's the path i wanna go down currently getting the money together to get my tickets ready just wanted to know what's involved work wise on a daily basis , busy , slow ? Is there a lot of install or is it mainly just maintenance and repair and is there any other things that I should familiarise myself with?
Cheers
It’s always been a struggle to get into offshore and about 3 years ago there was a massive downturn when oil prices crashed. To be honest it’s not what it was.
Like everything it varies place to place, some places are full of really good guys and others are back stabbing @&£@‘s.
There’s very little in the way of plumbing offshore, there’s a company called North Offshore who do most of the accommodation work. I’ve never worked for them but the guys do a fair bit of waiting about at home.
You do get pipe fitters, more so with projects but with lots of pipes in salty air carrying nasty stuff they don’t last forever.
There are two groups of guys, as-hoc and core crew.
Core crew means you have a fix place of work and a fixed rota. Commonly that’s 2 on 3 off, 3 on 3 off or, 3 on 4 off in the U.K. it’s steady money, you can plan your life and the time offs good.
As-hoc is probably the bigger group, trades that aren’t in daily demand tend to get called off for campaigns. These may last 2 weeks or 3 years. As a pipe fitter you’d expect to mainly work shutdowns. Weather limits everything so these have to be done at times when the weathers better. This obviously isn’t ideal as you probably want to be away with your kids on holiday.
Pipe fitting offshore is split 50/50. Half is bolting the other is instrument tubing. A lot of places are getting to an age where they’re talking about replacing all the instrument rude due to corrosion. That could be a real boon or more likely they will risk asses it and find someone to say it’s safe.
I worked as-hoc in service for a couple of years, I saw some interesting places, I saw a lot of grim places but in the end I gave it up because it wasn’t fair on the Mrs.
A good example is a few years ago I went on a 3 day job to diagnose a fault in Angola (offshore). After sitting round a hotel room in Luanda for 4 days I finally made it offshore. 1 day of safety inductions later I was ready to go. The platform had some other issue so I was told to wait. 3 days later I finally got a guy to come and babysit me. 45 mins in we’d worked out what was wrong, what we needed. Next crew change wasn’t for a few days so back to the waiting. Got an email from my boss saying they could get the parts out in a week and would I stay on. Rang the wife and told her my 3 days would now be 2+ weeks. Waited round for a week, client tells me parts are stuck in customs but will be here soon. 2 weeks of movies and books later (now at 5 weeks ish) and they decided to get another guy to fly out with a second set of parts in his bag. Guy flys out, some problem with his visa, sent back on the return plane he came out on. Week later he actually got into the country, same script waiting for a boat to get offshore for 4/5 days finally get out and we fit the bits. 2hrs later and it’s up and running. I’m now at about 6 weeks on a stinking rig with no beer and very little to do. Relieved to be sorted trued to organise getting home. It was about 10 days before Christmas and every flight was booked solid. Sat round in a crummy hotel room for another week and got a phone call saying we had a flight but had to change in Congo. There was some sort of civil war going on in Congo so I told them to Sod off. The guy who came out to meet me took that flight. A day later they got me a seat home via South Africa. The airline couldn’t fly direct as it was banned from European airspace. A witch doctor actually came onboard and blessed the flight, it was like something out of Borrat. I made it home from my 3 day job nearly 8 weeks later just in time for Christmas. The guy I was with spent his Christmas in a jail cell in Congo. Not every job was like that but a enough we’re to realise I would be divorced soon if I didn’t change. It’s hard on a family not knowing. If your away for 3 weeks it’s not bad, you can count down the days and plan your life.
Your best bet as a pipe fitter is that a platform take a shine to you and you get a core crew job as a mechanical tech.
A pipe fitter working 3/3 would be on £50-60k problem is you’ll likely only make 1/2 that as you’ll be sitting about at home for half the year.
We are very limited for bed space, projects aren’t essential to keeping the lights on so are the first to get kicked off.
The killer is experience, every company wants experienced guys so it’s very hard to get a foot in the door. There are 10’000’s if guys with lots of experience sat at home waiting for a job since the last down turn.
Personally I’d save your money and wait to see if things pick up.
If after that rant you still want to do it:
You’ll need your survival, medical and mist. Costs about £1000 and takes 5 days.
You’ll need various small bore tubing tickets. The common ones are Swagelok, Parker and Gyrolok. Each course is about 2 days and £500.
You’ll need flange management - Hydratight do training on this. Again 2/3 days and £600.
Generally you’ll improve your chances if you’ve got a second trade/ticket. You can do a level 1 rigging course or a rope access course may improve your odds.
Work wise I’ve done 3 solid weeks of 18 hr days grafting to try and get/keep a place running. I’ve also done 3 weeks of twiddling my thumbs for 12hrs a day - which is a really long trip.
Like most industries O&G is more about who you know than what you know. Personally I think the training providers sell a pipe dream to a lot of guys. The money’s not significantly better than onshore anymore, the terms and conditions get a bit worse every year.
Wait a year or two and and see if things pick up would be my advice. Linked in and Facebook are full of guys that have spent £5000 on courses that will expire before they even get chance to earn a penny from them.
