2007

I travelled a lot this year. Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Senegal, Uganda, Norway and Tanzania.
The Norwegian job was a first, a memory CBL for BP.
Saudi Arabia was a first, a wireline memory Induction Quad for Saudi Aramco. As usual, I didn't find Saudi Arabia to be anywhere near as daunting as the media would have us believe. The people were friendly, the machine gun posts with rusty muzzles sticking out were easy to ignore, and the compound on which I stayed was pleasant and comfortable. I found time to go driving in a Toyata Prada in the dunes, quad-biking, also in the dunes and my favourite, Jet-skiing in the Persian Gulf. All in all a nice trip. I flew into, and out of Bahrain's airport and used the causeway to get to Saudi Arabia.
The job in Bangladesh was an Induction Quad and MFT (formation pressure tester) complicated by very bad hole conditions. The MFT was lost to differential sticking after testing just one point. Bangladesh is an attractive, green and very wet country, well worth a visit.
The Senegal visit is part of the ongoing contract based at Ngadiago, another well was logged and perforated.
The Tanzania visit was also part of an ongoing contract based at Mnazi Bay.
The Ugandan visit was in the same region as previous visits, namely the vicinity of the Kaiso Tonya nature reserve on the banks of Lake Albert. The job was the recovery of stuck drill pipe, a freepoint survey and pipe severing charge.
Also worthy of note this year were too firsts, at least for Weatherfords in Europe. I was in charge of the first Shuttle memory logging job ran on a hydraulic rig and shortly afterwards in charge of the first Pressure Activated Release, Slim Shuttle, memory logging job, also on a hydraulic rig. Both went well.