Anyone else work in the oil industry?

[6./ZG26_Emil]

I don't think I've every seen anyone say they were but I'm curious.

 

It sure has been a miserable last year and a half 

[216th_Lucas_From_Hell]

Not oil but I do some reporting on Middle East/Northern Africa issues every now and then and by all means the last year was a mess.

 

Breaking news, death this and death that, war. On politics, crisis and either consequences or reasons behind continued wars. Now to a more positive note, the economy- oh, nevermind, everyone is also broke on top of that, there goes the oil prices.

 

Good luck to you chaps, may this year be a little lighter.

[Trooper117]

Can't say I work for the oil industry directly, but I have been in charge of the armed protection team, on board many oil tankers etc in the Gulf of Aden and elsewhere... 

[6./ZG26_Emil]

Not oil but I do some reporting on Middle East/Northern Africa issues every now and then and by all means the last year was a mess.

 

Breaking news, death this and death that, war. On politics, crisis and either consequences or reasons behind continued wars. Now to a more positive note, the economy- oh, nevermind, everyone is also broke on top of that, there goes the oil prices.

 

Good luck to you chaps, may this year be a little lighter.

 

Yep that's very true.

 

I used to work in North Africa and the ME but then we focused on US Shale drilling and stopped doing the overseas stuff. For 3 years it's been nice if not ridiculously hard work and I've worked remotely from home doing a job I used to do overseas. Unfortunately the sliding oil prices has ground drilling in the US to a halt.

 

I was in Libya when the so called Arab spring was going on, it started in Tunisia, moved to Egypt and I remember thinking "crap it's going to happen here". Unfortunately when you travel to Libya you have to give your passport away on arrival to get an 'exit stamp' (god know's why!?)....I then got laid off and was very close to going to the embassy but finally got it back....I was out of there and a week later the entire country blew up. A lot of my friends were stuck on oil rigs for weeks with no supplies and roaming gangs of bandits before they were extracted by what I assume were French special forces....not cool!

Can't say I work for the oil industry directly, but I have been in charge of the armed protection team, on board many oil tankers etc in the Gulf of Aden and elsewhere... 

 

My Brother in law is a chief engineer for Shell. I was very shocked when he told us they had no army protection on their tankers.

[Trooper117]

Many Shell vessels do have armed protection... I think the use of armed guards comes down to the vessels flag state.

 

If crews follow the BMP regulations for setting a vessel up for defense, with a correctly locked down 'citadel' then they are relatively safe. Unfortunately, many captains, chief officers and crews can't be bothered with all that extra work (and it is a lot of work)...

Many times I have had to use all my diplomatic skills to enforce those BMP guidelines onto a ships crew.

 

By the way, I'm not in the army anymore. I've been a Team Leader on the Maritime Protection circuit for 5 years... all my teams are ex army or marines.

[6./ZG26_Emil]

Many Shell vessels do have armed protection... I think the use of armed guards comes down to the vessels flag state.

 

If crews follow the BMP regulations for setting a vessel up for defense, with a correctly locked down 'citadel' then they are relatively safe. Unfortunately, many captains, chief officers and crews can't be bothered with all that extra work (and it is a lot of work)...

Many times I have had to use all my diplomatic skills to enforce those BMP guidelines onto a ships crew.

 

By the way, I'm not in the army anymore. I've been a Team Leader on the Maritime Protection circuit for 5 years... all my teams are ex army or marines.

 

That's pretty interesting. I think he's stopped going passed Nigeria and the other more dangerous areas now.

 

When we were in the terrorist hotspots in Algeria we at least had the more professional Algeria soldiers and not the conscripts but when you see rocket launchers and other heavy weapons it makes you wonder how safe it is out there....well we found out years later when the In Aminas BP gas plant was attacked a couple of years back (well after I was working there) with a lot of people getting killed, we used to fly fly in to that airstrip before going to the rigs on the pilatus aircraft. All I can say is for the ridiculously low wages we were being paid I should have had my head examined.

 

I think most of our OLCs PMC type people worked for Armagroup and other companies. They were a mostly a really nice bunch of guys and had all kinds of interesting experiences.

[DD_Arthur]

One of my closest friends has worked for fifteen years for a major UK manufacturer of actuators for the oil, gas and nuclear industries.  He started with the company just as a new board had been appointed.

 

 At the time the company had fingers in all sorts of different pies but the new board sold off a lot of this stuff to concentrate on their core business.  The rise in oil and gas prices saw an explosion of exploration all around the world which his company has been perfectly placed to cash in on.

 

That board have all retired over the last three to four years and have been replaced with a new generation of members who wanted to make their mark and finding the company cash rich, went on a buying spree of companies not directly concerned with their core business.

 

Surprise, surprise; a lot of these new aquisitions turned out to be a waste of space and now with the drop in oil and gas prices new exploration is faltering.  Combined with sanctions on Russia which forbids the supply of equipment for new fields they find themselves to be a company with a large pension deficit to fund that also happens to manufacture actuators!

 

In his words "we're fooked but at least I don't have to go to China three times a year anymore".

[Trooper117]

That's pretty interesting. I think he's stopped going passed Nigeria and the other more dangerous areas now.

 

 

 

My areas were from the Red Sea from Suez, all the way down to the Gulf of Aden, then from there it was either all the way down the east coast of Africa to Durban, or up past Yemen and the Oman through to the top end of the Persian Gulf, or the trip may extend across the Indian ocean to the west coast of India and down to Sri Lanka...

 

As to West Africa, we are not allowed to carry weapons on ships that are travelling that way, so I always used to refuse to do those trips as its extremely dodgy out there.

I did land based private ops out there in the mid 90's, very 'wild geese' I can tell you

[6./ZG26_Emil]

My areas were from the Red Sea from Suez, all the way down to the Gulf of Aden, then from there it was either all the way down the east coast of Africa to Durban, or up past Yemen and the Oman through to the top end of the Persian Gulf, or the trip may extend across the Indian ocean to the west coast of India and down to Sri Lanka...

 

As to West Africa, we are not allowed to carry weapons on ships that are travelling that way, so I always used to refuse to do those trips as its extremely dodgy out there.

I did land based private ops out there in the mid 90's, very 'wild geese' I can tell you

 

Thanks Trooper

 

Maybe that's why his tankers didn't have armed guys but yes they had a few hairy moments off the coast of Nigeria. I personally refused point blank to go anywhere we had to take antimalarials....I would not even entertain it...although by all accounts Nigeria was better than Algeria (you could drink and do certain other things not available in the desert lol)....maybe I'm just dumb lol

 

One of our managers was assassinated in Nigeria at the front gate of our base, a friend of mine was in a staff house and someone threw a hand grenade through the front door...I believe that was a precursor to a robbery and I heard many stories of the antimalarial causing all kinds of issues from liver damage to suicidal tendencies, a Schlumberger engineer killed herself on a rig off Nigeria so no thanks lol. Another one of my mates got Hepatitis in Western Sahara (C?) because his room boy filled his water bottle from the tap and almost died. In my next life I am going to work for the council...paper shuffling or something....good pension low chance of death :D

 

yes some of the friends I made (the OLCs/Armagroup types) had also been in Africa. It sounded exactly like the way you describe it

[Trooper117]

Haha.. memories, good times actually  

 

This was me in 1995 in Sierra Leone, going out on river patrol'''

 

 

 

Then in 2009, somewhere offshore the coast of Iran..

 

 

 

Most recent pic in the Gulf of Aden... at the age of 59 it's about time I stopped running around with guns don't you think, lol!

 

[6./ZG26_Emil]

At the age of 59 it's about time I stopped running around with guns don't you think, lol!

 

 

 

We at least you probably can't run too far on a ship 

 

Great pics mate thanks for sharing them

[LukeFF]

 

 

Most recent pic in the Gulf of Aden... at the age of 59 it's about time I stopped running around with guns don't you think, lol!

 

Carrying an FN FAL in that last pic? Nice! 

[6./ZG26_Emil]

Carrying an FN FAL in that last pic? Nice! 

 

The British army moaned about it quite a bit, maybe because it was our version was semi auto? I read a book where someone said they had a trick to make it fully automatic but who knows  

[DD_Arthur]

The British army moaned about it quite a bit, maybe because it was our version was semi auto? I read a book where someone said they had a trick to make it fully automatic but who knows

 

Moaning?  What a bunch of ungrateful pongoes!   My first one - UB60A63699 - still had the walnut stock and grip. The FAL on full auto is not a great weapon.  If you want automatic fire using the 7.62 round then its much better to put those rounds through a purpose made lmg than a musket.      

[6./ZG26_Emil]

Moaning?  What a bunch of ungrateful pongoes!   My first one - UB60A63699 - still had the walnut stock and grip. The FAL on full auto is not a great weapon.  If you want automatic fire using the 7.62 round then its much better to put those rounds through a purpose made lmg than a musket.      

 

Serious question what is about this rifle that people like/liked? I was in a rifle club for a while and everyone was crazy about the K-98 and Enfield but after two years of lying on a cold concrete floor I got sick of .22 prone [with a jacket and strap and aiming for a target 2/3 of a cm in diameter]....I only joined because I thought I was going to meet people who liked the countryside and wanted to shoot game.....those people were weird to me I now just have shotguns and packed in the rifles....if we'd spend more time outside I would have stuck with it.

 

The 'moans' I saw was from a guy who served in the Falklands (marines or paras) and they said they figured out a way to make it fire in full auto...you never know with books like that whether it's true or bluster but in the same page/chapter he was talking about going full auto on a building with Argentinian soldiers in it....

Edited April 14, 2016 by 6./ZG26_Emil

[Trooper117]

 

 

Moaning?  What a bunch of ungrateful pongoes!

 

 

Bollocks!... the only moaning I saw about the SLR was when we were forced to change it for the SA 80... no one wanted to change our old SLR's I can tell you. That was in the mid 80's, and as we were part of 5 Airborne Brigade we were the first to get the bloody thing.

 

I taught weapons and tactics for years, and the only moans I ever heard about the British army issued weapon, was going back to the SLR as no one liked the SA 80.

As to making the SLR fire on automatic, it is very simple to achieve, and every recruit soon knew how to do it... However, once the trigger is pulled it will then empty the whole magazine... not surprisingly, no one actually did it on operations.

[DD_Arthur]

Serious question what is about this rifle that people like/liked? 

 

 

 

 

Bollocks!... the only moaning I saw about the SLR was when we were forced to change it for the SA 80... no one wanted to change our old SLR's I can tell you. That was in the mid 80's, and as we were part of 5 Airborne Brigade we were the first to get the bloody thing.

 

I taught weapons and tactics for years, and the only moans I ever heard about the British army issued weapon, was going back to the SLR as no one liked the SA 80.

 

 

 

Lol; I think that answers your question Emil ! 

 

'Fraid I can't offer you any insights into the SA 80.  I got out of the marines in the spring of '85 and I don't think the RM started to receive their SA 80's until the following year.  Interesting that nearly thirty-five years after the event I can still remember the serial number of my first rifle

[6./ZG26_Emil]

Lol; I think that answers your question Emil ! 

 

'Fraid I can't offer you any insights into the SA 80.  I got out of the marines in the spring of '85 and I don't think the RM started to receive their SA 80's until the following year.  Interesting that nearly thirty-five years after the event I can still remember the serial number of my first rifle

 

 

He he yep...well I should have been more specific it wasn't lots of people who didn't like it I just read a single book and the author said he/they were dismayed that it was only a semi auto. Having said that from what I've seen in videos it seems very rare indeed that professional soldiers fire a rifle on full auto....if fact I don't think I've ever seen that, I assume it's discouraged.

 

I was just curious about why people seem to be very fond of specific types of rifle the FN FAL has a lot of fans it seems

Edited April 14, 2016 by 6./ZG26_Emil