It had been way over twelve months since I had last slept in my own bed. I was actually looking forward to it. A huge storm in the ocean that was coming in towards us had caused me to order the shutting down of all the oil rigs pumping oil completely. It was a huge decision, but it had to be made.
Based on the latest meteorologists' reports I would not risk further drilling on this new site until the weather cleared. This was the sixth well I was drilling in this area in a row, and I did not want to have any major problems that would end up putting us six months behind while adding millions to the bottom line.
The weather that was coming in was slow-moving and appeared to be rotating as it grew in size and strength leaving mass destruction behind. The powers that be believed we were in for a direct hit but said it was my call. That was typical of the big shots that sat in their offices in blue suits. If it was called the wrong way, I would be the fall guy. If I called it right, they would take the credit.
Each of the five oil-producing rigs in the area was twenty nautical miles apart in a horizontal row. Because of the rock formation beneath the top of the seabed, we were drilling once again at a forty-five-degree angle to reach the oil and natural gas buried below.
We had spent the last two hundred and twenty hours pulling up our drills and capping all the pipelines near the bottom of the seabed. It had required precision timing with our deepwater diving crew. The shutting off of the wells at the seabed level had to be done manually and took about an hour to complete. The key was keeping as much as the saltwater out. Thankfully it had all gone rather smoothly.
The oil flow to the producing rigs was cut off at the seabed in case the hurricane that was coming through did damage to our surface structures. All the crude that had been collected had been transferred to the tankers for safe transfer to the mainland.
All piping pulled up, sealed at both ends, and then locked down. This was done to ensure that none of the pipping would sink to the bottom if they broke loose. We had learned from BP's mistakes that there was no room for error. We needed for those pipe sections to say afloat.
A helicopter had brought the remaining few of us back to the coast. As per company policy we needed to and wanted to leave as little an environmental footprint as possible. Under my watch, I swore we would never have a BP type of situation facing us.
I was not scheduled to be off for another two months so I knew my arrival at home would be a complete surprise. I was looking forward to seeing my wife, our kids and our next-door neighbors who we had become good friends with.
The nice thing about my position in the company I had a base rate of pay year-round even if I was sitting at home, but the major bucks were made when I was actually on the oil rigs. Over the last three years, it had paid off greatly. I was on the rigs basically eighty-five percent of the time which tripled my base pay before the overtime which for me was about thirty-two hours a week. When on the rigs it was customary to work twelve-hour shifts. When we were drilling, we only stopped when I was exhausted.
People with my expertise and knowledge in angle drilling were considered hard to find and were paid accordingly. So far, I had a perfect record I had not lost one drilling site yet. Thanks to the booming economy in the United States drilling for oil was the busiest it had even been. As a result, I was being paid top dollar because they couldn't find someone to replace me. The market for people with my skills was just that tight.
When I had originally gotten the latest promotion over five years ago, I had decided I wanted to retire early. So, with human resources cooperation, I had my paycheck divided in three ways when I was on the rigs.
Four o ones had always got the max since day one. Twenty-five percent automatically got transferred to my investment broker and the rest went directly into my wife and my bank account. What had gone into our joint account had been amazing. Having done that for the last five years I had been building a lot of security thanks to how well the stock market and the economy was doing.
My wife and I had agreed years ago that once our house account reached a certain level, we would start putting huge bulk payments on our mortgage. Any excess after it was paid off would be split once a month and put in separate savings accounts. As a result, over the last twenty years of marriage, I had already emptied my savings account four times when it reached the maximum insured amount by the feds and turned it over to my investor manager.
My investment broker had been instructed to spit my investment by three. One third went into the company's stock, the second third in technology stocks like Google, Amazon, and Facebook. The last third in dividend-paying blue stocks. The investor reports were sent to me directly to me in the company email account. Since I was often at sea near tax time my wife and I had always filed separately with her taking the deductions for our kids.
If we got hit directly by the level three and growing hurricane no one would be able to return to the rigs until they all had passed through a one hundred percent inspection. I was a stickler for details like this because I would not put the men working with me lives at risk. A team would be sent down to inspect the gulf's bottom before reconnecting could be started.
No matter what, it looked like I was getting at least two months off. Most did not understand that the harder the ocean was rocked on the surface the harder the shoreline got hit with water flow. The backflow depending on how strong could cause ripples on the seabed surface in reverse that went on until they petered out in nothingness.
With this hurricane's slow movement, the longer it sat over our sites the more it would cost in reconstruction. So, I would be watching the weather over the next few days to give me an idea of how long I would be off.
I had been on the advisory team that had seen the birth of these new procedures after it had cost our parent company BP billions of dollars because they had refused to follow our suggestions before the last disaster. A few million dollars lost today saved us billions lost in litigations and governmental inspired bull shit later.
Give anyone in the government the chance to rake your money these days was an open invitation to be screwed over without even being kissed. BP had learned the hard way the real costs when the democratically elected governments had treated those charged with environmental pollution like they were their pimp. A lot of questionable items got charged back against the corporation that could not be proven to be directly linked to the problems caused by BP. Many inside the industry believed the governments used the situation to their advantage to resolve things that they themselves had created.
Most in the oil industry had learned from that big screw up and now budgeted for at least one long term shut down somewhere. They had adopted a protect your own ass policy at any cost. In a lot of ways, BP was still recovering.
Shana and I had met our neighbors Jack and Jasmine Parsons shortly after we had purchased our current home. At that time, she had been three months pregnant with our first which was a boy. Hunter Allan Phillips came into the world weighing seven pounds. Sarah Louise came less than four years later.
The house had been too big for us, but we had grown into it. Both of our children were now almost out of their teens. Hunter had just turned twenty and Sarah was counting the days until she could get rid of her learners.
