Life On a Service Rig
Part 2
Promotions work a little differently on every single crew. For my first promotion, ‘stud roughneck,’ on this particular crew the trial was a wrestling match in three months between the two roughnecks. Fortunately for me, (and unfortunately for him) my ‘roughie brother’ lost his driver’s license and as such, his job.
The job of a stud roughneck is to run the rig floor – hydraulic power tongs to make up the connections and tubing elevators for picking up the next ‘connection’ – a 10 metre section of pipe with threaded ends. Maintenance of the handling equipment, whether it be the tongs, elevators or air slips (what suspends the entire string of all the tubing joints in the hole) are this roughnecks prime responsibility.
Somewhere during this period our driller (the rig operator, manager of the crew) lost his license so I was given the responsibility to drive the crew to and from work. Typically we’d show up an hour and a half before we started getting paid to ensure that the equipment started and do any necessary maintenance to perform our daily duties.
Within a few weeks, our derrickhand (the next rank up) missed four days of work in a row, so I was promoted by default. Being a derrickhand involves standing 20 metres in the air manipulating the tubing joints by leveraging them back and forth in and out of large trays on the ground.
This is when I bought my truck, seeing as the main driller couldn't drive and the truck also earns a day's wage. I needed a truck then following day, and there were very few trucks within my price range (not new) in the area. I ended up taking advantage of a private sale through a friend.
When Christmas came, my only ride was leaving 2 days before our last day of work... Not only did the toolpush ensure i was on that ride, but also he kept me on ticket so I would be paid despite leaving them short handed!
Swift Current was amazing in the summer, despite the miserable weather halting work for much of it.
In the next part I will describe a typical evening / weekend for a service rigger in Swift Current, Saskatchewan.