Hassi Messaoud is in the middle of the desert, about 350 miles south of the Mediterranean coast. Hassi is Arabic for well and Mr Messaoud drilled his water well in the 1930's to attract business. Oil was discovered in the late 50's, when Algeria was still a French colony. Today, Hassi Messaoud is Algeria's largest oil & gas field and the area has all the charm of an oil-boom town. Fortunately, there's plenty of desert to detract from the charm.
The only people not directly associated with the oil-patch are the remaining Bedouins. Their camel and goat herds are often seen wandering the desert.
There are no live-in expatriots in Hassi Messaoud and few Algerians actually live here. Expats work 28 days-on and 28 days-off, rotating from all over the world. Most Algerians rotate from the more populous coastal region. As of now, I'm rotating from Lisbon, Portugal, but I receive airfare back to the States every rotation.
Like most companies, Halliburton has a camp just outside the city, with office, living quarters, warehouse, and yard all within the same walls. The idea is to survive the 28-day workweek so as to enjoy the 28-day weekend.
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Halliburton's main office block. |
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And the view over the wall...
The smoke in the distance is from one of the many gas flares in Algeria. Production operations are inefficient and this is Algeria's contribution to global warming. The trees on the horizon (right) are the Sonatrach camp, the State-owned oil company. Otherwise, it's sand, sand, and more sand. The guard towers are manned nightly by Algerian military.
There is a 15 km exclusion zone around Hassi that's tightly controlled by the military. Outside that zone, military escort is required. For this reason, an army contingent lives on the camp, providing escort to operations outside the zone. A curfew requires all expats be on the camp before sunset and prevents us from visiting any of the cafe's or shops in town. Not mixing with the local culture is the biggest drawback to working here. Security is not much of an issue around Hassi, as it's very isolated. The infamous terrorist threat is in the mountains and cities along the coast, where most incidents occur. Rather, the tight security around Hassi is regarded as a work-program and a method of limiting Western influence.
The living quarters...
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Everyone gets a room with bath, telephone, and satellite TV connection; have to scrounge up your own TV, though. My lifeline is the network connection. |
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Recreation includes a small swimming pool... |
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...and a make-shift driving range. |
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No oil-trash camp is complete without a bar (soda, wine, & beer only). |
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And the occasional (nightly?) private party. |
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The galley specializes in French-style oil-patch cuisine: meat and potatoes swimming in butter. With some effort, a balanced diet is possible. Just barely. |
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On the camp is a small medical clinic staffed by an Algerian doctor. In the summer, heat stroke is a big threat for the field hands. Flu can spread rapidly and diarrhea is unavoidable. However, the life-threatening risk is any accident requiring air-evac to Europe, such as an auto accident. In this case, qualified treatment is at least 6 hours away. |
The only contact with Algerians is in the office through the course of business. They are friendly and relatively western. However, fraternization is a sure-fire ticket to deportation. There are stories of the local gendarme escorting love-struck infidels to the airport, never to return. Company policy makes it a firing offense.
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For the non-petroleum folks, a glimpse of what I do for a living.
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A Halliburton snubbing unit pulls production pipe from a well. |
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Algeria produces 1 million barrels oil per day and 6 billion cubic feet of gas. At today's prices, that's some $38 million dollars per day!!! The oil is piped to the coast and loaded onto tankers. The gas is piped to Europe via Tunisia, under the Mediterranean, then onshore at Sicily. |
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The work itself is basic petroleum engineering. Because the field has been managed by the State, much has been overlooked. This is a typical production manifold. The small flowlines rising from the sand connect individual wells up to 5 miles away. The oil, water, and gas flow through the valves and into the 2 main production lines. Because the fluids are mixed and distances so great, the pressure at the well is insufficient to push the fluid. There was little real production at this location. By installing a separator, the gas and liquids flow in dedicated production lines, reducing pipeline friction and increasing the overall flow rate. |
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