The Accidental Spy

by Jacqueline George

  Duty done for the moment, it was time for another coffee while he continued reading the mail. No fax from Karelia yet. It was still too early. They might have got the go-ahead on Friday afternoon, so the earliest he could expect anything would be Monday. He wondered how Elena was getting on. It would be just before six in the morning there and he could not disturb her Sunday lie-in. Maybe later on. He switched on the computer and got down to work.

  TAMCO was just starting its week. In Sabah they had their Monday morning feeling on Sundays. RomDril-1 would probably reach casing point sometime on Tuesday night and Tayfun was just putting the finishing touches to the cement programme. The trouble was losses. The hole was steadily losing around twenty percent of the drilling mud circulating. For every hundred barrels pumped down the drill-string and circulated back up to surface, only eighty actually arrived. It was not that the mud was heavy – the report said it weighed only 8.5 pounds per US gallon, just dirty water really. More probably the pressure generated by thousands of feet of liquid was making the mud leak off into some fractured limestone or very permeable sandstone. And if 8.5 pound mud was leaking off, it was a certainty that the two cement slurries planned for the casing would disappear. They weighed 13.6 pounds and 15.8 pounds per gallon. The hydrostatic pressure exerted by such heavy liquids was far higher.

  Tayfun was in a corner. He would have to request really light cement, may be 10 pounds per gallon, with all the extra cost that entailed. The idea pained him and The Virgin enjoyed watching him squirm. In revenge Tayfun put up a stiffer fight than usual over the amount of excess cement that should be mixed. The Virgin settled for twenty percent over the hole volume as measured by caliper. Not enough really, but they could always make up the difference by a top job, pumping cement from surface down the outside of the casing to just top off the hole. He did not mind. It would cost TAMCO a second operation charge if they followed that route.

  They counted out the timing together. Tuesday night the rig should reach casing point. Pull out of hole and run the drill bit to bottom again for a wiper trip, say Wednesday lunch-time. Then a quick surface logging run as this was an exploration hole, all finished by Wednesday midnight at the latest. Another wiper trip and they would be ready to run casing Thursday afternoon. The job would be in the small hours of Friday morning. Typically, the cement job would come at three in the morning, at the weekend, and it would surely be raining. He would have to rush off to RomDril-1 that afternoon and get a confirmed order for the light-weight cement. The desert would need to start blending and trucking immediately. And the desert lab would have to re-run the tests with the new cement weight, but that should not take too long.

  He hurried back to the office just at twelve o’clock. No point calling the desert now, they took a two hour lunch break. Terry Jones on RomDril-1 would also be going for his rubber chicken lunch and then taking a siesta. The Virgin decided to give up for the moment and take a break at home. His microwave was beckoning and there would be plenty of time in the afternoon to get done what had to be done.

  He did not make it back to the office until after four in the afternoon, but in his hand he had Terry’s order for 4000 lovely cubic feet of light weight cement plus another 1300 of normal Class G. Life felt good at moments like this. It was like winning a race, or getting a pay rise. Like walking home in a student dawn after making love to the most beautiful girl at the party.

  Florian in the desert was less excited. Some poor souls would be up all night blending the cement, and on top of that he would have to juggle his transportation around to deliver it on time. Whichever way you looked at it, he was going to need six trips. Two trips with the Class G at 650 sacks per load, and then if he could squeeze 1000 cubic feet of light weight cement into each bulk trailer he would need another four. He would get the Class G on the road straight away. Then it dawned on them that they did not have enough silo space on the rig. He could send up one more 1000 cubic foot silo but only if he could find a truck to carry it up. The Virgin promised to find him one tomorrow, and left a note on Abdul’s desk telling him to fix it.

  It was not until he was locking up the office that he realised he had forgotten to telephone Elena.

  Florian managed to get two trucks on the road at six in the morning. Two contract road tractors hauling MacAllans bulkers. It would be faster than using the desert Kenworths with their great big balloon tyres and a top speed of only forty klicks. He had sent a bulk plant operator along to make sure the drivers did not stop at every restaurant on the way, so they should be on location by lunch time. The Virgin would have to go and receive them. Make sure the cement ended up in the right silos. No problem; he would be there anyway, checking that Terry had got RomDril all lined up.

  Tayfun was waiting for him with a surprise. Bill Gordon wanted to have a meeting on the RomDril-1 job and had called Terry into the office for ten thirty. The Virgin liked that idea; Bill knew what he was talking about and was quite capable of putting his foot down if Tayfun tried pulling one of his stunts. He could even talk sense into Bassam Al Suleiman, the operations manager.

  The Virgin tried to sit in the back-ground when the meeting got together. After all, he was only a contractor. All the others were TAMCO employees and far more exalted. Suleiman did not come voluntarily; he had to be led by Tayfun. Bill kicked off.

  “Right. Everyone got a copy of the programme?” The Virgin raised a tentative hand. “No? Tayfun, do you have a copy for Greg?”

  “I did not make a copy for him...”

  “Oh, I think he ought to have one, don’t you? He’s the one who’s got to get the job done and it would be nice if he knew what he was meant to do.”

  “I thought Terry would tell him.”

  “Sure will,” broke in Terry, “But he’d just as well have one anyway. Save him stealing mine.”

  “Maybe I have another one in my file. I will give it to him afterwards.”

  “How about now?” Bill issued a veiled order. “Then he’ll know what we’re talking about.” Accepting defeat, Tayfun left to fetch it and The Virgin settled to read carefully.

  “So. From the top. The casing’s all on site, yes? And being inspected? When will it be ready to run?”

  “The casing hands reckon they’ll be done this afternoon. It’s in good shape. They’ve only rejected three joints so far.”

  “Good. And the hardware?”

  That was The Virgin’s department. The shoe with the one-way valve that went on the bottom of the casing to allow cement to be pumped out but to stop it flowing back when pumping stopped. And the bow-type centralisers that kept the casing centred in the hole. “They’re all coming up with the cement this lunch time.”

  “That the last of the cement?”

  “No. There will be another four loads after these.”

  “Jesus, Greg! You’re leaving it a bit late, aren’t you?”

  Bill was right. Unless Florian rounded up another bulker today, they would be delivering cement right up to the last minute. “Well, it was the losses. We only got the order for the light cement yesterday afternoon. We’ll be back-loading some pozzolan cement that we were going to use.”

  “And you will not charge for the transport of that cement, no?” Good old Tayfun. Never missed a chance to put the boot in.

  “Oh no. You only pay for the cement you order. We sent the pozzolan up because we wanted to be ready. I’ll let you have the transport for free.” It was not much of a gesture. The pozzolan had been left over from the surface casing and The Virgin knew there was not a hope of making TAMCO pay transport.

  “Never mind about that,” said Bill. “Let’s get on with the important bits. You’re going to be able to get the cement there on time? Good. Mr Suleiman, is there anything you would like to add at this time?”

  “Yes. The operation is too expensive.” Oh Christ, thought The Virgin, Tabriz strikes again. Now he is going to ask for a discount. “I think that MacAllans should give us a discount.”

  Bill kept
a straight face and looked at The Virgin. He pretended to consider the matter. “Well, I’m sorry, Mr Suleiman, but the operation is not expensive. It’s just that it’s so big. The casing is set at 1800 metres and that means a lot of cement.”

  “But it is so big that you must give us a discount.”

  The Virgin wondered what line Tayfun had been feeding him. “I don’t know how we could make it cheaper. We could go back to ordinary cement I suppose.”

  Bill glared at him. “Not a chance. We’d lose the lot as soon as it hit bottom.”

  “Or perhaps less cement...”

  “No way. This is an exploration well. It’s got to be cemented back to surface.”

  The Virgin pretended to consider. “Well, I don’t know what to suggest.” He looked at Tayfun; the man really thought that MacAllans would give discounts away just because his boss asked for them. “I think you’ve given us a very large and difficult job to do and I don’t see any other way of doing it.” The room fell silent and eyes turned from The Virgin to Suleiman. The Virgin let the silence increase the pressure and Suleiman shifted uncomfortably in his chair. Eventually, Bill rescued him.

  “How much does the job come to, Tayfun?”

  “Ah. This is not for us to say. The cost must be worked out by MacAllans.”

  Just as The Virgin had thought. The demand for a discount was merely a reflex. No-one knew how much they were talking about, and still they knew it was too expensive.

  “Greg?”

  “Well, I haven’t worked it out either, but off-hand I’d guess it’s not as expensive as Mr Suleiman has been worrying about.” He smiled at Suleiman and nodded encouragingly. “Four thousand sacks of light cement and tail in with one thousand three hundred sacks of Class G neat. Delivered to location you’re only talking about $400,000 or so. Say another $100,000 would cover everything else so I’d guess around half a million dollars. That’s not so much for a job like this, is it Mr Suleiman?” He nodded again at Suleiman. Suleiman could not help himself. He was nodding in agreement. As if half a million was loose change. It was all funny money to TAMCO, anyway. They never saw a dollar for the oil they produced, and the oil ministry footed the bill for every dollar they spent. God bless the Great Man and his devotion to socialist economics, thought The Virgin.

  “Right,” said Bill with that swept aside, “What about your casing tally, Terry? I want the pipe set with a sensible stick-up this time.”

  Terry’s turn for embarrassment. On the last job he had selected the joints of casing so that when the pipe reached bottom there was still twenty feet of it sticking above the rig floor. That made connecting the cement head a nightmare. The MacAllans’ man had flat refused to go up to insert the plugs and operate the valves because RomDril had no working harness and the air-winch was down. A rig hand had ridden the cat-line up in the end, with one leg stuck uncomfortably through a loop of chain. Terry kept quiet and made a note in his tally book.

  Suleiman cleared his throat. “Now I must go, excuse me. Mr Tayfun will tell me everything that has been decided. Thank you.” He sidled out of the room.

  “Greg. Anything from your end?”

  “Couple of things. There’s only twenty barrels of wash in the programme. At normal circulation rates that’ll be gone in only a minute and a half. I don’t think that’ll clean much mud.”

  “Tayfun? What’s the mud like?”

  “Oh, the mud is very good. The programme says Marsh funnel of less than forty seconds.”

  Terry snorted. “Guess the mud man forgot to read the programme. The shit he’s got me pumping probably wouldn’t go through the funnel. I’ve been telling him but he says he doesn’t have low temperature thinner.”

  “Have him use some high temperature stuff then.”

  Tayfun was outraged. “High temperature thinner is very expensive! He must just use more water.”

  “I don’t care what he uses. Terry, before we run casing, the last wiper trip, I want the Marsh funnel below forty and you’d better give us at least four hours of circulation before you pull out. Until the mud’s coming back in good shape. Let me know if you’re not getting what you want and I’ll kick some-one’s ass. What else, Greg?”

  “Even with the mud in good shape, twenty barrels of wash is still not going to get the hole clean. That’s a lot of hole you’re trying to cement.”

  “OK. A hundred barrels of wash. You’ll write it in, Tayfun?”

  It was not Tayfun’s day. “But we could use water...”

  “Good idea. A hundred barrels of water. And then a hundred barrels of wash.”

  Tay fun swallowed. “But it will be expensive.”

  “Oh, come on, Tayfun,” Bill said. “Wash doesn’t cost much and I don’t want to screw up a half million dollar cement job for a couple of thousand dollars worth of wash. What else, Greg?”

  “You’ve got us doing the displacing.”

  “Shit! I signed that? Show me. Jesus Christ, you’re right. What’s going on?”

  Everybody knew what was going on. In a normal operation, MacAllans would pump the cement into the casing and then the big rig pumps would take over, pumping mud behind the cement and forcing it down the pipe and out of the bottom. Pumping large volumes was just what they were set up to do. Trouble was, normal rigs had stroke counters on their pumps that let them measure accurately what they were pumping. RomDril-1 had stroke counters but they did not work.

  “I’ve tried pushing them,” said Terry, “But there’s no way. They’re never going to get their counters working. The only way we can get a measurement is to use the MacAllans truck. But I don’t believe we should be displacing a 13-3/8 inch job with a pump truck. It’s too slow.”

  “What about another pump truck?” asked Bill. “We ought to have a back-up on a job like this. If the unit goes down half-way through it’s going to cost us a fortune. Can you get us a back-up, Greg?”

  Why don’t I have more days like this, The Virgin asked himself as he made for his office phone? The job had a momentum of its own and Suleiman was smart enough to keep out of the way. The Virgin revelled in the relief of doing things properly for a change. Sure it would be expensive. In the States you could probably drill a regular well for the cost of just this one cement job, but that was not MacAllans’ fault. The costs were high here because Tabriz was a very expensive place to work. Taxes were ridiculous. The artificial exchange rate racked prices up every time you turned around. The old men at the yard gate - night watchmen who actually had a bed in their little shack and would no more dream of staying awake at night than a child - were being paid three thousand dollars a month in real money by the time you figured in their taxes, holidays and other excessive benefits. And that was just one example. The Customs department really believed that by soaking foreign companies they were making money for Tabriz. They just did not understand where the money was coming from.

  It suited foreign contractors to have high costs. They made sure their percentage profit remained the same by adjusting their prices, and at the end of the year it was better to have a percentage of a big figure than a small one. The numbers got really silly when it came to big jobs, but who cared? Tabrizi oil was good quality and easy to produce, and the share of the profits that foreign contractors were getting was still only a fraction of the Government’s take. But not by much.

  Florian tore his hair out at the thought of having to get another pump unit and crew up to Sabah, but it had to be done. He would get the truck on the road first thing tomorrow and the crews would come up twenty-four hours later. He even let The Virgin keep the bulk plant operator who would accompany the cement delivery. There would be enough to keep him busy for the next day or two. The Virgin went off to take lunch with Terry and to meet the cement.

  The two bulk trucks ground onto location mid-afternoon. Big Mercedes tractors with oil-field winches and purpose-built head-ache racks. Probably provided originally by some crazy Government scheme to encourage transport co-operatives, they were no
w privately operated. The drivers would be paying off some-one high up in the co-operative organisation and using the trucks to make themselves money. It all worked well enough as long as the trucks did not break down. Thank God that a Mercedes could take a lot of hard work.

  The bulk plant operator they brought with them was a Filipino called Felix, a calm, hard-working man who had been with MacAllans in Tabriz for years and knew his job inside out. The Virgin put his coveralls on and between them they hauled the four inch hoses off the bulk trailers and fired up the trailer compressors. Blowing the cement off took an hour or so and The Virgin ended up dusty and greasy, and with the inevitable cement in his hair. As he stripped off his work clothes at the back of his car he felt good about the chance of being able to do a little practical engineering for a change.

  He waited until Felix had chased the truck drivers out of the canteen - free meals were irresistible to Tabrizis - and he watched the two bulkers roll out of the gate. Tomorrow morning he would give their departure time to Florian in case they returned late. Felix took his travelling bag and went off to find the camp boss and get himself a bed for the next few days.

  There was no fax from Karelia until Tuesday morning. The fax bell rang and the paper curled slowly off the machine. 95p a litre ex-works with a minimum order of 5000 litres. Container to be purchased with the chemical at an additional £850. As he pondered the shiny fax it occurred to him that somewhere in town Major Jamal was probably doing exactly the same. He called Harris. “What mark-up shall we put on this solvent for Security?”

  Harris did not even pause for thought. “Whatever you can get out of them.”

  “Well it’s letter of credit, so that makes it better. I’ll try them with 100%”

  “What! Christ Almighty! It’s not Christmas yet. I’m not going anything less than 400% or it will screw up my margin. Are you talking before or after on-costs?” Harris’s reaction was pretty much what The Virgin had expected.

  “After, of course. And our on-costs are minimal because it’s FOB Sabah in our own charter.”