Sitting on ass all day vs massive amount of knowledge, troubleshooting, and repairing in a hurry + physical labor…engineers will eventually make more than mates, maybe not in my lifetime, but eventually.
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During drilling operations there is always an engineer also sitting on their ass manning the ECR. Same can be said for Drillers sitting on their asses in the chair. We all are required to sit on our ass and monitor things as part of the job.
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Maybe someone that’s worked on drilling units and mud boats can compare the two with their opinion. Thinking about hopping over to the drilling side and would much rather keep busy with maintenance all day than deal with middle management on the OSV side.
The problem with drilling is it came from the land…then the swamp, then stilts on the water then floating.
Rig mechanic was un qualified person with a large hammer and most still are less the CE due to the fact US operators get the flag states they use to design the rules to suit themselves.
Now the rigs have much more technology than a blue water ship so you need a crew of electricians as well.
Hitting it with a hammer works on the drill floor but no longer on the rest of the rig but the management still think so.
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Most of the management consider the marine crew a necessary evil, an expense not an asset.
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yes always a problem…
Reminds me of a megaycht captain telling me a charter guest gave a big tip for all the crew but forgot the engineer as he had never seen him due to the fact the old boat had many issues and he spent 2 weeks in the engine room just keeping it all running…
On the semi I worked on the most important crew were the welders keeping it afloat.
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And here is the best post of the thread.
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Long ago I did a brief stint on a mud boat as engineer later much of my time was on drillphips or in ship yards where drillships were being built. Prior to that I worked on all manner of ships. If you are considering going to drillships as an engineer from a supply boat your workload will increase 100% on day one. Your pay may be better and your benefits will be much better so your total compensation will increase. But it is a cyclical job just as supply boats are. Feast or famine. You will learn much more on a drillship than you ever will on a supply boat. Drillships do not have “port engineers” to come and complete tasks. It’s all on you as it should be.
Though the drillship side picked up recently I have kept in touch with a few of the guys who left and came back. Most have left again and took either shore-side jobs or jobs that were a little more ‘relaxed’ in the maritime industry. The drillship side of the industry was very good to me but that was pure luck, right place right time with the right qualifications. Take the chance and make the switch if you wish, you’ll learn a lot and may even be able to switch over to a more stable maritime or shore-side job in the future.
To paraphrase a previous poster, a drillship is two ships of responsibility and one ships worth of pay. May not be true for 3rd engineers but by the time you are 1st or chief that is an understatement
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One thing I’ve noticed about unqualified personnel on Rigs is that the rig ETs and Electricians tend to be awful at troubleshooting. We’ve got a lot of really old ETs and Electricians that are in senior position who think solving a problem is just to get the alarm to go away. They immediately just look to swap out parts to solve problems rather than troubleshoot the alarm/issue. They never figured out why something happened but by swapping out a part on a piece of equipment they were able to get the alarm to stop but do this 3-4 times and bypass or mute certain alarms and they end up causing more and more problems. I see this a lot with our Cranes and Top Drive. We finally got a true ET onboard and this guy tries to troubleshoot the alarm and then recreate it in order to understand what is going on and then go from there. He ends up saving the company a lot of money because the other guys constantly just swap out parts that cost $10-50k hoping that will solve the problem but issues always come back and they just keep swapping out these parts or cause other alarms to come in. Finally an OEM rep comes onboard and is just in awe of what they have done and it ends up costing them hundreds of thousands of dollars to get the equipment back to operating how its suppose to.
There are still old school guys out here who have managed to get by this way for a long time, especially because their previous supervisors were also just good old boys who didn’t really have the technical skill/knowledge but were able to manage the personnel as the maintenance supervisor. Now all these people fall under the Chief Engineer so there might a more skilled problem solver overseeing everything but having the Chief oversee maintenance now adds sooooooo much more equipment to the Chiefs already full basket of responsibilities.
When I transitioned to Drillships I had been sailing most recently as 2A/E and was just shy of sea time for 1st. It was right during Macondo and the Maintenance Supervisor didn’t hold an unlimited engineers license, one of the Mechanics was a former deep sea guy and had a C/E so they were using his license to meet manning (one of the reasons he quit shortly thereafter).
One of the other things that annoyed the piss out of me was that I wasn’t allowed to lock out a breaker. I was fine not touching the 11KV stuff, but to be told I wasn’t qualified to lock out a 120/240/480v breaker to fix a turd pump because I wasn’t an “electrician” was ridiculous. Especially considering that none of the electricians even held a QMED-Elec or had any formal offshore electrical training.
That was one of the first things I changed once I had the authority to do so. But just goes to show a small example of the general ignorance in the oil patch at that time about what a licensed engineer was.
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[quote=“StickyFingers, post:1, topic:66022, full:true”]
What is is about working on drillship, as an engineer, that makes it so unappealing? The work never ends. It is putting out fires from the minute you get off the helicopter. The pay gap between Drilling and deep Sea isn’t what it used to be. When the industry took a downturn, they laid off people, including engineers. Why go back when you can make better money sailing on tankers and Box boats and do half the work.
My ship can not seem to hold onto any engineers with most running to blue water ships. Same answer.
For awhile we had some weird situation where the 2nd Engineers were unable to acquire the required time as 1st to get a CE license. We are a Liberian flagged ship and the 2nd Engineer is essentially the 1st but on the sea time letters no one was getting 1st Engineer titles. This is just one little (or big depending on your perspective) that has rubbed these guys the wrong way which was rectified within the past 2 years. The discharges should say 1st Engineer. The USCG knows the equivilent licencing structure and that can be fixed with a well worded letter to IASKNMC.
Another issue is we are constantly having to stop them from starting PMs and other jobs that the engineers get into because when we are conducted Critical Operations we are required to not to any maintenance on DP Critical equipment such as Thrusters, Engines, PMEs, etc…I don’t know who “WE” are. When I was on Drillships the WSOG was printed and posted in the ECR for each well. It is extremely clear of what can and cannot be done, what equipment was Blue or Blue times two or whatever. This includes during Critical Operations, Si-Ops, Boats A/S, Non-shearables, whatever. If I had the go ahead, no one was stopping me unless the DPO couldn’t maintain station.
We have approached the Client and OIM and CE about having the WSOG changed in the future to allow for the engineers to plan their business but it only led to long drawn out meetings and risk assessment requirements that create more of a headache then a solution and the engineers just give up on trying to make things better and have just accepted the situation. During these Critical operation it also requires a license engineer to be manning the ECR at all times so there are some 1sts that don’t mind just sitting in the ECR, watching tv, buying stuff for the house, and hanging out until the operations are done and I don’t blame them at times. We always had a license in the ECR. 24/7/365. No exceptions.
Looking for respsones from Engineers that have worked on Drillship. What were some of the things that you disliked about the job that made you leave or want to leave. And what changes do you think could be made in order to make the job more satisfying? * I could give you examples of many things WE disliked about the work on Drillships, but I don’t know who you work for and that would take forever.
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They also shit on everyone when the oil prices dropped in 2012-13. No loyalty towards engineers and being an engineer sailing in these days is one of the best situations we’ve seen in years. Why would I go back to a company that shit on me when times got tough. I can literally work anywhere. Drilling will need engineers long before engineers need drilling.
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Are you seriously going to argue that DPOs and ADPOs do even remotely anything compared to the engineers? I know DPOs who never put on their hardhats or steel toes unless it was a lifeboat drill.
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I’ll answer your question in the thread title. Because if you want “good” engineers you need to pay a “good” salary. Try 150, not 120
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No that’s not what I said.
My comment was in regard to Johnny dollar stating that DPOs sit on their asses all day. And all I was trying to state was that it is literally our job to sit in front of that console, just like it is a licensed engineers job to man the ECR at all times during Critical Operations and just like it is the drillers job to sit in his chair. No where did I state that that DPOs jobs are just as hard to engineers. I was just stating that it is part of my job description and duties just like the engineer who is required to be in the ECR or the Driller in the chair. I hope that clears up any false narrative that I stated that DPOs overall jobs are comparable to engineers.
I agree. I think Engineers on drillship are under paid.
I want to make it clear that I made this thread because I feel that engineers are treated poorly on drillships and that I am looking to bring some attention to it. I did not make this thread to bash engineers in anyway. I am not an engineer but I am seeing a bunch of really competent and good engineers leave and the constant turnover in the engineering department, or any department in general, is awful for a ship. Senior engineers show up the ship every hitch and have to train and work with new people. It has to be super stressful and annoying.
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I hear you. I have not experienced that though. The OIM is the Master. He is a mariner. Our OIMs always had our back.
I was referring to shoreside drillship management. In most cases the OIMs do back the marine crew including the engineers. .
When I first started working out Drillship the Captain was only designated as the Captain even though he was the Ultimate Work Authority and the OIM on paper. In reality the Rig Manager was considered the OIM and would always have the ultimate final say on almost everything except Marine Department issues. During this time period it seemed like even the Captain was just a necessary evil. When Shorebased Management would come onboard they almost exclusively would hangout in the Rig Managers office and spend most of their time onboard with them. Only recently have things actually started to change and the Captain is the recognized OIM and treated as such. Company culture played a big role in that, but that was awhile ago and like I said things have drastically changed.
Reminds me of the Deepwater Horizon hearings when everyone said the the Rig Manager was the OIM until there was an emergency, then the Captain was the OIM. Coast Guard was not buying that one bit.
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Finding unlimited Masters than can make drilling decisions are a rare breed, thats the problem.
Thos 2 skill sets come from different careers
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