Chapter 13

Petra asked John to step outside with her. After they got outside, she said “Raul wants a conference with you, Henrik, and myself, are you OK with that?”

John asked “What’s the subject of the call?”

“This contract and possibly another.”

He said “Let me check in with Alex and Pat then.”

She nodded and said, “When you’re ready, step up front to my office.”

He nodded then went into the building. He found Pixy and Gunny in the weld test shop listening to Lief as he explained his testing procedures. Listening in, John was satisfied with the part he heard, and from their looks, Pixy and Gunny were satisfied with the whole.

Lief looked at John and asked “Is there anything I can do for you?”

“Yes, I need a head count for how many welders lost their jobs because of the bullshit UT rejects.”

Lief immediately replied “Thirteen so far. They were good hands too.”

John nodded and ask “Do you think they’d come back?”

“Probably, but that’s not my call to make” Lief replied.

John said “Can you give us a moment please.”

Lief walked out of the weld test shop. John asked Pixy and Gunny “Is there anything that stands out as a concern for either of you?”

Pixy spoke up “Heat input. There doesn’t seem to be any concern for it.”

Gunny spoke up then, “The SAW welding procedure doesn’t cover changes in wire size yet there are three different wire sizes on site and all three are in use. Table 4.5 of the code calls out wire size as an essential variable if it’s an increase in size. I haven’t read the PQR, so I don’t know if it’s covered or not.”

John thought about and asked “What’s the largest size in use?”

Gunny replied “3/16th at the tail stock.”

John replied “Shit.”

Looking around he saw a unit in the test shop and said “Get that unit set up to run a PQR on the largest wire at the same settings being used on the floor. If it’s good, then we’re okay.”

John walked out of the shop and stopped Lief asking him why they did that?

Leif waved for John to follow him and said “It’s better I show you.”

With a puzzled face, John followed him to the front. While walking Lief said, “The former procurement manager apparently got the bigger wire on sale.”

John was led to an office with Leif’s name on it. After sitting down behind the desk, Leif brought up his email. After searching through it briefly he pulled up an email chain detailing everything he’d already told John. In it were attachments from the wire manufacturer. However, the invoice attached to the wire certification was written to the former procurement manager’s previous employer.

John was willing to bet, there was a history of the transaction on the company server. He asked Lief to print the documents and email the chain to him. He then told Lief, he had Alex and Pat running a PQR on the larger wire.

Lief looked at him perplexed and said, “Our turn around on those has been two plus weeks. How can we proceed with work for those two weeks?”

John replied “The results will be back today barring any problems welding it.”

Lief just raised a doubtful eyebrow to that and said “Good luck.”

After getting the print outs, John went to Petra’s office finding Henrik and Petra waiting on him. John said “I have some updated information, do you want a brief before getting Señor Rodriguez on the line, or do you want to wait?”

From the speaker in the center of the table Raul’s voice spoke up “Too late for that John, just go ahead and spit it out.”

With that, John explained the results of the welding survey, and the steps he’d taken so far.

Raul asked “Henrik, is this acceptable to you?”

Henrik replied “As I said earlier, his work and methods are acceptable to me and the company. They are above and beyond our expectations.”

Raul then asked “John, how’s the leg?”

He replied “It’s on the mend, I can still get around alright.”

Raul said “Good, then let me ask this. We have a stake in a deep-sea platform in the Gulf. It’s been having problems that the engineers can’t seem to fix. It started after that last hurricane. The riser has excessive movement, and is stressing the compensation system excessively as a result. One of the engineers said it’s as if someone tied a car to the end of the string.”

John was silent for a moment in thought. He then said “I’m guessing the rig is a floater?”

Raul replied “It is.”

John then asked, “Have they tried to pull the riser up and inspect for damages?”

“No, the shareholders voted down that option as too expensive.”

John replied “The most likely culprits that comes to my mind are the riser buoyancy modules. Remember they are there to counter the differences in salinity and buoyancy at various depths. If they are not working properly, they are not countering the weight of the riser string. Two thousand feet of large diameter riser pipe gets very heavy. It’s more like a semi rig hanging off the end. You should ask the shareholders if they remember the Deep Water Horizon disaster. If that sting fails, they lose control. Not just of the string which will end up on the bottom, but of the blowout preventers.”

John heard an unknown voice on the speaker say “Holy fuck.”

John then said “I’m guessing some or all of those shareholders are on the line?”

Raul said “They were, but now they have been dropped. Sorry about that John, I should have said something earlier.”

John said “It’s no problem, the answer would have been the same. What disturbs me is the prospect of another disaster like that. That little bit of money they are trying to save is nothing compared to the cost of that sort of thing going to hell in a hand basket.”

Raul replied “I agree. I take it you have some experience with this?”

“Yes. I’ve done field repairs on buoyancy modules and also on the the locking collars. I don’t know the rig in question here, but design engineering for them tends to look like a backwoods family tree. I can’t imagine it being radically different.”