Offshore facilities

D-island although the picture is a bit old

Nice day today, after my Bosiet Course last weekend I had now the change to go offshore with our Deputy Project Director. Finally the change to see where all the money is going .

I left in the early morning by Helicopter to D-island. after a short ceremony to provide one of the contractors with their 1Million LTI free award we had a visit on the island itself. Followed after lunch by a tour of the other islands by boat. (A-island and the EPC 2 and 3).

The picture I show here is a bit old, but I have taken it from the internet. I will put some more recent one when I find one…

all togheter an extremely interesting day…. Especially because this season is one of the most busy seasons to come.  It is very clear that on the island itself there is a massive coordination ongoing to get all contractors aligned in workscope etc etc. We ahve over 2000 people working at the same time and they all need to be able to work efficient. I have to give all praise to all those that are responsible for making that a succes.

I had a good day in any case and I will put some more pictures down later. hope you enjoy seeing what we are actually building here…..

BOSIET Training

Last 3 days were spend on the BOSIET training. Good way to spend your Saturday I would say:) BOSIET stands for
Basic Offshore Safety Induction and Emergency Training.
I am going to head of soon to have a tour of the offshore islands that we are building but you need to have this training to be able to get on the helicopter. The last 3 days have been the days.

Starting with some theory on the first day, and some CPR practice it was a slow start. 2nd day was already a whole different ballgame… The training center where we did the training had a pool in which we needed to show that we were able to climb into type A life rafts, float in a standard marine life vest and do a helicopter rescue. Furthermore we had some theory and practice on firefighting and training in a smokey filled room. get from entrance to exit. All the technics you learn are extremely usefull. Not only for offshore survivel but also and maybe even more important in your dailey life. You dont realize how easy a fire can start and you dont realize how little time you have to get out of the room. if the Room is smoke filled its getting a bit more difficult. if you have the right training I am not saying you will survive, or remember everything. But at least you have something to remember that can most definitly increase the changes of survival significantly.

Last day included the HUET training. Helicopter Underwater Escape Training… and the name says it all. You get into a fake helicopter, land in the water, get turned upside down and than need to escape. Not only good fun, but also important to know what to do if you ever get into a situation like that. not that the likelyhood of this happening to you is very big. but as soon as you fly in a helicopter it is part of the possibilities.

All togheter a very usefull and interesting training…and good for everybody, even if you are not flying offshore in a helicopter.

have a nice weekend.

What to do….

The Garden of Altacia is perfect for a BBQ now and then. So we spend a few good hours there yesterday. Its nice to have the feeling of being in a normal environment, in this case a garden in stead of a hotel appartment.

Aniko is offcourse still in Holland and will not be coming back anytime soon. But I will manage for a few weeks. She will likely start to work in a week or so, from London. but will not come back to Atyrau before the end of September as we want to make sure that she is fully recovered before she lands herself back here.

I set up this blog to keep track of what is happening in general here in Atyrau with us but there are not to many things to do here and as such there is not to much to write about.

I could write a book about my work and what is going on in the project, but I am sure that would not be much appreciated so I will keep those notes to myself.

In the meanwhile I am working on my new hobby, making movies of what we are doing, although at the moment Aniko has  the camera. I will post some of it on youtube when its ready.

bye for today, and lets hope that it will get a lot more interesting in the future otherwise this blog will be staying pretty empty.

ciao

I will start again.

I know I did not  write for a while, and I will start again. we had kind of a scare recently by which the medical situation in Atyrau let us down big time. but after an major surgery in London everything will be ok in the end.

now Aniko is recovering in Holland and I will go back to Kazachstan soon knowing that she will be ok.

so…talk to you soon, and dont hesitate to leave a message.

Sunday lunch in Azari Restaurant

Pretty nice lunch today. arranged by Jim our head of planning and Ilgar, a cost engineer from Azerbajan.  The food was also from Azerbajan and I have to say that it was really nice. you can see from the pictures what we were eating.  the fish is up to this moment not defined, but it was filled with lemon and grilled.

After this we walked home, nice 40 minute walk, the sun is shining and it starts to feel a bit like spring might be coming.

first on a holiday. 3 more days its about time after almost 4 months.

Currency devaluation of the tenge

The Kazak national bank has decided this week to devaluate the tenge against the USD, this because also the Russian currency is devaluating at the moment and to avoid having a worsening competitive position they need to follow.

This all sounds very nice you would think for an expat living in Atyrau as you can buy more for the same euro…but no such luck:)

Because the majority of the items are imported here, the prices go up in the same way as the devaluation of the tenge, the best example was that even our fitness lessons, or a massage in the beauty salon (all local driven services) have increased their prices from one day to another with 25%. Its funny to see that the devaluation of a currency is used to increase local prices. this definately means that we have landed in an environment were the prices start to be completely driven by the expats. maybe I am seeing it wrong, but if this is how a city reacts after devaluation of a currency, the only thing missing is an equal increase in salary for all the people from Atyrau, and than all is left is a devaluated currency….and not the benifits of it.

In the meanwhile, I will wonder what they will think of next…

have a nic day…

Day in Paris

today I am in Paris, just for a day as I had a meeting with the NCOC, the new operator for all the operations we are currently performing in the Kaspian.  As the meeting was on tuesday and there are not flights on monday, I decided to fly already last friday, this gave me the opportunity to spent some time at home. Just to make the best out of the business I would say.

It was a good weekend, and a very good meeting today, so all togheter no time lost. And even though you can very often do a meeting over the videoconference as well, a workshop like we had today on the reporting is really better done face 2 face.

Only bad thing is that now I have to wake up at 6 tomorrow morning to be in time for the plane:(

2 more weeks……and we have the holiday

all the permits have arrived

It looks like we have all the permits we need to finally be able to receive the key to our house. so when we are going home on the 19th of February we should have all the papers to enter physically in our house. Cant wait for that.

The “as build” drawings have bee approved, the living permit has been granted, and it looks like there is nothing in the way anymore. Except offcourse the garden that is a big mess and will be one of the priorities during the summer months. for this month we have only time to buy a bed and a sofa to sit on, but it will be enough…

Our new house in Budapest

Drink safe and take the bus….

Last week a colleague of mine was beaten up on the street at night and robbed from his wallet. and even though I do not consider Atyrau an unsafe place to live, its becoming clear that expats are an “easy” target. Specially at night after a few drinks. Its advised not to walk and take the cars provided by the company to go to your apartment, but after a few drinks the world does not look so bad and the 500 meter walk to the apartment does not look so far. Unfortunately it was to far for him and he was rewarded with a limited eyesight for a few days and stolen wallet.  Those things are manageable, however when the doctor came with a statement that the guy had drunk so much that he would have never been able to perform his duty the day he should have been in the office the guidelines are very strict…so he got fired…..

And even though it sounds a bit bad that you first get beaten up, and than fired because you drank to much, I think we all have to consider for ourselves if it is really unfair. these guidelines are there for a reason, you might think they are a bit overprotective, but we all saw again what can happen if you don’t live by them.

drink safe and take the bus…

birthday party

long day on Thursday… meetings untill 9.30 in the evening(without food, who invented that!!) and than we went to the birthday party of Gulya, our department administrator. Not so long ago a new bar has opened not to far from here “JOY”.  Extremely nice set up as you can see. The pictures are not great but we had only the camera on the phone of Guillome (collegue from audit). 

At least we were able to eat something. nice burger and good wine (strange combination, I know…), and the live music is really good, little bit overrehearsed maybe but nonetheless good.  This bar I can recommend to everybody. Lets see if I can get Ronald to come with us tonight:)

Now its saturday and pretty calm, we did most of the shopping already yesterday, I am amazed everytime when I have to go to 2 or 3 big stores, just to get everything that we need for our food.

Tomorrow is Football again, we are training for a tournament during february. The good thing is that if you do this kind of sport, at least you have a good reason to go. I have the problem with fitness that I “dont feel like” and thus..dont go.

have a nice weekend you all…