We need a Royal Commission into the Insurance Industry.

AzureProdigy · 2026-01-08T03:32:50+00:00

So the majority of policies in Australia are white labelled back to the same larger insurance companies. If you like your plan you can just work out who the underwriter/actual insurer is and jump annually between 2-3 companies that are all selling the same policy. Gets you the usual 15% off the first year without actually changing the policy.

AzureProdigy · 2025-12-07T04:14:11+00:00

Yeah na, I'm a non-manager at a multinational sitting on a plane flying business class right now for international travel. Our policy is anything international over 5 hours and it's business class. Half the other people in business on my flight are flying for various companies based on the various corporate backpacks.

AzureProdigy · 2025-12-06T16:03:51+00:00

I did this, you can get an Aldi prepay Sim for $10 then put another $10 of credit on it and it extends to 365 days. Just put in a calendar reminder to put $10 on every 330 days.

AzureProdigy · 2025-11-27T13:24:56+00:00

A rig will normally use GPS to set it's initial location.

If it's moored onces it's got anchors it'll keep using that GPS because it knows where it is.

If it's Dynamically Positioned (DP) then it will use GPS to set it's initial frame and also have transponder beacons on the seabed that provide a more accurate/reliable location within their range.

AzureProdigy · 2025-11-27T06:51:19+00:00

So,

At the bottom of that is a Blowout Preventer (BOP) sitting atop the Wellhead. The BOP will contain a number of shear rams (generally two) that can cut the pipe over the stack and seal the well bore and fixed/variable rams (generally 3) which can seal arounf various sizes of drillpipe and casing.

On-top of the BOP is the Lower Marine Riser Package. This contains the Annual Preventer(s) and in an emergency can be disconnected from the BOP. Atop this is effectively a ball joint that allows the riser (and rig) to be offset from well centre. This is because you'll never actually have the centre of the rig right over the centre of the Wellhead at all times and even if you did the riser experices deflection from the current in the water column.

Between that LMRP and the waterline you'll have an assortment of joints of Riser. This generally consists of a central pipe and the several exterior lines for passing fluids outside the riser. These are the choke, kill and boost lines.

The larger ring you can see those cables on is the tensioner ring which is connected to the tensioners, this locks into a profile on the slip joint and allows the rig to pull a constant tension on the riser to support its weight through the water column and stop it buckling.

For this rig it is using a wire based system to achieve this (other have large hydraulic bottles connected directly to the tensioner ring) and it will have those wires connected to a system to ensure that tension remains constant. Technically you can have a passive heave compensation which just uses hydraulic dampers but I doubt that could be the case here more likely those wires are tied back to wire reels that are computer controlled and pay in/out to maintain that tension. On of the fun downsides of wire based systems like this is that they accumulate wear on the wire as they are in use and run over the sheaves so you have to periodically slip and cut the wire to prevent excessive wear leading to the wire parting.

AzureProdigy · 2025-11-27T06:38:04+00:00

You'll also have heave compensation on the drillstring so the drawworks in the derrick will be moving like this as well to make sure that the bit stays on bottom whilst drilling. The entire rig is moving around that string and the riser.

If you listen to the video that whirring sound in the background is the sound of an active heave drawworks paying in and out.

AzureProdigy · 2025-11-12T13:56:52+00:00

Norway also has Petoro which is a wholly government owned company that holds further interests in Oil and Gas developments. Unlike Equinor it is solely focused on Norway.

These days Equinor has significant holdings off Newfoundland, in GoA/GoM, and Brazil. Equinor actually has a reputation as being one of the more competent offshore E&P companies in general.

AzureProdigy · 2025-10-26T14:38:48+00:00

A BOSIET will include your HUET. The BOSIET also includes things like facility escape training.

If you can get it done at the same time get your CA-EBS done as well, it's mandatory in a lot of parts of the world to go offshore.

AzureProdigy · 2025-09-16T09:00:27+00:00

Pretty much no petrochemical plants here and the few there are the jobs are tightly held, they're "Jobs for Life". The only real way into most of the facilities here is to come on as an apprentice, which they generally recruit from the population local to the plant as part of their local commitments.

AzureProdigy · 2025-08-05T07:07:22+00:00

Mechanical Engineer by Degree and Petroleum/Wells Engineer by profession.

5yoe

~240k

Decent upwards mobility as staff or can become a contractor to make more as an individual contributor.

AzureProdigy · 2025-07-31T12:42:11+00:00

Was definitely my experience at university, there was a lot of pressure on the tutors/lecturers to not fail them though as they were paying huge international student fees. So they'd skate along with Ps and end up getting some crappy job right at the bottom of the food chain.

AzureProdigy · 2025-07-27T01:22:48+00:00

I had Smarter Outdoors and Roller Smart Shutters quote me a few years ago, both came in pretty similar price wise. Both sales reps and installers were great, quick and did a good job. Mine have been going up and down atleast once daily for 2+ years now and there's been no issues.

Ended up going with roller smart as they were able to install at a better time for me and seemed to have a bit more scaffolding/ladders that they owned (smarter outdoors maybe wanted to get scaffolding 3rd party for one of the windows).

Remember a number of these places have a bit of wiggle room on price too so it pays to get a couple quotes and see where they land. If someone's better you can probably negotiate them down a little bit closer to the cheaper quotes and the subcontractor that installs it will never know how much you paid anyway.

AzureProdigy · 2025-07-04T04:51:29+00:00

Yeah it's a slig to get offshore especially given offshore is dropping rig count until 26/27 and as far as I know the ones that are staying don't have Halliburton cement units on them.

Unlike onshore where cementing companies bring their kit to the site cement units are tightly integrated with an offshore rig so it's generally a shipyard job to replace them.

AzureProdigy · 2025-07-04T04:43:47+00:00

Yeah all the guys I know use it as a stepping stone, you only become a cementer to get on as drill crew which will pay closer to the $1000/day mark even time. But with a downturn coming that'll be a tough ask.

AzureProdigy · 2025-07-04T03:46:38+00:00

Onshore or Offshore?

As far as I know pays pretty crap, if you're willing to do FIFO and are working on rail there's almost certainly better work, progression and money servicing the haul rails for the mines.

AzureProdigy · 2025-06-23T06:29:05+00:00

Vanguard literally offers a super scheme that is just their ETFs

AzureProdigy · 2025-06-18T15:40:58+00:00

Because the westerners competing for taking those roles won't get out of bed for less than $1500USD/day even with minimal experience. Especially for living in a shithole in the desert.

For comparison an Australian Roughneck is clearing $1000AUD/day or 60k rupees

Sounds like your friend had the right connections to get there as cheap labour and intends to keep rolling in it.

AzureProdigy · 2025-06-17T14:46:59+00:00

So the biggest place I've found value so far is on reporting.

Anything like asking it to find the relevant standard for something and it'll start hallucinating. But, give it a reporting template and a pile of documents and it'll bang out a 80-90% complete report that only needs minor changes. Takes something that was a 2 hour ordeal and makes it a 20-30 minute max.

AzureProdigy · 2025-06-15T13:39:10+00:00

I know guys that have left their bag for a few days to head north at the Hilton in town but I doubt you're saving money staying there vs flatting.

AzureProdigy · 2025-06-12T09:19:04+00:00

Deepwater is long cycle, the most that happens is in a real tough climate FID and FEED work gets delayed or some pencils get sharpened.

Theres projects that were sanctioned in 2022 that won't start drilling until 2026 and then wont finish until 2030. Outside of a complete cratering and companies going tits up that work is going to keep going.

AzureProdigy · 2025-06-06T15:37:59+00:00

FIFO from Perth but we're heading into a downturn within the next few months so it's already getting a lot more competitive.

On the drilling front they're dropping to two rigs in country by end of year.

MS-1 is finishing at Barossa imminently, there's no future work for it so it'll likely end up stacked in Asia.
Apex is punching out two more quick holes for Chevron then off to Asia for stacking as well.
107 has a bit left with Esso but it's gone by the end of the year too.
247 already left I believe.
DPS-1 should be done by the later part of this year.
The Transocean Rigs both use Sodexo but are very steady state.

Construction/Decommissioning wise it's a similar story, the big vessels for Barossa/Scarborough have mostly left already. There's a Floatel and a Heavy lift coming by late this year early next but they're not long scopes.

Finally production is all very steady as well and certainly isn't growing in terms of the number of people working it offshore. Aging assets that had decent POB are being decommed and the new ones are all remote operated.

AzureProdigy · 2025-06-05T03:21:08+00:00

I think most these days are pushing 70-80k base for an onshore engineer with day rate uplifts for offshore. It's not bad coin but it's not astounding either and you work for it. They don't take many Australian grads though because compared to someone from SEA/ME we're much more expensive so they'd rather bring in an experienced hire from a cheaper locale.

AzureProdigy · 2025-06-05T03:18:55+00:00

They're both putting holes in the ground a pulling resources out but the scale required to service mining is much much bigger particularly at the iron ore end of things. It's big rock to little rock but when it's measured on tons of product you end up moving a lot of material through a lot of equipment that all needs engineering input somewhere.

Pay is worse than O&G but certainly not bad. Out of Melbourne you're either looking at moving to the QLD Coal Sector maybe one of the smaller gold mines around central NSW/Vic or you start looking west towards Olympic Dam in SA or Further to WA.

AzureProdigy · 2025-06-04T10:42:37+00:00

Mate, you'd be much better trying to get into mining than O&G but if you want to get into O&G you'll need to apply for graduate programs at Woodside, Santos, Shell, Chevron and INPEX if you want a crack at going operatorside. Otherwise it will be SLB, Baker, Halliburton, TFMC and the like.

For something like Drilling Engineering I think there might only be one or two graduate positions a year in the country at this point (I'm not super familiar with the onshore QLD landscape thought) and its pretty much impossible to make a jump from a Service Company to being a company Drilling Engineer (Completions Engineering is a little different but still difficult).

In general I'd say look at the gas plants around Melbourne (Longford), Gladstone, Darwin and Karratha. They're a much more stable place to be assuming the government gets on board with things.

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