Norway 1974-1976

I came back to Denmark from Alaska towards the end of September 1974, I had just turned 22. But I didn’t stay long. I put up at my mother’s place for a few weeks to catch my breath, acclimatize and develop all the photographs I took while I was away in Canada and Alaska for over a year. I had continuously sent the rolls of film, books I bought and other stuff back to my mother’s place, and now I lived in her house again, staying in my old room, my belongings stacked up in her garage.  

I had long ago decided what I wanted to do: I wanted to work in the oil business, on the rigs. I didn’t know the first thing about how to drill or complete an oil well of course, but I just wanted to get started and learn. My Dad lived in Sandnes, Norway, Rogaland Fylke on the west coast; it was near the airport in Sola and near Stavanger, the oil capital of Norway. Or rather, it wasn’t that much of a capital back then, the whole North Sea oil and gas venture was still in its infancy. But I had a hunch that this could be big. All my life, crude oil had been something we imported into Europe. It was sucked out of the ground in West Texas and the Middle East, that Norway could be a big player in this was by no means obvious at the time. Oil had always been dirt cheap, US$3 per barrel as long as people could remember back, maybe $3.5, no more than that. That was fine for producers in Saudi Arabia where you just stuck a straw in the sand and the oil came gushing out, the EROI (Energy Return On Investment) at that time was over 100, i.e. using one barrel of oil to do the work you got 100 back. But when the price tripled during the oil crisis in 1973 that calculation totally changed, it was now possible to make a profit offshore in the North Sea where the EROI was 30 or less. Today much of our energy is produced at EROIs of under 10, typical for solar, or even down to 1.5 for American shale gas!

Anyway, in the ‘good old days’ there was plenty of money to be made at US$12 per barrel, later in 1979 the price would triple again to US$36 per barrel, and today (in 2020) many American producers have problems turning a profit even at that price. In Be Financially Free (Marshal Cavendish, 2016) I have a chapter going into more details about the economic aspects of our energy consumption and production policies.    

As a young man I was fascinated by the oil business because working on the rigs seemed like an exciting adventure. In the back of my mind, I also had this feeling that this was important work, and that the market would pay people who could do this – secure our vital energy supply – well. On both fronts I was right. Who said anything about ‘global warming’? Nobody at the time! 

In October 1974, I packed a bag and traveled up to my Dad in Norway. He was settling into a new house he had built on the outskirts of Sandnes, he was still doing a bit of touch-up downstairs and completing some partitions, I helped him with that and got to live in that downstairs apartment. I will forever be grateful to my Dad for this. I paid no rent, but I gave Ingrid, his wife, some money for each day I stayed, to cover the cost of meals. Starting in 1975, that was less than half the time, once I started working offshore; my Dad was very generous with this arrangement, and I recall my years in Norway as some of the best times I have ever had. I worked like a dog, learning new useful skills all the time, traveled in my spare time and had a great time with my Dad and his Norwegian family when I was in town.

The first thing I did when I got to Norway was to go down to the local government-run employment agency in Stavanger; their office was right in the centre of the city facing the lake Breiavatnet. I remember it as if it was yesterday; it was on the 2nd storey. A solemn-looking Norwegian bureaucrat looked me up and down: Did I have any experience? Had I ever worked on a ship at least? He told me he had 3,000 job applications right there from Norwegian guys with shipping and/or technical experience who wanted to work on the rigs. He basically told me to forget about ever working in the oil business and to go back where I came from. If any young kids read this: DON’T EVER listen to old farts in a government office. The next week I landed my first job. 

The company Norwegian Contractors (now Aker Marine Contractors) was advertising for help in the local paper, Stavanger Aftenblad that my Dad subscribed to. They were a pioneering shipbuilding outfit at the time, building two gigantic concrete oil production platforms to be installed on Statoil’s Statfjord field, Statfjord A and B in the series of concrete storage and production installations called Condeep. I went for an interview and told the boss that I once worked as a helper for a land surveyor; during my middle- and high-school years, our neighbor at the time in Tranbjerg (see ‘Aarhus 1961-1973’ tab) was an independent land surveyor, his name was Flemming Doeping, and I would often go out with him after school to work, measuring up land for property sales and new construction sites. That was all it took, I was hired and started the next day. I was a surveyor assistant during a process on the platforms called ‘The Slide’ where the three reinforced concrete tubes where continuously constructed. Once the pouring of concrete started, the process could not be halted or delayed. At regular intervals during ‘the slide’, men – i.e. my colleagues and I – would move on scaffolding inside and outside the enormous tubes and locate and display various steel plates with numbers and coordinates indicating progress of the slide as well as permanently mark off reference points relating to the location and dimensions of the platform walls.

We worked eight hour shifts, but I would often do two shifts per day. I loved every minute of the work, and also made more money that way. It wasn’t drilling for oil, we were only ‘offshore’ in Gandsfjorden (we commuted out to the platforms daily in small boats), but it was a start. It was tough to bicycle in the Norwegian November rain to Stavanger from where my Dad lived every day, so I bought an old second-hand Opel station wagon to commute. 

The Condeep gig was my first ‘real’ job. But when Schlumberger later in December advertised for help, I could rightly claim that I had ‘offshore experience’ and I was hired on the spot starting 2 January 1975. I don’t think I ever applied for a job in my life that I didn’t get. 

I didn’t know what Schlumberger did. When I reported for work, I turned up in their giant workshop near Sola in my brand-new company overalls and I asked one of the guys on the shop floor what this company actually did. He said: “Logging and perforating”. I had no idea what that meant. A few days later I was sent out on my first job offshore, and after a long helicopter ride across the ocean we came in a bit late and had to rig up on the well immediately. A French engineer, a senior Norwegian operator and me, the new guy, the Dane. It was late, a freezing-cold dark January night with a wet snow-storm blowing across the North Sea. The catwalk, the derrick, the drill floor and the wellhead to me was a noisy, chaotic assembly of massive equipment that I didn’t understand. But I did my best to help out, and my Norwegian colleague showed me what to do. Luckily he was a nice guy, and he helped me settle in. We worked all night and all the next day before we could take a break; then we handed control of the well back to the drilling crew and cleaned up our equipment. 

Gradually I began to understand how this operation worked, and I loved every minute of it. As a service contractor, and the only company doing wireline work in the Norwegian sector at the time, Schlumberger crews would travel everywhere that a well was being worked on. So each job was different in type and duration and often on a different rig or platform. Offshore visits would last anywhere from 3 to 14 days, if the job lasted much longer than that, our company would send a relief crew to finish off. For every two days offshore, I would qualify for one day off; the rest of weekdays during regular hours, I would work at the Sola base with my colleagues maintaining the logging tools, loading perforating guns, preparing equipment, packing shipping containers and studying the instruction manuals. 

Since I loved the work offshore on the wells, and since I was single with not much family around, I would often ask for and be selected for work over the holidays such as Easter, Christmas and New Year. We were paid a bonus for those days, so I also made more money that way! On location, our crew had to finish the job, and if we worked more than 12 hours in a day we were paid extra. Each survey or perforating job could take anywhere between 12 hours and several days. As mentioned, our crew was usually three guys; each one of us could go inside and eat quickly at meal times, but otherwise we had to stay on our toes, constantly monitoring the well and our tools, and we couldn’t sleep during ‘rig time’ when we controlled the well. We would often work some 36 or 48 hours like that; once I had 72 hours continuous on my time-sheet. As I understand it, this is no longer allowed in Europe, and today oil service companies have to send two crews out if the job goes over 12 hours – but of course then each crew will make less money, we did better by working harder in the old days – it’s a fact!    

Anyway, at this point I think I will let my photos tell the rest of the story. 

I bet you didn’t know that I was interested in soccer, did you? Well, I am not any longer, but back in the 1970s there was not that much to do otherwise, so I followed international football and especially the English Football League First Division, as the Premier League was called then. The team that really captured my imagination was Leeds United; they were ‘Super Leeds’ in those years. The Leeds team had charismatic players who played with energy and determination; Leeds won the First Division championship in the 1973-74 season. 

The next year (1975), Leeds only finished 9th in the English league, and they lost out to Bayern Munich in the European Cup in a heart-wrenching final. Luckily I was offshore that day working hard on the rig floor, 28 May 1975, and only heard the news later – how Bayern Munich had won that game 2-0 – totally unfairly and against the run of play (to me, of course!). But little setbacks like that don’t deter a die-hard supporter, and I went to see Leeds play at home at the Elland Road stadium later that year when the 1975-76 season got underway, they finished 5th at the end of that season. 

I took a few of my days off in October and the ferry from Stavanger to Newcastle from where I hitchhiked to Leeds to see Leeds play Coventry. Yes, I hitchhiked, I could have driven my own car across but I felt it was a bit of a waste, it had left-hand steering anyway and wasn’t suitable to drive in Great Britain. Anyway, I enjoyed bumming on the road and meeting new people picking me up; if you read my Shetland story (‘Bird Cliffs 1971 and 1972’) you will know that I liked the Brits, even the Scotts and the Yorkshiremen! In town I would walk around and find a B&B English-style that would put me up.  

I went to the grounds at Elland Road early on match-day, 25 October 1975, and got a ticket; then I went in to find a place right in front where I could take photos. Of course I didn’t have press credentials to sit on the sideline, but I got talking to some of the officials, they were very nice about it and helped me find a good vantage point right in front – I love the Brits! 

The Leeds team that day was:

David Harvey, Scottish International 

Paul Reaney, English International 

Frank Grey, Scottish International  

Billy Bremner, Scottish International 

Terry Yorath, Welch International 

Norman Hunter, English International 

Paul Madeley, English International 

Allan Clarke, English International 

Duncan McKenzie, English International 

Peter Lorimer, Scottish International 

Trevor Cherry, English International 

Joe Jordan (Scottish International) and Gordon McQueen (Scottish International), two of my favorites, couldn’t play that day because of injuries. Does anything here seem odd to you? Right you are - they were all Brits! This was long before the tragic Bosnan Ruling and the EU rules on free movement of labour, before English teams got taken over by foreign owners, foreign players and foreign managers. The days when English players dominated the league (the only ‘foreigners’ then were from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland!) will never return of course, there is no need to pine for the good-ol’ days. I just don’t watch ‘English’ football any longer, although I still follow the international tournaments between nations a bit. The match that day in October 1975 ended Leeds United 2, Coventry City 0. 

After the game I even hitchhiked down to London for a quick tour and then all the way back up to Newcastle to catch the ferry home. However, this would also be the last time I travelled that way – by thumb. After that, when I drove my own car, I would always remember my hitchhiking days and make sure I gave other hitchhikers a lift when I could. Especially when the traveler was a not-too-bad-looking young female of course! Today I don’t think anyone hitchhikes; there are ride-sharing apps available to cover that niche!  

I will let the photographs I took that day tell the rest of the story.

All through 1975 and into 1976 I would travel to the rigs and the platforms in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea. We also did a few jobs in the Danish sector, and on those occasions I would act as a local tour guide for the crew when we stopped over in Copenhagen and in Esbjerg, the jump-off point to the Danish North Sea fields. I traveled several times per month on business – so what would I do during my time off from the rigs? Travel some more of course!

In December 1975 I cleared a week or so of my days off and I flew down to Copenhagen, you could buy cheap charter flight tour packages out of there in those days to various touristy destinations, and I picked up a ticket to Madeira, an island off the Portuguese coast, hotel room and breakfast included. Madeira is about the size of Singapore, but of course it has a lot fewer people, just a few hundred thousand. It is also much more elevated, with the highest peak reaching over 1,800 meters. 

There were other young people on the trip and I had a great time there at night. This was just pure R&R for me; when I was not at the hotel pool during the day I would take little trips into the back country and explore the island. 

Portugal was going through a rough patch at the time, after decades of Fascist dictatorship, the country was transforming into a democracy, but they were not quite there, it was still an authoritarian and oppressive place. When our party invited a local girl we had met in one of the bars up to our hotel room, two policemen in civilian clothes turned up and demanded that she leave, she wasn't allowed to associate with foreigners. We young guys were not too impressed, and there was quite a racket, but in the end no one was arrested. On the way back on the charter plane, one of my new friends had a bit too much to drink and started a fight with one of the flight stewards; I felt I had to help him, and we and two of the girls ended up being escorted off the plane by airport police for interrogation when we landed. Again no arrest was made, the police took our side and agreed that the airline crew had over-reacted. I am glad they never searched my luggage on the way out, because I had 15 bottles of delicious local Madeira wine in my bag and I was only allowed to bring two! Well, you are only young once, I guess, so make the most of it! 

No, I didn’t write a travel-story for anyone about this holiday; it wasn’t that kind of trip! But I had a good break and I was soon back in Norway to resume my work on the rigs.