First off I would like to begin by taking a page out of Rory's book, and I mean that in the literal sense. If I could direct you to the chapter 'When Will I, Will I Be Famous'. I shall now take part in some shameless self promotion; click the link below and it should, given my IT skills are up to scratch, take you to the University of Glasgow homepage where there is an article on the 6 of us from Glasgow that have been fortunate enough to be given this opportunity through the SaltireFoundation and with our respective host corporations to gain experience in an international work and business environment.
Pressure Control here in Houston is part of the Well Support division of the Wood Group, and the main focus here at WGPC is the mechanical design of well head and flow equipment. These are essentially the parts of an oil flow system that stick out of the ground and stop the oil from randomly flowing wherever it wants, not only a vast waste of a finite resource but I think Green Peace may have something to say about that.
Day one we were taken to the test centre where we saw the various models of wellhead equipment that the Wood Group offers to its clients and also the valve systems in place within the equipment. As this is a very technical, and mechanical based division of the group there is little we can do in the way of helping the engineers with the designing that they are doing, as the programs they use take a fair amount of time to get to grips with (although advanced graphics at school does help with them).
The next couple of days I spend making up some power points for one of the managers and then did some online training and development programs through the WGPC portal that are used to give new starts a understanding of the various types of equipment designed here and the reasons behind their designs. Just as-well I took a look aver those as yesterday we were asked to go along with Ben and Glen to the test centre once again to help with the testing of some valves that had been causing some problems in the field. What I took most out of the testing was that every component in a system is important, and every feature on every component is just as important. We were told by Ben that the allowable tolerance in a valve system in to the 1000's of an inch (imperial system, urgh). Today myself and Shane wrote up a brief report on what we observed and recorded yesterday at the test centre; then we went out with some of the guys for some Tex Mex lunch, nice.
This is going to be my first full weekend here in Houston even though im over a third of my way through my internship. We have got some plans in place to ensure it is a good weekend; a British pup with some of the guys from pressure control tonight then we are planning to go to a 'block party' in the Houston Heights where there is going to be a 'White Linen Night in the Heights' I have no linen clothes and few white articles of clothing, but I think it is more for names sake than mandatory attire; as far as I am aware it is an art and music festival that last year attracted over 20,0000 Houstonians so hopefully that should be something different and cultural.
Ya'll have a good weekend now....
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