Kharg Island is where Iran had all of their oil exporting facilities. The army that guards these refineries and ports will kill you for taking pictures of these facilities. I’m glad I was told early enough. I already had taken enough pictures to die for. I was sent to Kharg Island to fracture four wells for The Iranian National Oil Company. I had an apartment in Aberdeen, Scotland but worked for the London office in a pool of men that traveled to war zones, isolated locations and problem areas for Halliburton Services.
My journey took me from Aberdeen, Scotland over night via train to London. I had to acquire an entry visa for Iran. Halliburton had some dude that ran to all of the Embassies so all I had to do was deliver the passport and he would come back with my visas a few days later.
When in London it is your duty as OilFieldTrash to bless the Polo with your presence. When you get into town, you check in with the bar tender to see who is in town. The oilfield is a very small community. There is a bar tender somewhere that has met what he thinks is the worst one but somehow there is always a place open for a new idiot. In London at The Polo Bar is where all of the International Society of OilFieldTrash hangs out but there were several after hours clubs that we always seemed to end up in. Sadie’s was normally where you got the last drink before daylight. The Playboy Club was a must for the disco dancing. Bill, one of the big dawgs over at Smith got me thrown out of there one time but that is another “Nearly True Story”.
Visas were always a problem when working in the Middle East. I had recently left Saudi Arabia and still had a reentry visa good for six months. I received my passport and all of the required visas stamped in permanently. After saying my goodbyes to the secretary pool in the London Halliburton offices, I headed for Teheran, Iran and the Miami Hotel. From Heathrow in London to Teheran is a good six hour flight. I’m not sure just how much free whiskey a man can drink. I always seemed to go to sleep before coming up with a good answer.
Charlie Brown, an Indonesian duty driver, picked me up at the Teheran airport. There is always a line of drivers in countries like these where they hold up a sign with your name on it. Charlie Brown the duty driver had a Volkswagen pickup. It looks like a bus but has a pickup bed. It worked for Charlie Brown. I had no idea what to expect, but this place is cool. They have the largest Clock Tower that I have ever seen. People were happy and enjoyed life. You could not find better people than the Persian people. The Miami Hotel was a great 4 star hotel with a really great cabaret, belly dancing at its best, live music and once again OilFieldTrash style partying at its best. These guys were proud of their drinks. Halliburton would allow me to by a drink for someone on my expenses but could not buy your own. I always felt that if I was doing company business, my drinks would be paid also. This is not the case. You buy your own drinks. They will buy all you can eat anytime. Charlie Brown arranged to pick me up the following morning for my flight to Ahwaz and into the Royal Astoria Hotel complete with pool and disco. Some of these girls are really pretty.
The Halliburton camp was really nice. I saw some of my discharge iron and it was in a pile. It looked like there may be some thread damage. The camp in Ahwaz, Iran didn’t have any fracturing people at all. I tried my Arabic with some of the hands but they all spoke Farsi. It seemed I was out of luck. Lou Downey was the boss and he was pretty cool. He told me to just have a good time and they would be ready in a couple of days. My reputation had preceded me. Pete McGuire had already told Iran of my pending visit so everybody was ready to party and we did. It was OilFieldTrash gone wild once again. Seems everywhere I go somebody wants to party.
Kharg Island was no party. Here’s the deal. I have 18 Iranian helpers. One of these guys could understand my Arabic. He had lived in Kuwait and had picked some of it up. Abdul was what is known as #2 driver meaning that he was not the sharpest knife in the drawer but he could cast a shadow. I used him as my translator and acid transport driver. Picture this, 115 degrees with 100% humidity. Have you ever seen a fat boy sweat out? I was a human rain storm. It was easier for me to do most of the work than it was for me to try to get these guys to do it. They were good workers but they just didn’t know anything about it. Everything that we needed was on barges that had been sent out from the mainland. The barge didn’t match the dock at all. The bulk acid boat the “Sheila Karron”, was full of acid but had no system to discharge the acid. Plumbing this boat was no walk in the park. Nobody speaks English and life really sucks right now. I wish I was back in London.
Getting rigged up for the first job was a true to life night mare. We moved everything from the docks up on top of the mountain to where the wells had been drilled. Tanks, HT-400 pumps, blender, transports, trucks, chemicals, booster pumps and all of the discharge iron that had been lying in the back of the yard in Ahwaz had to be brought in and set up. Every union had to be filed and even then you had to hammer each and every one of the unions from the start until the finish. It was murder. There was no forklift or crane on any of these jobs. Placing the fracturing head on the wellhead proved to be quite a challenge. These poor guys worked themselves to death. We split the crews up to work 12 hrs. on and 12 hrs. off, with this in place, I just had to work 22 hrs. a day.
While changing out the crews one morning there was this guy standing on the side of the road that thought he would test me to see if I would stop or would I opt to run over him. He had an arm full of glass light fixtures and stepped out into the road and stared at me. I was driving an Iranian Oil Company car and had long blonde hair. He knew that I was an American and he decided to test the water. That was his last mistake that morning. I knocked him down and broke all of his light fixtures but did not run over or injure him seriously. I couldn’t help it. I got out of the car and told him. I’ll bet that you won’t try that again. You will think before you step. He had really made me mad. I knew that it was wrong but I just couldn’t help myself. His problem was that he was around when I had had enough. Many people get to that point when it is time to leave. It was my time.
Two or three days later the industrial relations dude came up and ask in English if I had run over someone a couple of day before. I said yes and ask why he was asking. He told me that the Police would be there to pick me up the next morning. I didn’t figure jail in Iran was any better than in Saudi Arabia. I called Ahwaz and told them what had happened. They were not very happy. I had no driver’s license or work permit for Iran.
Things didn’t look good for me at all. I took the “Sheila Karoon” and ran for neutral waters and or Saudi Arabia. When I got offshore and away from Kharg we waited for the judge to figure this one out. John the engineer went to court and said that he was driving and was responsible. He would pay the equivalent of one weeks pay to the boy and pay for the glass. John radioed me and said for me to come back. I did go back without any problems and finished the jobs. This entire dance lasted about a month and I was worn completely out.
When I got back into Ahwaz, Lou told me that he really did appreciate the job and that if I wanted I could go to Teheran and party for a couple of days before returning to London. I headed for Teheran as fast as I could. The quicker that I was away the better off I would be. London would be looking for me before too long. I was deep in it in Teheran. It really was OilFieldTrash gone wild all over again.
I had run into some really nice people from San Francisco at the Miami Hotel. The office called and said that I was needed in London. I was having so much fun, I forgot to leave Teheran. London was really getting upset about my absence and told the boss in Teheran to see me on to an airplane. Charlie Brown parked his Volkswagen outside the hotel and went inside to call my room. I was on the 10th floor and had seen Charlie park right below my balcony. I had a couple of pretty hard days in Teheran and wasn’t feeling like carrying this heavy bag down stairs. I held this big duffle bag over the side of the balcony and dropped it. I watched it until it hit the Bulls eye direct in the back of Charlie’s bus. The dust blew out from under that VW Bus/pickup, it looked like a bomb had blown up. I went down stairs and Charlie and the Boss were there to see that I did get on the plane this time. Charlie asked where my luggage was and I told him that I had already put it in the truck. He would have died if he had seen what I did. I thought it was pretty cool.
I did get on the plane but it went to Beirut, Istanbul and Frankfurt before landing in London. This was Pan Am #1, it goes around the world everyday and stops everywhere. I got off everywhere for two days in each place. I was really in trouble when I did finally go back to London. They did not pay my expenses. They were funny about that sort of stuff.