Week 1: 1st Impressions

so in one word it's gigantic (1.5 mi x 5 mi). dust/dirt is everywhere. it was a project in itself just to get this land ready to start building on. the congo river mouth + atlantic ocean is on the other side of the fence. im one of the lucky first few hundred out of 6.5Kish to arrive so all accommodations are temporary. it's pretty rough at first, but you get used to it. i live in a trailer with 24 rooms. it's bigger than GT dormrooms and has a bunkbed (luckily no roommate... yet) a
clothes cabinet, a desk, a chair, a minifridge, a sink w/ mirror and a shared bathroom with the room next to me which isn't occupied. food is like cafeteria food @ a school (but a school in Africa). they actually have nice cuts of meats, fresh veggies and all, but it's the way they cook it. If they just tweaked a couple of their methods it'd actually taste decent. i have probably lost about 5lbs already. i just eat enough to energize myself and stave off hunger. although sometimes they throw a good meal in there and there are croquettes (deep fried mashed potatoes). each meal has a 1 hr window starting at 5.30am. i wake up at 5.30, shower, eat breakfast, go to work. work 10 hrs and go home. i get a few hours of free time in the evening. im in an office a little bit bigger than the ne before but there are 3 people in here. out my office window there is a ship ard bringing in materials/equip.

i'm the 2nd youngest here. the younger guy, Derek, 22, is similar in personality to me, laidback, but responsible. he's korean, but has been traveling the world as a commercial diver since he was a teenager. peaks perfect english with a bit of an aussie accent and taught himself korean so e's the best translator here. there's 2 americans in my office so far. 1 i traveled ith to get here. he's 35 and did highway roads in kansas and is a 5th degree backbelt in taekwondo. he's agoofball though that doesn't know when to stop talking. the other guy Steve is from Cali, 26, big typical always smiling Am bs'er, but he's a good guy to know b/c everyone knows him and he's nice. He actually was bs'ing with another American guy earlier this morning and got us into the
weekly Bechtel bbq/poker game, so that's good. Mr. Ryu (my boss) is gone for the next 3 weeks and they weren't sure what Mr. Ryu had in mind for me.

so where do they put me?? in charge of safety! i'm the HSE coordinator (health/safety/environment), so i'm in charge of safety on the project, since they don't have a mgr over here yet. they find some, but they keep backing out. me the safety gestapo, ha! i also making sure the right people are taking the right
classes which are necessary to start activity in the oncoming stages and write all the safety reports. already there was a mishap by a korean supervisor who
was lifting a long, heavy, metal object not by the 'eyes' which were the designated place for picking the object up, but by the ladder that was welded onto it so the workers could climb up it for maintenance. the welding broke and the object fell, granted, only a few inches, but it was at the worst time possible.
bechtel's sr. safety advisor was right there when it happened and shut down PLNG operations until we did a root cause analysis between bechtel and
PLNG (a consortium of french, italian, and korean companies acting as one). i went to the meetings and we are not in the best light with right now. i was just told to observe and so i did.

so what is the project scope? simply put i'm here to make ur gas prices cheaper. we're building a LNG plant, storage, and port. when the oil companies extract oil from the ground the void created gets filled in with natural gas. right now the oil companies are just burning off the gas on the rigs to prevent explosion in the underwater chambers. there are 3 $500M ships being built in korea right now to
transport the natural gas to the LNG plant, to get things rolling. the pipeline is going to take a lot longer. the gas is then cleaned and cooled @ the plant to -160C. @ this T the volume of the gas is 1/600th the size. after that we ship it off to you guys.

i'm doing alright, but i'm still thinking to myself everyday 'what the hell am i doing here?', although less often. i'm going to stick it out at the very least for 1 or 2 rotations to see how i end up fitting in. i am expecting to be Mr.Ryu's (he's the project director) assistant, being into everything he's into, which is acceptable to me and i have no problem helping out until he gets here, but if they want me to be a Health, Saftey, and Environmental coordinator for the rest of the project, i don't know if that experience is worth more than the
3-6 months that'll pay off my debt and give me a cushion to find a job back at home, but we'll see how things progress in the oncoming weeks.

ive made a couple trips into the "city" to go to the black market to
buy some supplies. that was an experience. i went with steve and he's a BIG guy, probably 6'4" and 340lbs. the people were staring at me and him. as we passed a group of people we could here them from behind us "gozilla, gozilla!". ha ha.

there's more to say, but i'll save it for the next times.