Destination: Florida

It seems my only reason for posting here is to keep track of my trips. It will also be a good way to test my new MacBook, which I will receive this Saturday on arrival in Florida, because that's where I'm going!

Coming to you live from Orlando for the next two weeks, it's Sander/Mat/Lisa's Amazing Florida Adventure!

30/3 – The last day

Miri, more than five weeks my home and then suddenly, it’s here. The last day of the course. Edwanee shows us a video of what happened for real at the Rabi field, and asks us to fill out a survey to evaluate the course and then we’re done. We mail our course books home, have lunch and then it’s the big goodbye. Many hugs, handshakes and kisses later everybody is going their own way. It’s a bit emotional of course, but since many people will visit Holland to do courses in Rijswijk I have plenty of opportunities to see them again. Simon tells me we will meet, be it in Rijswijk, Assen, Aberdeen, London or Paris, and I wholeheartedly agree with him. Shin Yea will be visiting Rijswijk in the summer, Tan is going to Germany in June, Frank will be in Assen for the next four years. We will meet again. Unfortunately Tan is already gone; he had to rush to catch his plane. He sends a nice SMS to apologize for his unceremonious goodbye.

After saying goodbye I join Chia and Simon to do some shopping. Simon spents about 90 minutes to buy a new cell phone, which gives Chia, Frank and me the opportunity to feel very tired and not look forward to the flight home and the resulting jet lag. Not for Chia of course, he’s going back to KL on Sunday. Chia has given the whole group a DVD with the photos everybody took the past five weeks. A great goodbye gift. Back at the hotel, we shop around the corner for some birds’ nests for Simon’s parents. This stuff is expensive; six tiny pieces for 380RM!

Four o clock draws near, and after I find the battery charger I forgot in my room it’s on to the airport. Frank, Severine, Sebastian and me are all on the same flight to KL via Kuching. We say goodbye to Chia, Azwan, Anis and Bob, and the friendly staff at the Grand Palace Hotel. They’ve done an excellent job of ensuring our comfort these past five weeks.

At the airport I have more trouble with my ticket to KL, just like on the flight over here. It gets settled, but I fly cattle class to KL and the rest is flying business class. I feel lonely… We stop at Kuching for about an hour and head on to KL, where I realize that Frank and Severine are on the Malaysian Airlines flight, while I am on the KLM flight. This is a slight problem, since Frank has checked on of my bags since I couldn’t take it due to cattle class weight restrictions. I’ll have to wait for him in Amsterdam, his flight is 45 minutes later then mine.

The flight is long and boring. I watch Happy Feet, which is a stupid movie, and A Night at the Museum, which also is a stupid movie. I watch Supersize Me on my laptop, which is not a stupid movie. Finally, the plane lands after 11 and a half hours of flying and I’m home. When I collect my luggage, the customs officer asks me where I’m from, and when I say ‘Malaysia’ I’m in for it. My luggage gets turned inside out, but despite my score of 49 DVDs, there is no problem. Very good. Then I’m free again and I move into Holland again. Mom and dad are there, and surprise, so are Danielle and her father. Great surprise! We sit down to have a cup of coffee and wait for Frank’s plane to arrive. He arrives about an hour later, and then it’s on to Nijmegen and lots of sleep.

29/3 – Final presentation and course dinner

Although we cracked it last night, there’s still quite some work to do before we can present our project to the management board at 1pm. We work frantically until the last moment, practicing until the very last moment. Come presentation time, we’re ready though. We’re the second group to present. Anis, myself and Saritha will be presenting. Practice makes perfect, and I feel we do pretty well. The questions from the panel are easy to counter for me, and during the break our team and the first presenting team congratulate each other on a job well done; for us EP00s course content is doen. The third and fourth team are up after the break. Special mention to Ben, who presents the fourth team’s project by himself. His presentation is very impressive, he tells the story fluently and is very convincing. After the break it’s time for the panel’s verdict. Of course they had a hard time deciding… our group had the best sales pitch, but… Ben’s presentation wins the day for team four. A deserved win!



And then we’re done. Mission accomplished, all phases completed. Geology, field development, surface development, petroleum economics. It took us five weeks, but it’s still a whirlwind speed scenario to go through it all. The course does not make one an expert on any subject, but it does mean you can talk to all your colleagues and have a good understanding of their jobs. You know what the various disciplines are all about, what they do, why they’re necessary and you have an idea about size, costs, quantities required to run a field.

After the presentations I head over to Bintang Plaza to do some shopping and spent some of my last cash. Then it’s back to the hotel by el cheapo bus to prepare for the course dinner at the Eastvalley gold course. We take the bus there, and the initially rather slow evening gets started when Helen, Ben and Alessandro take to the stage to do karaoke. Pretty soon most of the group joins in, and the evening turns into a great party. Around 11 I head back with Shin Yea and some of the others.

28/3 – Hard work

Working on phase D is no picknick. I’ve worked out the cash flows, but Guusjes spreadsheet is not giving us hopeful results for the NPV calculations. The rest of the presentation scares me to death as we present it during a dry run to Edwanee. I’m very unhappy with the state of affairs at that point, and I’m not the only one. Apparently it showed when I presented the last part of our presentation, Sylvia wrote on her feedback form that ‘Sander looked sad’. Hmm.



So back to work. I spend a lot of time reworking the planning to make it more ambitious, while Guusje, Tan and Edwanee are stumped while trying to work out why our similar volume and expenses do not deliver the positive result they deliver to other groups. Finally Tan and I come to the realization that we must spread our costs more in time; money spend today is worth more than money spent tomorrow.




After dinner with Tan and Frank and another sauna Tan, Shin Yea and I rework the numbers, and lo and behold, it works. We double check, create the required graphs and leave a funny message to the rest of the group.



Tan invites me out to have a drink with him and some friends of his, which we have at the infamous Cheerie Berries. It’s quite enough today though,, even though it’s ladies’ night. Ladies’ night means there’s loads of guys about, but few girls.

27/3 – Final phase

Not long to go now… today we start work on phase D, in which we put everything together and work out the financials to show we got a moneymaker here. It will culminate in a presentation to some senior managers of Shell Miri. It’s quite a bit of work to make this presentation though. Edwanee starts of the day with a lead-in to phase D, and he’s made time to view the GLT video after all. I’m quite happy of course for a chance to show everyone where I’m working.

The rest of the day we spend working our numbers and making them work for us. It turns out to be harder than expected to get a good result due to our conservative estimates in earlier phases. We finish around six and Frank and I enjoy to sauna. After that we go to Bintang Plaza to have those wonderful butter prawns at Maxim’s.



At 8pm we meet up with some of the group to do archery. The string hits my upper arm at the first shot and I’m no good after that. I head home with Ben and Frank, and I watch a sucky James Bond movie in my room.

26/3 – Last day of lectures

Yup, the end is getting awfully near. The last week has started, and Monday is the last day of classes. It’s a familiar subject for me, economics. Petroleum economics to be precise. NPV calculations mostly, and project performance indicators. It’s my turn to sit back and hear the ruckus in the class; this stuff is as hard for most people here as well logging is to me.

The work on petroleum economics continues all day. I had asked Edwanee airtime to show the GLT video, and the DVD was standing by, but it’s hard to get airtime in this course; all lecturers have 25% more material then they can squeeze into their time slot. The GLT video would have fitted quite nicely with the gas processing, as well as the economics, but Edwanee has to make the calls. It’s going to be GLT or a doco on the Piper Alpha disaster, and he opts for the latter. I can concur with the decision; the doco is a dramatized version of what happened on the platform, on which 168 lost their lives in a terrible chain of events. The lessons learnt from it are still relevant. It’s a horrifying story though.

After classes we play football for the last time this course, and then Chia, his girlfriend and me join up with Simon, Frank, Severine and Tan to have some seafood. Another day has passed, just four more to go…

25/3 – Retail therapy

I’m currently sitting at one of the many Starbucks places in KL with a shiny MacBook on my lap. I’ve been at SB many times before of course, and I was always jealous of the customers who would be there surfing the net using SBs free WiFi network, while sipping a Tazo Chai Latte. Chai Lattes are not on the menu though, apparently they are seasonal. I wonder what season goes best with a Chai Latte, and then I wonder what the heck the difference would be in a country located a couple of hundred klicks from the equator. I opt for a Mango Frappucino instead. It’s accompanied by a cinnamon roll I got from the neighbors, Cinnabon. I like it here. Starbucks, Cinnabon, and I’ve just visited KLs version of the HCC computer fair. It’s called Low Yat Plaza and it’s five floors of computer goods. The difference with the HCC Fair is twofold. One, it’s open all year. Two, it’s much cheaper. In a fight, Low Yat would win by default because the HCC would run home to momma before it got started. My loot consists of three memory cards, a USB hub, a Casio scientific calculator and a spiffy Logitech Mouse. All very el cheapo. Me happy camper. Wireless networks are ubiquitous of course, but I’m sure I’ve set some sort of record here: I can choose from no less than 18 WiFi networks here. Amazing.



First thing I did this morning was to visit Menara KL, or KL Tower. It’s the fourth largest radiotower in the world, and at 421m it’s quite impressive. Menara KL competes with the Petronas Towers for tourists who want a birds’ eye view of KL. The Petronas Towers are by far the more popular destination; they look far more impressive of course. However, there are only 1300 tickets available per day. There’s no such limit for KL Tower, and it has two added advantages over the Petronas Towers: the viewing platform is over 100m higher up and because you are not viewing from the Towers, you can see them in all their glory. It’s much nicer day than yesterday, and as I view KL from above at 9pm, the city is already warming up in the 28 degree heat. On the way back I get screwed by the cab driver, who charges me 12RM for what should be a 5RM trip. The porter at the hotel reminds me that I should tell cab drivers to use their meter.



Breakfast consisted of fried eggs and toast with a slice of French bread and Danish Blue. Then I left for Low Yat. I thought I got those memory cards cheap, but this morning I was browsing tweakers.net and it seems prices on flash memory have dropped across the board; even in Holland it’s quite cheap now. Still, I got it slightly cheaper than back home, it just wasn’t the major coup I thought it was.

After Low Yat I visited some more malls, and had lunch at the Crystal Jade something or other (some difficult Chinese name). Then it was time to head to the airport. A cab takes me to KL Sentral, and from there I take an express train to KL International Airport. Then it’s the bus to the LCC Terminal. This trip costs me about half the cash the taxi ride from the airport cost me, and it takes only a few minutes more. It’s also a lot more relaxing.

At the airport I meet up with Nyza and Nick, who just got back from Singapore to party. The plane is almost on time, and we arrive back in Miri at the Grand Palace around 10pm. I get some fried noodles takeaway and hang out in my room.

24/3 – KL

I sleep until about ten. Nice. When I get up I start to appreciate where I’ve decided to bunk up. Nikko is a splendid place to stay. The room is large and nicely decorated, more so than the standard four star hotel room. There is complimentary fruit of an unknown nature on the salon table, free internet access, a huge TV, an even bigger bed. The bathroom is an event in itself. Separate shower and bath, and vast amounts of shower gel and other soapy stuff. The best thing in there is the bog. It has two buttons. One of them has a figure of a bottom with a shower on it. It works the way you think it works. Do number two, push the button and voila, no more skidmarks. The other button has a slightly less familiar figure on it. I did not push this button, for reasons that should be obvious. One more thing. Do not push either button when you’re not sitting on the bog. Things will get messy in the bathroom.

Breakfast comes with freshly baked eggs or omelette. Not bad. Then it’s on to business. The Lonely Planet comes out and I decide to take to two of the guided walks in there, one through Colonial KL and Little India, and one through Chinatown. I take a cab to Merdeka Square, or Independence Square, site of the highest flagpole in the world and the location where Malaysian independence was inaugurated on August 31st 1957 (Malaysia turns 50 this year and there’s no escaping this news anywhere in the country).



My guided walk takes me to The Natural History Museum, which is really a museum of the history of Malaysia. Quite educational. There’s various colonial building lining the square. Instead of the British elite keeping the clubs for themselves, it’s now the KL elite partying at those places. Few things have changed in that regard.



I walk around for about five hours, but KL just doesn’t impress me as much as Bangkok or Hong Kong did. It’s a huge town, but few things here are different from what I’ve already seen. It’s obvious I’m suffering from overexposure.



I take the cab up to Theu Hou temple, one of the finest Chinese temples in Malaysia. The cab driver doesn’t know where he’s going, so I get off somewhere in the neighborhood. After 15 minutes of waling around it appears that it’s the wrong neighborhood, so I take another cab, and this time I get dropped of at the temple. It’s located on a hill, which gives a nice view of the city. The temple itself is very pretty, and colorful. At the altar there is a drum with lots of slots in it, filled with sticks with numbers on it and slots with the same numbers on them. A woman picks up the sticks and drops them twice, then picks one. The takes a piece of paper from the corresponding slot. I decide to see what the stars have in store for me. I know it won’t be something along the lines of ‘Gas will shoot out and burn down your house.’ Partly because Adnan Ali didn’t write the notes, but also because the stars never seem to have anything bad in store for you… mine says the following.

Bounteous Harvest

Hard work will be well rewarded, bringing joy to all at home. All the blues will disappear, replaced by blissful events, resulting from sweet and toil.

In business ventures, go about them in a down-to earth manner, never indulge in speculative venture.

Honour and merit will come next year, of not this Autumn, offers better opportunity for success.

Yup, it all sounds pretty much like me. It’s also rather HSE compliant, and it tells me to work hard, so Shell will concur.



After the temple, it’s on to the hotel. I take a swim and hang out in the room for an hour or so. I’ve agreed to meet Nyza for dinner, and we meet at the mall under the the Twin Towers. She needs some more retail therapy, as she calls it, so we go our separate ways until later in the evening; Nyza is joined by her sister, and the three of us have a nice meal. The ladies are off to do some more shopping, and I take a cab to a sightseeing corner about 300 meters past the hotel; Nyza has recommended it as a great spot to view the Twin Towers and she’s right. The view is spectacular.



Back at the hotel I decide to take decadence to another level; I order a Long Island Ice Tea and brownies with ice and strawberries, and I watch a movie. And I write these words.

23/3 – Hard work and lots of travel

The final weekend is approaching. As usual, everybody has his plans ready to celebrate again. That includes me; I intend to complete my Metropolis Trilogy: After The Fellowship of Bangkok, The Return of Hong King we are about to close this saga with The Twin Petronas Towers.

First though, there’s the tiny matter of phase C. A huge task is still before us. I have to get some serious evidence to back up my guesstimate of last night. So it’s back to work. I also have a planning and phasing to make, and apart from that there’s loads of other tasks to pick up. Cost planning is the first thing I have to get out of the way though. I’ve made some guesses which I’m far from sure about, and which therefore will need some serious checking. When I’m done though, I have a big smile on my face: My final result is less than 4% off from what I estimated the night before! Beginner’s luck I guess.



This day is working out much better than the previous one. I’m in the zone, all calculations seem to work, I have some good ideas for turning those boring numbers into graphs and when it comes to tieing everything together the words just seem to flow onto the screen. Most importantly: the computer doesn’t crash. All hail OSX!

The day's highlight is the stakeholder meeting. Some of us play stakeholders during a townhall meeting, and the thing gets kind of out of hand. Higlight is Nick as the village chief, wearing a sarong and stroking a wooden elephant.



We’re done around 4pm, and we leave immediately for Miri. Some people need to catch the plane to KK, my plane to KL isn’t leaving until 9:40pm though. I planned it rather late; after the three hours at the border last week I didn’t feel confident about catching the early plane, and I’d like to have some dinner as well. However, it will mean a very late arrival in KL. I join Chia in his car, and we arrive around 5pm in Miri. I repack my stuff for the trip to KL in Frank’s room; he’s leaving for Bario in the highlands the next day to do some hiking.

Tan takes Chia, Frank and me back to the seafood place we had dinner at some weeks ago. This time we mix in some deer and beef among the prawns, and it’s even better than last time. I especially love the ferns… never had that kind of veggie in Holland. Will have to check for it.

At 8:30 it’s on to the airport. I meet Nick and Nyza, who are going to KL as well. Nick’s going to party with a buddy, Nyza’s going home. The AirAsia plane is late as usual. I talk on the phone with dad, and finally the plane leaves, about a half hour late. It’s a two hour flight, and when I finally get off the plane and say bye to Nick and Nyza, it’s 12:30. Now I have to take a cab. It’s a long drive to town, about 90 minutes. It costs me about a ringgit a minute… the driver is not the best one around; neither is his car. He drives fast, the speedometer bounces up and down because it’s broken and we make an unscheduled stop of about 15 minutes to que up for petrol. Oh and by the way, the car smells like someone emptied a bottle of Worcestershire sauce in the airco unit. When I arrive at the Hotel Nikko, my new home for the next two days, I am a very tired but happy man. It’s 2am, and I don’t do much anymore besides crashing on the bed. Everything else can wait until the morning.

22/3 – Phase C is upon us

The workload increases. Today and tomorrow we work on Phase C, surface development. As the only cost and planning engineer in the group, my skills are wanted. I don’t let on that my skills need some serious development of course. We have a good group for this phase, four surface engineers and a cost and planning guy, but we’re off to a rocky start. I’m no longer group leader and I’m also unable to convince the rest of the group to stick to the structure we used last session; not even a new group leader is elected. The results are not entirely satisfactory, it’s a pretty good morning, but after lunch all structure is out of the window. Perhaps it’s the strain of the work; the workload in EP00 isn’t spread out all that well and continues to increase. Still, this is not unlike real world conditions and especially in such situations you need to manage things.

However, all is not bad. I work with a Malaysian girl, Nyza, on risk management, stakeholder management, planning and scheduling. Nyza is a pipeline engineer who’s recently done a stint in Sakhalin, and apart from that she’s a very amusing person, so it’s nice working with her.



I didn’t plan on it, but since everybody has immediately started doing what he or she is best at, it leaves the cost estimates at the way side. Apparently it’s implicitly assumed that I take care of it, and to be fair, I don’t mind seeing how well I can do it. Let’s be fair, I haven’t had all that much practice so far. Work is eased by the addition of two spreadsheets, with work kind of like the CapCo$t program; fill in required capacities and the program translates it to the necessary quantities and costs. Nice, but a little more insight in the inner workings of such programs is more educational. To get this educational I spent a lot of time working out the formulas and values the spreadsheet uses. Work is slow, and it’s slowed down even more by the difficulties the rest of the group has in their specific jobs. Finally, getting the wrong hints regarding the value of the liquid flow rate doesn’t help either.

Around dinner time I have results, but I’m not happy with them. After dinner there are two deliverables for the group: report on the status of your total CAPEX (capital investment) amount and the date of First Oil. Both are my deliverables. Dinner takes about five minutes to consume for me, back to work quickly! A planning estimate takes 10 minutes. Then it’s back to CAPEX. Tan and I finally figure out the meaning of the liquid flow rate value, and my results finally make some sense. When I present them to Edwanee along with the First Oil date, I’m pleasantly surprised; they sound pretty accurate to him, although they are on the conservative side. That’s me I guess; accurate but conservative.



It’s 8:15pm and I decide to quit while I’m ahead. I’ve had trouble confirming my ticket to Kuala Lumpur all day, and I can call AirAsia until 9pm, so I decide to head back to the hotel and have it fixed. I drive home with Azwan, Albert and Frank, and we all agree: this phase is tough. At 9pm I get all my business settles, and I do some e-mail. It’s boring though, so I head over to the Sentosa hotel, where most of the others are staying, to look for some action. My timing stinks though; I meet Albert in the lobby who tells me most of them went out for coffee two minutes earlier. I decide to go see Frank, who has stayed behind, and we chat a bit about our experiences this day. Frank is desperate to go home and see his girlfriend, I’m sad that it’s almost over…

On the way back I pass a tiny shop, the last one that hasn’t closed its doors in all Seria I guess. I grab a coke from the not so very cold fridge. The old bearded shop owner animatedly holds up one finger when I show it to him. One dollar obviously. He takes the bottle, and hurries over to a fridge in the corner and replaces it for an ice cold coke. He holds out his hand, smiles and when I take it he shakes it wildly, saying ‘Thank you mate, good night, good night!’ Highlight of the day. I go back to the hotel to watch some more TV and update my blog, and sleep my last night at the Riviera hotel.

21/3 – First day of spring

Well yeah, it’s the first day of spring! Of course, it’s just the same here. Hot hot hot. Today’s lectures deal with Operations. An important part of Phase C, we deal here with all the facilities, their use and the way we operate them. A lot to do in one morning. Since we didn’t finish gas processing the day before, we have to catch up on this as well. During the afternoon we visit the Oil and Gas Discover Centre, a sort of mini Science Museum with loads of ‘touch and learn’ play things. After that we have a BBQ at the Pananga Boat Club. The BBQ is preceded by a game of football with about 12 people. While it’s fun, I look kinda forward to playing in Groningen again; out of 12 people, about 8 of them have rarely played before and it shows.





The BBQ is on the sea shore, and the view is fantastic. We wash off the sweat in the ocean while watching the setting sun, which colors the entire sky red. Dreamlike. After the BBQ some people go party and watch movies, but for me the day is done. I go to my room early and catch up on writing this blog.

20/3 – Excursion Day

Before the fun starts, we have to deal with Gas processing. Not a subject I’m entirely unfamiliar with, but man, working with those phase curves is HARD. The assignments aren’t all that easy, and confusion reigns in the classroom. One of our fellow students brings enlightenment. We run through a whole bunch of pictures of installations, Groningen among them. The morning ends with a documentary on the Troll, a huge platform in the North Sea.

Then it’s time to heave ourselves into our PPEs. Personal Protective Equipment that is. Glasses, boots, helmet and, rather uncomfortable in this environment, a coverall. Necessary all the same of course. We have some fun taking pictures of each other (for many the first time they look like this).





We split into groups and the bus takes me and my group to KCA Deutag’s rig T-201. Drilling is no longer carried out by oil companies, it’s done by specialized companies like Deutag. It’s an impressive sight; the rig is about 30 meters high, and although it’s in full operation, order, peace and quiet reign on the site. After our safety introduction by the safety officer and receiving a pair of protective gloves, we meet the boss. T-201 is commanded by another fellow Dutchman, Bert. Bert tells us that T-201 is almost done, right now they’re busy inserting a fiberglass wirte into the well, which allows them to monitor the situation in the well and the composition of the rock at any depth. We are then introduced to Alex, the Shell company man on location. Structure seems very similar to GLT; contractors carry out all the work, Shell monitors and advises. Alex gives us a tour of the rig, and after a group photo it’s on to our next stop, SCOT.





At SCOT we are received by Henny, who takes us on a tour of his facility. It’s definitely HIS facility; he knows it top to bottom, knows exactly what the status is of every component and has all the statistics ready to dish out at anyone who asks. SCOT is an impressive place; a total number of 9 huge storage tanks make up the larger part of the facility. The rest is taken up by oil cleaning facilities, pumps, fire protection gear and the export piping to the 20km off-shore loading buoys at which supertankers dock to load the oil. About 200 tankers dock at SCOT every year, for a total of 200.000.000 barrels of oil. The visit to the control room is also very interesting. The entire facility is controlled from here. The coolest thing in the place is the 60x zoom camera; it can be pointed anywhere. Henny checks out the board to see if there are any tankers waiting for loading; there is one, the Mt. Cerigo, destination Indonesia. It’s 20km off shore, but the camera tracks it down and gives us a good view of the ship. Great technology. Henny jokes that unfortunately the Empire hotel is obscured by the trees, otherwise they could check out the ladies lounging at the pool ☺



Henny takes across the facility. He points out a pair of pumps which have been operating for 41 years without a hitch. They are Dutch built, by Geveke Werktuigbouw. Good news for me: Geveke is the builder that built my new house in Assen ☺ The tour’s highlight is a visit to tank #5. This tank is currently in overhaul, and we can crawl in and have a look. This is a sight not normally seen of course; usually the tanks are at least half full with oil. The heat is crushing, the smell wonderful; it’s the smell of money, as we say at Shell ;)

After the visit to SCOT it’s time to go home. We drop our PPEs at the learning centre, and it’s off to home. Edwanee, Ru’s successor as course director, has recommended WyWy as our dinner place, and with about 8 guys we check the place out. Edwanee was right; great food for very little money. I eat too much noodles and king prawns in thai chili sauce, accompanied by glasses of frozen mango juice. Can anyone explain to me why I shouldn’t just stay here?

19/3 – Classes continue

Whereas classes in Miri were given in the hotel, in Brunei we have to go to the Shell Learning Centre. It’s about a half hour trip, so we are collected by bus at 7:30. It means getting up early again, which I hate. Still, I have to get used to it anyway. Better start practicing now.

We have a rather varied program for today. We start off with an introduction to surface engineering, the main task for Phase C. Next, Henny Reerink, a fellow Dutchman, gives a lecture on oil processing. Henny is in charge of SCOT, the Seria Crude Oil Terminal. SCOT is a huge plant of about 3km2, and serves as the collecting point for the considerable oil production of Shell and some third parties like Total in Brunei. Henny gives an introduction of the facility, which we will tour tomorrow. He also explains the various processes which are employed to clean the crude oil and separate gas, water and other undesirable substances from it, like sand, sulfur and heavy metals.

After class Chia and Simon want to go to Brunei’s capital, Bandar. Why do they want to go? Because they have both bought a Sony PSP and they’ve been told there’s a shop that sells all kinds of wonderful peripherals for their new toy. Tan, Frank and me join them, we’re curious to see Bandar. Bandar is all the way on the other end of Brunei; it’s a tiny country however, and the drive takes us about an hour. On the way we are overtaken by the Lexus of one of our fellow students, a Bruneian girl who is taking some other students to Bandar as well. Brunei is a rich country, but it seems some people have considerable outside help to allow them to get around…



Bandar is quite small. We visit a food market, with great looking oriental food. It’s very cheap, but don’t expect haute cuisine. Most of the meat is of rather low quality. It’s still a great experience, and the sugar cane juice is wonderful. We walk around a litte more, and leave Chia and Simon to their affairs at the game shop. Frank and Tan make it a rule to eat McDonalds in every country they visit, so I go along for the ride. It’s ok, as long as you have chicken I guess…



We meet up again and visit the mall, where we run into some fellow EP00-ers. Mai and her rides are there, and we have a drink together. I get some U2 DVDs, and then we head off home. On the way back I drive Frank mad by giving a running commentary of my game Holland vs Germany, which I play on Chia’s PSP. Naturally, I beat Germany and Holland wins the European Cup. Yeah!

18/3 – Up to Brunei

In the morning we have little time left in KK, since our plane leaves at 1pm. We have a luxurious breakfast in the hotel, Frank does some souvenir shopping and I sip a cocktail at the pool. Around noon we leave for the airport, and after the usual AirAsia delay we take off. We reach Miri around three, where about ten people are already waiting in the lobby of the hotel to go to Brunei. The busses are woefully late though, so we get in some shopping and a plate of noodles. Planned departure of the busses is 3pm, we leave around 4:30. The trip is only about a good hour or so, but it’s very busy at the Malaysia – Brunei border, and we don’t get to the hotel in tiny Seria before 8pm. I’m pretty tired, so after a quick dinner I head off to my room. I should go to bed early, but I watch The Final Cut with Robin Williams. It’s a waste of time, the ending sucks.

17/3 – Paradise

Up at 6am. The flight to Kota Kinabalu leaves at 8:30. Frank and I take the taxi to the airport, and it’s off to KK. We arrive 45 minutes later. Then it’s off to our hotel, the luxurous Sutera Pacific Resort.



Our plan is to spend the afternoon on one of the islands on the coast of KK, so we head down to the jetty on the other side of town. We pick a ride to the most remote of the islands, Sapi.





The islands at KK are the real thing; blue waters filled with coral, white beaches, coconut trees overhanging the water, sunny weather. Bounty Island. The beach on Sapi is more crowded than we hope, so we decide to see what’s around the corner. The next beach has only three or four people on it. Frank perseveres and peeks around the corner, and yes, we find a stretch of about 50 meters of unspoiled beach without a soul on it, except the big lizard which scurries over the rocks. Swimiing is wonderful here; the water is as warm as the air, about 30 degrees and it’s clear, clear, clear…the weather is a bit cloudy though, and it looks like rain. It’s very quiet, the silence is only broken by the occasional boat passing by and the planes transporting tourist to and from KK.





As the afternoon passes, the dark clouds approach and finally it starts to rain a little. We head back to the main beach, where we spend the time waiting for the boat by playing football with four local guys and discussing the relative merits of three very well-built tourist girls. Paradise indeed.



After taking the boat back to Borneo, we have some dinner in Little Italy, the best restaurant in town according to Lonely Planet. The pizza is very good indeed, as is the calamari. By then we’re both quite tired. The shopping malls hold little interesting stuff, apart from a Starbucks, so we take the bus back to the resort. A quick dive in the pool, a nice cocktail and it’s lights out.

16/3 – Phase B Presentation

We can use the morning to work some more on preparing our presentation. We’re up at 3pm, so plenty of time to prepare. The presentation is looking pretty nice, and we decide to have three people present it. I will do Field Performance Monitoring, Uncertainty Management, HSE, sustainable development and the conclusion.

The presentation goes like clock work. Good preparation pays off again. After that it’s time to say goodbye to Ru. He’s leaving us for the rest of the course to go back to Holland. He gets a grand goodbye, balloons, presents, a card and a lot of love from the crowd. The best thing is saved for last: Chia has prepared a great PowerPoint presentation with photos from the last two weeks. Some people have been acting as paparazzi, and the photos have funny text ballons in them. I’m a victim as well; apparently I made some appreciative remark about the rather short skirt of one of our lecturers… needless to say this was entirely misconstrued, but Chia’s interpretation is on the big screen, with many other unsuspecting victims. It’s hilarious.



About ten people leave for Brunei this evening, but my plan is to go to Kota Kinabalu with Frank to chill out on a tropical island. Tonight Simon and Frank join me in shopping in one of the malls. I get six DVDs at one place, and as I give them to cashier, he asks if I want some sexy movies. I guess tourists are usually interested in that sort of stuff… I thank him for the offer, but naturally I don’t get any. Way too expensive ;)

Back at the hotel I have to pack for the entire week as well as two weekends; when I get back from KK, we immediately take the bus to Brunei, and if things go right, my next weekend will be spent in Kuala Lumpur. I chat for a while with Alexis, and at 1am lights go off.

15/3 – Preparing Phase B

Hard work today. Phase B is upon us. Our job is to define the wells we are going to drill, based on our expectation of the field performance. I’m chairman this time, and although we have more time to prepare than last time, my first act as chairman is to introduce some stronger timekeeping measures than in phase A. We just didn’t have enough time, and we were all in a hurry. It was all a bit messy, and while I don’t mind hard work, I hate messy work. This time we can work more relaxed. We go on until about seven, and after that I close the day with some noodles and a sauna. Quite nice.

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11/3 – Fokker F50 lets us down

We leave for Miri today, but I plan to do some archery practice before we leave. I’m joined by Dabas, and then Simon, Bob and Tan join us too. When we arrive, Chia and Saritha show up as well, so my little plan turns into a nice group outing. The area is not very nice… muddy, and some of us are not good shots, and overshoot the target. Finding an arrow in the jungle is not all that easy.



Then it’s time to go. Bye bye Mulu Resort, and on to the airport. There bad news is waiting. The Fokker F50 that is supposed to take us back is having engine problems, and it’s not flying. Good thing I guess. We are bumped to the next flight, but that fits only six of us. The remaining eleven will follow later. Later then becomes much later, because other tourist with connections to Kuala Lumpur get priority. We have three hours to spare, so we go back to the hotel and hang around in the pool some more. Back at the airport, a tiny Twin Otter is waiting for us to take us back. Some people are not all that happy at the prospect of flying this little kite, but I’m very excited, I’ve never flown a plane this small. The weather is getting bad, so the ride could be bumpy.



We take off, and we fly low over Sarawak towards Miri. The little plane provides a great view of the jungle and the river snaking through it. We arrive at Miri around six. The evening is used to do a little shopping with Frank, Tan and Simon, and we enjoy a great dinner, a rather expensive meal at a Japanese restaurant. We get a private room, very nice. Will do that more often.

10/3 – Highlights and lowlights

Today is a day of extremes. It starts of well enough. We take a narrow river boat on a trip to a small Patang village, and two other caves. The boat flies across the water, and it’s incredible to be on this river in the middle of the jungle, the sun beating down, water splashing up and the rainforest flying past around us. After 15 minutes we arrive at the village, which is built to give the originally nomadic Patang people a more permanent settlement. A handicraft market is set up to satisfy the tourists. It sells exactly the same stuff as souvenir shops in downtown Miri and Kuching; so far for original Patang handicraft.



Here the trouble starts. The food I had last night is not agreeing with me, and I need some privacy. There is none to be had here, so I have to tough it out. After a grueling 30 minutes we arrive at the next stop on the river, a walkway towards the Cave of the Winds and Clearwater Cave. I take my chance: everyone is going right towards the Cave of the Winds, which means there is some privacy to be found on the way to the Clearwater Cave.



After fertilizing the rainforest I rejoin the group, but I do feel very crappy. I don’t’ get much joy out of seeing the lovely formations of the Cave of the Winds, and the walk towards Clearwater Cave is an ordeal. Thankfully, there is a site here with benches and shade and a jungle pool where we will have a rest. I rest a bit, drink some tea and feel much better. I decide to tough it out once more and join the short trek to Clearwater Cave.





The Clearwater Cave system is the second-largest cave system in the world. It stretches for 200kms under the Borneo forest, many passages never visited by humans. We visit the entrance cave of the system, called the Ladies’ Cave. It’s named for the formations which are said to look like young ladies. With some imagination this can be said to be true, but one thing is certain: the cave is very impressive. Further in we come to Clearwater Cave itself, which is lighted by a wonderful skylight. The river runs through the cave, and deep at the bottom is a section in which one must bathe to become younger. Everybody splashes him or herself, but neither of us feels much younger. It does put us in the right state of mind though; after we get back to the lunch site most of the group change into swimming gear and has a big bunch of fun in the jungle pool. It’s paradise here.







We take the boat back to the resort, and I arrange the afternoon activity for eight of us: A canopy skywalk. We take the boardwalk into the forest again, and we arrive at the entrance of the skywalk. Up the stairs, and off we go. The skywalk is plank way, mashed together with wire and rope. It’s very strong of course, but when you’re 30 meters up in the air and the thing swings and creaks, you’re not so sure of that. Just don’t look down, but gawk at the wonderful scenery around you. The skywalk is hanging between trees, and the entire span is 540 meters long. It’s an amazing journey.







Getting back to the resort means a nice refreshing shower. After that I get a nice massage. Real cheap here and quite refreshing. I go together with Frank; my massage is given by a girl, but Frank is squeezed around by a guy. He enjoys it slightly less then I, methinks. After that we have some noodles at the cafe. We head off to the pool table to shoot some pool. I’m in strange form: I miss the easiest shots, but I make two fabulous shots. And yes, I planned them that way. The rest of the group is having fun in the bar, drinking loads of beer and playing poker without stakes. They switch to a dirnking game, and I join in, but I’m way behind. Everybody is very drunk already, and having loads of inane fun with each other. It’s interesting to see all this. I was never good at joining parties like this, and I figure I won’t catch up anymore. All these guys are two months out of college, and they haven’t forgotten that. When the bar closes and the beer is gone, the party moves to the swimming pool. We go into the jacuzzi, but it’s cramped with four people. It gets even more cramped with number five in it. When six and seven join us, I feel it’s time to bring it back to an even number, and I say goodbye.