do you want to go to work in the ND oil feilds

dealing with ice and snow mud in off road conditions in the oil feild.

ok so you just turned off the pavement and your looking at a glare ice road with hills and turns. you have two options option one attempt the road with or without chains. if the road has a decent crown to it you are probably best to just chain. if you decide to proceed on the road without chains. it will take a little English sorta like playing pool. you have to have enough momentum to carry you over the hills without having too much speed into the corners. this will take some finesse. when climbing the hills use a lower gear and higher rpms, for two reasons one if you start to spin you can maintain more control. and for two if you start to spin and loose speed and start backing out of the throttle to maintain traction you have more time before you have to downshift to a lower gear. momentum is your friend, but too much can be your enemy.

chaining/ deep snow, a set of singles can be fine for glare ice but in deep snow or mud, double row chains are a must. hang your chains in a way that they don't get tangled if you don't have chain hangers on your trailer, you can use the rear bumper or roll your chains in a rug and then wrap your rug with your tarp straps. and then place them in the side compartment of your tractor. after a few times you should be able to chain and unchain quickly. keeping your chains neat and tidy will save you more time in your chaining process than it takes in your unchaining process.

Do not set your trailer breaks. when you stop don't set the trailer breaks set the tractor breaks not the trailer. melted snow and ice will freeze the shoes to the drums, when in the snow and ice beating your breaks with a hammer is no fun. when taking back off after parking after driving in snow and ice. when shifting from 1st to second give it a second in neutral and make sure the truck is rolling freely give it a little turn to the right and left and make sure all your trailer tires are spinning. if a drive break gets frozen you may be able to break it loose by stopping and putting in your ineraxel lock or trying to go backwards and forwards. iv seen drivers drag a set of duals until they look like they were sawed off with a sawsall.

however if you traction out on a hill in the ice without chains this can be very dangerous iv you managed to stop without sliding backwards down the hill you need to set the tractor and trailer breaks chock the tires and chain with great care to not get underneath the truck. if you start to slide backwards down a hill do your best to stay on the road light application on the breaks to avoid lock up and hope you come to a stop before loosing control.

be very careful of roads with a heavy crown (center of the road higher than the shoulders) in ALL conditions, im sure some of you have seen a picture iv posted a few times of a rolled mack. this happened on a wet crowned road the road had a high clay content and was very slick and muddy. the truck got too far off center with too much speed after coming down a steep down grade. trailer slid off first taking everything else with it. both me and the driver of the mack had been in and out of that lease road several times that day and he had boasted earlier that day about having never gone in a ditch before. so check your ego at the door.

when dealing with deep mud, shift to a lower gear but keep from going too slow or too fast again like with the ice momentum is your friend too much is your enemy. in deep mud if you have to shift your done. you will loose all your momentum, if you become stuck in the mud and try to back up and go forward once and don't move your done, wait for a pull. anything further will only make matters worse.

 

if your going in the ditch.

in the example of the mack, the truck may not have rolled if instead of turning the wheel towards the road if he had cranked the wheel to the ditch. once your trailer starts going off the road its not coming back on turn the truck to the ditch and hopefully all you need is a pull.

 

as far as pay goes you will make good money, esp for someone that wants to run.

now for me i don't know how long the work will be there so i run as hard as i can. i figure if work holds out for 5 years i can be pretty well set. already almost completely debt free. will have everything paid for in probably the next 3 months. my recomendation to anyone starting in the oil feild is to not be like some people and go out and buy the fancy cars/toys put the money away because oil is a volitle market even though it looks like there will be plenty of work for the next 10 years you never really know don't count on it lasting forever



this is around a average paycheck for me, iv had better iv had worse this is my first check for year 2012

 

keep track of everything that you can that's tax deductible and you will likely get a chunk back at the end of the year but you have to remember that your in the 100k+ per year tax bracket also in my situation with no kids i really get hammered in the tax department. lots of opportunity in the oil field for owner operators you don't necessarily have to become a company driver. you will lease onto a company that takes care of getting the work for you. the o/o that work for the company i work for all run under there own authority. but i dont belive they have any rental trailers avaiable right now and most companys pay o/o 60-90 days behind when the invoices are turned in.

 

it is a large expense. toget started as a o/o there are some good start up company's that provide rental trailers and fuel cards but they typically pay peanuts compared to the other guys. most people use bank loans as well as a start up nest egg to get going. then pay everything off within months of the checks starting to come in. iv looked a lot into buying my own truck/trailer. but for now have decided to stay a company driver