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The Oilmen of the Baltic by Mikhail Solovyanov
LUKOIL is one of the largest oil companies in Russia and in the World. In 2004 the company has finished construction of the unique oil rig D-6 intended for work in Baltic sea in conditions of small depth of the sea...
For the workers on LUKoil's D-6 oil rig in the Baltic Sea every last New Year's Eve, there are only one place to be at the stroke of midnight -- in the heated water container on the main deck of the rig. It is magnificent entertainment for a meeting of New Year because alcohol and fireworks are absent on an oil platform.
Stuck out on a stationary oil platform 23 kilometers from the Kaliningrad coast, which stands in 30 meters of water, the 70 Russian and foreign workers live a dual life, spending an arduous two weeks working on the rig, then two weeks off.
At the end of a 14-day stint on the rig -- which is a self-contained drilling machine, pumping station, helipad and accommodation block combined -- the trip to the mainland takes a short half-hour by helicopter, as the rig rapidly shrinks to a blip on the watery horizon.
The rig, the first in Russian waters to be wholly domestically built, was erected despite protests from some environmental groups that the drilling poses a potential threat to the sea's ecosystem.
Production officially began from the rig in spring 2004, as the company is set to spend a total of 7.7 billion rubles ($270 million) to recover the estimated 21.5 million tons of oil that lie buried 2,000 meters beneath the seabed.
