Malcolm Gorrill
Northern News Services

Inuvik (Aug10/01) - Rick Clarke says a lot of work in a relatively short time has paid off.

Clarke, the industrial oil and gas training co-ordinator for Aurora College, said that the floorhand training program underway at a site along Navy Road had its roots back in late March or early April, when the possibility was first considered.

An advisory group studied the idea, and in May a smaller working group was formed to help bring it about.

Classroom training commenced July 30, and practical training began last Sunday on the Akita drill rig, shortly after the 400-metre cased hole was dug.

Clarke said all the college staff who worked on the project have done a great job, and he pointed out many other people and firms have helped out.

"Every person that's involved, it just seemed like we found the right person at the right time," Clarke said.

"I've never been involved in anything as big as this. Most of the time we don't use as many smaller companies as this, it usually goes out to tender, so you might use, say, four contractors."

He explained at least 30 contractors took part preparing the site, putting a camp in place, setting a drill rig in place and drilling a cased hole.

"Virtually every contractor in Inuvik has been involved one way or another. But that's the way we wanted it," Clarke said. "It turned out rather well."

The 22-shack camp on the site was donated by AEC Inc. and Akita Equtak. As well, Clarke said Arctic Oil and Gas is doing a "phenomenal" job of catering.

"They're keeping it extremely clean, fantastic food, great service," he said.

Northwind Industries, Northern Impact and Schlumberger were involved in creating the cased hole. Clarke said that the college can now put on other training at the site, after the current floorhand program ends.

"There's probably a list of about 30 different courses, now that we've got the cased hole, that we can put on. There's a whole whack of them."

He said it'll be up to industry what kind of training would be offered in the future, and when.

"It's turning into a bigger operation than I think we even foresaw," Clarke said.

"With the camp installation out there and everything else, it's a massive undertaking, a lot of work involved."