Category Archives: Offshore

Photo: Steve Gonzales, Houston Chronicle

Tarek Ghazi, is photographed at the Offshore Technology Conference (OTC 2017) Thursday, May 4, 2017, in Houston. Tarek, who was laid off in November after the offshore job market hasn't recovered as fast as the onshore shale industry, is one of many highly trained professionals still looking for work.

Tarek Ghazi, is photographed at the Offshore Technology Conference...

Erin Donlon came to the Offshore Technology Conference for the first time this week, immersing himself in the world of deepwater drilling a world that, until recently, he was sure he'd want to enter himself.

The pay was great and the work seemed exciting, so when Donlon arrived at Maine Maritime Academy as the oil boom accelerated in 2013, he set his sights on oil rigs. Now, with the industry still shaking off the worst bust in 30 years, he considers himself fortunate that he's not graduating until December, hoping that more opportunities open offshore.

"Once we had the [oil] recession, I thought, 'That's going to be interesting,'" said Donlon, 23, one of a handful students selected to attend OTC this year from his school in Castine, Maine. "A lot of people graduating this month, they're like, 'What can I do?'"

That sense of guarded optimism was common among job seekers at OTC this year, as the oil industry's prospects have brightened somewhat, but not enough to lead to widespread hiring that would recover the more than 200,000 jobs cut in the United States after prices began their plunge at the end of 2014, according to the Labor Department.

Only about 30,000 of those jobs have come back since the market bottomed last year, concentrated onshore in areas where oil and gas are cheaper to extract, particularly West Texas' Permian Basin and increasingly the Eagle Ford shale in South Texas.

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Renewed hiring has largely bypassed the offshore sector. Anthony Caridi, an oil and gas recruiter with the Houston firm QTSI, offered a grim assessment of the situation for those still looking for work.

"Anything drilling is a no-go," he says. "Offshore is even more of a no-go."

Another year of job help

This marked the second year in which OTC tried to support displaced workers with networking events and workshops to help people polish their LinkedIn profiles and interviewing skills. A session Monday filled to capacity, with some people looking to change jobs, recent graduates hoping to score their first positions and many others trying to get back on their feet.

At a roundtable discussion about resume writing, human resources professional Metha Vasquez coached attendees on how to characterize jobs they might have taken outside their fields after a layoff: As "other experience" at the bottom of the page, with "relevant experience" at the top.

"I don't want you to be discouraged by this," Vasquez said. "A lot of people have been unemployed for a long time, and they're working at Walmart. That's not their career, they're paying the bills, that's okay."

Another table focused on setting up consulting businesses. Companies cut mostly early-career employees during the national recession from 2007 to 2009, but the oil bust fell hardest on those with many years of experience who were too young to retire.

Those older workers have the skills to win contracts with companies that might have hiring freezes in place, but still need to get certain projects done, according to Susan Howes, vice president of engineering at Subsurface Consultants and Associates of Houston. Her company puts together teams of technical professionals like geologists and petroleum engineers working as independent contractors to complete short-term projects for oil and gas companies.

She was flooded with resumes during the bust, and most of those workers are still around.

"I wouldn't say that the pool of applicants has contracted," Howes says. "There are still companies that are going through reductions in force, and there are people who are still looking, they've been looking for a while."

That pool includes Tarek Ghazi, a geologist with 40 years of experience, 20 spent at ConocoPhillips before working for several other companies. He was laid off from a small reservoir data firm last November, and has had a few interviews since.

But he remains philosophical about the experience, which he knows is inevitable in the boom-and-bust cycles of oil and gas.

"I would never get discouraged, because that is the nature of the industry," he says. For that reason, he's careful not to get too excited about hints of a recovery. "I don't know if it is a real uptick, or a bunch of self-reinforcing rumors."

Ghazi and others take solace in the company of others who've found themselves in between jobs, with new organizations like the Society of Petroleum Engineers' Members in Transition group and the Houston-centric Pay it Forward Networking Program, which coordinates tours and training sessions with energy companies to help people maintain their skills and make connections. Those support communities help ease the burden of unemployment, by making people realize they're not alone and the layoff wasn't their fault.

Still, they can't create jobs that don't exist. Case in point: In late March, SPE held a career fair with 350 job seekers and 15 employers. A month later, according to organizers, the companies have reported filling only two positions with people who attended the event.

Shifting needs

Drilling companies are mostly waiting on oil prices to rise before shifting back into gear. But for unemployed energy workers, a recovery in production may not get them their jobs back.

That's because companies are re-evaluating which jobs they need, and which can be replaced by automation. Among them: rig maintenance, which can be accomplished by robots piloted by operators onshore.

"A lot of companies are looking at what the alternative might be to just plain rehiring," says Rachel Everaard, who leads the oil and gas human resources team for the consulting firm EY. "Certainly you're not going to replace all drillers with remote operations next year, but you'll start to see them hire fewer and fewer, as they start to do things differently."

For now, the sluggish recovery hasn't dashed the hopes of young workers still hoping to break into the industry. Donlon, the Maine Maritime student, will graduate with a Coast Guard Unlimited license, allowing him to pilot ships, and he'd like to put it to work in oil exploration.

Even if renewable energy and increasing fuel efficiency cuts into demand for some petroleum products, Donlon expects that other products, such as petrochemicals, will keep the oil and gas industry vibrant.

"The oil industry pretty much runs everything and 'I'd like to be part of something where I can have an impact," said Donlon. "It's a waiting game, for now. There's definitely hope."

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While oil and gas is rebounding, offshore jobs remain hard to find - Houston Chronicle

By Tele Reporter,4 May 2017 6.00am

A Dundonian former health and safety manager in the oil and gas industry has designed a garment aimed at saving the lives of offshore workers in the event of an accident at sea.

Simon Lamont came up with the idea for the Centurion 3 which is specially engineered to immediately produce heat when submerged in cold water after the 2009 Super Puma crash in the North Sea.

It is designed to be worn under offshore survival suits and is also slash resistant. It improves heat retention, generates heat and resists fire, and a coating means the wearer should remain warm for at least one hour.

Simon said: The helicopter crash left so many of us stunned, and when I discovered that the garments worn were insufficient when dealing with cold shock, I set to work designing and developing a product to remedy this.

He set up Iron Ocean and has secured more than 100,000 in funding through Business Gateway, with an aim to launch the product next year.

Simon added: In my previous job, I managed safety protocols and led incident and accident investigations but Im really enjoying being in full creative control of everything we do at Iron Ocean.

More importantly, however, our design can save lives and there is nothing I value more than that.

Working with Heriot-Watt Universitys School of Textiles and Design to create a prototype, Simon has also competed in various business events.

Michelle Shepherd, business adviser at Business Gateway Dundee, said the organisation knew instantly that Simons idea had huge potential.

She added: Since then, we have worked very closely with Simon, helping him identify funding opportunities, as well as supporting him as a new business owner.

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Dundee man's garment designed to save lives of offshore workers - Evening Telegraph

The Executive Order opening up areas of the Continental Shelf to oil and gas development announced by the White House on Friday has provoked a predictable storm of outrage from environmental groups.

At the heart of the opposition is the question of whether to allow industry access to the significant resources which lie under the Chukchi and Beaufort seas in the Arctic. For ENGOs the issue is a critical one, an unbreakable shibboleth. Accordingly, every possible argument against development has been deployed.

Unfortunately, many of these fail to acknowledge a number of realities, and thus only tell half the story about the challenges and opportunities that come with offshore energy development in America's far north.

The justification most frequently given is that industry simply isn't interested in the Arctic. While there certainly was a decrease in activity after Shell withdrew from the region in 2015, there's been a spate of movement since. In the last six months Eni submitted a development proposal to the Bureau of Ocean Management, the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation acquired 21 leases in the Beaufort, Caelus Energy announced a world class oil discovery and the State of Alaska held an "outstanding" leasing round.

Ultimately the most accurate barometer of appetite is the fact that industry has been calling for this for over a year. Among others, those efforts include a seven figure advertising campaign by a coalition of Alaskan and national organizations to publicly voice their support for offshore energy development.

One of the key arguments that campaign attempted to articulate is that Arctic offshore energy isn't a short-term play; building out the infrastructure needed to safely develop resources will take time, likely over a decade. That point hits on the second main charge against Arctic energy that the region lacks the facilities to safely extract oil resources.

Again there is some truth in the claim, the Arctic is infrastructure poor. But the position is a circular argument, a self-fulfilling prophecy, which ignores the point that the oil and gas industry is effectively the only source of major investment in the region. Without it, there is little prospect that the ports, roads and airports that local communities need will built, and the region will be condemned to a future as some kind of wilderness themed eco-park, bereft of the economy that those in the lower 48 take for granted.

That unavoidable fact is reflected in the attitudes of many of the people who live in the Arctic. Too often environmental groups talk about the need to protect subsistence hunting traditions of Native groups, while simultaneously ignoring their views.

There are undoubtedly some on the North Slope who are opposed to oil and gas activity in Arctic waters, but evidence would suggest that a majority are in favor. In 2016 an Arctic Energy Center survey found that 72% of Native respondents are supportive, a statistic that is substantiated by the testimony of numerous community leaders.

Finally opponents have attacked Arctic energy on the basis of commercial viability, claiming that it doesn't make sense in the current price environment and thus, that holding lease sales is a costly and unnecessary irrelevance. Once again there's some truth in this argument; clearly with the price of crude hovering around $50, offshore energy is a difficult proposition.

But again the key point here is the length of time involved. By the time Arctic resources become available in the mid to late 2020's it's difficult, if not impossible, to predict where the oil price will be (though it's worth noting the Energy Information Agency forecasts global demand will grow strongly). At that point Arctic offshore plays may make sense financially. And in the meantime, as Secretary Zinke noted, leases sales could provide an important source of revenue for the government.

Energy development in the Arctic is not without its challenges, and it's important that we have a full and frank discussion about how to address them. But that conversation should include all of the facts and not just those that are convenient.

Oliver Williams is a spokesperson for the Arctic Energy Center.

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Arctic offshore energy discussion must include all the facts - Washington Examiner

The initial deadline for voluntary disclosures to Revenue was last May 1st, it was then extended

The Revenue Commissioners have clawed back 13.6 million from taxpayers who have made voluntary disclosures of offshore sources of income since last October.

That is according to Minister for Finance Michael Noonan who confirmed that, to April 26th, Revenue had received 532 disclosures relating to offshore matters resulting in payments to Revenue of 13.6 million. He said that 12 of those disclosures, giving rise to payments of 231,543, were received between October 11th last year the day before the budget in which a clampdown on offshore income was announced and the enactment of the Finance Act 2016 on December 25th.

The initial deadline for voluntary disclosures was last Monday, May 1st, but this was extended by Revenue to 5.30pm on Thursday.

In his written Dil reply to Social Democrats Deputy Roisn Shortall on the issue, Mr Noonan stated: A full analysis of disclosures received will be undertaken by Revenue after the deadline for receiving them has passed, and information about them and the related payments received will be made available when that work has been completed.

He said anyone who had not come forward faced strong action from the tax authorities.

I am advised also that cases will be investigated with a view to prosecution where the facts and circumstances warrant such a course of action, he said.

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Offshore clampdown yields 13.6m as deadline loomed - Irish Times

News & Observer

What Trump's offshore drilling plans mean for NC coast News & Observer President Donald Trump's move last week to expand offshore drilling in the Atlantic and Arctic oceans rekindles the debate over the viability of oil and gas drilling and seismic testing off the coast of North Carolina. Trump's executive order calls for ... Republican and Democratic lawmakers speak out against Trump's offshore drilling orderThinkProgress Trump's Offshore Oil Drilling Push: Five Essential ReadsDeSmog (blog) Trump's drilling order exposes rift among SC lawmakersCharlotte Observer MassLive.com -NJ.com -WSAV-TV all 35 news articles »

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What Trump's offshore drilling plans mean for NC coast - News & Observer

A surfer survived while holding on to his board some 32 hours after being swept out to sea from while attempting to surf along the west coast of Scotland, according to the UK Maritime and Coastguard Agency.

Matthew Bryce, 22, of Glasgow was rescued by helicopter on Monday night and was recovering at a hospital in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on Tuesday.

I am so grateful that I am now receiving treatment in hospital, Bryce said in a statement. "I cannot thank those enough who rescued and cared for me, they are all heroes."

Water temperatures dropped as low as 46 degrees while Bryce was at sea. He was conscious but suffering from hypothermia at the time of his rescue.

"He was kitted out with all the right clothing including a thick neoprene suit and this must have helped him to survive for so long at sea," said Dawn Petrie, a spokeswoman for the coast guard operations center in Belfast that coordinated the search.

Bryces family alerted authorities midday on Monday after he failed to return from Machrihanish beach, where he went to surf the previous morning.

"Hope was fading of finding the surfer safe and well after such a long period in the water, and with nightfall approaching we were gravely concerned," Petrie said.

But then the rescue crew spotted something in the water 13 miles offshore. Coast guard Capt. Andy Pilliner, pilot of helicopter, said they initially thought it was a buoy.

"We went around, dropped down the height a bit, came in and then that moment, when you go, 'Oh! it is actually a surfboard and there is actually someone on it waving,'" Pilliner said. "It's just a great feeling, it's just what you're hoping for, but daren't."

charles.schilken@latimes.com

Twitter: @chewkiii

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Scottish surfer rescued 13 miles offshore after holding on to his board for 32 hours - Los Angeles Times

The Pentagon wants to continue a ban on offshore drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico thats set to expire in five years.

A.M. Kurta, the acting under secretary of Defense for personnel and readiness, told a Florida lawmaker in a letter publicly released Monday that military training and related exercises in the eastern Gulf, which borders Florida, necessitate a continuation of Congresss ban on drilling.

The letter Kurta wrote to Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) adds a new wrinkle to the Trump administrations drive to dramatically increase offshore oil and natural gas drilling.

An ordersignedMonday by Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke says the department will look at the entire Gulf of Mexico for potential drilling.

And the oil industry is gunning for the eastern Gulf,tellingreporters yesterday that drilling there could create thousands of new jobs and billions of dollars in new investment.

But the Pentagon is pushing back against drilling in the eastern Gulf, near Florida.

The moratorium ensures that these vital military readiness activities may be conducted without interference and is critical to their continuation, Kurta wrote to Gaetz in response to a letter inquiring about the drilling ban.

Emerging technologies such as hypersonics, autonomous systems, and advanced sub-surface systems will require enlarged testing and training footprints, and increased DoD reliance on the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Acts moratorium beyond 2022. The moratorium is essential for developing and sustaining our nations future combat capabilities.

The military uses the eastern Gulf as a training ground, the U.S. militarys largest training facility in the world. Floridas hosts numerous military bases, including a major Air Force base near Tampa and naval stations in Key West, Panama City and Pensacola.

For decades, the federal government has prevented drilling in the eastern Gulf, due mostly to the military needs. The ban was formalized in 2006, thanks to legislation sponsored by Sen. Bill NelsonBill NelsonOvernight Regulation: Senate confirms SEC pick | House GOP passes 'comp time' bill | Senate confirms Trump's SEC pick Pentagon wants offshore drilling ban maintained in eastern Gulf MORE (D-Fla.) and then-Sen. Mel Martnez (D-Fla.), but that expires in 2022.

Nelson, who staunchly defends the drilling ban against any policy that could even slightly threaten it, filed legislation earlier this year to extend the prohibition through 2027.

Trumps order specifically asks Interior to consult with the Pentagon as it formulates new drilling plans.

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Pentagon wants offshore drilling ban maintained in eastern Gulf - The Hill

An employee stands on the deck of a pilot boat in view of the Ocean Princess oil platform, operated by Diamond Offshore Drilling Inc., in the Port of Cromarty Firth in Cromarty, U.K., on Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2016. Matthew Lloyd/Bloomberg

Deep-water oil production companies are trying to figure out how to work better together, produce projects more quickly and cut costs.

Operators have collaborated on research and development projects for years, Chevron vice president Roy Krzywosinski told attendees at the Offshore Technology Conference at NRG Park on Tuesday. But companies have often struggled to work together, bogging down on administrative nuts-and-bolts.

Now the collaborators have re-started an old agency to cut through the red tape and focus on projects. The group, called the DEEPSTAR Offshore Operators Committee, will be administered by an external party and focused on core R&D, Krzywosinski said.

RELATED: Offshores big tech idea? Simplify, standardize and lower costs

We need a sense of urgency, he said. Offshore drillers are in a race to make deep-water drilling competitive with the onshore U.S. shale revolution. Costs must come down, Krzywosinski said. Ultimate recovery must come up.

In the shale gas, look what theyre doing with their well programs. Theyre drilling so many wells, he said. And if operators can cut 15 minutes out of the drilling time for each well, that makes a real difference, Krzywosinski said. You bring a manufacturing mindset into that space.

But offshore collaboration wont work, he continued, if it takes the lions share of time figuring out how to collaborate.

The new DEEPSTAR committee, he said, will focus on R&D collaboration, cooperation with suppliers and standardization.

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Offshore needs 'sense of urgency,' Chevron VP says - FuelFix (blog)

While the oil price crash lasted from the middle of 2014 to early 2016, the market for offshore rigs started to decline well before that and is still on the downswing. In the fourth quarter of 2016, Diamond Offshore Drilling (NYSE:DO) was able to surprise investors a bit with a better-than-expected quarter. This time, though, results fell back in line with what we would expect from a company suffering through a more than three-year slump.

Despite this environment, Diamond's results weren't all that bad, really. Here's a look at how the company did this past quarter and what investors should make of Diamond's stock in the future.

Image source: Getty Images.

*IN MILLIONS, EXCEPT PER-SHARE DATA. DATA SOURCE: DIAMOND OFFSHORE EARNINGS RELEASE.

What has helped keep earnings afloat for many rig companies over the past year has been the ability to cut costs, especially with those related to rigs that are either warm stacked (idle but kept ready to go if a customer wants it quickly) or cold stacked (significant shutdown of equipment in anticipation of a long idle time). In many cases, costs for these stacked rigs were cut in half or more.

It seems, though, that rig companies have pulled all the levers they can on cutting costs as of late, because operating cost cuts today are no longer keeping up with declines in revenue. That's why we saw such a sharp drop in earnings for Diamond year over year. The decrease from the prior quarter isn't as concerning as it looks because Diamond realized a $0.29-per-share gain related to an early termination payment for one of its midwater floaters.

That said, investors shouldn't be too discouraged by these results. The company has been able to maintain profitability with less than 50% of its total fleet utilized. Also, Diamond has been able to maintain a 94.3% operational utilization rate for the quarter, which means that the rigs that are under contract aren't experiencing much downtime.

DATA SOURCE: DIAMOND OFFSHORE EARNINGS RELEASE. CHART BY AUTHOR.

It also is a good sign that Diamond has been able to find work for some of its rigs. Last quarter, two of its ultra-deepwater rigs started work on long-term contracts, and management was able to follow up this quarter with new contracts for two rigs. Its Ocean Monarch rig obtained a contract extension through the end of 2018, and Ocean Patriot will start a new two-year contract once its current contract is complete in the second quarter of 2018.

These contract awards touch on a theme that Diamond CEOMarc Edwards mentioned in the prior quarter's release. He said that it is going to be easier to market "hot" rigs -- those that haven't been stacked -- becausethey are ready to go on day one. This will play rather well into Diamond's hands over the long run as most of its newer assets are still hot while its older fleet consists of mostly the ones that were stacked.

About the shorter-term rig market, Edwards said:

We believe that it is still too early to call it bottom in deepwater utilization although we could be witnessing the first signs of a trough in falling rig demand. However, even when demand stabilizes, there will likely still be an oversupply in the sixth-generation asset class. At a major industry conference here in Houston during February, many of the operating companies who contract deepwater assets, however, have stated that deepwater can compete on a financial returns basis with shale on North American light tighter oil.

Diamond has done great work in managing its fleet both during the high point of the industry by not being overly exuberant with its expansion plan and during the crash by preserving capital and prioritizing its marketing. Today, a decent chunk of its most valuable assets are still on the water and getting new contracts as a result. At the same time, the company's balance sheet has held up remarkably well. With a half-dozen or so older rigs on the books that are less likely to get much work in the future, don't be surprised if the company scraps a few of its stacked rigs someday.

Overall, however, Diamond looks like the kind of company investors can get behind if they are looking to bet on the offshore oil and gas industry bouncing back over the next several years. Considering how cheap shares trade for today -- 0.5 times tangible book -- that seems like a solid thesis.

Tyler Crowe has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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Diamond Offshore's Earnings Dive, but Investors Shouldn't Fret ... - Motley Fool

As some exhibitors waited for oil and gas professionals to stop by their booths at the Offshore Technology Conference this week, one German company, ELA Container, found that it had all the business it wanted.

ELA Container, which designs and builds offshore living quarters, found that business has surged during the oil downturn, when offshore project managers have time to shop for smaller and cheaper living arrangements for offshore crews, said Katharina Pleus, a marketer for ELA.

The company made its OTC debut in 2016 when attendance suffered in the wake of plunging oil prices and returned this year, even as the industry struggles to recover. The company just opened a Houston branch, Pleus said.

This is the right time to step into the market, said Pleus. Last time was a bad year, but it was busy for us.

The companys exhibit at NRG Park featured two 20 foot by 8 foot living containers, stacked on top of each other. They look like standard shipping containers but are built to offshore requirements, reinforced with several millimeters of steel and fire resistant components. (The containers will withstand up to 60 minutes of flame and heat, Pleus said.)

A container with two beds, each in a separate room and joined by a bathroom, costs $90,000. A simple empty container costs around $15,000. They are cheaper, narrower and shorter than the typical containers made in the U.S., Pleus added.

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Offshore business for German company thrives during a bust - FuelFix (blog)