New Off Shore Boom coming?

[permison]

So if the ban on off shore drilling gets removed will we see a large demand for helo pilots? A few years out of course but I would imagine current staffing levels and available pilots couldn't cover both the current demand in the Gulf and added rigs off the east and west coasts. What do you guys think? Good time to prepare for the upcoming demand?

Jack

[BOATFIXERGUY]

The big money will still be with the roughnecks. Why didn't I spend my money becoming an oil worker instead of a pilot....could have saved a marriage, house, credit, etc.....

 

A few hundred new rigs will help in a few years to come. Won't come soon enough.

[Gomer Pylot]

I don't think it will make much difference. The only place there may be a lot of oil, and drilling is prohibited, is off Florida. There are already lots of rigs available, especially shallow-water ones. There are also lots of capped wells in the GOM, waiting on the price of oil to get higher. They will probably be producing eventually, but it takes months to get them producing. Opening more offshore drilling is a nice campaign slogan, but it really means little, if anything. There is some oil off California, but it has mostly been found and produced already. Same for the east coast.

[permison]

I don't think it will make much difference. The only place there may be a lot of oil, and drilling is prohibited, is off Florida. There are already lots of rigs available, especially shallow-water ones. There are also lots of capped wells in the GOM, waiting on the price of oil to get higher. They will probably be producing eventually, but it takes months to get them producing. Opening more offshore drilling is a nice campaign slogan, but it really means little, if anything. There is some oil off California, but it has mostly been found and produced already. Same for the east coast.

 

There are a couple of Exxon's oil engineers in my rock climbing club and we have had numorous conversations about the amount of oil out there. They both think there is significant oil on both coasts. Word is something like 18 Billion barrels. I think the idea is that the ban on US companies drilling for oil off the coast of Florida and other places will be lifted and there will be a sudden rush of new rigs to be built off the east and west coasts where siginificant oil is believed to be. I am under the impression to meet the need to service these new rigs there will be significant demand for pilots. I don't believe they will stop drilling in the Gulf so this is new oppertunities for pilots who are not already engaged in the Gulf.

[Gomer Pylot]

Well, perhaps. It takes at least a couple of years to build a drilling rig, more if you include the design phase, so don't look for anything next week, or next year. If there were really a lot of readily available oil off the other coasts, it would be producing. The only place I'm aware of that has prohibited drilling is Florida. There has already been drilling off the east coast, but nothing significant was found, or else the oil companies just decided to cap it. There are rigs off California, but they were never heavily developed. The number of helicopters in the GOM has been dropping since the 80s, as companies pursue automation and actually start thinking before they fly. There may be more flying coming, but I doubt it will be a real boom. I'll be gone long before anything happens in any case.

[Five0]

Has offshore hiring slowed down? It kind of seems to me like it has.

 

I know a couple of guys (one with more than 3K hrs) who havent gotten an interview. I know they've applied with a couple of GOM companies. Both are solid pilots flying pipeline.

 

Anybody know?

 

Five0

[JDHelicopterPilot]

There are rigs off California, but you can't build anymore.

[Goldy]

There are rigs off California, but you can't build anymore.

 

In fact, over the last 20 years they have been REMOVING rigs off Santa Barbara coast. I know of 4 platforms that were there in the 80's that are gone now, including two piers that have been removed...and I think a couple more are shut down pending removal.

 

What about all the rigs in the GOM that were shut down by the hurricane 2 years ago? Are they all back up and running yet?

 

As far as new stuff, I dont think it matters if its a rig or exploration. Simple fact is the price of oil is high, demand is still high, the oil companies are making record profits and those same companies rely on helicopters A LOT !

 

If anything, the current problem may be not enough helo's available. The backlogs of manufacturers is unreal right now. Talking to the Chief Pilot of one of the major EMS guys tells me he is 30 pilots short every month....and several ships short as well..As far as oil slowdown, I think its just timing. It takes years to get something fired up, and the price of oil increase is really just in the last few months.

 

Goldy

[Gomer Pylot]

Platforms are removed all the time when they're no longer economically viable. The MMS requires their removal or maintenance, and it's cheaper to remove them than maintain them if they're not producing. What little easy oil was available off California is mostly gone, so the platforms are being removed. I'm not aware of any federal ban on drilling there, and I wouldn't expect any more, unless something is found in very deep water, and the technology isn't there to drill very far off the Pacific coast. In the GOM, shallow water goes out well over a hundred miles, and the deepwater drilling a couple of hundred miles out is only in a few thousand feet of water, far shallower than the water off the Pacific coast even a few tens of miles out. It's pretty much the same off the Atlantic coast - the water gets too deep to drill in very quickly. The Florida Gulf coast isn't that big, and it's about the only offshore location left undrilled.

[helonorth]

Has offshore hiring slowed down? It kind of seems to me like it has.

 

I know a couple of guys (one with more than 3K hrs) who havent gotten an interview. I know they've applied with a couple of GOM companies. Both are solid pilots flying pipeline.

 

Anybody know?

 

Five0

It has slowed down, but still a lot of hiring going on. Pilots hire on at 1000 hours and quit when

they have 2000 to fly EMS and be close to home. Anyone with 3000 hours and can't get an

interview needs to redo their resume. You also have to do more than put in a resume, you

have to talk to these people.

[BOATFIXERGUY]

It has slowed down, but still a lot of hiring going on. Pilots hire on at 1000 hours and quit when

they have 2000 to fly EMS and be close to home. Anyone with 3000 hours and can't get an

interview needs to redo their resume. You also have to do more than put in a resume, you

have to talk to these people.

 

Exactly!

 

As Helonorth has said, you do need to talk to them. Show them why you would be an asset and not a liability to the company. The last thing they want to do is put a bunch of money into you, then have you leave at the first opportunity.

 

They are also looking for stability in an employee. If you have worked at 15 different places in the last ten years, good luck.

[Gomer Pylot]

For those who anticipate a huge boom, consider this.

 

The U.S. Energy Information Agency estimates that production from currently protected areas would reach 200,000 barrels per day in about 20 years. And that's for the entire U.S. continental shelf.

 

That amount represents a drop in the bucket of demand, as the United States now consumes about 21 million gallons of oil per day day.

 

Pipe dreams never die, though.

[helonorth]

For those who anticipate a huge boom, consider this.

 

The U.S. Energy Information Agency estimates that production from currently protected areas would reach 200,000 barrels per day in about 20 years. And that's for the entire U.S. continental shelf.

 

That amount represents a drop in the bucket of demand, as the United States now consumes about 21 million gallons of oil per day day.

 

Pipe dreams never die, though.

I think you meant 21 million barrels per day. But it doesn't really matter because I don't think

anyone thinks we can drill (domestically) out of this problem. Most of what's out there is natural

gas until you get to the deep water. The Thunderhorse, (the biggest floating platform in the world)

in Mississippi Canyon, is expected to produce 250,000 thousand barrels per day by itself. It's

pretty much only about the MONEY. A lot of drilling being done on the shelf, too. 20 years out?

Who knows.

[Gomer Pylot]

It may be barrels, or gallons. I just copied and pasted. There is certainly a lot of oil being produced now, but the projection is for currently protected areas, which will take a lot of time to build infrastructure and then drill, and then produce. There are no boats, no mud facilities, no nothing right now. The last time I checked, there was a shortage of boats in the GOM, and that's a big obstacle in itself. I don't doubt there will be some driling, and eventually some production, but I question how many helicopters will be required and how soon. Nobody is going to start ordering boats, drilling rigs, or helicopters based on the possibility that some areas might open up. I think it will take several years optimistically, if it even happens.

Edited July 5, 2008 by Gomer Pylot