Wednesday April 25 2012 | the times
8
Power of Scotland
Cover story
Steady hand with keen
Helix Well Ops is no stranger to stormy waters but has mastered them to gain a pivotal role in the subsea sector, finds Ginny Clark
T
he deep, churning water of the North Sea does not give up its treasure easily. Of course, it is no longer just the chase for shoals of silver that pits man against such a treacherous environment; now, the relentless pursuit of black gold has created not only a new offshore battlefront, but the engineering and technology necessary to grapple with it, and a whole new breed of worker to attempt to command it. In addition to key elements such as innovation and skill, it is the grittier qualities such as bravery and tenacity that have also come to define Scotland’s oil and gas industry, and the men and women who work within it. Hardly surprising, then, that Europe’s oil capital now has such a global reputation for producing — and exporting — talented people, genuine industry leaders. Helix Well Ops, the Aberdeen-based company that has driven the market for subsea well intervention, and now domi-
Last year we made our first foray out of the North Sea, opening up the market in Africa
nates it, is a prime example. Strong, sleek, dynamic and powerful, the stars of the Helix Well Ops show are undoubtedly their hardy fleet, the MSV Seawell and Well Enhancer. Both are purpose-built well intervention and saturation diving vessels, with the Seawell, launched in 1986, in operation since 1987, and the bigger and more recently-launched Well Enhancer, in operation since 2009. However, it’s not just the intrepid Seawell that has been on a long, hard journey over the past 25 years or so. Helix Well Ops, as a company, is also much travelled. At the time of Seawell’s launch, the proud owners were Stena Offshore, later becoming Coflexip-Stena and then Technip through a series of mergers. Following a sale of the Seawell to Houston based company Cal-Dive International in 2002. the business became Well Ops UK. With Cal-Dive then rebranded as Helix four years ago, Helix Well Ops UK remains as a business unit within the Helix Energy Solutions Group. So yes, the branding may have changed, along with the ownership, but some things have remained consistent for this global leader in rigless well intervention. Each time the business moved on, the assets also changed hands, and that meant not only the Seawell, but the workforce too. Most of this small band had worked the vessel since the early 1990s, some even from the start of Seawell’s life in the late 1980s. Steve Nairn, vice-president of Helix Well Ops UK, believes this wealth of
experience and expertise not only forms the DNA of the Aberdeen business, but also its heart. “The key to the success of our business lies with our people,” says Nairn. “Most of our clients recognise our core strengths are, of course, that we provide a good service but also that we are a steady ship; we have experienced and longstanding staff. The senior management team here, and also some of those in Houston, all worked on Seawell in the 1990s.” That grounding, the strong sense of teamwork, has been essential to the development of Helix Well Ops. It has helped it through the challenges, along with the celebrations. Highly-skilled engineers and technicians they may be, but the Helix Well Ops management have also been part of a crew. “For the first two years we barely broke even but the next few were very good for us,” continued Nairn. “At first we only had half-year utilisation; they were tough times. However, once we started to win the longer contracts, things began to pick up for us. We’ve seen a lot of change. To put some perspective on it, we used to have around a dozen staff onshore and a similar number offshore, plus a lot of sub-contracted workers. Now, we have 80 onshore and 300 offshore. “Another aspect of our business that makes us unique is that we employ all those offshore workers. Before, and as is still the case in many parts of this industry, the majority of work would be done by sub-contracted staff. However, a cou-
ple of years ago we decided it would be better to employ all our offshore staff; it gives our workers a better sense of ownership in our projects, and productivity is better, and because of good utilisation we can carry a high level of workforce.” To help exploit the year-round utilisation, Helix Well Ops commissioned a new vessel in 2009, the Well Enhancer, to work alongside Seawell. However, expanding the fleet was not enough, and Helix Well Ops have also begun to expand their horizons. “Due mainly to the North Sea weather, winters can be lean,” explains Nairn. “So last year we made our first foray out of the North Sea, opening up the market in Africa, with a contract for Exxon Mobil.” The three-month campaign in west Africa was the area’s first well intervention and subsea well operation to be carried out from a monohull intervention vessel, and it was also the deepest operation conducted from Well Enhancer. The waters west of Africa are being developed fast, and the value that vessel-based operations — as opposed to rig-based work — can offer Helix Well Ops’ clients is clearly significant. This is because Seawell and Well Enhancer can deploy much more quickly than a rig, and as they are specifically designed for well intervention, this means any down time on the well is reduced, allowing the client to resume operations more swiftly and get back to the demanding business of oil or gas production. Speed, and the resulting cost savings,