From the Gulf of Mexico to Washington DC . . . and Back By Gary Gibbs
When Phoenix International, Inc. (Phoenix) was founded in 1997, the company consisted of nine employees. The majority of them lived in Louisiana, and had early and extensive backgrounds in the Oil & Gas sector working underwater projects throughout the Gulf of Mexico (GoM). At its inception, Phoenix competed for and won a US Navy contract to provide diving services, underwater ship repair, and related engineering. The founders were all involved in and committed to support of this contract. In the last nine years, Phoenix has expanded from this small cadre to over 200 people working in six locales. Phoenix continues to hold the Diving Services contract, and has added the Navy’s multi-year Undersea Operations contract under which we maintain and operate Navy owned equipment used to conduct search and recovery missions to water depths of 20,000 feet. Phoenix is also the maintenance and operations Prime Contractor for the Navy’s next generation submarine rescue system. In response to these and other government contracts, Phoenix has built a highly capable, multidisciplinary engineering design staff. Among
a series of current projects, we are designing a portable, fly-away saturation diving system for Navy use, and a diver assisted underwater inspection system for taking ultrasound thickness measurements within sea chests of varying diameters. Having parlayed our early oilfield expertise into a healthy government business, Phoenix is extending a path back into the oilfield sector; a market diversification effort to help secure a viable future. Preparations for oilfield activities started in late 2002 by negotiating service agreements with the smaller independents. Shortly thereafter, Phoenix began conducting shallow water, conventional diving operations to fill the slack periods in our government and commercial work schedules. By the time Hurricanes Ivan, Katrina, and Rita rampaged through the Gulf, our dynamic, young underwater services company was ready and able to assist in assessing and repairing the extensive damage caused by these storms. We added the HardSuit™ Atmospheric Diving System (ADS) to our diving equipment inventory in 2003. The HardSuit™ is
manufactured in Vancouver, British Columbia by Oceanworks International. Commercially, the HardSuits™ gave us a 1,200-foot depth capability. The suits were primarily used to support subsea tree installation and platform inspection programs. The ADS soon proved to be the diving method of choice for us in water depths below 200-feet, yet they see considerable use in shallower waters. In addition to completely eliminating the requirement for decompression, the HardSuits™ physically protect the diver / pilot from most common traumatic injuries. In the subsea environment in which we operate, the HardSuit™ has proven to be a welcome addition to our already stringent safety program. Our return to working in the oilfield has not been without some frustration. In 2005 we were launching our Subsea Projects Group in Houston, Texas and operating one of the largest dynamically positioned ROV support vessels in the GoM, the 450-foot converted cable ship M/V BOLD ENDEAVOR with an installed 200 horsepower Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV). After Hurricane Ivan swept through the eastern portion of the 33