Drilling advances

Many of us painfully remember that best-forgotten stretch during the 1980s, when the “Big Crew Change” meant drilling engineers transitioned from designing wells to asking, “You want some fries with that?”

With apologies to Bob Dylan, we are all keenly aware that the times most definitely have been “a changing.” Certainly, over the past few years, we have been reminded ad nauseam that, owing to an ever-graying workforce, a wholesale demographic shift is afoot in our industry. Even though the global economic slump put a cruel dagger in retirement savings and left many rocking chairs unoccupied for the time being, the demand for functional bodies and brains may never have been higher. Obviously, when you juxtapose the newbuild rigs set to enter the global offshore fleet with the continual intensification of unconventional onshore activity, it becomes abundantly clear why recruiters are among the busiest folks on operator, contractor and service company payrolls.

Clear evidence of such was displayed on the floors of last month’s Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) in Houston. Perhaps memory escapes me, but in the 35-odd renditions that I have attended, I do not recall the OTC being more of a recruitment fair than it was this year. In any number of booths, interactive screens with job postings competed with marketing collateral for space. “May I have your business card? Oh, and do you by chance have a resume on you?”

Companies were not alone in the OTC recruiting competition. The U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environment Enforcement (BSEE) was out in force trying to conscript some 30 would-be inspectors for positions in Louisiana. Good luck with that one. Given the salary disparity, I would be curious to learn how many serious takers the feds may have had.

However, perhaps more so than in any past hiring binges, the stakes today go well beyond simply getting a candidate to sign on the dotted line, especially when said new hire is joining an offshore rig crew. The well-documented tightening of HSE regulations increases the onus on operators, contractors and service companies, alike, to ensure that the personnel they send offshore are fully versed in all things safety. In April, BSEE released its final safety and environmental management systems (SEMS), which became effective this month and require operators to submit their first completed SEMS audit by Nov. 15. Among the stipulations, the SEMS regulations further empower rig hands and add weight to companies’ internal stop work authorizations. The challenge, however, is to make sure that newly hired crew members have the wherewithal to identify what is a potentially hazardous situation.

With accommodations at a premium, on-the-job training is not an option for new offshore crew. Alternatively, training centers have taken on a university-like ambiance, featuring the most advanced high-tech gadgets, and designed to give new employees a reasonably realistic impression of what they will face offshore. One of the latest such facilities to be unveiled is Diamond Offshore Drilling’s $10-million Offshore Technology Center in Houston, which comes complete with state-of-the art simulators that mimic the working environment on an offshore rig. “We talk about the number of rigs, the day rates and the investment, but none of that works without people—trained people,” Diamond CEO Lawrence Dickerson told The Houston Chronicle.

Onshore not immune. While offshore HSE issues grab most of the attention, the onshore is certainly not exempt, particularly considering that all too often, the oil experience of new rig hands is limited to pouring the occasional can of 10W-30 into their vehicle. Take for instance the duly elected sheriff of Dunn County, N.D. He recently handed in his badge, saying it was more to his economic benefit to drive a truck in the Bakken/Three Forks shale.

The North Dakota Workplace Safety and Insurance agency, after conducting a root cause analysis of 13 oilfield-related fatalities in the Bakken during its 2012 fiscal year, speculated that new hires may need additional real-world training. After concluding that 80% of all oilfield-related injuries or worse occurred during the first year of employment, the state agency said it would provide a $148,000 grant to improve safety awareness for new employees.

The private Dakota Maximizing Enterprise Performance (MEP) has since teamed up with the North Dakota Petroleum Council and the state agency, with a hands-on workshop, where experienced hands work directly with new field employees. Saying that oilfield companies “do an excellent job” when it comes to safety training, the MEP says its focus is on actual in-the-field instruction.

“We certainly don`t talk about training by reading a book or looking at a video. This is actually hands on, where you`ve got an experienced worker or supervisor training another person, but training them the right way,” Dakota MEP Director Randy Schwartz told Bismarck’s KFYR-TV.

They could begin by teaching new hires from Louisiana, South Texas and other temperate climates how to navigate snowy North Dakota roads. The state agency said seven of the 13 oilfield fatalities recorded in 2012 resulted from vehicle crashes.

Meanwhile, Boston’s Lux Research in April released results of a study that has upstream and midstream companies spending upwards of $56 billion on HSE over the next 17 years, which would be a 60% jump from the current $35 billion expenditure. Lux cited increased regulation for the higher spend. Depending, of course, on the activity level in 2030, how much the industry will collectively spend to ensure its workers remain safe is anybody’s guess. Unfortunately, what is not so difficult to predict is the cost of doing otherwise.