COMPANY PROFILE
2014
Atlantica Tender Drilling
+60 3-8659 8288 | www.sapuraacergy.com
Into the golden triangle Editorial: Colin Chinery
Directed from its Texas base Atlantica Tender Drilling designs, fabricates and operates safe and efficient tender drilling units. And with its main market outlined by the South Atlantic’s Golden Triangle, the fast expanding global specialist has now made a significant and potentially key footprint in Brazil.
Atlantica is the ancient continent that millions of years ago connected parts of West Africa and Eastern South America. At its shortest point, 1600 miles of ocean now separates these land masses, and for Atlantica Tender Drilling the deep seabed of this
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Golden Triangle topped by the Gulf of Mexico, is its primary marketing area. Houston-based Atlantica (formerly Bassdrill) designs, fabricates and operates safe and efficient tender drilling units, currently managing and part-
owning one tender drilling barge operating off the coast of West Africa, and another off Brazil - the semi tender ‘Beta’, under contract to Petrobras, bound for its P-61 tension leg wellhead platform (TLWP) in the Campos Basin. The Petrobras deal says Atlantica
Atlantica Tender Drilling Contracts Manager Chris Young, amounts to “a new relationship for Atlantica. “Petrobras has never used a tender assisted rig before, and it allows them to use a smaller tension leg platform (TLP) than would be the case if they had a platform rig on it.
BRAZILIAN OPPORTUNITIES “And for Atlantica it’s new in that it’s in deeper water with a semisubmersible tender rather than a barge. The traditional market for tender assisted drilling was in South East Asia, and it’s been growing in West Africa where we are getting a lot of inquiries from various operators for tender assisted rigs. “Total is our main client in West Africa and has been there a long time. But Brazil is new, and so it’s very much an opportunity for us there, and Petrobras have told us that if it works then they will be doing several more.” Atlantica offers cost-effective solutions to the offshore drilling market with tender assist designs, used to drill on platforms where
space and safety issues restrict the use of traditional platform rigs; its target market, oil companies with weight-bearing wellhead platforms serving multiple wells that can only be accessed by either a platform rig or a tender assist. “The whole justification for tender assisted rigs is that you have just the mast sitting on the platform, which means the platform can be smaller and less expensive,” says Young. In developing these designs Atlantica has the advantage of a core management team vastly experienced in the fabrication and operation of modular offshore rigs an expertise resulting in the creation of well-designed vessels, effective equipment packages; rigs that are safe, efficient and economical. With tender barge Alpha operating, and tender semi Beta about to be deployed, and two additional vessels already ordered – the Gamma, scheduled for delivery next spring, and the Delta, another semi-submersible tender, also due for delivery in 2015 - the company is quickly becoming a strong
competitor for state-of-the-art tender vessels. And with Norwegian private equity investor HitecVision among its backers, the company also has the financial strength to handle projects of any size; resourced and positioned for further expansion in this specialised niche market. A ‘Customer First’ ethos is one key factor driving Atlantica’s growth. Another is its highly competent and motivated teams and their ready access to cutting edge management systems. These in turn are supported by a management leadership team and the core operational values of safety, dependability, accountability, honesty, ethics, integrity, dignity, respect and personal development. Is the relationship between supplier and client closer in tender assist drilling - Atlantica and Total for example - than in conventional drilling? Director of Marketing Franck Soule is in no doubt. “Without question. If you want to succeed in this type of project you have to be very close to your client, and for a simple reason;
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you have two vessels working very close to one another and a system to harmonise their motion. So there has to be a lot of interface to manage between our equipment and the client’s platform.” A strong commitment to personnel safety always takes precedence should business priorities come into conflict, with Atlantica a firm believer in the Zero Incidents Philosophy (ZIP). ”Everyone associated with our operations is explicitly empowered with ‘stop work authority’ to suspend operations if they are uncomfortable or feel that too great a hazard exists. “In this they will be supported by management for their efforts,” says Young, who, with over 40 years of experience in the drilling industry – largely in the deep water sector - and most recently as Senior Director of Marketing-Worldwide Contracts with Pride International, joined Atlantica late last year.
CREW CHANGE Young’s pedigree characterises what has been called the ‘Great Crew Change’, the older generation of geoscientists and petroleum engineers now approaching
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retirement age, and companies scrambling to cope with a pool of potential talent too small. A recent survey by recruitment consultant, Hays, found that skills shortages are by far the main concern for oil and gas employers worldwide. “The demographics are
terrifying,” says Hays director of engineering, Greg Lettington. Young agrees – with variations. “Deep water is the growth market in offshore drilling, with companies
only skilled personnel there’s a big training effort on in the industry. These new rigs take people with different skill sets than is the case with some older rigs, and finding people is becoming tougher for everybody. “Our rigs are not really deep water rigs in the sense that they are not dynamically positioned with subsea Blowout Preventers and so forth. And that’s where there is really a shortage of people. Tender assisted rigs are on platforms with the well head at the surface. Since we aren’t involved with sub surface BOPs we are not looking for that skills set, and finding good people is simpler for us.” Global oil companies are increasingly turning to China for services and equipment, attracted by lower costs and a newly acquired expertise that is challenging more established rivals. Atlantica is no exception. “We are building our rigs in
like Transocean and Pacific building these $700m drill ships and semi submersibles. This is where the frontier is and they are making big finds. “And of course it’s sucking up a lot of people, and since they hire
China because it’s a lot less expensive. Currently the Koreans lead the world in ship building; they build quality, are highly organised and know what they are doing. “China is new to the business
“The traditional market for tender assisted drilling was in South East Asia, and it’s been growing in West Africa where we are getting a lot of inquiries from various operators for tender assisted rigs”
Atlantica Tender Drilling and doesn’t yet have the quality of the Koreans, but its progressing. It’s taken more effort on our part to get the quality right, but they’ll eventually catch up to the Koreans. “The level of detail and outfitting required for drilling rigs is pretty great and the Koreans have set up almost an assembly line. However the Chinese are now building some, and as the Koreans did, will get better as time goes on.”
DEEP WATERS With offshore oil and gas drilling moving further and deeper as energy companies seek to find sources of production in low-risk areas, Soule sees this as a long term trend with advantages for the tender assist rig segment. “The ratio between shallow water and deep water operations is still substantially weighted in favour OS_Tug&OSV-2014_ad-half_pg.pdf 1 5/15/14
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of the former. But deep water will become increasingly popular in the tender assist market because it is a way to minimise the capex in deep water compared with what is involved with subsea architecture.” Atlantica Tender Drilling emerged last year from its former name of Bassdrill as part of a larger rebranding reflecting its growing strength, and the position of the Texas- headquartered business as an increasingly global provider of tender assist drilling vessels. “The only thing that changed is the name,” says Young, “and the same people are here. Atlantica represents where we see the market - the margins on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean - and maybe in certain applications in the North Sea. That isn’t to say we wouldn’t take a job in South East Asia, but right now the Golden Triangle is our focus 4:14 PM
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