Marine services company identifies prevalent offshore challenges
By Ariana Hurtado, Editor and Director of Special Reports
From well intervention advances to the industry skills gap, the offshore sector is attempting to overcome an array of challenges and evolve during the energy transformation.
Louisiana-based C-Innovation (C-I) is a marine services company that specializes in subsea technologies and services, providing project management, intervention services, light construction/IMR, engineering support, vessels, ROVs/AUVs, surveys and tooling.
C-I subject matter experts (SMEs) George Wilson and Shaun Lazenby shared their insights with Offshore about the current challenges and solutions plaguing the sector and highlighted some of the company’s latest technology developments.
“We are cognizant that we need to work smarter with what we have and adapt to new ways of doing things,” Wilson said.
Wil
son is the riserless light well intervention (RLWI) project manager for the Island Venture vessel. He started the RLWI activities for C-I with bp and Shell in 2019, and he continues to concentrate full time on those efforts today.
“Artificial intelligence is something that is going to be making a big impact in our industry, particularly in the realm of data collection,” he added. “The more data we collect will allow us to make even smarter decisions. The automation that we are putting in place is going to have tremendous benefits in the long run. The challenge will be adapting to fit it into existing ways of working.”
Wilson touts that C-I has developed two RLWI technologies for the oil and gas industry over the past two years:
- The ability to access the well to perform well interventions when there is no vertical access through the company’s well service jumper offering; and
- Being able to perform stimulations on sub-ambient wells.
“We have also achieved a lot of industry firsts in wireless light well tooling, such as perforations and loggings,” he added.
Lazenby said Brazil is likely the company’s next expansion focus for RLWI services. “There is a lot of up-and-coming new players in Brazil now,” he said.
Lazenby is commercial manager and provides commercial support throughout the project life cycle, from initial client engagement to tendering, contracting and operational execution. He also analyzes the current market to develop strategies for growth and identify new opportunities.
Great crew change
Wilson also noted personnel challenges being prevalent in the industry today.
“Finding suitable personnel with experience is a continual challenge,” he said. “A lot of people left the industry in the downturn. Some are coming back, but a lot are not coming back.”
He said their goal is to get new generations interested in the industry and trained, which he acknowledged takes years, especially in the light well intervention space. Additionally, C-I is spending extra time addressing quality plans with its subcontractors based on issues observed in its supply chains.
To address these challenges, Wilson said C-I is working on developing personnel and bringing them up through the ranks from within to boost staff retainment.
“They may start off as an ROV pilot, progress to an ROV supervisor or an OM on the boat and then we have some who move into the office starting out as a project coordinator and progressing to a project manager,” he explained. “We are growing organically, but it takes a long time. On the quality side, we have increased oversight, auditing and engagement efforts with our subcontractors. We always had those processes in place, but we now need to take a more proactive approach than ever before.”
C-I is recruiting people with experience that may not be industry-specific and training them in house on the industry specific aspects of the job. Experienced people in the C-I office can train new recruits in the industry and work to fill those skills gaps. The company has recruiters that attend job fairs and colleges across the US, and C-I also uses the Military Staffing Agency in Houston to fill positions.
“Everyone you ask now is going to say the most challenging element of doing business today is managing resources,” Lazenby added. “Through expanding our presence in the western hemisphere, we have experienced contractual challenges in working in different regions. There is lots of different importation, exportation and logistics barriers to entry that consumes a great deal of time and resources.”
Higher vessel utilization
According to Lazenby, there also will be more equipment challenges to come.
“In late 2022 and early 2023, the renewable industry helped us tremendously, because it took a lot of the vessels to the northeast US,” he said. “As a result, there were fewer vessels available on the market. With not enough of us to go around, everybody who has an asset is able to work it regardless of whether it is the best asset for the job; this is generating innovative solutions in the market. As a result, we are seeing higher vessel utilization in all areas.”
In addition, C-I’s remote survey services, offered by its in-house survey company C-Survey, is an initiative that Lazenby says is now a widely used concept offered by multiple contractors.
“It essentially allows subsea survey tracking to be monitored from our remote survey operations center in Mandeville, Louisiana,” he said. “The high-speed internet on our vessels provided by Starlink allows for an array of survey services to be performed onshore. This offers multiple benefits to C-I and our clients, including reducing HSE exposure and carbon footprint of the operations.”
06.16.2023
