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PETROLEUM DIRECTORY: Offshore Divers works subsea
for oil and gas industry in Alaska With underwater prowess and experience, Offshore Divers repairs anchor systems, fixes docks, finds cracks in pipelines and more By Dawnell Smith PNA Contributing Writer
Whether welding a dock or looking for leaks in a gas pipeline, Offshore Divers proves its mettle as a commercial hard hat diving company and marine contractor that handles anything from routine repairs or isolated emergencies.
When necessary, the company’s crew of divers can respond to a call in hours. A few years ago, a crew from Offshore Divers got to the site of a plane crash near Tanana in just six hours and found the plane and pilot, completed their work and returned to Anchorage with their gear within 26 hours.
That commitment to around the clock service adds to Offshore Divers’ package of services, but the company’s primary work involves regular maintenance and repairs for the oil and gas industry.
In fact, Offshore Divers has probably completed more underwater welds in Alaska in the last two years, than all of its competitors combined, according to Don Ingraham, area manager for the Alaskan owned and operated company.
With a crew of a dozen or more people and steadily rising revenues, the contractor has bolstered its client base since it started business in 1998. Last year, gross revenues hit about $1.5 million, almost double the previous year.
Though the company does most of its work in Valdez and Cook Inlet, it also goes to the North Slope and virtually anywhere in Alaska. Its clients include Alyeska Pipeline Service Co., Phillips Alaska Inc. and Crowley Maritime. Where industry meets the sea Over the years, Offshore has worked on docks owned by the Alaska Railroad Corp., the City of Seward, the City of Homer and other docks in Whittier, King Cove and Valdez. Just last year, the company installed and welded 28 cantilevered anode assemblies on the Port McKenzie Dock.
In a more unusual job, the company shortened two of four flukes on the 13-foot diameter propeller of a vessel damaged during ice operations. Using a hydraulic cut-off saw mounted in an adjustable jig framework, the company removed the bent blades, which in turn allowed the vessel to head to its homeport in the Far East.
Unique and varied projects make things interesting, but the company makes its bread and butter doing projects like its work installing and removing large three-legged anchor systems in water more than 300 feet deep.
Since these anchor systems have 40,000 to 60,000 anchors at the end of each stud-link anchor chain leg and each chain link weighs about as much as a truck bumper, the work requires focus and skill. Moreover, most of these projects take place in late fall or midwinter when the weather gets treacherous and the daylight scarce.
Nevertheless, these elaborate anchor systems require regular maintenance, which involves replacing worn chain sections and limited life components like shackles and stainless steel safeties. Usually, Offshore Divers uses two to three vessels for these jobs, though the primary work gets done on a vessel with a 150-ton double-drum waterfall type winch. Finding and filling the cracks On rare occasions every three to five years, Offshore Divers provides magnetic particle crack detection through its nationally certified Level III non-destructive testing technician.
The company will complete a project of this type this summer, but it more routinely performs underwater flooded member tests and takes thickness readings on the subsea structural members and pipelines of the production platforms in the Cook Inlet.
The results of these tests get compiled into detailed inspection reports with as-built CAD structural drawings, photographs, cathodic potential readings and thickness, flooded member and daily, dive and vessel logs. Together, this information identifies findings and provides recommendations.
Other routine non-destructive test methods include “blackwater photography” and tactile structural examinations.
Using some of these methods, Offshore Divers located a pipeline leak in 150 feet of water last winter in Cook Inlet. To repair the leak the crew exposed and cleaned the pipe section and then installed a Plidco clamp (used worldwide for subsea pipe repairs) torqued to specification. The company is to do two more repair projects this summer. Plying the inlet on Sand Island Offshore Divers performs virtually all of its Cook Inlet work on a vessel called the Sand Island, an 80-foot offshore rescue and supply vessel originally built to ABS and USCG standards.
Now retrofitted and outfitted for Alaska diving operations and conditions, the Sand Island contains a deep air diving system, a hydraulic deck crane rated at 11,000 pounds, an electric/hydraulic deck winch with a single line pull of 25,000 pounds and a hydraulic manifold setup for flow and pressure control that adjusts for different underwater hydraulic tools.
In addition, the vessel has a multi-stage pump for supplying medium pressure water to a “blackwater camera” system developed specifically for shooting both underwater still photos and video pictures of critical structural welds on the platforms and pipelines located in Cook Inlet. With all of its refinements, the Sand Island allows Offshore Divers to travel to a dock or location running against the tide.
“This makes it more efficient for clients, as slack tides are not wasted for vessel travel,” Ingraham explained. Wet suit and knife won’t hack it “The public’s view of diving seems to visualize a ‘Lloyd Bridges’ guy type outfitted in a wet suit with scuba gear and a large knife located as far as possible from the diver’s hands, “ Ingraham said.
That image goes against what Offshore Divers stands for as a professional commercial diving company. Instead, the company considers scuba gear risky due to its limited air supply and lack of a means of communication. Instead, Offshore Divers requires specialized commercial diving equipment, training and techniques. The company uses three-man crews as per OSHA and the USCG and has MEL insurance coverage, which is basically Jones Act insurance for a diver working off of a vessel in navigable waters.
Since the insurance levels required by the oil and gas companies in Alaska generally exceed government contract requirements, few diving contractors have both the insurance and expertise to work in Cook Inlet or Valdez for the oil and gas industry.
Offshore Divers has both, which explains why it has done work for companies like BP Alaska, VECO and Alaska Petroleum Contractors.
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