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PETROLEUM DIRECTORY: Offshore Divers: Maintaining offshore structures, supporting new offshore development
Susan Braund Petroleum Directory Contributing Writer
Living in zero visibility, strong tidal currents and cold temperatures requires a unique organization and crew to get the job done safely and well. Anchorage-based Offshore Divers embodies the right combination of grit, determination and business savvy to meet the challenges of diving in Alaska waters.
The magnitude, expense and risks of offshore diving projects automatically rule out fly-by-night operations. Experience is key. Offshore Divers is steeped in broad-based diving experience, logistical expertise, and realistic budgets and scheduling.
Offshore Divers is an Alaska-owned and operated commercial hard hat diving company with 24-hour response capability. The seven-year-old diving contractor is co-owned by Don Ingraham and Leif Simcox, who together have more than 50 years of commercial diving experience.
Having outgrown their midtown facility, the company recently completed building a new shop in Anchorage. “We now have room to store all of our compressors, winches and chambers indoors and also have room for an indoor diving tank, which will allow welding, NDT and DOT certification to continue during the winter,” says Simcox.
Although in the past the owners have both worked in Mexico, South America, Peru, Brazil, Egypt, New Zealand and the North Sea, most of the company’s work has been in Alaska, where their experience includes work in Southeast, the Aleutians, Cook Inlet, Kotzebue, the North Slope, the Gulf of Alaska and the Bering Sea.
The pair first worked together in 1977 during the completion of the Maui A platform in New Zealand. After working for every major diving operation in Alaska and managing several of them, Ingraham and Simcox combined their diving and management expertise to form Offshore Divers.
Leif Simcox also brings extensive credentials in underwater inspections to the business. He is a Certified Welding Inspector, holds ASNT Level III certifications in ultrasonics, mag particle, dye penetrant and visual. He is a NACE CP level 2 and is also a certified OQ evaluator and proctor for the underwater pipeline tasks.
“We’ve been involved in the majority of major diving projects in Alaska during the last 25 years,” says Simcox, “from the installation of the Steelhead and Osprey platforms in Cook Inlet, to the CIDS, SSDC and Kulluk rigs on the North Slope.”
The company’s primary work involves regular maintenance and repairs for the oil and gas industry. Routine jobs include underwater pipeline repair/replacements, installation of platforms and sub sea pipelines, cathodic protection, inspection and repair work on oil platforms, docks and bridges. The firm has also been involved in a number of larger vessel salvages throughout Alaska.
One annual job Offshore crews perform is installing and servicing the heavy anchor systems in Prince William Sound. The anchors weigh 20,000 to 40,000 pounds and are installed in up to 600 feet of water. In January 2004 a crew completely refurbished two complete systems in Valdez. Equipment: the Sand Island Most of the company’s work in Cook Inlet is conducted from the retrofitted Sand Island, a 79-foot offshore rescue and supply vessel, originally built to American Shipping Bureau and Coast Guard standards. The boat allows Offshore Divers to travel to a dock or location against the tide, which saves clients time and money. The vessel is customized for Cook Inlet diving conditions and is equipped with a Doppler current profiler, which allows the diving supervisor to view the water speed and direction simultaneously from the seafloor to the surface. “Its use provides longer and safer dives,” says Simcox. “We believe we are the only diving company in the U.S. to use the Doppler profiler for this purpose.”
Offshore was possibly also the first diving company to use Auto Cad for producing inspection reports. When experience counts “We’ve been involved in most forms of underwater intervention, from deep saturation diving to shallow-water mud diving, from one-atmosphere suits and submarines to ROVs and underwater robotics,” says Simcox. “This range of experience is invaluable when it comes time to choose the safest and most productive way to accomplish a difficult task.”
Unquestionably, Offshore has an impeccable track record, regularly demonstrating that they can do the work — frequently under budget — using proven methods and known divers.
“We’re always looking for ways to get jobs done faster and better, including our crews,” says Simcox.
According to a company brochure, an analysis of diving company job performance by a major oil company showed that on average Offshore’s jobs were completed with 30 percent less time and money than its competition.
“Half an Alaska job is the logistics,” says Ingraham. “Timing, experience and the familiarity with Alaska create the efficiencies. We often save clients money by combining jobs to minimize mobilization costs. Customers rely on us to come up with efficient methods of moving men and equipment around the state and to find local sources of materials and equipment for their projects. Another part of it is having men who know what to expect, who have worked and know what they will run into.” Safety and security Offshore has an unsurpassed diving safety record in Alaska, with a zero bends rate and no major accidents above or below the water. The company’s exemplary safety record has yielded lower insurance rates, which directly impacts customer costs.
Offshore’s insurance coverage meets or exceeds the requirements of oil and construction companies and government agencies. “Our divers and tenders are all Association of Diving Contractor International qualified, says Ingraham. The future “In terms of volume of work and non-bid contract renewals, we’ve had the best year yet,” says Ingraham. “Plus we have expanded into bonded government contracts. At the beginning of 2004 we thought it was going to be slow in the oilfield so we targeted jobs out of our normal realm. It turned out there was also lots of unforeseen work in our normal market in Cook Inlet.”
Offshore completed a number of inspections to determine the structural integrity of approximately 30 ferry terminals, docks and bridges in location from Denali to Unalaska.
“We were able to complete 100 percent of the locations simply because we were an experienced Alaska contractor,” says Ingraham. “Two diving/engineering firms from the Lower 48, who bid these same projects, could never have gotten them all inspected for our price.”
Despite lots of maybes, Offshore sees promise in 2005, providing diving support for independents interested in drilling wells in the inlet, and inspecting and decommissioning non-producing structures. “The oil and gas assets in the state are getting old, with few exceptions,” says Ingraham. “It will become a bigger and bigger job to maintain aging marine structures in Alaska.”
Editor’s note: Susan Braund owns Firestar Media Services in Anchorage, Alaska.
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