Page 34: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (November 1983)

Free 26-Page 4-Color

Brochure Offered By

Mammoet Transportation

Mammoet Transport B.V. of

Amsterdam, Holland, have printed a 26-page, four-color brochure de- scribing their capabilities as a mover of heavy materials by land and sea. Mammoet's seagoing heavy-lift vessels—the "Happy" fleet—form an important link in the heavy transport chain. Off- shore platforms, refineries, water' desalination plants, chemical plants, power stations, steel facto- ries and all auxiliary heavy equip- ment are transported by these ships to all parts of the world. The ships are completely self contained and offer the following loading and discharge methods: lift-on/lift- off, roll-on7roll-off, and float-in/float- out.

For your free copy of this bro- chure illustrating many of these ships in action with unusual cargo,

Write 37 on Reader Service Card

Bendix Awarded S7-Million

Satellite Contract Add-on

Bendix Field Engineering Cor- poration, Columbia, Md., is being awarded a $7,398,648 face value increase to a cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for design and develop- ment of advanced satellite digital systems, and development, opera- tion, and maintenance of associ- ated integration and test facilities, and command and tracking facili- ties. The Office of Naval Research,

Arlington, Va. is the contracting activity. (N00014-80-C-0317).

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OFFSHORE

RESURGENCE BEGINS

By Hugh J. Kelly

President and Chief Executive Officer

Ocean Drilling & Exploration Company (EDITOR'S NOTE: Last March at a meeting of financial analysts in New Orleans, Hugh J. Kelly, president and chief executive officer of Ocean Drilling & Exploration

Company (ODECO), forecast a turnaround for the offshore drill- ing industry by early 1984 as the result of the Department of the In- terior's open lease sales scheduled for the Gulf of Mexico in May, Au- gust and November of this year. He predicted 1,000 new leases in the

Gulf of Mexico in drillable water depths by year-end. "Maritime Re- porter/Engineering News" pub- lished Mr. Kelly's predictions in the June 1 Annual Yearbook Issue.

In the following article. Mr. Kelly reports on the lease sale results to date and sees signs of a resurgence in offshore drilling.)

Our recent analysis of the rig market would indicate that we have, at last, reached the bottom of what has been the worst down- turn in the history of the business.

In mid-September, the Gulf of

Mexico has 92 out of 213 rigs idle, for a utilization rate of 52 percent, and there are 92 out of 427 rigs idle in foreign areas, for a 78 per- cent utilization rate, or a world- wide rate of 71 percent; i.e. there are 184 rigs stacked out of 640.

For several weeks now, the utili- zation rate has shown only a tiny improvement; nevertheless, it is the first time that has occurred in over 18 months. There are other signs—the customers are going out to bid on term contracts in the

Gulf and foreign areas, and the in- quiries have increased. It's noth- ing like a deluge of customer de- mand for rigs, and what I'm trying to do here is to claim I've seen the first birds flying south for the win- ter. The fundamentals are all good.

We've now had the second record- breaking lease sale in the Gulf of

Mexico, offshore Texas, and have over 1,000 new leases for drilling.

Incidentally, ODECO has 44 of those leases and actually ranked 10th of some 26 companies that participated in those sales in num- ber of tracts acquired.

I'd characterize the rig market like a man who is lying battered, bruised, bloody, flat on his back, but seriously contemplating roll- ing over and getting up on one knee. Obviously we have a long way to go before our business once again becomes profitable.

In addition to the big sales we have had here in the Gulf, the price of oil continues to remain firm and, indeed, has improved some, and the consensus on the gas surplus is that it will soon be gone. Indeed, we have evidence of this.

No need to go out and break open the champagne, though, be- cause we face the rest of this year and next year in putting back to work all those 184 idle rigs. In Au- gust, we had the offshore Texas lease sale, and there were no dis- appointments there. This sale, which covered offshore Texas, had 773 bids. There were 436 high bids, 28 bids rejected with awards on 408 tracts. In total, for the May

Louisiana and August Texas sales, there were 1,092 high bids on tracts and 1,031 leases awarded.

Of that amount, 61 were rejected, or about 5.5 percent rate of rejec- tion, even though over 60 percent of the bids submitted were single bids.

There are many new exciting plays underway, but clearly the oil play going on in the deeper waters, known as the "flexure trend," will be very important. Oil has been discovered in that trend, and com- panies are already drilling leases awarded at the May sale. All of this offers exciting possibilities for the immediate future. This has oc- curred because of Department of the Interior's policy of the "open lease sale," which permits the in- dustry, rather than the govern- ment, to select areas it believes have potential for oil and gas.

While this is good for the industry in providing opportunities for find- ing oil and gas and putting people back to work, it offers the country the first real opportunity of mak- ing a national assessment of its oil and gas reserves. 32 Write 212 on Reader Service Card Maritime Reporter/Engineering News