SEPTEMBER 2002 NEWSLETTER

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In the current market one could almost understand the disposal of the smaller vessels because their use would be limited to jack-up moving but the new VS483s are a different matter. These two vessels are the largest of the Seacor fleet and even though they are seen in the North Sea as being economy models they are still fairly potent vessels. Nomis has also appeared to have made a good purchase. The Stirling Sirius and Spica were the Shell chartered anchor-handlers for 15 years which speaks volumes for the suitability of the design.

Meanwhile some of the older Seacor vessels in the North Sea have been converted into Standby Vessels and have joined the Boston Putford fleet. 

All shipowners say that their fleets are for sale at the right price, and this flurry of disposals may be no more than that. If so we would expect Seacor to be placing an order for something somewhere soon.      

The British newspapers could make a good headline out of this item, but we have avoided it, and while it is not strictly oil industry stuff, it is big for the port of Aberdeen.

After heaven knows how long the P&O have lost the contract to provide a passenger ferry service to the northern isles. And for those who think Aberdeen is a long way north you have to go another twelve hours by ferry to get to Lerwick. 

The new service providers are Northlink whose origins lie with Caledonian Macbrain who already provide inter-island services in the western isles and between the islands in the Orknies and the Shetland Islands. They have had three ferries constructed in Finland and have purchased a second hand cargo ferry whose purpose is essentially to take the stuff which cannot be transported on the vehicle decks of the car ferries.  So on the 30th October the St Clair, the St Sunniva and the St Rognvald ceased to ply the route northward and the Hjatland and its sisters took up the service.

The St Sunniva is off the Egypt to be re-incarnated as something else, and she may be remembered as the Panther plying the route between Dover and Calais back in the 70s, and the St Clair is apparently to be used on a new service between the Faeroes and Aberdeen.

Meanwhile a number of entrepreneurs have seen an opportunity for competition in the carriage of freight probably because the new company set its rates a bit high, thinking they had the upper hand. A new service using the old St Rognvald (pronounced Ronald) and another larger freight ferry has started up between Aberdeen and points north and there is heavy competition on the routes across the Pentland Firth to Orkney. Meanwhile Streamline continue to operate their container service to the north with the cargo ship Naviga.

As a result of all this activity Aberdeen is almost as full of ferries as Piraeus, and supply vessels on the spot market have to anchor out in the bay because there is no room for them on Blakies Quay.  Northlink have responded to the competition by lowering their vehicle rates which may have come as a bit of a shock to the opposition, and  we on the sidelines wait to see how it is all going to go in the next twelve months.     

This is not a BP newsletter - honestly! But more BP news. After weeks of rumour BP have declared the fact that they are moving from Peterhead to Aberdeen. Although we had heard the rumours we were doubtful about the possibility. After all - where would they put the ships we reasoned. The port is already full. 

We had reckoned without the developments at Albert Quay which was formerly the scenic resting place for fifty or so non-operational fishing boats. Traditionally the fishermen would bring their craft up the harbour and when they got to Albert Quay they would turn left and elbow their way between the boats already tied up until they could get a line ashore forward. They would then stop the engine and pile into their people carrier which would take them home to Macduff, Portsoy or Hopeman. We should have known. All the boats have gone to Peterhead, and Albert Quay has been dredged and upgraded.

Of course in this world when there are winners there are also losers and the winner in the fishing competition has been Peterhead - the loser in the BP competition. The howls of pain from the oil related businesses in Peterhead echo those of the businesses in Dundee when BP left Shed 16 twenty or so years ago. Of course one of the casualties is the concept of the integrated transport service. When the possibility was first muted by Asco in 1990 odd we questioned the idea (This article reproduced on the site) basically because it would be so difficult for an integrated service to deal with hot shots. And so it has proved. Of course Asco and others have raised the levels of efficiency of the operation in general, but once these lessons are learnt they cease to be a commercial advantage. Everybody can use them, and doubtless BP will. 

The HSE on line magazine Offshore Research Focus provides some background this month into the interest of some inspectors in the 10,000 year storm. What!! you may exclaim - the 10,000 year storm!

Well QRA "Quantitative Risk Analysis" looks at numbers and time-lines. It indicates that we British have a slightly higher chance of being struck by lightning than winning the national lottery, and it allows a calculation to be made which determined the likelihood of survival of people at work. In UK the HSE like to see that people will have more than 1 x 10-3 chances of survival at work. This means that an individual can expect to be able to be at work for 1000 years before accidentally being killed. 

We should consider here that the average oil rig is designed to be able to survive the 100 year storm, which in QRA terms is every other day. But if proper precautions are taken and with sufficient warning we would all expect that the 100 year storm could be dealt with. As for the 10,000 year storm, in addition to knowing what the management of the average oil rig is going to do, the government might want to know what Swindon Council has in mind. The last time there was a major storm in the West Country the population was endangered by flying roof tiles, and pedestrians were injured by speeding baby-buggies with the babies still in them. One assumes that next time there will  be television advertisments warning mothers about the dangers of taking their babies out in 100 mile an hour winds. 

It was 13,000 years ago that civilisation as we know it first took root in the fertile crescent between the Tigris and the Euphrates, probably imortalised by the Bible as the Garden of Eden, and it was some time after that, that Noah and the animals ended up in the Ark. Was that a 10,000 year storm or a 1000 year storm? It is now 25,000 years since the last Ice Age.  Should we be considering the possibility of the rigs being iced into the North Sea. It has after all happened before.

It seems to me that since one can hardy make an issue of the figures if we assume that this 10,000 year storm would be the end of our theoretical oil rig, there must be something wrong with the requirement to carry out the QRA and to do anything about it when the results are not in our favour. If the 10,000 year storm would result in the loss of our theoretical rig then it would also result in the loss of all the rigs in the North Sea. And worse, it would result in the loss of all the flimsy structures we call houses. They are after all just bricks balanced one on top of another. And to have a chance of survival all the ships in all the ports would have to put to sea . And as for flying helicopters - forget it!

Come to think of it, if we battened down the hatches an oil rig might not be such a bad place to be. 

The Energy Day recently reported that there were 12-14 rigs in the Cromarty Firth and that the number was shortly to increase, and ever since Mr Brown announced the new oil tax the predicted number of exploration rigs in the Cromarty Firth has been predicted as being 20.

The current total number of rigs in the Cromarty Firth is six, although there are also a couple in Belfast a couple in Rotterdam and four in Norway. Of course we have never actually used the total in Europe as a yardstick to measure the state of the oil industry, so is this different, or have there always been a few rigs which no-one wants, or which are undergoing major upgrades. When things were humming and as a consequence several rigs were in the throes of major upgrades did anybody consider the effect on the market if they were brought back into play.  Is the fact that the average day rate for a rig move is now £11,000 and this time last year it was £24,000 due to the fact that things are not as busy as they were last year, or due to the fact that a large number of vessels have arrived on the market. 

But we try not to discuss money. Its easier to deal with the 10,000 year storm. 

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