An Aberdeen firm that specialises in bringing stacked oil rigs back into use has reported worldwide growth in demand as the industry begins a recovery.
Aberdeen Drilling Consultants (ADC) said it has recently signed a master service agreement (MSA) with a supermajor and won contracts with international oil firms in the Gulf of Mexico just months after opening an office in Houston.
ADC, a 32-year old company which is exhibiting at the Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) for the first time, said onshore and offshore rig reactivation will be “huge for us”.
The company’s experience has been bolstered by the latest figures which show oil and gas rigs are being put back into use. Baker Hughes last week reported that US drillers added oil rigs for a 15th week in a row, while analysts at Simmons & Co have forecast the rising trend will continue in the next two years.
Austin Hay, president of ADC Americas, said: “The biggest area we are growing in is rig selection and rig reactivation.
“There is a huge number of very highly complex automated drilling rigs that are sitting doing nothing and they were never meant to be switched off. It should be huge for us.
“With anyone who is taking a drilling rig out of stacking they need a company like us to make sure it is fit for purpose.
“There are so many in stack it is certainly a growing market, which is great. It is a sign of better things to come.”
ADC operates in 85 countries with the likes of Apache, BP, Chevron and Repsol.
Mr Hay, who is the son of ADC’s founder and chairman Douglas Hay, admits it has been a tough few years during the downturn. Despite this the company retained its workforce of 60 and used the downtime to upskill staff.
“We haven’t downsized,” he said. “I have to be honest it has been really difficult and expensive to service.
“But if I get rid of all my people, all the money I’ve spent on training and the investment I’ve made in them, I’d have nothing apart from a nice building and business card.
“We have spent the last couple years training our specialist engineers, making them better, more competent.”
The Houston office, which is currently based in the incubator established by Scottish Development International (SDI), means ADC has access to decision makers in an industry that has been increasingly centralised in the wake of the downturn.
He said: “The last few years in particular, my clients in Malaysia and Vietnam, they are always talking about autonomy. The autonomy isn’t there any more. They have to ask head office for permission in some cases to use a company and the head office in many cases is here.
“I need to speak to the decision makers so they know who we are and what we do.”
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