Drilling Company Comparisons

I have worked for Seadrill for nearly 3 years. We do have wireless internet on board, phone usage, and Sat TV.

We get a 8% dollar for dollar match on 401k, and you are fully vested at day 1.
Our health insurance is provided “family coverage” through Cigna at no cost to the employee.
We get paid training,
All travel is taken care of.
Retention Bonus
Salary is pretty much in line with the other major drilling companies

[QUOTE=Capt. Phoenix;68826]Do you guys have wifi on the ship? If so, is it decent bandwidth?

What about phone use offshore?[/QUOTE]

@ PDC

Wifi is very limited for personal use. It gets the job done. Phones usually take priority, then server (ship/shore) allocation, then ship’s business, ie. ship’s computers for department heads, and personal wifi usage gets what’s left. One good thing, just approved, but not yet implemented…a new system will be installed in the next month where all personnel will receive a personal Wifi cell phone with 10 minutes free usage per day. If you do not use the 10 minutes, it can be reallocated.

As far as how PDC compares to the rest, I have no way to determine that, but I cannot imagine a better atmosphere. We have a very good management team where all personnel are respected and driven to succeed.

Certainly, if the company has Norwegian, Swedish or Danish roots then you’ll get the world on a platter. STENA is the creme del la creme from what I have heard. The closer you get to Houston and the old school companies, you’ll get enough for the company to be able to attract the people they need. Again, Noble is one which feels that just enough is all they need offer and so far it has worked for them. They’ll change but only as much as they must and it will be slow in coming. Still, I’ve said before that they are an entry into the industry and that can be quite valuable in the long run but you never hear of people leaving other drilling companies to go work for Noble unless they get forced there out of circumstances. With Frontier it was a different story because they offered more than anybody else in the US. When Noble bought Frontier most everybody bailed to other companies, I stayed because of the promotion I got and do not regret that at all. They’re very good as a stepping stone.

One other thing that sucks about Noble which I didn’t put in my original list is that they make you wear these hideous yellow coveralls which make everybody look fat. The original blue was so much more flattering.

I think they make fat people look fat, just doesn’t hide it as good. That’s about as far as I get on the feminine side! No further comments on how colors look on oilfield workers.

YELLOW coveralls??
They issued me PINK ones! WTF!

I thought ENSCO had the worst reputation, not Noble.
Also have heard horror stories coming from Diamond’s Brasil division…

[QUOTE=richard8000milesaway;68904]YELLOW coveralls??
They issued me PINK ones! WTF![/QUOTE]

Ewww…you have my sincerest sympathies. Nice now to be back in my Dickies khaki pants and button down short sleave shirt aboard. Also very nice not have the one Stop Card a day nonsense either. I do so much more like an “offshore support ship” as opposed to a “drillship”. The difference is like being able to breath again. Nice too when the money isn’t a big climb down but I know that was just Noble’s below average pay. If I had come from anyone else I would have had to eat a big cut. That alone is why the other companies are better than Noble. Why work for so much less than the guys doing the exact same job on the drillship in the next field over? Anyone note how huge Noble’s profits were last quarter? Seems they could toss a few bucks more towards their hands and pay for a crewchange shuttle.

sheesh, how cheap can a company get?

[QUOTE=richard8000milesaway;68906]I thought ENSCO had the worst reputation, not Noble.
Also have heard horror stories coming from Diamond’s Brasil division…[/QUOTE]

On the DP semis they don’t have marine hands which does suck but I have a feeling that they treat the drillships much better. Remember that those ships all came from Pride and still have mostly Pride people managing them.

Rowan also appears to be setting up their deepwater division right from the start. I know that alot of their key managers are ex GSF people and I always heard good things about that operation.

[QUOTE=anchorman;68899]I think they make fat people look fat, just doesn’t hide it as good. .[/QUOTE]

I saw photos of myself in my banana suit which made me look a portly 250# instead of the svelte 200# I am. And yellow just makes one’s complexion look just god awful. Like I said, the blue they had was really quite nice and nautical. Frontier’s orange sucked but it was better than yellow. At least red or orange look more professional.

Yellow also just gets so damned dirty so quickly and another think about my ship was the clean clothes in the messdeck rule was never even considered to be enforced by the rig manager. I tried but the pushback was more than a mere master could overcome…aw the power of the drilling hands. What a bunch of effing slobs!

Top Payers:
1.Grupo R
2.Sevan
3.Songa (if you can make it to your retention)
4.Odebrecht
5.I like to call this my fab five: Seadrill, Pacific, Maersk, Dolphin Drilling, Odjfell. All are in the general same area with pay and benefits.

Bottom Feeders: Everyone knows!

One more, if your a real rock star and know someone that can get you in: OCS (working for CNOOC/COSL as a consultant on their newbuild semi) The pay is at least 10% higher than Grupo R. Full Fare Business Class Tickets, etc, etc…

Does Grupo R, Sevan, Songa, Odebrecht, normally hire American officers?

Yes they do. Its harder to get on with any of them if you do not have any drilling experience. And it helps if you know someone already in the company and what recruiting agencies do their hiring. I am American and have had offers from most of those.

Was there any reason you didn’t accept any of those offers? Does any kind of foreign language ability help?

Sometimes, you have to look at the bigger picture. I enjoy where I work now, I have an excellent crew, there is plenty of advancement. I am making in the top 5. I also work in Nigeria, which in turn puts my salary and tax benefits within the top 3 payers. So, that is why I would have turned down positions from some of those companies. Another language would help with Odebrecht, Etesco, Sete Brasil (when they start hiring), pretty much any of the Brazilian companies. But its not a deal breaker by any means. To work in the Norwegian OCS you need to speak Norwegian and you would benefit with a 2 on 4 off schedule.

Thanks for the info, these are companies I plan on pursuing if I go into the drilling sector. Damn, that 2 on 4 off makes me want to start learning Norwegian now. The drilling industry seems to offer the best opportunities as far as pay, and rotations go and something that I’m going to give a hard look at once I graduate.

[QUOTE=CaptRob1;68821]One of the good things able Noble is that they can hire someone without 0 days drilling rig experience, as where some companies require a certain amount of time on the rigs.[/QUOTE]

Wish I can make it there…

[QUOTE=Capt. Phoenix;68743]There is a lot of talk on here about different OSV companies’ pay rates but no one ever discusses drilling companies.

I think the most useful information would be a comparison of benefits: 401k contribution, health benefit quality, short term and long term disability quality, perks like use of high bandwidth internet and satellite phone, and anything else worth noting.[/QUOTE]

I have been with Seadrill for almost 4 years. It has been a significantly different working for a drilling contractor compared to OSV’s. First the pay and schedule is much better. There is a reason the pay is more. You earn every penny of it. I would think that the health benefits are pretty standard, but the difference with Seadrill is they completely pay for all health, dental, optical, Short and Long term disability. There is no monthly premium for the employee. You can call home when you need to. The internet is available to everyone. It is not high speed cable, but it gets the job done. The thing I have been most impressed with out of everything is the training and training pay. I have always been one to take every course I could. Even when I had to pay for it myself. When I came to the drilling side I embraced the training matrix and took advantage of all the training offered. Now four years into it, I have come to the conclusion that 3-5 weeks of my off time for the remainder of my career will be spent in some type of training or course for work. I can deal with it, because it is still better than the 280 days I was working and then attending training. I would guess well over 300 days a year I was gone several years of my career before coming to the drilling side. Travel is completely covered. My position even gets business class travel for any travel over 5 hours. There is a performance bonus for some of the senior positions, Driller and up, that is target 12-18% of base pay. This gets paid out annually. 401K is a significant dollar for dollar match up to 8%. I am really loving this, especially considering I think about these things more than I used to. I would work for just about anyone if the pay, benefits and equipment were good, but I do like working for Seadrill and hope to be here for many years to come. Below is a list of who I would work for if I had a choice. If I had no job and was hungry I would even work for Noble. From what I hear Noble has kept the lights on for many mariners, never burn bridges.

  1. Seadrill
  2. Grupo R
  3. Songa
  4. Pacific
  5. Transocean
  6. Vantage
  7. Ensco
  8. Atwood
  9. Rowan
  10. Stena

[QUOTE=c.captain;68998]I honestly do not believe that a non Norwegian (or at least Scandinavian) can legally even work in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea.[/QUOTE]

I agree with that, also. First off a gringo speaking Norwegian seems pretty far fetched in itself. The galley hands working in the north sea are pulling six figures. They will never let us in on that gold mine.

I have worked with Americans and UK guys who have worked in the North Sea Norwegian Sector, and most have told me that If you dont speak Norge than it is very difficult and you will feel like an outsider. I first thought that it was like the GOM, but there are some outsiders who have worked in the Norwegian OCS.