I’ve been hearing that the Gulf is picking up up again Want ads seem to confirm this, but no idea if pay is coming back or not. I have seen in print one company offering a 2 week sign on bonus.
Second hand news from a friend has it that Chouest and Harvey Gulf are offering large sign on bonuses.
Can anyone add to this? Confirm or deny?
I was job hunting a couple months ago and yeah, definately an uptick in hiring. Bonuses being offered and such.
I turned down a couple offers, and of course there was some flakiness on the other end and didn’t hear back from a couple of potential prospects as well.
As far as specifically day rates are concerned, for engineers at least, the wages I was offered are very competitive with most, if not all, tug/atb companies. I ultimately didn’t accept any offers because either even time wasn’t an option and/or travel expenses out of my pocket weren’t worth it for me to make a move.
That sounds like a smart not move. The OP is recently retired & I’m sure an extra $100k wouldn’t hurt but she would be able to walk out any time she wanted or be pink slipped at the beginning of a crunch & never give it a second thought. If anyone has a half way decent paying steady gig that they need to support the fam I wouldn’t recommend they quit that to work in the volatile GoM.
Although I eventually ended up at the same conclusion as you, the only reasons i was considering it were:
The three times I had been laid off over the last six years were with non-oilfield/osv companies, so what the hell?
But primarily, i was mostly considering it for upgrade purposes and gaining diesel electric/DP experience, which i have none. My prior OSV experience was on old 70s and 80s era boats.
I’m chief on a DE boat, love it, would never want to back to shafts, boats are exceptionally quite
I take it back, if that’s the case I would consider it but be conservative with it with an exit plan. I once took a spot job on a DP3 construction vessel with a ulterior motive of getting the experience & not just the money & it was exciting. I’ve now done it 3 times when I’m off for long periods of time & when they needed people. More skills, bells & whistles the better.
Sorry, but I am far from being retired and my “Preferred pronoun” is definitely not she. I have been in the oil patch since well before Katrina. First towing and setting jack ups then moving to the supply boats. This by no means was the start of my career. Also, I raised a family already.
Fortunately for me in all the time out here I have never been laid off. Pay reduced, perks taken, even having to miss a hitch a time or two, but never laid off.
CTony is smart for wanting to increase his experience with the technology the PSV/MPSV’s offer.
Everyone who has a brain knows that good times don’t last forever no matter what sector you are in. I look at it in this way, I can make at least 25% more(Day Rate, not annual)e for an extended period than I can towing. I can increase my skill set, thus my marketability.
When the oil field does take a down turn it is seen from a mile away by anyone watching for it. Jump back to towing then until things pick up again as it always does. You’ll never miss a pay check.
They aren’t producing Towing Masters quickly enough to fill the positions, let alone those with wire experience or those who can push heavy tows on the GICWW or rivers.
I can understand staying where you are if you are in a union and planning to retire in it’s pension program, but for non union people it is the type experience you have that keeps you from being laid off in the bad times.
Anyway, I am not bashing on anyone. I hope everyone here is in a place they want to be. But cutting off a lucrative and highly technological sector of our industry because you think it is too volatile is a very myopic view for long term success.
Sorry for the i.d mix up. Didn’t have my glasses on & the beer with low tolerance didn’t help either. Thought you were someone else.
I was fortunate during my OSV GoM time too, never laid off. I went through 4 or 5 & it was the damndest thing. People with more seniority, who were smarter, who worked harder, who had more experience & more loyalty than me would be laid off & those of us less deserving would stay? No rythm or reason to it as far as I could tell. People who drove to the office for cc would get laid off while those who drove directly to the boat would keep there jobs. Guys who answered the phone were laid off while guys who didn’t weren’t? If you were on a boat without a job at a company dock you were likely to be laid off but if your boat was tied up in Cameron, Intercoastal City or anywhere in Texas you were safe. No merit based logic to it.
If you get a dollar amount on the sign on bonuses please share it.
From a reputable source i just heard from a few days ago, Harvey is offering sign on bonuses up to 10k depending on position.
There are some fairly steady jobs on boats, but at most companies bids are won or lost, contracts come and go, industries have downturns, customers have strikes, financial distress, or whatever.
Boat companies come and go too.
The majority of jobs are not “steady jobs.” Employers use you when they need you and they lay you off when they don’t. Some employers are nice about it, some are not. Sometimes it’s predictable, sometimes it isn’t.
If the job is truly steady with little risk of layoffs, it generally pays less, often a lot less.
I laugh at these HR types that want to hire people who were at their last company for 5 years, and don’t have gaps in employment. Boat jobs are not like that. Most mariners are not like that. Most HR types cannot offer that.
If anyone has been listening to the TO and Valaris quarterly earnings calls, they expect their warm stacked rigs to be fully chartered by years end. From there, both have suggested that day rates will not support reactivating cold stacked rigs as the reactivations and upgrades will cost 50-120 million. For comparison, a warm stacked rig takes about 20 million USD to go on a job. They do not expect customers to be willing to pay for the extra cold stack reactivation costs at the present time. This could leave the drilling market to be quite a small yet profitable sector, and hopefully lucrative for those currently working offshore.
If anyone has listened to Tidewater’s earnings call, they said day rates for GoM chartered supply vessels was around 13.5 a day. If you have been watching the shipyards in south Louisiana, it looks like all companies are shuffling boats and gaming the 5 year shipyard period. Tidewater said they sold one of their newest built supply vessels because the 5 year yard period, and decided to “dispose” it to Jackson for 11 million.
If you have been watching the weekly scrapping reports, looks like they have not scrapped many rigs in the last 6 months.