A post was merged into an existing topic: Physical exams as part of shipboard employment
Having worked for Chouest in the past, i offer my humble observations.
They are masters at manipulating abs tonnage. They build and run huge ships that come in at 1599 grt. This saves them a fortune in future payroll costs. When i was there the Nathaniel Palmer (icebreaker) was their only unlimited tonnage vessel, and they swore they would never build another.
They are masters at manipulating certain people in the Navy to use their equipment instead of their own. This is actually a win win. Instead of a commissioned ship with 80 to 90 sailors chouest can do it with a converted mud boat with a crew of 13. Vessels like the Cory and the Carolyn are examples. Yes the Carolyn was built new, purpose built, but conversion back to a mud boat was certainly on the designers mind.
They have been sued many times over their labor practices, and they always lose. When i was hired I was told âwe are just country people, that treat our employees rightâ.
When i got onto the boat, i found a modern day slave ship, upholding some chouest and bayou traditions. Really? In all fairness the guys on the ship tried to emulate some good management but were stymied by the office and a high turnover rate. One quick story from the Cory, the chief mate had a timeclock in his office, when you turned out for work you punched in, when you took coffee or lunch you were expected to 'punch out" when you accrued 12 hours for the day you were allowed to knock off. The US dept of labor shut that down.
One other thing that chouest excels at is that they will build a boat for anything like oil exploration or towing a submarine but they never get too entrenched and take a stake or any risk in the endevour. They just run the boat. If it doesnt work out, the ship can be converted to sonething else.
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For the most part that is true though the Aiviq has been sitting in Tampa for quite sometime now. If the CG doesnât end up buying it she may end up being an unfortunate white elephant.
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Iâm just waiting for âG Moneyâ to make his move and buy up Shaneâs âempireâ and lay off everyone that went there for greener pastures from Chouest.
what do you mean âmayâ?
according to Wikipedia
A white elephant is a possession which its owner cannot dispose of and whose cost, particularly that of maintenance, is out of proportion to its usefulness. In modern usage, it is an object, building project, scheme, business venture, facility, etc., considered expensive but without use or value.
what I want to know is what lucky SOBs are getting to collect paychecks maintaining that fine ship at the dock there in TampaâŚnice work if you can get it
Chouest has just done a damn good job of vertically and horizontally integrating to cut out profits being made by 3rd party vendors. In addition to design/building their ships, they own their own DP company (MT), HVAC company (Sealand Mechanical), Electrical/electronics company (IMS), have their own dry docks and shipyards (Bollinger, Tampa, North American, etcâŚ), ROV Company (C-Innovations) and surely various others subcontracting businesses that are not as well publicized.
They then developed the C-Port facilities and integrated C-Logistics. I know they bought a paver company to put down pavers at all of their facilities, have a dumpster/waste company, got into supplying fuel/water to oil companies at their docks, cleaning of mud tanks (Clean Tank), heavy lift dock/services (Fourchon Heavy Lift) and surely various others on that side of the business.
At some point you can do things for cheaper than competitors and still make the margins you need. And they have become so entrenched in every facet of the business that the major oil companies donât really have a choice but to use them in some capacity. For crying out loud, they purchased Fairweather in Alaska to have a bigger handle on logistics for flights, helicopters and meteorological services. There is no other company in this business that can and will diversify like they have.
Just go to the Louisiana Sec of Stateâs website, search for Chouest and see how many business names populate. And thatâs only the businesses he lists in LouisianaâŚ
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About the only thing they donât own is the Caterpillar dealership in Louisiana. You would almost think so on how tight their relationship is.
I have talked to a few other suppliers of large machinery and said that CAT essentially gives the equipment to ECO at cost and makes money on parts and service. Even then, the discounts are fairly large given the inherent volume that is anticipated yearly.
Have to tip your hat to them for getting themselves into the position they are currently in.
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I forgot about ECO owning Clean Tank. I worked in the GoM when ECO started Clean Tank. Before Clean Tank most tank cleaners were convicts living in halfway houses or homeless people living on work camps. I felt like a prison guard trying to get those people to clean a tank & more than once I remember cleaners dragging up in the middle of a job. When Clean Tank started up almost all their cleaners were hard working, uniform wearing, visa carrying immigrants. They did an awesome job. After that I seen those sketchy flyby night companies less & less. I guess all Chouestâs competitors has Chouest tank cleaners on their boats now?
I didnât know about Fairweather & a few other companies you mentioned. Pretty impressive. I know many mariners are semi-miserable on ECO boats but everyone in their organization is probably more than a little happy to have a job & for the security provided by their conglomerate?
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Island Offshore, Bram, shipyards in Brazil, Westport Yachts, and no doubt a stake in many many more companies
As everyone in the industry is well aware of, itâs a nasty job that most respectable individuals want no part of. Even though most of the companies have gone towards a more automated system, it still requires folks going into confined spaces and doing a dirty job. None of them have come close to eliminating the human aspect except vessels built with round tanks. For the life of me I canât understand why oil companies donât demand this as it would save hundreds of thousands of dollars over a drilling campaign.
Companies love to boast their vesselsâ capacities with square tanks only to have the same âusableâ capacity of a round tank.
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Respectable individuals wanting no part of? Youâre kidding right? I respect anyone that decides to work for a living no matter the context. Tanks require cleaning, and there is more volume in a cube versus a sphere for the area available on a vessel. Donât forget all of the active mud, chemical, and reserve pits that get cleaned on rigs. Not to mention all of the processing areas, sand trap, desilters, and the like.There is considerable more volume on a rig and more cleaning as compared to a typical OSV. We live with these guys on the rig whom clean our tanks. They are generally respectable, well trained, and safety conscience. They also assist with fuel and oil tanks for hullside continuous survey items which is a constant requirement for class. Cost analysis are done for every well program, in terms of boat trips, mud types, vessel capacities, tank cleaning cost, and time allowances for each, and this doesnât even account for what is mixed by the mud engineer on the rig. At the end of the day, if mud capacity is given up on the OSV side to accommodate time savings on tank cleaning, the oil company may very well use another vessel with a better capacity since cleaning is a marginal cost in the overall well program.
I believe anchorman concerning the fancy, respectable tank cleaners who work with him on the rigs & drillships but I never meet that type of tank cleaner when I worked on OSVâs. No one aspires to be a tank cleaner & I would say most tank cleaners would take a job doing about anything else if the money, hours & lack of a drug screen was the same at the other equal paying job. Most Americans donât want to work as vegetable pickers, roofers, dishwashers & tank cleaners. End of story. Thats what was so good about ECOâs Clean Tank. Those immigrants Chouest hired really wanted to clean those tanks for the $12 per hour that Clean Tank was paying them in the early 2000âs. Sometimes I would fail the Trusco & FDF cleaners 2 or 3 times before a tank was clean enough to get off charter. But those Hispanic immigrants from Clean Tank would usually have the tank cleaned the first go around & I wasnât too worried about them being intoxicated, stealing things or shanking me with a screwdriver. Good thinking on ECOâs part to create Clean Tank & to hire immigrants to do jobs that most Americans donât want to do.
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Rounded tanks and auto cleaning has been common on PSV/AHTS operating in the North Sea since the late 1990âs.
Multi-purpose bulk tanks for dry and liquid cargo is a newer development:
Same in the Gulf of Mexico.
Nobody is going to do anything for $12 an hour. Thatâs not a living wage in most of the US. They can do better on welfare, or workers comp or disability or working for cash under the table. They could certainly do better mowing lawns. Many places high school kids will not do easy odd jobs for only $12 cash.
Tank cleaning is a nasty, dirty, inherently unhealthy, and often dangerous job. It should pay a premium wage, at least double the local median wage. Then there would be no shortage of tank cleaners. Look at what city employee garbagemen earn.
If tank cleaners were paid $25 an hour, it would not raise the price of gas at the pump by 1/10th of a cent.
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I dont know the wage. Thatâs not the point. I respect people that work and will not demonstrate an intolerance by assuming those type of workers are not respectable as mentioned above. I will leave that opinion for the drug dealers, addicts, and theives.
I do know wages are better on the rigs. I remember getting paid $25 extra/day cleaning tanks on OSVs 26 years ago as an AB, before there were tank cleaning companies. Been there, done that. That wasnât a good wage then, and certainly isnât a good wage now, but I learned what work is, and years later, Iâm not doing that anymore.
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No, itâs the beginning of a story. The story of how importing cheap foreign labor depresses wages which is why it shouldnât be allowed. Not just true for low skilled jobs as the H1B program has the same effect in the high skill job sector.
I really donât see how anyone can argue this. This is basic economics 101. When supply (of cheap labor) increases, the price (market wage) drops.
Shit like this is why Donald Trump is President right now.
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That is surprising!! Why the worry about tank clean then?
BTW; Looking at the GA for the HOS Max PSVs it appears that they all have square liquid mud tanks:
http://hornbeckoffshore.com/fleet/featured/hosmax-fleet/320-class-osv