Deep Drilling in the Gulf

The Ensco8500, one of the two Keppel FELS rigs to be given the green light to re-enter the Gulf of Mexico.

The first two rigs in the series that Keppel FELS delivered - the Ensco 8500 and Ensco 8501 - were the first two deepwater rigs in the world to be given the green light to re-enter the Gulf by the United States' Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Regulation and Enforcement.

The new "fitness" certification requirement was introduced under the new regulatory framework following the BP oil spill in April and the subsequent ban on drilling activities until Nov 30 by the US government. These two units are now working again for Ensco's customers and are doing the owner proud with their excellent operations in the Gulf of Mexico.

The Ensco 8503 is slated to start a two-year primary term with Cobalt International Energy, L.P. in the Gulf of Mexico early next year. It is the fourth in a US$3 billion series of seven Ensco 8500 semisubmersible drilling rigs being built exclusively for Ensco. The remaining rigs are expected to be delivered through 2012.

[ Time flies, a few years on since the day I went to the Gulf to go on  board and take a look at the E7500 in 2005 while our management was talking to ENSCO for the building of 8500 series. Some improvements made to the 7500 which was built in US yard F&G Texas, former TDI Halter yard. Long way from Houston to Gulf, drove all the way 7hours to Louisana and from there another 2 hours to Holma for a chopper flight to the rig .... ]

7500 Slides 

Why bosses have to act "bad and tough" ?

Many management theories show the importance of supervisor-subordinate relationships. They are one of the principal drivers of employee engagement or the staff turnover. So why bosses still have to act tough and bad? After all, each year companies spend billions on leadership training and development. And the number of books on how to be a better, more effective leader must be approaching infinity. Suffice it to say although the boss may be “bad,” that boss has been extraordinarily successful and is continuing to thrive by any reasonable measures. That’s because numerous studies point to an inherent contradiction between the prescriptions about how to get the most from others on the one hand and the realities of what it takes to build your own reputation and power on the other. While being positive, supportive, and warm often gets the best from subordinates, being critical and even nasty results in more attributions of intelligence and competence. Because people usually get hired (and promoted) on the basis of how competent they appear, companies, sometimes unintentionally, reward precisely the opposite behaviors that would make someone a good boss.

Some studies show that people who want to appear smart engage in more critical behavior than those who want to appear nice or a control or silence group. Other research on group perception also shows evidence of a compensation effect, so that being rated positively on one dimension is likely to lead to being seen much less positively on a second dimension. Groups are perceived as either warm and incompetent or competent and cold. The conflict between the behaviors required to be a good boss and the actions often necessary to attain and hold onto leadership positions helps explain why many people find that their best opportunities for obtaining coaching and mentoring come from people not at the most senior levels nor on the fast track. Unless people can overcome the oft-observed psychological tendency to see the traits of warmth and competence as negatively related and softness as a sign of weakness, there seem to be very slim prospects for implementing all of the good advice about how to be a be a better leader.

Leadership "gurus," and lots of employees hate to hear this, but the truth is that the skill-sets and metrics for being a good boss, from the perspective of employees, are not necessarily aligned with those of being a good manager, from the perspective of the goals of the company.  In a brutally competitive global market, if you're a shareholder in a company - make no mistake, that's who owns the company - what do you want its leadership focused on, shareholder value or turning out "good managers?"

Can you have it both ways? But in the real world, well, you might just as well ask, "can't we all just get along?" It just doesn't work that way where human beings and the different level of educated people around your company are involved.

There could be companies and organizations rewarding "bad" behaviors and discourage "good" ones, and they do so to their own detriment. While this may appear to serve the company/organization's aims, one wonder if the "bad" CEO calculated the cost to the organization of losing the talent he alienated and having to recruit, train, and indoctrinate replacements? If so, was that cost worth the benefit of whatever outcomes the tough boss has achieved? Companies/organizations almost never look at the direct and indirect costs of "bad" or "tough" boss behavior because they are less visible than the potentially good outcomes the "bad" boss may achieve (but perhaps not less costly).

The cost of creating fiction instead of being honest with employees is the reduction in creativity, production and commitment they have to the overall good of the company. A feeling that you cannot trust the veracity of your superiors introduces worry and insecurity into the worker. That worry, combined with the general letdown, might cause the slide of the productivity. More to the point, it may cause someone to not suggest a radical change to a product or service that would double the profitability.

Managers shouldn't be 'old softies' who don't hold their employees accountable, they should insist on excellence from them, AS WELL AS from themselves. An excellent manager will inspire loyalty from excellent employees, who will stay on and help fight through downturns and troubled times, even when they could have better opportunities elsewhere. If the captain stays with the ship, the First Mate and others are more likely to stay with them.

Nasty may never be good! The same can be said for being cold or aloof. Unfortunately, such adjectives have come to equate superior knowledge??? By whose definition? The irony is that the opposite is more often true. Being understanding in approach does not mean one is soft. Seek first to understand is the mark of a strong mind and demands more courage than many percieive.

Leadership is now and always has been about influence. There is no conflict in the different types of behavior. As Ken Blanchard has known for years, the appropriate behavior for a leader is situational. Sometimes requiring directive behavior; other times requiring supportive and all of the nuances in between (coaching, collaborating, delegating...).

It was written in the late 1990's that there is a dearth of leadership talent in the ranks of corporate companies. Far too many experienced leaders were discarded leaving a vacuum. Too many people found themselves in leadership positions who had never been given the opportunity to observe and learn about how to lead. We have come to equate leadership with having an MBA, having read a certain number of books, or success in "climbing the ladder". These things can certainly be positive, but will not teach leadership. Leadership is an acquired skill requiring time, observation,learning, failure, examination, and practice; no different than the practice of medicine or law. Like an apprentice good leaders usually had the benefit of good example. We now suffer from leaders who have never had the benefit of observing real leaders practicing their craft. Now young leaders get up there purely by chances or just happened to be someone leaving the seat. They have less experience and not being trained to take on challenges before.

The older and senior employees are finding that the hard won knowledge, skills and capabilities earned while being loyal are no longer valuable in the employment market place.  Good luck to those organization with bosses thinking they have the great idea to move ahead with inexperience employees.

New Generation of Semi Rig ( Round design )

The Sevan technology developed for offshore installations meets the oil and gas industry's long standing challenge for versatility, flexibility, and fast deployment. The Sevan design has proved to be an efficient basis for Floating Production, Storage and Offloading (FPSO) units as well as for deep water Mobile Offshore Drilling Units (MODU). The three Sevan FPSO's currently installed at their respective locations; FPSO Sevan Piranema in Brazil, and FPSO Sevan Hummingbird and FPSO Sevan Voyageur in the North Sea, have demonstrate d to meet these challenges and provide confidence that the Sevan technology will continue to perform successfully also on future developments.

The main components of the Sevan FPSO's and MODU are the cylindrical hull. The FPSOs utilize the hull for cargo storage and segregated ballast tanks as well as for marine and utility systems.

The MODU has mud and drill water storage in the hull as well as cargo and ballast tanks. Pumps and other utility systems related both to the drilling equipment and to the marine systems are located inside the hull. A large moon pool is arranged in the centre of the MODU hull.

The Sevan hull is suitable for operation in water depths ranging from 30 m to more than 3,000 m and Sevan units may operate in both benign and harsh environments. Model tests have been made for the most extreme North Atlantic conditions as well as for the toughest cyclonic conditions with excellent results.

Main features of the design are:

Circular hull with symmetry of the design

High capacity for oil storage and deck loads

No turret or swivel

Any number of risers may be carried by the FPSOs

Excellent motion characteristics

Sevan present1

Effectiveness of Brainstorming Meetings

We all know the scenario: lots of people gather in a room to brainstorm a problem, resolving idea, discuss on schedule, or mission plan. Veterans approach with scepticism, newly employed think it will be interesting, and after an hour — or two or three — has passed, they all emerge drained, depressed, and demotivated. Why is this such a recurrent story?

Some academics try to understand what goes wrong in brainstorming. Sometimes there are too many ideas and we can’t keep them all in our heads. Then there’s the phenomenon psychologists call ‘social loafing,’ which we probably all recognize: the people who sit at the back of the room either does not contributing or reluctant to speak up at all. Only slightly less lazy is ‘social matching,’ which means that we are very likely to contribute lots of ideas so similar to each other as to be indistinguishable; it feels like we’re making a contribution, but the range and variety of suggestions remains small. Conformity plays a big part here; our desire to belong ( just to keep in line with what the boss says ! ! ) restricts the breadth of ideas we might think of but and do not wish to speak up and offer. Sometimes you speak up and the boss think otherwise, and your idea gets gunned down, though you really felt that yours is more appropriate solution.

Working from examples only makes things worse. All of our ‘new’ ideas cluster around that, and we fail to be as broad-ranging and wild in our creativity as we need to be. So if we are trying to improve on a procedure that has some flaws, we create more flaws than if we had started from scratch. Moreover, creativity declines with time. In experiments, students from a university were asked to come up with ideas for improving their school. After twenty minutes, their ideas were coded (for variety, novelty, quantity and range of categories), and what was striking was how fast the group ran out of steam: the first five minutes were the most productive !

Most intriguing of all was that brainstorming "alone" proved to be more effective than brainstorming collectively. In those first five minutes, participants who sat at a computer and generated ideas came up with 44 percent more ideas than those in a group. This challenges received wisdom that says groups of people will come up with a wider range of ideas than similar minded people or those working alone. But what it takes into account is that when we come together, like it or not,we all start to become a little homogenized. What this finding implies is that the way to get the creative value of diversity — and every company I know finds this a challenge — is to encourage people to develop ideas alone, and only then bring them together.

Ask CEOs or GMs what they spend most time doing and the answer is always the same: attending brainstorm meetings. Then ask how much time they devote to improving their meeting skills and you’ll get blank looks. We spend most of our time on an activity we were never trained for.

What happens in most brainstorm meetings? The most senior person — who usually called the brainstorm meeting — sits at the head of a table. Others drift in. If you’re lucky, you start only 5 or 10 minutes late. The issue, problem or question is identified, and then the brainstorming ritual begins. Just like some people at school always sat in the front row, some in meetings always speak first — and there will always be the laggards who wait to see how the wind is blowing. And then there are what we call the ‘social loafers’ — the individuals who always turn up and contribute nothing. For half an hour or more, a vast amount of second-guessing occurs, as everyone gropes for the answer that will receive the boss's or General Manager's blessing.

What is wrong with group brainstorming meetings? One of the mistakes leaders or bosses make most often is to underestimate the power of one’s own presence. This has nothing to do with charisma. If you’re the most senior person in the room, people will defer to you, and that usually means they’ll think less because when they say something differently, they are worried the boss disagrees to the contributions and everyone tends to swing with the wind and play along to get close to the boss's "preferred" idea or solution. 

That BIG promotion may land you in "deepwater" …………

You spend years, maybe decades, climbing the corporate ladder. Then one day, it happens. You have been promoted and appointed the “CEO”. At this moment, a lifetime of your dreams, slogging of hard work with many achievements finally come to fruition.

Being a skilled professional, you act calm and as everyone contacts you shower you with congratulatory note and sentiment your feelings overflow and this is the moment you’ve always been looking for. It is your lifetime crowning achievement.

And as the days go by and all the fervor calms down, you start to settle and fit into the role. It feels good it feels right and just like you’ve died and gone to corporate heaven.

Until, one day, it all falls apart. All too soon, you’re yanked off that lofty pedestal and falling further than you ever imagined an ego can fall. And you find yourself desperately wishing you’d never ever heard of those three letters : C - E - O.

May sound overly dramatic but not. And it’s not just about CEOs; it can happen with any big promotion. Just ask chief of BP. He is probably a good man and a good CEO who found himself in the “mother of all no win situations”. It is hard to find anyone in that position could have done better than him and the failure of the system depended on many factors and not him alone to have caused or started the saga. It can start from the drilling equipment supplier, the rig operation, the drilling crew mistakes, the electrical or electronic software controls that should have functioned during the emergency “well kill” when needed, and many other failures which could not be the drag by the CEO. We would love to see all the critics take a stab at it.

And now that BP is dumping its lightening-rod to save its brand and appease the American public, the media will have a field day with Tony’s reported $18 million exit package, 90 percent of which is his 28-year pension, mostly as a senior executive, which accounts for all the figures. He deserves every dollar and cents. And, he’ll be giving up a reported 500,000 share options and up to 2 million shares under a long-term incentive plan that today is worth about $13 million going up in smoke.

Should we feel sorry for CEOs?? They’re adults who are capable of living with their own decisions and actions. That’s how it is and how it should be. That could happen to any CEO who have been in the hot seat for either a while or long enough to get “hotter”. It can be a staff level job or even a promotion to AGM or GM. So, when you get that big promotion, some advice that can save a lot of pain, anguish or disappointment end of the day when failure come in front of your face:

Do not take yourself too seriously and set too high achievement for you may not be able to survive that fall. Self-importance isn’t real. On the contrary, it’s completely subjective, by definition. Never forget that you’re just a male or female, no more, no less and in any organization, you are part of the labour force contributing to the productivity or bottom line except that you sits higher level than others. You bleed and cry, just like everyone else. And what goes up, all too often, comes down in a hurry and you feel the pain much more as it falls from height. The higher the pedestal you set yourself up on, the bigger the fall.

Leading a company is tough and not easy, but it’s also risky business. Most fail either due to poor management foresight ( that is meaning due to your mistake probably ). A few don’t. Either way, there can be huge ups and down, and everything’s magnified if you choose to look at it that way. But that’s entirely up to you whether you want to take the TOP challenge and face with the consequence what may be. If you ask me, and I’m sure Tony would agree, you’ll likely be better off if you just keep your feet planted firmly on the ground and be contended with what you have achieved and take life at ease at some point in time and enjoy what you gain thus far….


BP’s timing seems a little bit of shrewd. The leaking well has been capped in July2010. Had the board brought in a new face too early, it might have attracted mud. Instead, Mr Dudley is well-placed to lead BP out of its hole. On July 27th the firm announced a record loss of $17 billion, the consequence of a one-off charge of $32 billion to clean up the oil spill, compensate its victims and settle fines. The firm will have to sell more than a tenth of its assets to cover this, but it will survive.

Mr Tony H will receive severance pay of a year’s salary (about £1m, or $1.6m) and the right to start drawing from a pension pot conservatively valued at £11m. (He may also become a non-executive director of BP-TNK, which is perhaps the closest BP could get to sending him to Siberia.) This “payment for failure” has prompted outrage: “£12m payoff for Captain Clueless,” fumed a typical headline. This is unfair. Mr Tony has worked at BP for 28 years, most of them successful. At least half of his pension pot was earned before he became chief executive. And the plunge in BP’s share price has wiped out the equity-related part of his pay package as CEO—a significant punishment.

Nonetheless, the story has intensified a necessary debate about how to avoid rewarding bad leadership. The financial crisis revealed that top bankers were fabulously remunerated for doing what turned out to be a lousy job. Some pocketed immense bonuses when they falsely appeared to be doing well, and then kept much of the loot when their firms collapsed. Other industries sometimes pay handsomely for failure, too (see table below ). It is not only business-bashing politicians who find this upsetting. “If I was running things,” growled Warren Buffett, an investor, in January, “if a bank had to go to the government for help, the CEO and his wife would forfeit all their net worth.”

Failed bosses in the west look seldom fired. Instead, they are usually allowed to resign or retire with dignity, and usually with the tons of money thrown at them. This culture of sympathy will be hard to break, not least since most board members are current or former bosses and may feel that “There, but for the grace of God, go I.”

More importantly, ruining bad bosses is a bad idea. Who would want to take a job that came with a serious risk of financial destruction? Whoever did take it would surely manage in a way that minimised the risk of catastrophic failure. That sounds peachy until you remember that capitalism depends on risk-taking. Penalise failure too harshly and you risk creating bureaucrats.
Abolishing all golden parachutes would be foolish. Far better to design them intelligently. They should be generous enough to make a dud boss leave without a fuss or a lawsuit, but no more. BP’s parting gift to Mr Tony H looks about right. Had he been the boss of an American firm, he would surely have walked away with far more. Ken Lewis made Bank of America swallow the toxic Merrill Lynch but still pocketed $125m when he left last year. Bob Nardelli banked $210m in 2007 after a six-year value-destroying reign at Home Depot.