Eunice Ñañez
Offshore Development Manager
DECK: Providing tailor made engineering services and products SWCOL is the Colombian based representative of C&C Technologies, an US onshore and offshore company who offers the most cutting edge technology in services such as geosurvey and mapping, attracting industry’s leading innovators. From the experience of working with clients as Ecopetrol, OCENSA, Pacific Rubiales, ODL, Oxy, and ABB, is unmistakable that SWCOL is ready for the new wave of offshore exploration that is starting after the Ronda Colombia 2012.
WE NEED TO BUILD UP OUR KNOWLEDGE: Colombia needs to build up a deeper understanding of the Offshore Industry development in order to get into the right path. The development should be close to the Colombian experience related to its Offshore history, keeping determination on what is coming but also getting the awareness from international Offshore experiences from cases such as United States, Mexico and Norway. The Norwegians are doing something very interesting on an international level sharing their knowledge learned by operating in the North Sea. What we are finding is that there is an increasing interest in doing business from people with the tools from places like Norway, a big interest, but we greatly lack the knowledge of what the offshore business means.
It shows that there is a lot of work available for a lot of companies in Colombia, and the main objective for this country should be to encourage the professionalism of every possible field among the Offshore Industry. Basically, what we want to do is to follow models as the Norwegian, American and Mexican, who have clear developing processes based on technology, strategy and self-awareness. C&C Technologies is a clear illustration of it by being one of the world’s leaders on these matters.
We need to realize that this lack of knowledge of the Offshore business in Colombia is that deep that we do not even have specializations or any academic area or any university working on it; nor we have technology that could be used in the sea, for instance we have no marine physics or geophysics or enough preparation on marine logistics. Without mention our lack of hydrological knowledge. All these specialties and technicians intended to develop the sciences of the seas are so far lacking in this country.
WE HAVE TO SPECIALLIZE: Right now we have many little companies getting their hands on everything. These companies offer a collage of services going from seismic surveys, to technical services, biological and water analyses. Here they are offering at least five different services as they feel that offering just one service will make them redundant. But all those specialties are not the same activity. These companies believe that by acquiring a small second hand ship that can offer five types of services they can fulfill all their promised functions. What they don’t know is that they will be exhausted in no time. In this case not only the project will fail, but an entire industry could be affected by the results of these amateurish operations. What we need to have is a specialized knowledge, with a ship with all the required licenses, technical training and on the long run, with international knowledge to perform the tasks properly. The international exploration and production companies are coming into the country thinking that we already know how to perform offshore operations. The Colombian service operators keep saying that yes, we do! With our lack of knowledge and of qualified technicians we are complying to commit huge mistakes and soon the international companies will notice our amateurship.
HOMEWORK TO DO: The first thing we have to do to improve this situation is to bring to Colombia the experience and the services in science that we can find around the world nowadays. What are those? If we look around the world and bring back the top expertise, we will be able to go as deep 4000 meters under the sea surface, doing excavation, geology, physics, geophysics, geology evaluations, helping sea and maritime construction, helping to build all type of sustainable energy facilities, pipelines and fiber optics. This can be seen as the biggest business opportunity out there.
Secondly, we have to understand that we are on exploration mode right now meaning that we need to start from the beginning with a seismic map in order to identify the real potential areas. Furthermore, we need to keep in mind all the risks linked to the exploration and the exploitation of the resources from the marine subsoil, for instance the presence of several antique shipwrecks with potential archaeological value. Some other risks accompanying this activity might be gas pockets, water pockets, dunes and corals reefs. All of these processes need to be done very thoroughly by identify the type of soil, sand, rock and details, just by then we will be prepared for the drilling part.
Finally, once the construction phase starts, we need to be careful in all steps to follow, from where to receive the tube, until where and how to place it, how to anchor it, were to place the buoys and so on. After what happened in the Gulf of Mexico, this Industry is in the public talk, and has been closely watched with a magnifying glass. A mistake in any of these steps will be the end of the project and, a failed project might means the end of this Industry to Colombia.
