The massive building squatting just off Harborside Drive is a 506-ton reminder of how the global quest for oil and natural gas is reviving island shipyards.
Building the structure, which will serve as living quarters for offshore workers, took 10 months and was the largest project to date for LoneStar Marine Shelters, 6800 Harborside Drive.
Last week, LoneStar Marine employees and about 150 energy industry representatives, including some from BP Energy and Fluor Corp., marked the completion of the 32-person sleeping quarters, control room and 69-foot-by-69-foot helideck with a tour and topping-out party.
Exmar Offshore, a subsidiary of an Antwerp, Belgium-based group of companies, contracted with LoneStar Marine to design and build the living quarters and a smaller workshop and storage building.
Marriage Made In Ingleside
The unit soon will be shipped by barge to the Kiewit Offshore Services yard in Ingleside, north of Corpus Christi, and be married to Exmar’s $300 million Opti-Ex deepwater semisubmersible production platform. Samsung Heavy Industries in South Korea is building Opti-Ex’s hull. Workers at Kiewit’s fabrication yard will complete the rig’s 6,400-ton deck.
The living unit includes a galley, gymnasium, sick bay, offices and rooms equipped with 15-inch plasma TVs and a lounge with a 42-inch screen TV. It’s all wired for Internet.
Monster Move
Perhaps as soon as the end of this month, the structure will be rolled onto a barge at the shipyard’s dock by a remote-controlled mover equipped with 280 independently operated wheels, LoneStar officials say.
The mover will lower the unit down onto a structure engineered to distribute its enormous weight across the barge, officials said.
Finally, workers will brace and weld the building to the support structure on the barge for the trip through the Gulf of Mexico to Ingleside.
Exmar’s Opti-Ex, which can operate in depths of 10,000 feet, is the only new production semisubmersible under construction that’s available for lease, officials say. The platform is expected to be delivered in the first quarter next year and will be available for lease to oil companies worldwide, Exmar officials say.
Opti-Ex is capable of supporting production of 60,000 barrels of oil and 50 million cubic feet of natural gas a day, Exmar officials say.
Record Demand
Record high oil prices — light, sweet crude for April delivery reached a new trading record of $110.20 Wednesday— is driving demand for buildings to accommodate offshore workers.
Strong energy prices bode well for the island yard, said Steve Vacker, vice president of LoneStar Marine Shelters.
“For our business, it means there’s more out there to invest in the search for oil,” Vacker said. “Companies are more likely to go out farther to drill in deeper water.”
Vacker declined to say what the Exmar contract was worth to LoneStar Marine.
The company arrived in Galveston in 2003, taking over a repair yard that had been idled by First Wave Marine/Newpark Shipbuilding a few years before when island shipyards were struggling.
LoneStar Marine, which previously had a landlocked Houston site, moved to the island specifically to take on bigger projects such as the one it just completed, officials said. Being near water allows it to put projects directly on barges, officials said.
LoneStar Marine, with more than 100 employees, owns 85,000 square feet of warehouse and office space on 28 acres just north of Harborside Drive.
Industry Energized
Booming energy and marine industries have created between 400 and 500 full-time jobs on the island in the past 12 months, said Jeff Sjostrom, president of the Galveston Economic Development Partnership.
Last month, Rolls-Royce Commercial Marine broke ground on a 50,000-square-foot facility on Pelican Island, where it will overhaul propulsion equipment used by the offshore and marine industries. Eventually, Rolls-Royce could employ about 100 people, officials have said.
Rolls-Royce is subleasing space from Gulf Copper Dry Dock and Rig Repair, which in 2005 revived a shipyard on 110 acres. Including contractors, Gulf Copper employs about 1,000 people.
Sjostrum said the partnership has taken notice of the energy-driven growth and has revived a task force to attract more offshore and maritime industry to the island. Jayson Levy, a former chairman of the partnership, is heading up the task force.
Sjostrum likens growth of offshore support services on the island to the residential development boom.
“It’s just amazing,” he said.
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