Last month, Seahawk Drilling declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy and announced the sale of its assets to shallow-water driller Hercules Offshore. This devastating decision was the culmination of a long period in which we found our customers unable to secure permits for work in the Gulf of Mexico despite the fact that both our industry and our company have excellent safety records. In the 11 months after the Deepwater Horizon accident, it became clear that Seahawk’s greatest rival was no longer our industry competitors but the U.S. government.
The government’s drastic slowdown in the issuance of permits for shallow-water drilling operations - in which companies work in familiar geological formations, typically in less than 500 feet of water, mostly seeking to produce natural gas - has all but crippled the industry.
At last week’s Energy and Power Subcommittee hearing on The American Energy Initiative, Jim Noe, Executive Director of the Shallow Water Energy Security Coalition, gave an emotional recap of the day when Seahawk Drilling declared bankruptcy. Watch HERE.
