Алистер Маклин: Seawitch

Normally there are only two types of marine machines concerned with the discovery and recovery of oil from under the ocean floor. The first one, which is mainly engaged in the discovery of oil, is a self-propelled vessel, sometimes of very considerable size. Apart from its towering drilling derrick, it is indistinguishable from any ocean-going cargo vessel; its purpose is to drill bore-holes in areas where seismological and geological studies suggest oil may exist. The technical operation of this activity is highly complex, yet these vessels have achieved a remarkable level of success. However, they suffer from two major drawbacks. Although they are equipped with the most advanced and sophisticated navigational equipment, including bow-thrust propellers, for them to maintain position in running seas, strong tides and winds when boring can be extremely difficult; and in really heavy weather operations have to be suspended.

For the actual drilling of oil and its recovery – principally its recovery – the so-called ‘jack-up system’ is in almost universal use. A rig of this type has to be towed into position, and consists of a platform which carries the drilling rig, cranes, helipads and all essential services, including living accommodation, and is attached to the seabed by firmly anchored legs. In normal conditions it is extremely effective, but like the discovery ships it has drawbacks. It is not mobile. It has to suspend operations in even moderately heavy weather. And it can be used only in comparatively shallow water: the deepest is in the North Sea, where most of those rigs are to be found. This North Sea rig stands in about four hundred and fifty feet of water and the cost of increasing the length of those legs would be so prohibitive as to make oil recovery quite uneconomical, even although there are plans for the Americans to construct a rig with eight-hundred-feet legs off the Californian coast. There is also the unknown safety factor. Two such rigs have already been lost in the North Sea. The cause of those disasters has not been clearly evaluated, although it is suspected, obviously not without cause, that there may have been design, structural or metallic faults in one or more of the legs.

And then there is the third type of oil rig – the TLP – technically, the tension leg drilling/production platform. At the time of this story there was only one of its type in the world. The platform – the working area – was about the size of a football field – if, that is, one can imagine a triangular football field, for the platform was, in fact, an equilateral triangle. The deck was not made of steel but of a uniquely designed ferro-concrete, specially developed by a Dutch oil ship-building company. The supports for this massive platform had been designed and built in England and consisted of three enormous steel legs, each at one corner of the structure, all three being joined together by a variety of horizontal and diagonal hollow cylinders, the total combination offering so tremendous a degree of buoyancy that the working platform they supported was out of the reach of even the highest waves.

From each of the bases of the three legs, three massive steel cables extended to the base of the ocean floor, where each triple set was attached to large sea-floor anchors. Powerful motors could raise or lower it to a depth two or three times that of most modern fixed oil derricks, which meant that it could operate at depths far out on the continental shelf.

The TLP had other very considerable advantages.

Its great buoyancy put the anchor cables under constant tension, and this tension practically eliminated the heaving, pitching and rolling of the platform. Thus the rig could continue operating in very severe storms, storms that would automatically stop production on any other type of derrick.

It was also virtually immune to the effects of an under-sea earthquake.

It was also mobile. It had only to up anchors to move to potentially more productive areas.

And compared to standard oil rigs its cost of establishing position in any given spot was so negligible as to be worth no more than a passing mention.

The name of the TLP was the Seawitch.

In certain places and among certain people, the Seawitch was a very bad name indeed. But, overwhelmingly, their venom was reserved for a certain Lord Worth, a multi – some said bulti – millionaire, chairman and sole owner of Worth Hudson Oil Company and, incidentally, owner of the Seawitch. When his name was mentioned by any of the ten men present at that shoreside house on Lake Tahoe, it was in tones of less than hushed reverence.

Their meeting was announced in neither the national nor local press. This was due to two factors. The delegates arrived and departed either singly or in couples and among the heterogeneous summer population of Lake Tahoe such comings and goings went unremarked or were ignored. More importantly, the delegates to the meeting were understandably reluctant that their assembly become common knowledge. The day was Friday 13th, a date that boded no good for someone.

There were nine delegates present, plus their host. Four of them were American, but only two of these mattered – Corral, who represented the oil and mineral leases in the Florida area, and Benson, who represented the rigs off Southern California.

Of the other six, again only two mattered. One was Patinos of Venezuela; the other was Borosoff of Russia: his interest in American oil supplies could only be regarded as minimal. It was widely assumed amongst the others that his main interest in attending the meeting was to stir up as much trouble as possible, an assumption that was probably correct.

All ten were, in various degrees, suppliers of oil to the United States and had the one common interest: to see that the price of those supplies did not drop. The last thing they all wanted to see was an oil value depreciation.

Benson, whose holiday home this was and who was nominally hosting the meeting, opened the discussion.

‘Gentlemen, does anyone have any strong objections if I bring a third party – that is, a man who represents neither ourselves nor Lord Worth – into this meeting?’

Practically everyone had, and there were some moments of bedlamic confusion: they had not only objections but very strong ones at that.

Borosoff, the Russian, said: ‘No. It is too dangerous.’ He glanced around the group with calculated suspiciousness. ‘There are already too many of us privy to these discussions.’

Benson, who had not become head of one of Europe’s biggest oil companies, a British-based one, just because someone had handed him the job as a birthday present, could be disconcertingly blunt.

‘You, Borosoff, are the one with the slenderest claims to be present at this meeting. You might well bear that in mind. Name your suspect.’ Borosoff remained silent. ‘Bear in mind, gentlemen, the objective of this meeting – to maintain, at least, the present oil price levels. The OPEC is now actively considering hiking all oil prices. That doesn’t hurt us much here in the US – we’ll just hike our own prices and pass them on to the public.’

Patinos said: ‘You’re every bit as unscrupulous and ruthless as you claim us to be.’

‘Realism is not the same as ruthlessness. Nobody’s going to hike anything while Worth Hudson is around. They are already undercutting us, the majors. A slight pinch, but we feel it. If we raise our prices more and theirs remain steady, the slight pinch is going to increase. And if they get some more TLPs into operation then the pinch will be beginning to hurt. It will also hurt the OPEC, for the demand for your products will undoubtedly fall off.