Currently there is a skills shortage in the field, due to Aquaculture being one of the fastest growing primary industries in Australia.  New jobs are being created which means there is substantial opportunity for employment following training.  This training will help the industry to meet the demand for personnel and provides an opportunity for people who would like to work in the aquaculture industry, or who are already working in the industry, to expand their careers into commercial diving.

One of our past students, who chose this career route, is 31 year old Andrew Hunter from Bruny Island, Tasmania.  A Seal Management Officer for Tassal, Andrew decided complete our four-week Aquaculture Diver Course to further his career.

Andrew said: “I have always had an affinity with water and love to dive and fish, so when a job as a Seal Management Officer came up at Tassal I knew it was the job for me. A main part of the role is stopping seals getting to the fish which involved a lot of work with fish pens.  I quickly discovered however that the fish pens are like icebergs, in that 80% of them are underwater and to do the best job possible I really needed to get down there and see what is happening.

“The Underwater Centre, Tasmania, is the preferred provider of training for Tassal and so it was agreed that I would go there to do the Aquaculture Diver Course.  The training provided was second to none, due to the very competent staff at the Centre and the facilities along with the equipment.  This, combined with the dive site being conveniently located at the training centre, makes the course achievable and enjoyable.

“Now my diving ticket allows me to take a more proactive role in reducing negative seal interactions and gives me more versatility; on a personal note, that makes me a more valued employee.  The increase in money that accompanies a diving career is also a nice incentive.”

Allan Brown, General Manager here at The Underwater Centre in Tasmania, said: “This is a fantastic opportunity for local businesses to increase the skill set of their workforce, without having to fund the training.

“The Aquaculture industry is such an important facet of Australia’s overall industry and is rapidly expanding, but companies are being left behind; qualified divers are scarce meaning companies are not able to keep up with the demand.  The 30 students that we will now be able to train will then have the ability to fill these gaps, increasing company productivity while progressing their own careers.”

If you’re interested in attending one of the funded places on our next ADAS Aquaculture course, read more here.

Do you already work in the Tasmanian Aquaculture industry – what do you think of the skills shortage in your field of work?  Are you already an ADAS Aquaculture certified diver – how do you enjoy your work? 

Hiring in oil and gas producing areas, such as the North Sea, has reached unprecedented levels – even compared with before the 2008 downturn – but what’s different this time, is that demand is now also coming from regions such as Brazil and Australia.  The demand for well-trained oil and gas workers in Australia is outstripping supply, even with massive amounts of capital investment.  With a population of 21 million, the country remains ‘woefully under resourced for a capital investment of $250billion’ to meet ever-increasing demands from multiple mega-projects.

The Hays Guide also reveals that Australia has seen a significant rise in salary, driven by huge projects – such as the Gorgon, Wheatstone (Australia’s largest offshore facility) and Coniston fields – putting even more pressure on ‘an already stretched skills pool’.

According to another labour market specialist, Pitcrew Consultants, ‘at best, recruiting efforts will only satisfy the resource needs of half of the currently planned projects’.  Unlike mature areas such as the North Sea, most petroleum-bearing regions in Western and South Australia, for example, are larger than the Gulf of Mexico, remain under-explored.

Are you working as commercial diver in the Southern Hemisphere?  Are you finding there’s a strong demand for commercial divers?  Tell us what you think by leaving your comments below

The HSE Closed Bell course teaches experienced divers the procedures and competencies required to dive using a saturation system. Saturation divers live in a chamber, for up to 28 days, which is pressurised to the same pressure of the sea at the depth that they will be working at. Living and working at pressure means that they can be transported quickly and efficiently to the work site under the water without decompression stops, allowing divers to work to much greater depths and for much longer periods of time than on air. 

Both students are currently working with Operatec on a maintenance and inspection job for a major oil and gas organisation and as the field becomes more mature, the need for them to be trained in saturation diving has become more important to ensure the upkeep of the field. Operatec is to send a further 8-10 Angolan employees to the Centre over the coming years.

Operatec’s Director, Lynn Holcomb, said “Oil and gas is currently the biggest industry in Angola. Previously, companies brought in personnel from outside of Angola, but the Angolan government laws requires companies to recruit and train Angolans in the oil and gas sector. Here at Operatec we have always been keen to use local resources and are therefore hugely supportive of these laws.

“Our current Health and Safety procedures are more stringent than is legally required because we recognise the importance of safety in efficient and competent diving operations, and this is another reason for choosing The Underwater Centre, as they have built a reputation which focuses on quality and safety.”

Antonio Njiva added: “I came many miles to do this course, but it is the best school and I was happy to train there. I’ve been made to feel very welcome. I have worked for 14 years without studying though so it is not easy! The instructors here know how to deal with this. They have a lot of experience and they’ve also been in the working environment so they know what we need to know and how to teach it at a level which we understand.”

You can read more about the training completed for Operatec in the press release here.

Do you have experience of working as a diver in Africa? Are you thinking of taking the next step and becoming a saturation diver? Leave a comment below.

In last week’s news we saw subsea contractor ROVOP announce its anticipation of increasing its staff from 14 to more than 35 employees and contractors over the next three months.  News of the jobs boost came after ROVOP acquired a purpose-built Saab Seaeye Cougar XT ROV. It is capable of not only operating in hazardous locations and environments – including high currents of up to 3 knots – but features an array of cutting edge subsea tools and sensing technology such as the latest 3-D sonar and a laser measurement camera.

Less than a year after its inception, ROVOP has already built up an impressive portfolio of credentials, having delivered work on a diverse range of projects with all sizes of ROVs. The projects include wind farm construction in the North and Irish Seas and survey support in Denmark.  The success of companies like ROVOP is a further indicator of the health and longevity of the subsea industry, for both the oil and gas and renewables sectors. 

In recent months we’ve seen companies such as Specialist Subsea Services, N-Sea Diving, Subsea 7, Saipem, DOF Subsea all recruiting, plus agencies such as Advance Global Recruitment and EuroSearch have been putting out calls for ROV Pilot Tech for their clients. In addition to these advertised posts, Paul Bury, Head of ROV Operations at The Underwater Centre, has been inundated with requests for student CVs – almost four times as many as he had for the same period last year.  Companies like DOF Subsea have recently visited the Centre to meet with students during their course, one such visit resulted in half of the class being employed within a week of graduation.

Are you an ROV Pilot Tech who’s found it getting busier over the last year? Or are you interested in working as an ROV Pilot Tech?  Leave a comment and let us know.

However, it’s not just the UK that is investing in this growing market. Wind energy already supplies 1/5th of Denmark’s electricity and a further two offshore windfarms have been approved for construction off its coast. Development has begun on the Meerwind windfarm off the coast of Germany, which will comprise of 80 turbines generating enough power to service approximately 400,000 homes, and the French government has just awarded contracts for the installation of 340 offshore turbines.

So, why the drive to develop offshore windfarms?

The development of the UK’s offshore windfarms has so far been conducted mainly in water depths of up to 25 metres. Due to the nature of the offshore environment, the cost of installing a wind turbine offshore is about 40% higher than installing inshore, requiring specialist support vessels and personnel such as commercial divers and ROV pilot technicians. However, like the oil and gas industry, companies and governments recognise that it is worth investing to overcome the hostile sea environment because the rewards from increased wind speeds offshore are substantial – as much as 30% higher than onshore output. In addition, the cost of developing offshore installations is expected to decrease over time.

Offshore wind employment

The number of people working in the UK’s offshore windfarm sector has grown from 700 people in 2007 to around 3200 in 2011. Some projections forecast that to increase to 42,400 direct full time employees and 25,300 indirect full time employees by 2020. Professions with offshore expertise, such as commercial diving and ROVs, which in the past were predominantly employed by the oil and gas industry, are being utilised by the growing offshore renewables market. Many diving contractors, such as Osiris, Hughes, Red7Marine and SMIT (pictured left) find that a large proportion of their work comes from the offshore renewables market.

Read more about commercial diving and windfarms in a previous blog post here.

Do you work in the offshore renewables market? Would you like to? Leave a comment and let us know what you think.