A Deep And Meaningful Role

Sydney Morning Herald

Saturday October 25, 2008

Rebecca Martin.

As a key part of the industry, divers are paid well for the hardships they endure, writes Rebecca Martin.

Some would say they are crazy - sealed in a cigar-shaped underwater container for weeks at a time, working eight-hour shifts in the deep blackness with nothing but a passing shark and nine other "crazies" for company.

Welcome to the world of deep-sea divers, workers of the underworld who rig and maintain oil and gas pipes far below the waves.

It's dangerous, labour-intensive work and they are paid well to do it - about $2200 a day.

"There's a lot of money to be made in the industry but it's not easy money," says Paul Masters, a commercial dive trainer with TUCF in Western Australia, home to much of the oil and gas work in Australia off the North West Shelf and the Timor Sea.

"I did it for a year but it's not for me. It's not for a lot of people. It's a global job, so you can end up working in India for a month and the next in the Gulf of Mexico, the UK, South-East Asia. A lot of people do it for years. Others go out for one hit of 28 days and say never again."

Australia, says Masters, is considered one of the best countries to work as a diver, mainly due to our stringent work practices.

The Australian industry is highly unionised, with divers employed by dive companies that then contract their services out to the oil and gas industry.

With so many projects coming online, there's plenty of dive work around.

"It used to be a fairly small industry where everyone knew everyone," says John Rossia, a veteran deep-sea diver who now places others in jobs for sub-sea company DOF.

"But in the last 10 years it has just mushroomed with all the [oil and gas] exploration and development.

"The whole industry has bloomed and the schools are churning people out."

There are two types of commercial divers. First, there are those with a ticket to dive to depths of 50 metres offshore, living month-on, month-off on well-equipped boats with movie rooms and gyms. They earn about $1300 a day.

"Life on the boats is pretty good," Masters says. "You are fed pretty well, and the boats usually have modern gyms. Divers need to keep a bit fit and you do have some downtime [on the boats]."

Then there are the sub-sea, or saturation, divers. They work up to 200 metres below the surface for eight-hour shifts, living the other 16 hours in a confined, pressurised dive chamber. It's these guys who earn the big money, able to keep the job going for 24 hours a day by working in three teams of three.

On the surface, a team of up to 25, including the all-important dive supervisor, keeps the team in the dive chamber equipped with air, food and tools.

A roster is typically 21 days on, plus seven days to decompress and a then a month off.

The work itself is hard physical labour, typically rigging and welding.

With such huge costs involved in running the operation, the divers are expected to work quickly and efficiently.

"There are thousands of tasks but you are doing things like connecting pipelines, welding and 90 per cent of the work revolves around rigging," Rossia says.

"Another big task is cutting. You do a lot of removal of steel down there, so you have to learn how to cut under the water.

"It is a hardship and you do spend a lot of time away from home, which is not the most pleasant environment."

The chambers in which the divers live are between two metres and three metres in diameter and have enough room to stand up.

"Each chamber has six bunks and a separate pod for the shower and bathroom," Rossia says. "You eat in the chamber you sleep in. You order food and they lock it in through a little pressure lock, so you do get good food.

"It is tight. You lie on your bunk reading, there's computer games and videos. But after eight hours working on the bottom, you are pretty tired.

"So you tend to get back, shower, eat and go to sleep, as you don't have to go back down for 12 hours."

Such confinement can mean friction between workers. Part of Rossia's job now is to choose teams that will get along.

"You do have personality conflicts but you tend to know who gets on with who," he says.

"We have had issues. But probably in my whole career of 30 years I've only seen it [come to blows] in less than half a dozen cases. The guys realise you just can't do that."

You also need the right personality for this kind of job. Those frightened of the dark or of sharks would be better advised to stay up on the deck.

"Obviously you can't be claustrophobic," Rossia says.

"It can be pretty dark down there and you can be a bit apprehensive going out there into the unknown.

"There could also be sharks, although they never really seem to trouble divers at all. I've never known a commercial diver to be taken by a shark but there's a number that have been bumped.

"It's definitely different and challenging. No job is ever the same.

"It's not a routine job, that's for sure."

© 2008 Sydney Morning Herald

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