Sad sign of the times...Redundancies all around.

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Blade
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Sad sign of the times...Redundancies all around.

Postby Blade » Sun Apr 10 2016, 05:39

Its a sad sign for the industry and a sign of the times as redundancies and layoffs affect pilots, engineers and crews at Bristow, CHC and Careflight. Condolences for my friends and those now looking for a new future. Remeber, Swings and Roundabouts...
kymboa
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Re: Sad sign of the times...Redundancies all around.

Postby kymboa » Sun Apr 10 2016, 10:14

I have been in the industry for 5 years now and fortunately employed. As much as I expected the ride to be rough going in, I never expected it to be as bad as it seems to be at the moment. With the oil and gas downturn and the reg changes, it seems a very stagnant industry indeed.
My question is for the guys that have been around and seen the downturns before. Has it been this bad in the past?...do you think it will get worse before it gets better? Will we even see it back to as good as it has been in the past?

Would be good to hear your opinions.
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fearless_fly
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Re: Sad sign of the times...Redundancies all around.

Postby fearless_fly » Sun Apr 10 2016, 10:42

I used to think....what-if I chose aviation over a professional career in technology would my life be better? NOPE!! Flying is fun, as long as you don't have to rely on it to pay the bills. (c:_ol
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bladepitch
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Re: Sad sign of the times...Redundancies all around.

Postby bladepitch » Sun Apr 10 2016, 12:02

Its all doom and gloom now....
but next year sometime it will ramp up again and when it does, all those that want to return if made redundant this time, if they can, will and those that have moved on might be a bit cautious. One bitten etc..

a lot of contracts are on hold till price recovers then it will start up..

Amd remember a small 2 machine contract can chew up to 10 - 12 pilots. Annual leave, sim trips, 6 month cyclone coverage sickness etc..
Get a few of those up and running and... Well.. Do the math..
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FerrariFlyer
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Re: Sad sign of the times...Redundancies all around.

Postby FerrariFlyer » Sun Apr 10 2016, 13:04

Sadly the cycle is in the downturn phase however history strongly suggests that following every downturn there is an upswing and so on and so on.

As far as oil is concerned here's another opinion piece relating to oil price movement in the next few years:

https://www.energyvoice.com/opinion/105 ... soon-2018/

And this:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/busines ... 62fb21fe44
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Jabberwocky
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Re: Sad sign of the times...Redundancies all around.

Postby Jabberwocky » Sun Apr 10 2016, 21:46

I'm hoping it picks back up in a year or two. I'm certainly lucky to have a solid full-time job, and not taking that for granted. Be nice to repay my boss' attitude towards wages and how valuable we are in a market flooded with surplus pilots tho.
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Re: Sad sign of the times...Redundancies all around.

Postby Kulwin Park » Mon Apr 11 2016, 02:55

Maybe its just me, but if the industry does pick up again, there won't be the big uptake of pilots & engineers as there has been in the past.

As aircraft become more reliable, simulators are easier to access and shorter slots to get into them, and renewals/currency checks are more efficient - than a lesser uptake of pilots will be required. Also OIL GAS players are choosing less helicopter types to operate - so only 3 types of pilots needed compared to 5 or 6 endorsement pilot ratings needed in past.

Also the engineers are required to do less heavy maintenance on the newer machines, as they get sent away to large facilities now. And repainting and window replacements are non existant now - saves a lot of manpower. So less engineers required in the uptake too I would say.

This is all just an opinion as asked for above. Cheers KP
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phugoyd
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Re: Sad sign of the times...Redundancies all around.

Postby phugoyd » Mon Apr 11 2016, 23:30

And then there is this:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-11/l ... ds/7315156

I believe we are in for a long slow bust, my parents came to Australia for the last boom, that was 1968! It took until 2000 to begin the cycle again. With Iran now a big player in LNG and Russia piping it to China over land, we have a lot of competition for Mega Build Projects.

But Im a glass half empty kind of guy.

Hold on tight to whatever job you have unless you have a new job contract signed.

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Re: Sad sign of the times...Redundancies all around.

Postby nuggs » Mon Apr 11 2016, 23:55

It doesn't look good here, but at least it's better than Europe where it is now near impossible to get a start as a pilot.
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Re: Sad sign of the times...Redundancies all around.

Postby LVDT » Tue Apr 12 2016, 09:57

If it ever recovers - the latest is that light passenger vehicle demand for petrol will peak now as early as 2025.

The Dutch are mandating for EV's only by this date. Last year in AMS at Schiphol 50% of the cabs were Teslas!!

Tesla took orders for USD 14 billion worth of cars in a week - not to be sneezed at!!
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Re: Sad sign of the times...Redundancies all around.

Postby Skeeter » Tue Apr 12 2016, 11:44

Not all doom and gloom, even not in Europe.
One industry goes down, the other (offshore wind) is on the rise.
It will never replace the demand that OGP had, but still...
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Re: Sad sign of the times...Redundancies all around.

Postby pohm1 » Tue Apr 12 2016, 12:00

http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-12/oil-and-gas-companies-say-future-is-bright/7321408

ABC Home

The world's largest oil and gas companies have addressed the nation's biggest liquefied natural gas (LNG) conference and predicted a bright future for the industry despite decade-low prices.

John Watson, the head of US oil and gas giant Chevron, said global demand for LNG was expected to grow by 35 per cent over the next two decades.

"To put that into perspective, that will be a doubling in LNG production as we meet the growing oil demand," he said.

"We will likely need as a world community a project the size of Gorgon every year for the next 20 years, so there is keen demand going forward."

Royal Dutch Shell chief executive officer Ben van Beurden agreed and said those predictions would be backed up by growing demand from developing nations.

"Market conditions are pretty challenging, but at the same time new markets are opening up. Markets like Thailand, Pakistan, Poland," he said.

"In the past these markets were simply too small for us to consider, but the rapid growth of floating re-gasification facilities amongst other things has considerably lowered the costs for importers and provided a lot more flexibility.

"This shows how important technological innovation is for the future of LNG."

Projects need to be 'smarter, not necessarily bigger'
A global oversupply of oil, falling demand and the uptake of renewable energy has driven prices to decade lows.

This has cost thousands of jobs across the world as companies slashed spending to remain in business.

Woodside chief executive Peter Coleman said he believed one of the answers could be phasing projects rather building mega developments.

"They need to be smarter, they need to be phased and they don't always need to be bigger," he said.

"We need to understand our customers and their future change in requirements and we need to be innovative and flexible in response and we need to be aggressive in developing new markets."

Mr Coleman's comments come just weeks after the company shelved its massive Browse LNG project off the Kimberley coast.

Today he indicated he would consider a phased development for the basin using floating LNG (FLNG) technology.

"I think we need to think differently about Browse and this just provides us an opportunity, this low point in the cycle to just sit back," Mr Coleman said.

"We are not under any development pressure. The market's not there for us at the moment so we don't need to go hard, we just need to be very sensible about it.

"FLNG is clearly the lead case."

But WA Premier Colin Barnet, who has long been at odds over the company's decision to abandon onshore development at James Price Point, is not so sure.

"You won't be able to commercialise those well enough with just simply floating LNG in my view," he said.

"I don't think we have seen the end of the big onshore projects but I think we probably have in the Carnarvon basin."

Shell is building the world's first floating LNG project for the Prelude field off the Kimberley coast.
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Evil Twin
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Re: Sad sign of the times...Redundancies all around.

Postby Evil Twin » Tue Apr 12 2016, 12:13

LVDT wrote:Tesla took orders for USD 14 billion worth of cars in a week - not to be sneezed at!!


I agree that $14 billion in car orders sounds like a lot, and it is a lot of money however, to put that into context $14b US is $18b AUD at todays rates. When a base model Telsa costs approximately $125,000 that equates to 144,000 cars which in the scheme of car manufacturing isn't actually that many.

Don't get me wrong I am very impressed by Elon Musk and what Tesla are doing but, pure numbers paint the picture slightly differently. And as for Toyota Prius, on the total lifetime pollution scale they are worse than buying a petrol Range Rover!
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pohm1
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Re: Sad sign of the times...Redundancies all around.

Postby pohm1 » Wed Apr 13 2016, 04:38

http://www.rigzone.com/news/article.asp?hpf=1&a_id=143965&utm_source=DailyNewsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=2016-04-12&utm_content=&utm_campaign=feature_1

AUSANNE, Switzerland, April 12 (Reuters) - Oil prices have probably bottomed out and will rise from now on though the recovery will be slow due to a huge stocks overhang, some of the biggest oil trading executives said on Tuesday.

"The downturn in oil markets is behind us ... The trend is now up ... But rebalancing will take time. We will probably continue to build stocks for some time," Torbjorn Tornqvist, the head of Gunvor, told the FT Commodities Summit.


"We have seen the bottom," said Jeremy Weir, chief executive of Trafigura, predicting that supply and demand would be in balance by the third or fourth quarter of this year. Marco Dunand, the head of Mercuria, said he saw prices at above $50 per barrel next year.

Oil prices have dropped to as low as $27 per barrel - in January - from as high as $115 in mid-2014, forcing producers to cut spending by hundreds of billions of dollars and capping output growth in the United States.

"Low oil prices cannot last long as current prices do not allow many producers to recover costs ... As of today it appears that we will be able to overcome the global oversupply within two years," said Igor Sechin, head of Kremlin oil major Rosneft .

Russia and OPEC are close to clinching a deal to freeze output growth to help the market rebalance quicker but the head of oil at trading house Glencore, Alex Beard, said on Tuesday he did not believe this will help clear the glut fast.

"I can't see a huge opportunity for positive surprises (from the Doha OPEC/non-OPEC meeting). A freeze doesn't change the market dynamic," Beard said.

BP chief economist Spencer Dale said oil markets would likely see overall supply levels unchanged this year with increases in Iranian output offset by drops in production in other parts of the world.

Most traders said Iran's output increase would be slower than expected because of banking and legal complications despite the lifting of international sanctions in January.

"Getting capital in to do what they need to do won't be easy so I think it will be slower than they hoped," said Vitol chief executive Ian Taylor.

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