Company Overview

9 Months Ended

Sep. 30, 2012

Company Overview [Abstract]

Company Overview

Note 2 – Company Overview

We are an international offshore energy company that provides specialty services to the offshore energy industry, with a focus on our growing well intervention and robotics businesses.  We also own an oil and gas business that is a prospect generation, exploration, development and production company.  We utilize cash flow generated from our oil and gas production to support expansion of our well intervention and robotics businesses.  Our contracting services operations are located primarily in the Gulf of Mexico, North Sea, Asia Pacific, and West Africa regions. Our oil and gas operations are located in the Gulf of Mexico.

Contracting Services Operations

We seek to provide services and methodologies which we believe are critical to developing offshore reservoirs and maximizing production economics.  Our “life of field” services are segregated into four disciplines: well operations, robotics, subsea construction and production facilities.  We have disaggregated our contracting services operations into two reportable segments: Contracting Services and Production Facilities. Our Contracting Services business includes the well operations, robotics and subsea construction activities (see Note 17 for disclosures regarding the announced sale of a large portion of our subsea construction assets).  Our Production Facilities business includes our majority ownership of the Helix Producer I (“HP I”) vessel as well as our equity investments in Deepwater Gateway, L.L.C. (“Deepwater Gateway”) and Independence Hub, LLC (“Independence Hub”).It also includes the Helix Fast Response System (“HFRS”), which includes access to our Q4000 and HP I vessels.  In 2011, we signed an agreement with Clean Gulf Associates ("CGA"), a non-profit industry group, allowing, in exchange for a retainer fee, the HFRS to be named as a response resource in permit applications to federal and state agencies, and making the HFRS available for a two-year term to certain CGA participants who have executed utilization agreements with us.  In addition to the agreement with CGA, we currently have separate utilization agreements with 24 CGA participant member companies.  These agreements specify the day rates to be charged should the HFRS be deployed in connection with a well control incident.  The retainer fee for the HFRS became effective April 1, 2011.

Oil and Gas Operations

We began our oil and gas operations to achieve incremental returns, to expand our off-season utilization of our contracting services assets, and to provide a more efficient solution to offshore abandonment for industry participants.    We have evolved this business model to include not only mature oil and gas properties but also unproved and proved reserves yet to be explored and developed.