Mike Bradley of accommodation specialist HB Rentals says the challenge of meeting local upstream demand for modular living quarters and offices prompted investment in a new UAE support facility.
Oilfield operations, whether onshore or offshore, are made possible by the presence of a dedicated workforce onsite. Appropriate life support solutions are needed for the lengthy stints these personnel will spend in these remote and often hostile locations.
HB Rentals is a Louisiana, based accommodation unit and auxiliary equipment manufacturer for the oil and gas industry since the 1980s. It has offices serving the world’s major exploration and production regions of the Americas, Europe and Asia. The company manufactures land based wheel mounted trailer units and cold weather skids and stackable offshore accommodations for fixed platforms and floating rigs.
The company also provides a host of services for all its accommodation units including project management, planning, engineering and design. “We have been established in the industry for 30 years,” says Mike Bradley, sales and marketing manager for the Eastern Hemisphere of HB Rentals. “We operated from bases in most oil and gas producing regions worldwide. We support our regional locations by way of independent business hubs as well as agents. Our A60 fleet is the largest and the most dispersed around the globe as well as being the most diverse in terms of specifications and layouts,” he claims.
Bradley says the HB Rentals modular designed units can be configured to provide anything from a single two-man accommodation sleeper up to a 180+ man multi module/level living quarters including galley, mess rooms, laundries and offices.
The company also provides specialist offshore engineering and general purpose cabins that include laboratories, workshops and recreational cabins in addition to other technical amenities, and owns and operates a large fleet of smaller specialised well service A60 cabins to meet Zone 1 and 2 hazardous areas.
“All our accommodation and well service cabins are designed for use offshore in safe and hazardous areas. In addition and as standard options we provide for rental, walkways, sewage systems and power generation plants,” says Bradley.
Bradley explains how the company can offer its customers the option to pick up or mobilise its housing units in one part of the world and drop off or demobilise the same unit in another. With a strategically-placed manufacturing base in the UAE to complement its other bases in Singapore, UK and the US, the company is seeing steady growth of business in the Middle East and internationally. He highlighted the UAE, Qatar and Saudi Arabia as particular areas of growth in business opportunities especially with an increase in enquiries for offshore projects locally.
Around 70% of the units HB Rentals manufactures are leased out to its global client base on flexible finance terms. It does, however, receive enquiries to build units to be sold which are handled by its engineering, design and manufacturing hubs in the UK and the US.
Speaking about the region’s current market conditions, Bradley is resolutely upbeat: “Our biggest challenge at present is to meet demand for our products and support services. We have recently opened a facility in the UAE to support existing customers and maintain the high standard of service necessary to keep our offshore cabins and facilities operating smoothly.”
