SIGNIFICANCE OF THE MR. CHARLIE
Mr. Charlie was the first, and the longest operating, Mobile Offshore Drilling Unit (MODU) in the world capable of drilling for oil in waters up to 40’ deep. [Image #1 & #2] Its design and success revolutionized the process of drilling for oil far offshore by demonstrating the viability of a floating, portable oil rig with a submersible barge, able to venture out to sea to reach vast, previously untapped underwater oil fields. That undertaking was not just possible, but also productive and economical, because Mr. Charlie carried onboard the equipment, materials, and derrick for drilling while also housing and supporting a large crew of workers able to remain at sea for extended periods of time.
Mr. Charlie’s invention was a major step forward that was widely documented, in an era of intense, active experimentation in the design of mobile rigs capable of drilling in deeper and deeper waters. The New-Orleans fabricated vessel operated for thirty-two years, and the individuals and companies behind the rig’s design and success immediately drew from that experience and went on to design and deploy subsequent rigs in seas worldwide, from the Gulf of Mexico to the North Sea to the Mediterranean to Australia and Japan. The company formed to develop Mr. Charlie, Ocean Drilling and Exploration Company (ODECO), became at one point the largest drilling contractor in the world. The A Governmental Report to the President in 2011 compared the technological advances in drilling offshore at increasingly greater depths—a process that Mr. Charlie pioneered—to the concurrent innovations exploring outer space, which progressed from launching unoccupied rockets, to sending satellites and animals into earth orbit, to landing a man on the moon. In the context of that federally-sponsored program, Mr. Charlie’s innovative role demonstrates the creativity and risk-taking of the private sector in the U.S. and of small business. The imagination, funding and development of this vessel did not occur as a federal project or under the auspices of a large corporation, but arose from the efforts of a handful of inspired individuals who created what is now known as a “start-up,” in the face of a lack of interest and even outright discouragement from well-established corporations in the oil and gas industry. The primary investor was an independent, mid-sized, land-based oil company deliberately looking for a way that a small business could compete in an industry dominated by long-established multinational firms.
The astounding expansion of offshore drilling that Mr. Charlie helped stimulate created what’s been called the “ecology of oil,” the transformation of the economy, industry, geography and life in post-WWII United States “Hydrocarbon Society.” What most people think of as the modern post-war world was created in large part by the affordable production and availability of oil and its products. They fueled and outfitted an unprecedented, abundant middle-class consumer society in America, which reveled in the seemingly miraculous potential of the “black gold” found below the earth’s surface. Now, decades later, as the world transitions to renewable sources of energy, the design, fabrication, construction, and installation technology that was developed in the offshore oil and gas industry is being repurposed to develop offshore wind and wave energy installations and the liquid fuels derived from oil are providing the energy to build the solar and battery infrastructure needed to power the world into a cleaner future.
Mr. Charlie was an innovative technological achievement that jump started a new industry and helped transform our world in ways that were truly remarkable.
1 National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling, Report to the President: DEEP WATER: The Gulf Oil Disaster and the Future of Offshore Drilling (Washington, DC: 2011), viii.
2 This story is told, among other places, in F. Jay Schempf, Pioneering Offshore: The Early Years (Houston: Offshore Energy Center, 2007), 37-40. .
3 Daniel Yergin, The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power (New York: Free Press, 2009), xvi