Offshore staff
(US) - Cal Dive International, Inc. announced today that it is changing its corporate name to Helix Energy Solutions Group, Inc, effective March 6, 2006. The company's new website at http://www.HelixESG.com will also be rolled out on that date.
Owen Kratz, chairman and CEO, stated, "It is with a tinge of sadness, but a lot of excitement, that we inform you of our plans to change our corporate name. The name 'Cal Dive' has served us well since the 1960s; however, it is time to move on, as we clearly are no longer solely a diving services provider."
"We have long seen three undeniable trends in the oilfield industry environment: there will be more mature fields; smaller oilfield discoveries; and more deepwater development projects. Since the early 1990's, we have been gradually positioning the company to achieve superior growth and financial returns from exploiting these trends. We have assembled a company with highly specialized people, assets and methodologies that we believe provide all of the necessary services to maximize the economics from marginal fields."
"We differentiate ourselves as a service contractor by taking equity interests in some of those fields. We started in 1992 with mature reservoirs in shallow water and more recently have secured working interests in several deepwater development fields. Following the closing of our acquisition of Remington Oil and Gas and the completion of the drilling upgrade to theQ4000, we will be able to identify, drill, develop, maintain and finally abandon our own reservoirs with the status of operator.
"While we take the name of one subsidiary, we will pass on 'Cal Dive' to our Shelf services business unit. We may then sell a minority stake in it via an initial public offering later this year. This press release does not constitute on offer of any securities for sale. The proceeds from such a sale would be used to help finance a planned investment program in service assets that are more core to our strategy, e.g., production facilities or even a secondQ4000-type vessel."
Helix Energy Solutions, headquartered in Houston, Texas, is an energy service company which provides alternate solutions to the oil and gas industry worldwide for marginal field development, alternative development plans, field life extension and abandonment, with service lines including marine diving services, robotics, well operations, facilities ownership and oil and gas production.
02/27/06
