Alden “Doc” Laborde
Editor's note: This profile is part of Hart Energy's 50th anniversary Hall of Fame series honoring industry pioneers of the past 50 years and the Agents of Change (ACEs) who are leading the energy sector into the future.
Offshore drilling rigs in 1953 were basically onshore drillings plopped onto piling—essentially a new drilling platform built from scratch for each new well. In the event of a dry hole, the rig came off the piling and was hauled to the next piling location. It was time-intensive and costly.
“Dad was in the department (at Kerr-McGee) where they had to go take out all the creosote piling out of these locations and he said, ‘this is stupid,’” Jack Laborde, son of offshore drilling pioneer Alden “Doc” Laborde (1915-2014), told Hart Energy. The drilling rig, Navy veteran Doc Laborde could see, needed to be able to float. So, he designed one that could.
Kerr-McGee, however, wasn’t interested in the new technology. So Laborde quit the company and partnered with rig builder Jack Hayward to form Ocean Drilling & Exploration Co. (ODECO). With financing of 50% from Murphy Oil and the rest from vendors, Mr. Charlie, named for the father of Murphy’s CEO, took to the waters of the Gulf of Mexico in 1954 and East Bay field near New Orleans in Plaquemines Parish, La.
“Daddy said the whole key to it was, the first time, the first well they drilled was in East Bay and it wound up being a big, big, big oil, I mean, big oil discovery for Shell,” said Jack Laborde. More rigs were built and Shell contracted with ODECO for years. Other operators have taken over the East Bay field since, but it continues to produce, and Mr. Charlie would drill in the shallow Gulf of Mexico for the next 30 years.
When it comes to innovation, Laborde was the offshore industry’s equivalent of the Wright Brothers, said Don Briggs, president of the Louisiana Oil and Gas Association.
“He advanced the industry at times when we needed so desperately to have that energy source,” Briggs said.
But the “father of offshore drilling” wasn’t finished innovating. He went on to found Tidewater and launched the first modern offshore supply vessel, Ebb Tide, in 1955. In 1985 he purchased a Gulf Coast fabrication facility and co-founded Gulf Island Fabrication to build offshore oil platforms. The company went public in 1997.
Doc was “very quiet, very religious, very honest,” said Jack Laborde. The rough-and-tumble crowd of Red Adair, Michel Halbouty, Jim Bob Moffett and other colorful industry icons of that era loved him but kidded he was “too squeaky clean to be a contractor.”
Jack Laborde took the company into international waters, including the Ekofisk field in the North Sea. His father joined him once on a rig offshore Brazil. The industry legend was stunned by the water depth (3,000 feet compared to 40-45 for Mr. Charlie) and how computers and thrusters had replaced anchors.
“He looked at me,” Jack said. “He said, ‘you know what, I’m going home. I’m going back to the Gulf of Mexico. I’m going to quit. I’ve gone from 35 feet of water to 3,000 feet of water and it’s time for me to go home.’ He did.”
—Paul Wiseman, contributing editor; Joseph Markman, senior managing editor