Drilling Remains Steady
While the industry-wide downturn was taking its toll, Helmerich & Payne's financial strength allowed it to expand offshore drilling operations. As equipment prices came down throughout the decade, Helmerich & Payne was able to capitalize on experience and financial resources, buying the best quality equipment at the lowest possible price. By the mid-Eighties, the company was operating approximately 30 percent of the offshore platform rigs in U.S. waters — and would build seven of the nine last platform rigs constructed during the decade. Overall, the platform business would generate nearly 90 percent of the drilling cash flow.
"We went from a company used to just picking up the phone and taking orders to one that could go out and hunt for jobs. We became project oriented," recalls George Dotson, President of Helmerich & Payne International Drilling Co.
At the same time, international operations also expanded dramatically. By the end of the decade, Helmerich & Payne operations spanned the globe, from South America to Yemen and West Africa."We have a number of advantages that other companies don't," Dotson said in 1988. "We have an excellent reputation for reliability. Our operations personnel and engineers have focused on improvements in field operation and rig design. And our strong financial position has made us a contender for every new job.
"We've designed rigs with all the latest innovations that we believe will make them competitive through the 1990s and beyond," Dotson said.
Exploration and Production
To meet the challenges of the new environment, major changes would be needed in the Exploration and Production Division as well.
It fell to the founder's grandson, Hans Christian Helmerich, to make those changes.
In 1985, he was named Vice President. Two years later, on December 11, 1987, the Board of Directors elected Hans Helmerich as the third President in the company's history. In 1989, he became Chief Executive Officer, filling the post vacated by his father, who continued to serve in retirement as Chairman of the Board.
Hans Helmerich had grown up with the company, literally. His first job: pulling weeds in the Utica Square flower beds for 25 cents an hour when he was still in grade school. In high school, Hans had worked as an intern in the company land department, and spent a summer in the Oklahoma City drilling office. While he was still in college, he was sent to work in the Helmerich & Payne Venezuelan operations. He took his new bride, Lea Calhoon Helmerich.