Valaris (Ensco Company)

Valaris, previously Ensco, is one of the largest companies in the offshore oil drilling industry and is based in London in the United Kingdom. The company has been operating for over 25 years and stresses safety for employees and others. They are known for consistently outperforming and going beyond the industry’s average safety standards and extensively train their employees as part of that standard.

Valaris History

Ensco’s history begins in 1987 as Blocker Energy Corporation and then Energy Services Company, Inc, founded in Dallas, Texas. The company made important acquisitions, including Dual Drilling and Penrod Drilling, to expand quickly.

The original service offered by the company was contract drilling, but it quickly branched out to include marine transportation and engineering services. The name of the company changed to Ensco in 1995.

By the early 2000s, Ensco had grown its fleet to include deep water and ultra-deepwater rigs and semisubmersible vessels to serve the deepest oil drilling in the world.

The company also focused on acquiring and using jackup rigs, a type of platform that is mobile and self-elevating. Continuing acquisitions helped the company grow until it became the second-largest offshore fleet in the world. By 2010 the company had moved its headquarters to London.

In 2019, Ensco merged with Rowan Companies, another large offshore drilling company. EnscoRowan changed its name to Valaris in July 2019.

Valaris Vision and Values

Valaris includes worker safety as part of its overall vision, an impressive statement from a company in an industry that typically sees so many injuries and even deaths due to negligence or carelessness.

The company also lists its values as:

• Ethical behavior
• Not causing harm to people, the environment, or property
• Achieving success for employees, shareholders, and customers
• Having a can-do attitude
• Providing operational excellence

The company’s vision as a whole is to have a zero-incident workplace and to be the obvious choice of clients and employees.

Valaris’s Fleet

Valaris claims to have one of the most technically-advanced fleets in the industry. The fleet includes 40 jackup platforms, 14 semisubmersibles, and nine drill ships, with an average age of just four years.

The company also has several other vessels under construction to be added to the fleet later and a few being sold. The drill ships use advanced technological systems for driller and mud controls, station keeping, hoisting, and blowout prevention.

Valaris has the world’s largest fleet of jackups, mobile and self-elevating platforms. The jackups include some models designed for harsh environments and others made for high specifications.

Valaris’s semisubmersible rigs in its fleet are ultra-deepwater rigs, able to drill in water as deep as 8,500 feet. The rigs have a proprietary design that the company developed based on customer feedback.

The company claims its semisubmersible rigs can rill in almost every deepwater oil field globally. The Valaris Fleet operates around the world. It operates off the coasts of six continents and has experience drilling in every major basin globally.

Worker Safety at Valaris

Valaris takes great pride in its fleet, with advanced technologies, more jackup platforms than any other company, impressive submersible rigs, and equipment designed to work in almost any underwater oil field worldwide.

The company claims to put safety first, above all the technological success. Many of its top honors are for safety. The company has ranked the highest among all other offshore oil drillers in the Customer Index of Global Oilfield Suppliers for five years.

The statistics compiled by the company are impressive and show that year after year, Valaris has fewer safety incidents and less lost time because of incidents than the industry average.

Fatalities are much lower than the industry average, and Valaris has only had three deaths between 2008 and 2016.

To maintain such an impressive record in the face of a dangerous industry, Valaris outlines a strict safety policy. The list of procedures includes:

• Always working with the company vision and values in mind, which put safety first
• Using annual goals to hit safety and environmental targets and targets for employee behavior
• Allocating enough resources and personnel to ensure that prevention is integral to the safety record

Training is also a big part of Valaris’s safety record. A common source of accidents and injuries in the maritime industry is a lack of training. Valaris invests the time and money necessary to ensure workers are highly-trained and less likely to make dangerous mistakes on the job.

Maritime Injuries and Accidents

Valaris may be a maritime company devoted to safety and ethical operations, but not all are this diligent. If you have been injured at a maritime job, you could face a lot of burdensome expenses and may not even be able to return to work.

As a maritime or offshore worker, you have a right to seek compensation, but your employer may try to give you less than you are owed. Laws protect maritime workers, including the Outer Continental Shelf Land Act. 

If you have been hurt or lost a loved one to the maritime industry, talk to a professional maritime attorney. Do this before signing anything or agreeing to any settlement or offer. A lawyer can help you decide if you are entitled to more under the law and will guide you as you fight back against your employer to get it.