A champion of vertical flight operations

Trinidad and Tobago

Nirmal Larry Khadoo, area manager and director of Bristow Caribbean, talks to The Energy Year about the importance of helicopter services in Trinidad and Tobago’s offshore sector, the country’s deepwater potential and the growing trend of asset sharing. Bristow Caribbean provides air transportation, search and rescue, and medevac services to the offshore hydrocarbons sector.

Where do you expect to see demand for offshore helicopter services in the Trinidadian market?
The future of offshore production in Trinidad and Tobago will be in deepwater. The major energy giants are stakeholders in the recent award of blocks locally. We expect that in the future when they have reached exploration, then development and production stages that our services will be required. Deepwater is approximately 120-200 nautical miles offshore. We could go longer distances, which we have done within the last five years, once blocks further out are licensed.

How would helicopter services prove fundamental in developing deepwater assets?
Currently, deepwater blocks are still in the exploration phase and have not yet reached a development stage. We expect that in 2025 or 2026, we will receive more requests to transport personnel to surveillance and surveying vessels, as well as drillships. It is far more feasible to transport personnel via aircraft from land for deepwater crew changes than it is to have those vessels constantly docking at a port and disrupting their core function. The process of bringing a vessel to port can take days, so aircraft transport is not only more economical but also more efficient.

How has the distribution of Bristow aircrafts in the region shifted over the past year?
The numbers of aircrafts and operations in both Trinidad and Suriname have remained steady since 2022 for the group. In 2023, Bristow Caribbean was very pleased in providing our service as a Caricom operator in Guyana. Since 2023, Bristow has shifted the distribution of its aircrafts in some South American markets. Bristow in Brazil over the last year has become increasingly busier and continues to grow with new assets and technology and highly skilled local manpower.
Bristow also now provides search and rescue services for the Dutch Caribbean within the region. Having synergies with aircraft types and skilled manpower complements the region and fosters a regional approach to the way we do business.

How have trends in demand impacted your services?
One of the trends we have been observing is a request to share resources. We have successfully worked with key clients in doing so and are drawing on experience from our operations model in the UK and the US to achieve this in the Caribbean region.
It is exciting to see that the majors are expressing an interest in collaborating with each other. With sharing, there are always the logistical and operational hurdles that must be properly assessed and managed. This is something that we will continue to work on to achieve a working model for all our clients within the region.

From your standpoint, what response to HSSE protocols are you observing in the industry?
The major oil companies operating have always had an HSSE backbone; it is more common to find this in place with multinational companies. Major oil companies we work with have what they call an “eyes on, hands off” philosophy, which means that they monitor and support operators like ourselves without interfering, but rather facilitating a “partnership of excellence.”
What you would find in the industry now is that companies are being mandated to develop and improve their HSSE policies. In aviation, it’s always been said that aviation procedures are “written in blood.” Here at Bristow, we don’t simply sit and wait to learn and improve, we are constantly in the realm of strengthening our safety bowtie, assessing the risk of each work activity we conduct and empowering everyone to own safety. We can only succeed and remain safe when our culture of safety is no different and comes naturally whether we are at work or at home with our families.

How have you utilised new technologies or systems to improve your operations?
We have started a project with our enterprise resource planning programme where we implemented a new integrated system, which consolidates all our aircraft maintenance planning data, operations and other relevant information into one user-friendly system that gives us real-time data.
With this system, an aircraft is not released unless our programme permits. Similarly, a pilot is not accepted for flight duties unless our eFlight system indicates that they are qualified to fly that aircraft. Information such as aircraft components and their usage time is fed back to operations to assess whether a crew and an aircraft are compatible to operate.
In our industry, components are time sensitive and there is always a concern that critical information can be missed – and you could potentially have an aircraft flying with an expired component or a component that may have needed servicing if you do not have a proper airworthiness programme and adequate management of it. There are so many parts to a helicopter that we need to be meticulous about them all. There is hardly any component onboard that does not rotate or move once a helicopter rotor starts turning.
This integrated system is a form of technology that aids our efficiency in ensuring that all these various aspects are given attention.
Globally, Bristow continues to champion vertical flight operations. Keeping our focus on new technology, ESG and environmentally conscious operating philosophies and having the most trained and professional manpower are key to delivering a best-in-class aviation solution to our clients.

Read our latest insights on:

• Brazil
• Guyana
• Multinational
• Suriname
• Trinidad and Tobago