Here's a chopper taking off from an oil platform

[93LXHORSE]

I'm on the deck of our boat watching it lift off from the Ursa Platform out here in the Gulf....

Enjoy...

https://www.dropbox.com/s/rlins07snrfzpgs/20160129_075444.mp4?dl=0

[stephen4785]

Meh, Iv owned cooler choppers then that. Mine was red.

[93LXHORSE]

Meh, Iv owned cooler choppers then that. Mine was red.

Well... thanks for at least replying. I thought this was going to be a total bust of a thread.

[Scott Mc]

Those blades sure move slow, needs moah powhah! Lol

[jefehbk]

Were they looking for Harry Stamper?

[stephen4785]

Well... thanks for at least replying. I thought this was going to be a total bust of a thread.

I thought it was a cool video. I love stuff like that. Any chance of you taking a video of how some of the equipment operates and explaining what it does?

[93LXHORSE]

Yeah, I have a bunch of stuff already, and I'm gonna take some fresh pics of the job we are about to do.

That chopper was taking off of the Ursa Platform in the Ursa Field. In the Ursa Field there are a ton of subsea wells, and the Ursa, Apollo, and Mars Platforms. Drill ships come out and drill the wells. They also drop a BOP - Blow Out Preventer - on top of it to keep it safe. If they want to keep the well, they will put a "Tree" on top of it, that has a shitload of valves and controls on it, that connect to pipes, jumpers, all kinds of shit, and all that connects to the rigs mentioned above.

Those rigs do all the separation and processing of the hydrocarbons and send it to shore.

Our boat has a big fucking crane on it, and we go out and drop all the stuff down to the sea floor..... the trees, jumpers, steel flying leads, hydraulic flying leads, all kinds of valve systems and the controls for them. Then the ROV robots go down there and connect it all up. The ROV room is like a fucking science fiction / National Geographic dream world with huge TV screens on the walls and guys sitting in control chairs making the robots do their thing.

It's really quite amazing. I don't know a whole lot about the drilling or processing side really. I just make sure that crane works because if it goes down, shit hits the fan really fast.

[TX21]

Am I the only one expecting a Harley or something to launch off an oil rig platform? .

[Tremor14]

I am looking now for some videos we have of a helicopter pick we did a few weeks ago in downtown dallas. lifted (3) 30,000 lb. air cooled chillers up 33 floors.

[stephen4785]

I'm on the deck of our boat watching it lift off from the Ursa Platform out here in the Gulf....

Enjoy...

https://www.dropbox.com/s/rlins07snr...75444.mp4?dl=0

So how does paying taxes work when you technically work in international waters? Iv always wondered if you get to skirt taxes doing that way or have your money deposited into an over seas account or something where you dont have to pay out so damn much.

[Chili]

So how does paying taxes work when you technically work in international waters? Iv always wondered if you get to skirt taxes doing that way or have your money deposited into an over seas account or something where you dont have to pay out so damn much.

I think you have to spend the bulk of the year (like 11 months) out of the country to get the tax benefit. I'm sure there are other conditions as well, I just remember some of our resident overseas contractors mentioning they couldn't come home for vacation because they already spent too much time here for the year..

[93LXHORSE]

Technically I guess you could call the Gulf international waters, but working offshore for my company, in the Gulf, does not constitute working out of the country.. it's kind of tricky and I don't know it exactly - something like 12 miles out is US territory, then another 12 miles after that is still enforced / protected by law, then 200 miles from any US land point for economic rights, but I haven't been to marine school and don't worry too much about those particulars.

And yes, I believe the 11 months rule does apply if you are literally IN another country, continuously...... but I only work 6 months a year, and in the Gulf I'm never more than 100 miles from some part of the US coastline, at least thus far.

This project I am on will eventually come to an end, and I believe I will get a chance to go to the Netherlands and Singapore, but again not continuously.

[91GriggsGT]

I have been working offshore the past 8 yrs. First 5 in the GoM, last 3 have all been overseas Korea, Malaysia, Africa.

In the GoM, no matter how far out you are, you still pay taxes as you normally would sitting on shore. Most companies take out Federal taxes, but leave you to do your own state taxes if your state has income tax.

Overseas is a little different. All depends on the company you work for. For me, my company pays "host country" taxes. What that means is when I am in country and working, they pay that country income taxes on my earnings. At the end of the year, I get an earnings letter that shows what I made, and also what taxes were paid to the host country gov't. Then I send all that to my accountant and he figures it from there.

There are ZERO taxes taken out of my check all year, and we all know how the US gov't likes your tax dollars, so I pay estimated federal taxes thru the year. Since I live in TX, I dont have to worry about state income tax.

Where the benefit of working overseas comes in, is that the US can't double tap you for taxes. If you are paying 20% income tax to an overseas gov't, the US cant tax you again. So if you fall into say a 30% tax bracket, 20% of your in-country taxes were already paid, so you pick up the remaining 10%.

Sounds confusing right? Yeah, that is why I have somebody else deal with all that. He tells me what I need to pay for estimated and I go on with life. At the end of the year, when I have paid too much, the refund just rolls over to the next year's estimated.

And yes, you have to be out of the US for a total of like 332 days to be able to claim any sort of tax credit. And even then, it is not totally free. You only get to deduct something like 92k.