The One Horse Oil Port

If Oil had never been found an Oil Port would have been another unknown village or scrap of waste land, a fisherman's dream or an unblemished sand dune. All over the world from Vung Tau to Azerbaijan little hubs of activity sprang up in hours: little fishing ports or isolated swamps to booming hives of activity they became before the eye could blink.

The necessary ingredients for an oil town are two of number. The first is that the prospective area (swamp, marsh, dessert or waste land) is close to an oil field that is being developed. The second is that the area has either a natural harbour: already has a jetty or wharf or is sheltered and so able to accommodate supply ships and anchor handlers. Many other factors collude indiscriminately to kick start an empty lot into a centre of industry and a future concrete jungle. From logistics to airports, from workforces to angry locals many other ingredients contribute to how an oil base survives in the long term but none of them have any say on that first day.

The Beginning

Oil is discovered. The company, whether it is Shell, BP, CPC or some Mickey Mouse outfit initially looks for the nearest strip of land and the place to dock a ship that will be used to run essential supplies for its drilling process in the middle of the ocean. For the average fisherman, shopkeepers or farmers that inhabit the strip of land the welcome of this vessel is enormous, it brings the outside world in and provides a little boost to the economy, thus keeping the dogs away from the door.

This happy beginning though is only a precursor to the onslaught that is yet to come. Once this toe in the door has gained solid earth there is nothing that was once sacred will remain untouched and the toe becomes a foot. From the once weekly supply vessel that was heralded by the locals comes two supply vessels and then three. And the supply vessels need a bigger wharf and to build the bigger wharf manpower is needed and to bring the manpower in accommodation is needed and to build houses and living quarters materials are shipped in.

In a matter of months what had once been a sleepy unrecognised and worthless dot on the coast springs a town that has potential, maybe not to the desires of those who had lived there quietly before but to those that see the makings of a dollar. Shops spring up that quickly put the corner grocer to shame, bars open doors wide throwing out loud music that silences the lone beer seller into oblivion and hotels offer five stars to the previous family B&B that had existed silently and without custom for many years previously.

Outsiders pour in from the bigger towns, from abroad and from all corners of the globe. Cheap labour is shipped in to construct and deconstruct: expert's set-up shop to design and to organise and money is never an object. National citizens open up branches of their shipping agencies and their own oil and services companies, partnerships are formed and new companies spring up as those with the dollar in their eye see light.

And from what was once a sleepy and unrecognised piece of earth grows a town that is active, wealthy and bright, from a once sparse landscape grow the bricks and mortar that will obliterate the natural surroundings that had once been the home to so many. And yes, somewhere beneath it all are the unheard and sad few that did not join the bandwagon of progression, who could only watch as their land was taken away from them and who lost the tranquillity of their past before another day arose.

The Hotel Users

Many oil towns apart from becoming the logistical centre for supplies out to the fields also become the base for human transportation out to the rigs and platforms that dot these fields like small pox. All rigs, ships and platforms require humans to operate them to keep them functioning and alive so that the steady flow of oil from under the sea to the petrol pump and the power station can be maintained. Engineers, Riggers and Cooks share seats with Barge Masters, Tank Cleaners and Foremen on helicopters and crew boats so that they may join their respective vessels and floating constructions and all use the oil town as a collection point before proceeding outwards. Others flow steadily inwards in similar droves as they finish their time or contracts on the field: they looking forward to getting home, to a beer or to spending all the cash that they have just earned.

Surveyors and experts fly out for the week, the day or night, to cajole or to advise wisely for big bucks and seafarers and those on the rigs for the month or more. But all pass through the oil town as they wait for planes or boats to take them onwards, some request extra time to wind down and to meet up with friends and some stay to fall in love or to recapture a lost one.

Some want to get out, some want to stay but all are a moving mass of humanity, where no-one is an individual and where one goes another will fill its place. And all require hotel rooms.

The Stayers

It is the dreaded nightmare of many an expert or manager to be posted to the last outback of civilisation. To be issued orders to pack up and ship out to a place still known for its head-hunters or where violence, aggression and hatred of the outside world still take the upper hand. For many these postings are a step up the ladder, maybe a two year stint will see them back home and behind a desk in head office with a house paid for or the pension fund ticking over nicely. For others they represent excitement and thrill, some thrive on the life and others shrink from it. From all corners of the world and for whatever reason they flow inwards, houses and apartments spring up to accommodate them and a life they begin for better or for worse. Families and possessions arrive not soon after and communities spring up based on similarity, on nationality, on company orders or on desperation. Westernised shops take over from the local stalls, steaks become more popular than "sweet and sour pork" or Thai Rice and local markets get squeezed out as chain stores see profit.

Divorces may happen as wives can't accept the lifestyle or decide that their husband was not the man that they married, men split as they fall in love with local beauty or turn to the bottle. Others enjoy the life and breed on it building a future and togetherness than would not have been found back home.

But they come and they go, some quicker than others and some extend contracts but throughout, the community that springs up continues forcibly and without deterrence and it is never long before a vacant house becomes occupied and a bar stool finds another backside to keep it warm.

The Bars

Should a wandering tourist find himself between touristy spots and stuck for the night in an oil town he or she will not find much to do. Apart that is from eating, drinking and enjoying the night life that all oil towns have to offer. With the throughput of relieved oil workers form the fields, of experts and workers who tend to drink copious amounts of alcohol on a daily basis, bars and pubs always abound. A main street usually finds itself as the centre of this activity and endless establishments fling open doors to offer beer and comfort to those in need. Huts with a couple of chairs and run by the locals vie for business with the big spenders, the large pub owners and the opportunists.

Seafarers fallen in-love with a local girl see the dream of escape by investing in a bar or buying one outright, Expatriates tired of the stress of business see the opening of a bar the chance to mix pleasure with an expatriate lifestyle and all of them see profit as the hordes of seafarers, oil rig workers, surveyors and specialists drift through in never ending streams.

Some bars offer music, others woman wine and song. Some attract customers with scantily clad girls standing in doorways, others through darkness and mystery. One bar might offer western style cooking; another bar has variety of beer that is from home. The O'Hara's bar gives song and Guinness, the London bar sells fish and chips and Tenants lager. The Offshore Bar or the Sea Breeze advertises the woman attraction and local beer whilst the Lounge or the Hideaway gives quieter refuge and a place for expatriate wives to take their husbands without fear from the local prostitutes. The Rig gives a decent strip tease for the lustful, the Port Hole a strong sense of still being on a ship and the Landing Stage a certain sense of wanting to get off!

Bouncers or sexy girls block doorways with invitation; local taxi-drivers block exits with promise of 'fares cheaper than anywhere else' and mama sans block stairwells to take money from deep willing customers.

Music blares out, lights and neon sign flash welcome, doors bang as enthusiastic drinkers move on to the next establishment; doors bang as overfilled drunkards rush to kerb-sides to empty out their system. Doors bang as excited drifters take the promise of love to their hotels for the night in exchange for payment and doors bang as revellers break the rules of the bar or upset someone who is bigger and meaner than they are.

These are the bars, the night life and the heart of the oil town when the sun sinks below the horizon.

The End

A time will come when the world will run out of oil, when oil is no longer viable to produce or to drill for. A time will come when Oil Towns will become like shanty towns in the wild west, people will move on to other places, big businesses will move to other towns were money beckons and along with these departures will go the hotels, the bars and the expatriates, leaving behind an eclectic mixture of locals and foreigners who have invested life savings in bars and marriages that are now worthless. The towns may survive by reverting back to fishing or tourism but the heart and the pace will have departed along with the loss of oil - the revenue will have dried up.