CAL DIVE INTERNATIONAL Houston, Texas; In Gulf's Oil Fields, Construction Contractor Reaps The Whirlwind.(THE NEW AMERICA)

Publication: Investor's Business Daily

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COPYRIGHT 2005 Investor's Business Daily, Inc.

Byline: ALAN R. ELLIOTT

Give this a try: Put on a blindfold, then use a set of chopsticks to tie your shoes.

That's the degree of difficulty Cal Dive International engineers face on a daily basis, using remote-control robotics to build or repair oil production facilities in thousands of feet of salt water.

The company has been working double time since September, tying expensive loose ends in the wake of Hurricane Ivan's tear through the Gulf of Mexico.

The Gulf drilling and production industry managed to shut down operations and offshore production platforms ahead of the storm, but Ivan put a tourniquet on production.

Undersea mudslides mangled and buried large spans of networked pipelines. Wind and waves destroyed seven platforms and seriously damaged...

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