OEG Offshore is headquartered in Aberdeen, Scotland but it supplies containers, tanks, trash compactors and rental cabins for the oil and gas industry all over the world. Clients include global powerhouses BP, Shell, Exxon, and Halliburton, to name a few. OEG just set its 2014 spending budget at $22 million, its largest investment yet. A big chunk of that cash will be spent on a new fleet of 200 transportable offshore tanks (chemical tanks, Jet heli-fuel tanks) and toward promoting its 3D printing application, which can physically print out a Fully Operational Offshore Lightweight (F.O.O.L) container.
3D printing isn’t the only area where OEG looks like a model of the super modern company. OEG is cutting edge on the marketing side of things too: its auxiliary Twitter account, @OffShoreWords, is a swift, steady info source for people interested in this giant industry. Every day @OffShoreWords tweets (to its 117,000 followers) a word, phrase or abbreviation used in the oil and gas industry–and a brief definition –“to help simplify the smoke and mirrors of the Offshore Oil and Gas Industry terminology.” Steady contact with an interested audience, delivering specialized information, pushing transparency by demystifying jargon–this is right out of 2014’s new marketing handbook. And it’s especially good for a company in an industry that often gets demonized by people having dinner in well-heated homes. That said, while we appreciate the brevity of @OffShoreWords, e.g. “Back Scuddling: reverse circulating”, each tweet could use a little extra (2paragraphs?) to really explain and get context of the terms for interested people who will never come close to a Jet heli-fuel tank–or even print out their own F.O.O.L.!