PCM/PHL

Michael Fesi was working in construction when things hit rock bottom.

“When times got tough in the mid 80s, I started looking for another avenue and I happened to pick up some work with a pipeline company,” says Fesi, who did sub work for another pipeline contractor. Within a couple of years, customers ended up coming to him. That’s when he decided to start his own business.

How it all began

Now, Fesi, owner of Pipeline Construction and Maintenance (PCM) has work experience that speaks greatly to his work ethic and position when it comes to safety. For one company, he says, they went 665,000 hours of labor without one lost-time incident and that was just with one major [contract] so we keep a pretty good record. He added that the one lost-time incident was relatively minor. “What we’ve done is built our business around safety; we work for a lot of the major companies and they require safety first and so we’ve built our business around doing things safely,” says Fesi. With over 20 years of experience in construction and pipeline maintenance, he not only has acquired a sense of understanding in terms of standards from top to bottom but also now believes it is the key to stellar work in the business. The Houma native also serves as a community leader as a member of the Terrebonne Parish Chamber of Commerce and South Central Industrial Association.

About PCM

Be it a problem in transporting natural gas to heat your home or unrefined petroleum gas to pump into your car, PCM is there to fix it. There are seven locations with an overall tally of about 165 employees at the pipeline construction and maintenance company. Serving all the major pipeline construction company, PCM’s business is broken down as such: 18 per cent of US oil production and 24 per cent of natural gas production comes through or from Louisiana. “A lot of the pipelines that we take care of are your main arteries going to the main refineries going all over the United States, be it natural gas or oil,” says Fesi. “We have basically built our business around the maintenance side of the pipeline industry to help the companies meet all the D.O.T. (regulations which are mandatory drug and alcohol testing of workers in safety-sensitive transportation of materials including pipelines) and we also do anything and everything they may need done. From class changes out on pipelines, to valve replacement to pipeline segment replacement to adding in new lines, building buildings and electrical and everything they need for dirt work, right away work, erosion control, one stop shop,” he says.

Nature terrain a blessing and a curse

Everyone knows how cruel Katrina hit the shores of New Orleans and its imminent destruction which has left the city picking up the pieces and starting from scratch. But in the southern part of Louisiana, there also tends to be a lot of land loss every year, often times leaving pipelines exposed. “Louisiana is the heat beat of America and we only get 1% of its money back from its oil royalties where the rest of the states get up to 50% so it’s hard to maintain the land loss...” explains Fesi who believes the state has every type of terrain. “It’s a great sportsmen’s paradise and it’s a great place to work because it’s a challenge in every aspect,” says Fesi. It’s a state that has all sorts of conditions in which to work in.

But a report by the American Geophysical Union revealed that coastal areas in south Louisiana are not just caving in, which most locals can tell you has been happening for years, but also slowly detaching from the mainland and moving into the Gulf of Mexico. This natural occurance poses a bigger problem. “The state has a hard time keeping up so a lot of pipelines are being exposed…our infrastructure is being compromised to keep all the pipelines in good condition,” he says, hinting at a legal hiccup. Apparently, there was a taxation law was put in place way back in the ‘60s or before and it’s never been changed and our state senators are fighting now to get the laws changed to get more of our money back to fund the problems we have with all the wetland loss, he says.

Compliance is often an issue as well. “We have to wait on permits through state and federal agencies on a constant basis which slows down the progress of repair and the whole system drastically of keeping the pipelines updated,” he says. PCM however, believes in regular safety training as well as mandatory alcohol and drug-testing of its employees. “Each morning we have a safety tailgate meeting before the guys go to work and talk about any major problems we may foresee and it’s all discussed,” says the owner. ”On major projects we do a write-up a safety procedure to make sure the job goes ahead and you don’t forget anything safety wise and make sure you lock out and tag everything,” says the native of Houma, an oil sands town.

Latest technology: PHL

His business partner, Kenny Vincent, had the great idea of developing a petro-hydraulic lift. “We bought an old unit out of a scrap yard and started working on it and designed a new system where we could control the speed of the hydraulics very well. We created this new system and we now have about 40 dif’t customers with a bunch of units out on lease,” says Fesi adding the initial response so far has been positive. In some cases, he says, the company has doubled and tripled the amount of production per well and the unit stops a lot of the work overtime. “The old style pumping unit causes a lot of problem down hole. Whereas, every unit we’ve put in place has not have one work over due to wear and tear,” explains Fesi. In that case, it was the only time they had to work on it, he quips

Over four years however, it wasn’t due to wear and tear but rather the well conditions. “Our oldest unit has been out for four years and hadn’t had one work over due to those conditions yet,” says Fesi. “They probably save 50-100,000 dollars a year in work over expenses,” he adds.

PHL technology is manufactured in Franklin, Louisiana. Partners Vincent and Fesi have a patent pending.

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