Surveying and Consulting in Coastal South America

Ezcurra & Schmidt, based in Buenos Aires, Argentina, is a diversified, independent and private consulting and field services firm, owned by Sergio Schmidt and Horacio Ezcurra, focused on finding solutions for oceanic, coastal and fluvial engineering and environmental problems. Our projects are usually located in Argentina, Peru, Uruguay and Paraguay.

Founders Sergio Schmidt and Horacio Ezcurra were classmates at Instituto Tecnologico Buenos Aires, reading Oceanography. After graduating in the mid-1970s, Sergio pursued an academic research career and Horacio re-joined the Argentine Navy as surface officer oriented to Oceanography.

In the early 1990s, Sergio, who had a PhD in Coastal and Oceanic Engineering from the University of Florida, USA, and Horacio, with a lot of experience in operational oceanography and marine surveying, started to work independently and in close co-operation, until they registered a formal services company in 1997. The group has since consolidated and grown consistently in the number of projects and staff.

Environmental Projects

Our main business is related to coastal engineering, environmental projects, marine surveying and metocean studies. We maintain our own equipment or lease from third parties if required. Our services are run by a permanent staff of six people, working closely together. We normally subcontract a small portion of our services, an estimated 15% on average. We conduct our own operations, using our good marine experience in all types of boats.

The portion of our total revenues from environmental projects has increased from a small part, to currently more than half or our total revenues, which are in the order of USD600,000.

Moving abroad

Our technical services are normally oriented to the offshore industry, dredging projects and coastal development. Over the past few years we have increased the number of projects outside Argentina, mainly in other South American countries, where we have developed local partners and subcontractors. We operate in very volatile market conditions, where flexibility and diversification have been very important to our success.

All the oil companies with offshore operations in Argentina are currently our clients, requiring both metocean and environmental services, desktop as well as field. This was always one of the goals we dreamed of at the beginning and has now come true.

One of the main problems in this part of the world is the access to modern equipment. Due to the diversification and volatility of our market, equipment rental or co-operation with other parties is often better than purchasing, despite the very complicated temporary import customs operations often encountered in South American countries. Our equipment, both hardware and software, including numerical models, is mainly imported. We have complemented it with our own design and the construction of different water and soil samplers, implants for ADCPs, seismic profilers parts and recently an electrical, 6m penetration vibrocorer.

Dr. Sergio Schmidt, president of Ezcurra and Schmidt, is also a professor at Buenos Aires University and Universidad Del Salvador: "We believe our future is associated to our young people. This is why we have developed programmes and signed agreements with local universities to receive students for internships and training on the job, to broaden their vision on their future careers related to the sea and the coastal environment".

Continued Diversification and Versatility

South American economies, as a whole, have experienced consistent growth over the past few years. For this region, exchange terms with the rest of the world have improved and investment is growing steadily. A large portion of this will, in some way or another, be related to the coastal environment. So it makes sense for us to prepare ourselves for an increase in the demand of services but to do this in our style, i.e working ourselves rather than managing subcontractors.

Our main goals for the next few years are related to maintaining our clients in Argentina's offshore industry, to strengthening our presence in Peru's offshore market and preparing ourselves for the development of Uruguay's offshore oil and gas industry. We are committed to improving our contacts and skills so as to associate ourselves with other groups to strengthen our international project capabilities.

As in the past, our future depends on investments in energy and transport, which are somehow related to the varying visions of political leaders. Today, energy development is a priority to match the high growth rate of the economy. As a consequence, the offshore industry is quite active despite all the local uncertainties. Also active and growing are projects related to new LNG marine terminals and their associated dredged waterways.

Diversification and versatility have been our strength in the local market conditions in this part of the world, which are highly volatile and often change with little or no notice. We are committed to not losing this vital capability in the future.