With the scene now apparently set for a long-awaited global decommissioning drive, RBG director Roger Esson discusses what it takes to retire offshore installations safely and efficiently.Despite the high oil price and drive to extract more reserves from existing fields…
Letters of intent for the removal of two redundant North Sea platforms, H7 and 2/4-S, have been awarded by Statoil on behalf of operator Gassco. AF Decom Offshore will remove and sell H7, while Saipem UK will remove 2/4-S. Both installations are to be removed by the end of 2014…
The benefits of 'remote open close' technology are increasingly being sought out by operators as a new way to approach well interventions and completions, particularly in deepwater and subsea applications where rig time savings are critical…
Increased economic activity, more jobs and a 70% rise in spending are predicted for the Gulf of Mexico offshore oil & gas industry by 2013 – provided permitting returns to pre-moratorium levels. Katie Jernigan looks at the region’s latest economic impact analysis…
Technological barriers and operator requirements can limit the possibilities available to offshore design teams when it comes to engineering a production riser plan for a deepwater facility. Hybrid solutions and composites will offer some relief…
Aberdeen-based specialist explosives service provider Spex Services launched a new division earlier this year to capitalise on the business opportunities opening up in the decommissioning and salvage sectors. The company operates from three bases…
In the face of a lot of hard evidence on the failure of renewable energy sources to defeat the physics of energy and laws of economics, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its latest report on renewable energy development in May 2011 (www…
Innovative technologies aimed at improving the experience of personnel travelling to and from offshore wind farms were recently unveiled by BMT Nigel Gee and OSBIT Power.--As well as introducing an active motion damping system to a number…
The US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation & Enforcement (BOEM) will publish a call for information and nominations in the Federal Register to gauge interest in wind energy development offshore New Jersey.The 418 nautical square…
Statoil last month launched a campaign urging the UK to make natural gas a key component in its long-term future energy. The operator argues gas can be an important part of securing UK energy supplies and cutting CO2 emissions, although political…
At the EAGE annual meeting in Vienna Andrew McBarnet discerned a mood of surprising equanimity in the marine seismic community.Some titles are hard to live up to. So, even though the recent annual meeting of the European Association of Geoscientists…
The 50:50 partners in Denmark's Siri oil field fell out last month over the latest proposals to deal with the subsea cracks that have beset the 13-year old Siri production and storage platform in recent years. Meg Chesshyre reports.The row…
Earlier this year the refrain was ‘$5 natural gas forever', based on the US Energy Information Administration's (EIA) annual outlook, which argued that natural gas prices will remain below $5 per million btu until 2022. The underlying rationale was growth in the ‘vast' US shale gas resource base…
A commercial version of a subsea booster designed to improve production of fluids containing both liquid and free gas is expected to be made available next year by Aker Solutions and its JIP partners. Jennifer Pallanich talks to Aker's Christian…
An internal Transocean investigation into the explosion and loss of the Deepwater Horizon found that the tragedy was the result of ‘compromised' well integrity due to a series of well design, construction and temporary abandonment decisions made by operator BP…