The proliferation of modern specialist vessels serving just about every sector of the offshore oil & gas business has not gone unnoticed by traditional shipping industry equipment and service providers, as was plain to see at the 2011 Nor-Shipping event in Oslo late May…
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…
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…
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…
On 1 July 2011, Royal Boskalis Westminster N.V. (Boskalis) announced that it reached an agreement with The Rezayat Group of Saudi Arabia (Rezayat) to sell SMIT’s terminal and AHTS transport activities to Lamnalco Ltd. (Lamnalco). Boskalis and Rezayat each own a 50% stake in Lamnalco…
With 107 West African xmas tree jobs to its credit since 2006, Bourbon Subsea Services has built a substantial track record in that region for the maintenance and installation of deepwater trees using vessel cranes. SVP business management Patrick…
Long content to remain under the radar, Louisiana's LLOG is set to make a big splash with its first Gulf of Mexico deepwater development using a floating production system. Russell McCulley joins LLOG officials at the company's new digs north of New Orleans to talk about the Who Dat project…
In less than a year, shipyards' lack of experience in delivering automated, highly-integrated offshore topsides has dropped as a primary source of non-productive time, according to a recent report that polled operators about the causes of NPT…
The 5 million barrels of oil that spilled into the Gulf of Mexico last year from the BP-operated deepwater Macondo well after a bad shear job played heavily on Radoil president Benton Baugh's mind. An inventor at heart, he knew there had to be a way to shear the unshearable…
Offshore sector M&A activity continues apace, with Aberdeen-based ‘inspect, assess and repair' services provider RBG among the latest players to change hands. Meg Chesshyre talks to RBG chief executive Dave Workman about the background to –…
In-depth studies into coincidental flaring offshore have found a less than one in 100 year design case which if not handled would risk loss of the ability to flare in an emergency, with potentially severe consequences. With bridge-linked installations on the increase…