As chief technology officer for Shell, Gerald Schotman oversees a research and development program with a budget that exceeds $1 billion. During a recent Houston visit, Schotman sat down with Russell McCulley to discuss how the company decides how to direct its R&D efforts…
Following lengthy qualification trials in Norway, MAN Diesel & Turbo has been selected as the supplier of the subsea gas compressors for the Åsgard field. According to field operator Statoil, in comparative trials carried out at the operator's K-Lab testing facility at Kårsto…
The Macondo well disaster and its ramifications were never far from the surface during the recent GE Oil & Gas annual meeting in Florence, where business leaders gathered in large numbers to discuss the technological and regulatory challenges…
Water jetting is now a well-established subsea approach and the technology has evolved significantly in the 30 years since the first mass-flow excavation (MFE) tool reached the market. David Morgan looks at the latest such development: the Marin Group Evo Claycutting system…
With subsea infrastructure getting into ever deeper waters, umbilicals have had to shoulder an expanding load. Jennifer Pallanich talks to five leading SURF sector players about how the industry's thermoplastic and steel tube umbilicals have evolved…
With a Norwegian sector breakthrough in the area of subsea gas compression very much on the cards for the next year or two, Statoil last month reaffirmed the case for compression in the Åsgard area while one the key vendors targeting this technology…
Things are stirring on the UK continental shelf if the attendance at last month’s Pilot Share Fair in Aberdeen is anything to go by. More than 1000 people, including Meg Chesshyre, turned out to hear from major operators and contractors about their strategies for future North Sea projects…
Aker Solutions has started a six-month integrated operations pilot with Danish operator Dong on the Trym field, an industry briefing in London heard recently. Meg Chesshyre reviews the status of this and other developments on the Aker technology horizon…
Partnerships and acquisitions are but one facet of the contractors' race to supply seabed separation, boosting and processing services. Materials science, marinization and redundancy also play a part in their efforts to make reliable seabed-to-shore systems a reality…
Gas is part of the solution to the global energy challenge says Brian Bjordal, president and CEO of Gassco, whose throughput of gas has doubled in just ten years. Meg Chesshyre reports.On the positive side, notes Bjordal, there are significant…
Continuous registration of vessel traffic above pipelines via the proposed Automatic Identification System (AIS) represents a significant improvement on pipeline operators' emergency response to possible mechanical damage, says Jens Erik Thygesen…
The trend toward putting more and more production equipment on the seabed – and in increasingly deeper waters – strongly challenges the offshore construction industry to continuously improve their ability to perform such activities in a safe and cost-effective manner…
With the offshore umbilicals market emerging from its recent slumbers and power cable demand from both the oil & gas and wind energy sectors picking up strongly, further expansion of Nexans’ Halden facility in Norway could well follow the current…
Shortening the data commuteDynamic Drilling Systems (DDS) is gearing up to begin production of its new Apollo Dart drilling software, which will be able to provide data within milliseconds, the company’s president Bob Sage announced during the recent IADC/SPE drilling conference in New Orleans…