The world's largest cargo barge – Heerema's H-851 – announced its arrival on the offshore scene in 1988 when installing the 44,785t jacket for Shell's Bullwinkle platform in a then daunting 412m of water in the Gulf of Mexico. Now, following…
Worldwide, the mobile offshore drilling fleet has kept between 500 to 550 rigs under contract over the past two years. Recent overall utilization remains at a two-year low of 68% or 507 rigs working. However, tendering activity has been on the…
OPITO, the Aberdeen-headquartered body serving as the focal point for skills, learning and workforce development in the UK energy sector, estimates that over 15,000 new posts will be required over the next five years to deliver UK offshore project plans…
Differing perspectives on the African exploration & production scene were offered during IP Week in London last month, with Tullow Oil and Afren describing their respective approaches to the continent and Equatorial Guinea's energy ministry updating the republic's offshore developments to date…
Within a fortnight of closing its $3 billion acquisition of compression, flow technology, measurement and distribution infrastructure provider Dresser, GE last month announced plans to lay out another $2.8 billion to secure the well support division of John Wood Group…
Seaway Heavy Lifting will shortly take delivery of its second heavylift crane vessel, the state-of-the-art Oleg Strashnov. David Morgan looks at some of the new HLV 's novelties and niceties. The Oleg Strashnov has been a while coming…
McDermott picked up a Bentley Systems innovation in construction award at the infrastructure software provider’s recent ‘Be Inspired’ gathering in Amsterdam for the early delivery of the Su Tu Vang central processing platform at the Cuu Long project offshore Vietnam…
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…
Litigation continues in US courts over the Obama administration’s Gulf of Mexico deepwater drilling moratorium, despite the early lifting of the six-month drilling ban in October. In a 19 October decision, US District Court judge Martin Feldman…
The effect of the continuing credit crunch last summer meant that North Sea field development activity was down last year, but the steadying of the price this spring has led to projects being dusted off in both the UK and the Norwegian sectors…
GDF Suez takes over as operator of Gjøa when the field comes onstream in October. The project comprises a semisubmersible platform with subsea tiebacks, and is also expected to be a hub in the future. Meg Chesshyre opens this month's Scandinavian…
The last couple of years have seen fairly lean pickings for offshore fabricators in the Netherlands and on the UK east coast. But for one Dutch yard, paradoxically, things could scarcely have gone better.HSM in Schiedam, already sitting on a…
For a while, non-productive time was a problem most companies didn't want to acknowledge. Two recent reports have brought into focus the amount of time, and money, lost due to non-productive time. Jennifer Pallanich finds out what the Athens…
Brazilian operator Petrobras expects to initiate production from a new reservoir to existing facilities in Modules 1 and 2 of its deepwater Marlim Sul field this summer and bring a third module onstream via the P-56 semi early next year. Asset…
While operating in Brazil’s pre-salt region does require an array of technologies, Petrobras CEO Jose Gabrielli told a Houston lunch that a bigger challenge lies in meeting logistical demands for operating in deep waters offshore. During the Brazil-Texas Chamber of Commerce event in March…