The steady workload situation at Schiedam-based HSM Offshore continues to be the envy of many North Sea fabricators. Business was good when OE last visited the yard a year ago; it’s got even better since, as David Morgan reports.Back in the summer of 2010 Total’s K5-CU platform (850t topsides…
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…
Time is running short for a collaborative and cost-efficient approach to decommissioning, believes Optimus consultant Stuart Heggie.Perhaps understandably, governments and operators have put off decommissioning as much as possible. However,…
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…
Through industry technology facilitator ITF, Green Ocean Energy has secured funding to the tune of £45,000 to investigate the capability of its Wave Treader device to power offshore oil & gas structures. This is the first renewable energy venture to receive ITF support…
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…
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…
Shell's 100% owned and operated Prelude FLNG project offshore Western Australia, long in the works and given a final investment decision in May, will include what the company boasts is the largest floating offshore facility. Russell McCulley…
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…
Finland's Wärtsilä and Norway's Aker Solutions are combining their respective fields of expertise to develop the ultimate environmentally friendly offshore wind farm installation vessel concept, designed for operating in IMO emission control areas…
Norwegian mechanical engineer Julius Espedal had his first real brush with the forces of nature when undergoing offshore safety induction and emergency training in the UK back in 1999. Now he is getting reacquainted with them as his company…
An important milestone in Apache's UK North Sea Bacchus field development was reached recently with installation of a 6.7km pipeline bundle. The job was overseen by Flexlife, whose operations director John Marsden here describes how it was planned and executed…
A more optimistic view of the future of the southern North Sea gas and the hard-pressed East of England offshore supply chain emerged at a recent regional conference in Norwich. Meg Chesshyre reports.Having acquired assets from BP, Shell and BG in 2003 and ExxonMobil fields in 2007…
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…