Newly merged contractors Royal Boskalis Westminster and Smit Internationale got a foretaste of the operational synergies expected to stem from this move when their activities coincided earlier this year in the Strait of Magellan at the remote southernmost tip of Argentina…
Engineering and building production facilities in-house not only saves money but can also give offshore suppliers a sizeable market edge. That's been the case, and not for the first time, at Moerdijk-based offshore steel wire ropes, cable-laid…
BP has come under fierce criticism for its response to the Macondo blowout, a months-long saga of top hats, riser insertion tools and other containment efforts that only began collecting a significant portion of the oil spilling into the Gulf several weeks after the event…
Ultimately, the life of existing offshore assets will have to be extended, safely and reliably, and balancing production against integrity requires a comprehensive understanding of those assets and the use of management strategies that engage employees at all levels…
Subsea trenching is not seen as one of the offshore industry's most glamorous or challenging activities – what could be more straightforward than digging in the dirt? In truth, however, it is far easier to lose money trenching than to make it…
Increased uncertainties about operating in ultra-deepwater typically result in over-designed production systems with resulting increased costs. Prasanna Parthasarathy and Kellin Nelson of MSi Kenny and Shell's Howard Littell discuss how high…
Four of the largest oil companies have pledged $1 billion to build a rapid response system designed to capture and contain oil in the event of another Macondo-style blowout in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico.In a July 21 joint announcement, Chevron…
Unfair though it may seem, it is conceivable that the Macondo incident will have at least as damaging and persistent an impact on the offshore industry as Chernobyl does on the nuclear power industry. Professor Andrew C Palmer explains why.On…
Having enjoyed the occasional taste of EPC responsibility in recent years, Van Oord Offshore is looking for much more of the same. Although perhaps best known for its rock installation muscle as a subcontractor to the likes of Saipem and Allseas…
Heavy lifting, drilling and pipelay solutions provider Huisman has designed and built rock dumping systems before, notably for Tideway's Rollingstone and Seahorse vessels. But its next system, to be delivered later this year for the Tideway newbuild Flintstone…
Chemical tracers have long been used to keep tabs on what is going on in a reservoir, such as characterizing injection water flow through the reservoir, and to determine what type of fluid is flowing from a certain location along the well. Jennifer…
Fugro has teamed up with specialist underwater acoustics company Jasco Applied Sciences to provide a new marine renewables sector service – measurement of underwater noise and allied consultancy.With the measurement of underwater noise created…
Boosting recoveryThe HiWay flow-channel hydraulic fracturing technique, formally released by Schlumberger late June, is designed to maximize production and hydrocarbon recovery through the creation of open flow channels within the propped fracture…
Nieuw-Lekkerland-headquartered Bayards, a key player in the offshore aluminium industry, is seeing early signs that the recession's grip on major oil & gas projects may at last be loosening.‘The market is coming back,' reports the company's commercial director Dick de Kluijver…
Weather is a major factor when planning offshore drilling campaigns. Asbjørn Stålesen of FMC Technologies says the company's Real Time Operating Limits system has allowed it to increase the time available for carrying out drilling work.The biggest…
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