Winning Ways

OAA 2012 prize winners (left to right): Professor Alex Kemp (lifetime achievement); Shell UK’s Emma Stephenson (young professional) and Sandy Clark of Amec (large company).

Expro Group’s David Shand (left) collects his company’s innovator award from BG’s Neil McCulloch.

John Fraser (left) receives Coretrax’s new idea award from Nexen’s Bob Fennell.

Leading consultancy, engineering, asset support and project management services provider Amec came out tops in the ‘large company’ category of the relaunched Offshore Achievement Awards (OAA ) in Aberdeen last month, while international gas turbine and controls specialist Alba Power, with over 140 customers worldwide, took the honours in the ‘small company’ section.

The ‘innovator’ award went to Expro Group for its riser-less and remotely operated AX-S system, operated from a mid-sized construction vessel, which has set its sights on extending the operating envelope for subsea well intervention to 10,000ft of water. Expro signed its first long-term frame agreement with Total E&P UK last year to further advance the technology.

Coretrax won the ‘new idea’ award for its distinctive Inflation Support Tool. Hailed as the only tool being introduced to the market that can be deployed from surface down the workstring and inflated to provide 100% seal in cased and open hole, it will also be able to carry a cement accelerator to a pre-determined depth.

Veolia Environmental Services secured the ‘working together’ award for its work as principal contractor for the decommissioning of Shell’s Inde gas field, which required the onshore dismantling and disposal of eight platforms weighing around 10,500t in the Southern North Sea. As well as being highly commended in the ‘large company’ section, deck machinery supplier ACE Winches landed the ‘export achievement’ award for growing its high quality rental winches export business to 74% of turnover last year.

Companies in the offshore renewables sector were represented for the first time at this year’s awards and claimed two of the prizes.

The 3sun Inspection Services Group took the ‘safety innovations’ award for developing a bespoke electronic inspection system for managing safety and compliance on wind turbines while Vattenfall claimed the new ‘offshore renewables’ award for delivering its challenging Thanet offshore wind farm, covering an area of 35km2, on time and within budget.

Lifetime achievement award winner Professor Alex Kemp is one of the foremost authorities on North Sea oil & gas economics. He is currently professor of petroleum economics and director of the Aberdeen Centre for Research in Energy Economics & Finance at the University of Aberdeen. And the ‘young professional’ award, the other individual prize announced during the packed OAA blacktie dinner ceremony, went to Shell UK’s Emma Stephenson, process shift supervisor on the Anasuria FPSO; 3sun Group’s Stuart Brand was highly commended.

The competition was organised by the Aberdeen section of the Society of Petroleum Engineers with the support of main sponsor TAQA Bratani and Offshore Engineer as the media sponsor. Award sponsors were Aker Solutions, Areg and 3Sun Group, BG Group, Maersk Oil, Nexen, Petrofac, Red Spider, Robert Gordon University, and Wood Group PSN. Winners received a bespoke trophy designed by RGU student Jessica Barr.

OAA organising committee chairman Ian Phillips, director of CO2DeepStore, said the SPE Aberdeen Section was ‘proud to become the new custodian of these prestigious awards’. Previously known as the Scottish Offshore Achievement Awards, they had been run by Scottish Enterprise for 25 years. Now entries are invited from all over the UK, and to better reflect the times the offshore renewables sector prize was introduced and all other categories were thrown open to companies in that sector.

Masud Javaid, chairman of SPE Aberdeen and senior economist at Total E&P UK, said it was ‘extremely encouraging’ to receive a record number of entries this year, adding that an exceptionally high standard of entries gave the judges a real challenge.

Leo Koot, managing director of the competition’s main sponsor TAQA Bratani, said the return of the awards ‘presented the opportunity to celebrate excellence and achievement in the offshore industry, not only for established companies and individuals, but also those starting out and showing promise’.