FIRMS
TGS-Nopec Geophysical has bought the directional survey business and information for ongoing client-initiated programs from P2 Energy Solutions' Tobin business line. The purchase includes P2's existing database of over 38,000 directional surveys. As part of the transaction, TGS and P2 signed a separate agreement to share well header information in the US.
Expro has announced the conditional acquisition of the Production Testers International well services business (PTI), based in Asia. PTI primarily designs, installs, commissions and operates production facilities and production optimisation systems for use in oilfield developments. Expro said acquisition is subject to fulfilment of a number of conditions, expected to be satisfied within six weeks of the 26 July announcement.
TOTAL COMPETENCE: Total E&P UK has become the first major oil & gas operator worldwide to achieve OPiTO approval for its competence management system. The company's competency assurance management system (cams) has been deployed on its UKcs Dunbar platform and is being rolled out to other sites. in addition to the cams approval OPiTO, on Total's behalf, is also auditing the competence of contractors employed by the operator on its various facilities.
Pictured at a recent presentation in aberdeen are (left to right): David Binnie, managing director of OPiTO; Don Kelly, Oim of Dunbar platform, and Total's alain messie (operations manager), charles Blanchet (head of competency and audit) and ray riddoch (Hse manager).
Greene's Energy Group has established a new division specializing in portable wastewater treatment equipment and services for the oil and gas industries. Based in the company's Lafayette, Louisiana, office the division will serve the Gulf of Mexico and other North America offshore platform and pipeline activity centers.
CGGVeritas has opened a new Geology & Geophysics (G&G) Center in Luanda to expand on the capabilities provided by its Angolan processing & imaging center over the past 10 years. Launched in collaboration with senior management at Sonangol EP Exploration and housing over 25 geoscientists from around the world, the new facility will provide training, interpretation and reservoir modeling for prospect generation and field development projects.
GE Oil & Gas has opened a new $6 million global services facility south of Baku in Azerbaijan. The new center will offer a range of maintenance and repair services for GE drilling and production equipment, including subsea wellheads, controls, connectors, and subsea trees.
NeW era: a joint helicopter search and rescue (sar) training school has been launched by Era Helicopters at its fourchon, Louisiana base in joint venture with Priority 1 Air Rescue (P1ar). The pair previously teamed up to offer offshore emergency medical services (ems) operations in the Gulf of mexico. Now the federal aviation administration-approved training center will offer a full-service capability and turnkey solutions including a 24-hour sar and advanced life support paramedic resource. anadarko will be the launch customer.
Acteon has completed its previously announced acquisition of IOS Holding and its subsidiary IOS Offshore from Norse Cutting & Abandonment. IOS Offshore, a supplier of mooring equipment and services, has its headquarters and principal storage and workshop base in Stavanger and additional operational facilities at several locations along the Norwegian coast. The company will continue to be headed by its managing director, David Smith, who will report to Tom Fulton, president of Acteon's global mooring business, InterMoor.
Nigg revisited
A group of Scottish businesses has produced a plan to re-open the mothballed Nigg fabrication yard in Easter Ross. Previous plans have been thwarted by the cost and difficulty of public purchase and by daunting land lease conditions. Now the yard revival group, who between them employ around 400 people in the Highland region alone, have drawn up an innovative proposal to change the yard's ownership without public capital outlay, while overcoming the lease conditions barrier.
They plan to form a nonprofit body to take on the 165-acre yard from KBR at a nominal fee. KBR's weighty long-term lease obligations to co-owners Wakelyn Trust would also be addressed by the new body.
The yard revival group has had preliminary discussions with Highland Council members and senior staff, KBR's representatives DTZ, and politicians including the area's MP John Thurso and MSP Jamie Stone. Formed as a sub-group of the Cromarty Firth Port Users Association (CFPUA), the yard revival group includes Port Services Group, Nicholson Engineering Services, Oilscaff, Intech Power and GQ Training.
The yard, opened in 1972 to serve the burgeoning North Sea oil and gas sector, employed more than 5000 at peak. It was mothballed more than three decades later and put up for sale by KBR in 2006. Potential activities cited for the yard, which boasts one of Europe's biggest dry docks, include rig maintenance, upgrades and survey work, fabrication of subsea pipelines and offshore wind and marine energy structures, platform decommissioning work and the provision of supply base facilities and services.
Previous approaches to get the yard back into use have been stalled by issues including the site's shared ownership, between KBR and the Wakelyn Trust, whose lease condition requires costly reinstatement of part of the yard – including the dry dock – to dunes by 2031. Proposals have included direct public ownership; compulsory purchase by Highland Council working ‘back-to back' with a private company; re-development by KBR themselves; and alternative development by other private sector interests. Meg Chesshyre
Derrick Equipment and Step Offshore have entered into a distribution agreement that gives Step – a Norwegian subsidiary of Aker Solutions – exclusive rights to sell Derrick's premium solids control equipment, including shale shakers, mud cleaners and flow dividers, in Europe.
Deepwater has moved its US fabrication operations to a new 16,000ft2 facility close to its corporate headquarters building in Houston. Set up to manufacture Deepwater's range of corrosion control products, the facility includes five welding stations, a 40-ton horizontal press, Bayleigh precision clamp bender, a 10x5 plasma cutter, a 64-ton iron worker, and an OMAX CNC water jet system.
Jumbo Offshore has opened a new regional office in Perth, Western Australia, headed by Sjoerd Meijer, business development manager for the Australia & Southeast Asia region.
The latest Reservoir Group acquisition is Enigma Data Solutions. Enigma, which will retain its own corporate identity and operations including its management, is expected to reinforce the Reservoir Group's information services division.
Siemens is buying a minority stake in Danish offshore wind farm installation firm A2SEA, bought by Dong last year. Under the agreement, Siemens will pay DKK860 million for its 49% holding in two installments, this year and next. Dong will continue to be the main shareholder. The agreement guarantees Siemens access to turbine installation vessels for its Cape Wind project, the first planned offshore wind farm in the US, and its Hornsea zone project off the UK coast.
Aberdeen-based oil services group OEG Offshore has launched a subsidiary in Houston to expand its operations – the supply of pressurised A60 engineering cabins, containers and baskets – in the Americas. The company, which has established an initial 100-unit fleet in Houston and Houma, Louisiana, has appointed Larry Bobbitt as OEG US president.
Signet Maritime has purchased the assets and business operations of Colle Towing, of Pascagoula, Mississippi, which will now operate as Colle Maritime.
FACES
Tim Cejka (pictured), president of ExxonMobil Exploration since 2004 and a VP of ExxonMobil Corp, is retiring on 31 August after over 34 years with the company. Steve Greenlee takes over effective 1 September and will be succeeded as president of ExxonMobil Upstream Research by Sara Ortwein, currently VP engineering at ExxonMobil Development Co.
Bob Dudley (pictured) takes over as group chief executive at BP on 1 October after Tony Hayward steps down by mutual agreement with the BP board. Dudley, a main board director, currently runs the company's recently-established unit responsible for the Gulf of Mexico Macondo spill clean-up operations and compensation programs. He joined BP from Amoco after the companies merged in 1998. He was president and CEO of the TNKBP joint venture in Russia until 2008.
Michael Borrell (pictured, left) has been appointed Total E&P's SVP continental Europe and central Asia. He succeeds Arnaud Breuillac, who has been named SVP Middle East following Ladislas Paszkiewicz's switch to the SVP Americas post. Michel Seguin (pictured, right), previously SVP Americas, has been appointed special advisor to the Total E&P president.
William Satterfield has been appointed technical director and Robert White drilling manager of Hardy E&P (India).
Uri Nooteboom (pictured, left) has been appointed president of IntecSea. Nooteboom, previously Intecsea's VP of international operations and responsible for the company's North American and Brazilian businesses, will continue to be based in Houston. He replaces Craig Reeves (pictured, right), who has returned to a position within the parent WorleyParsons Group's Australian division.
Jean-Georges Malcor is now officially CEO of CGGVeritas following the board's 30 June confirmation of its earlier decision to split the functions of chairman and CEO. Robert Brunck continues as chairman.
Chris Covert (pictured) has been named president and CEO of Houston-based Foster Wheeler USA, filling the position left vacant in June when Robert Flexon assumed the role of CEO at Foster Wheeler AG. Covert joins FW from Fluor, where he had most recently been SVP and project director, based in Houston.
Simen Lieungh has stepped down as president and CEO of Aker Solutions. CFO Leif Borge will act as president and executive chairman Øyvind Eriksen as CEO until a successor has been recruited, a process expected to ‘take some time'.
Chris Finlayson has been appointed BG Group EVP Europe and central Asia, effective 1 September. He joins from Shell where he last held the position of EVP Shell Global Solutions.
John Vitucci (pictured) has been appointed Americas field development manager for KBR subsidiary Granherne, based in the Houston office.
Smit CEO Ben Vree will resign from the board of management of Royal Boskalis Westminster to pursue other interests on 1 January 2011 when the postmerger integration of the two companies is expected to be complete (see page 74). The management board of the combined entity will then comprise: Peter Berdowski (CEO), Hans Kamps (CFO) and Theo Baartmans.
David Mullen joins Wellstream as a director and CEO on 1 September when Gordon Chapman (pictured) steps down. Mullen was most recently CEO of Ocean Rig, having previously been SVP of Transocean and held a number of senior positions with Schlumberger. Chapman will remain an advisor to the Wellstream board.
David Carmony has been named HSE VP at Apache. He joined the company in 1993 and has been its Gulf Coast region VP for drilling, production and construction engineering since 2006.
David Cobb (pictured) has been named VP business development at InterMoor, based out of its Houston office. He previously served as business development manager and projects manager in the company's Aberdeen office.
T Jay Collins, president and CEO of Oceaneering International, and Rodney Eads (pictured), previously with Exxon, Diamond Offshore Drilling and most recently Pride International as EVP and COO, have joined the Nautronix Group board as non-executive directors.
Dr Björn Fagerström (pictured) heads up Inocean's newly established Gothenburg office in Sweden. He was most recently GVA Consultants' project director on the GVA Jack & St Malo FPU project for the Gulf of Mexico.
John Jameson, a 28-year veteran of the North American oil & gas industry, has become CEO of Universal Pegasus following Jerry Mayfield's step up to the executive chairman role.
Marcus Ganz has become CEO of digital rock physics specialist Ingrain in succession to Henrique Tono, now chairman.
Bob Black has been appointed CEO of Edinburgh-based SeeByte. He previously headed Capgemini's oil & gas division in Aberdeen.
Jerry Hubbard (pictured) is the new COO of Energistics. Previously EVP business development, Hubbard will be responsible for operations, financial management, human resources, and marketing and communications while delivering the global open standards adoption message.
Professor Albert Rodger, vice-principal and head of the College of Physical Sciences at the University of Aberdeen, has been elected to the UK's Royal Academy of Engineering.
Asim Ghosh (pictured) has been named president and CEO of Husky Energy, succeeding John Lau. Ghosh joined the Husky board last year and was formerly MD and CEO of Vodafone Essar.
Johan Pfeiffer has been promoted from GM subsea eastern region to VP global surface wellhead for FMC Technologies.
W Reid Lea has resigned from his position as W&T Offshore's EVP and manager of corporate development, effective 2 July. He will serve as a consultant for 10 months to assist with transition affairs.
John O'Hara (pictured) has been appointed Red Spider Technology's Houston-based sales manager for North America.
Anthony Cooke has joined Simmons & Co Intl from Schlumberger as an associate within its industry & technology team.
Tim Juran and Rune Magnus Lundetrae, both from Seadrill, have been elected president/ CEO and VP/CFO respectively at Scorpion Offshore following the resignations of Jon Cole and Mark Mey. Effective 11 August, Mey becomes Atwood Oceanics' SVP and CFO, succeeding James Holland.
Benoit Barbier (pictured) has been appointed Neptune Marine's regional VP for Asia and the Middle East, based in Singapore. He was with Schlumberger for 30 years. Robin King joins Neptune Marine from Technip as regional VP for Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea, based in Perth.
Bob Chalker has been named as the new executive director of Houston-based corrosion society NACE Intl. He previously served as MD and CEO of ASQ Global.
Kelvin Tan, founder and MD of Vantage Engineering, has joined the management team of Halcyon Offshore. Also joining are Peter Ong, Brian Sweeney and Redzwan Gunasegar, respectively CEO, executive director and Malaysia MD of Cables International, another recent Halcyon acquisition in Singapore.
Bill Hooton (pictured) has been promoted to international sales manager for Wood Group Pressure Control.
Divalmir ‘Jimmy' De Souza (pictured) has been named HB Rentals' regional director for Brazil.
Mike Imlach has been named as director of European operations at Bristow Helicopters, tasked with driving forward the company's European growth plans. He was previously director of Bristow's Nigerian business unit.
Paul Lester, CEO of support service group VT before its recent acquisition by Babcock International, has joined UK tidal energy company Marine Current Turbines as executive chairman, succeeding non-executive chairman Tony Davies. Siemens Energy and the Carbon Trust have made recent investments in MCT as it moves forward with development projects in UK and Canadian waters (see page 108).
Felicitas Global has been named Solomon Associates' representative in India. Michael Hileman becomes VP for Asia, based in Singapore.
Shri Pawan Kumar Kapil has been designated executive director of Reliance Industries. Also, Shri Hardev Singh Kohli has resigned his directorship of Reliance.
Philip Milazzo has replaced the late Robert Weiner as CEO of PAS Technologies, a global provider of proprietary high technology repair and overhaul solutions for components used in highwear, high-temperature and corrosive environments.
Michael Hileman has been promoted to VP Asia for global consulting firm Solomon Associates as it expands its presence in the Pacific Rim and South Asia.
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