People and Places in the news / April 2010 OE

firms . . .

Remedial Offshore has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, allowing the company to continue to operate its facilities and offices in the ordinary course of business. Remedial will use the financing to increase working capital. ‘After several months of working with our secured bondholders, we have reached an agreement that we believe will allow Remedial to continue with the construction of the two ESVs at the Cosco and Yantai shipyards,’ CFO Stuart Bannerman said.

Shell International E&P and Delft University of Technology have started a joint research project called ‘The Recovery Factory’. The project aims at developing solutions and innovative technologies that could help increase oil and gas recovery from subsurface reservoirs. Staff from both Shell and TU Delft, including eight new PhD students, will be involved in the joint research programme, which will run for an initial six years.

Engineering contractor Offshore Design Engineering (ODE) and leading constructor Burntisland Fabrications (BiFab) have signed a collaboration agreement to jointly pursue major UK offshore turnkey design and build (EPC) contracts for the oil & gas industry. In line with their respective skills, BiFab will be the main contractor responsible for fabrication and bulk procurement while ODE will be responsible for engineering and the procurement of major items of equipment.

Schlumberger announced that it has acquired Nexus Geosciences, a Houston-based provider of integrated seismic software and services for rapid imaging, modeling and interpretation. The group will become part of the WesternGeco business unit.

Abu Dhabi-based AlMansoori Specialized Engineering and Houston’s Key Energy Services have entered a joint venture that gives Key its first base in the Middle East. AlMansoori-Key Energy Services will have headquarters in Abu Dhabi and provide well intervention in the Middle East and North Africa. Key president and CEO Dick Alario said his company had been seeking to establish ‘an effective presence in the burgeoning Middle East market’ for several years.

RBG has formed a marine & subsea division by merging its traditional marine and fabrication units. Headed by Calum Buchanan, the new division will offer a complete subsea support package, from fabrication to deployment, construction support and maintenance.

PRIZE GUYS: Neftemer, with its advanced slug detector, took top prize in the Energy Innovation Awards 2010 run by the UK’s East of England Energy Group. Neftemer director David Whittingham is pictured holding the trophy with (from left) Yi Cao, of Cranfield University, Elizabeth Whittingham and Gilmar de Souza.

Castrol Offshore has commissioned a new speciality product facility within parent BP’s existing Australian lubricants manufacturing plant to supply its Transaqua HT2 water based subsea control fluid to operators across the Asia Pacific region. Distributed via warehouses in Fremantle, Melbourne and Brisbane and operational supply points in Karratha, Broome and Darwin, Transaqua HT2 is formulated for use as the control medium in surface and subsea production control systems and includes an UV tracer for subsea leak detection.

Allied Power Group opens a new 75,000ft² facility in Houston on 7 May to bring the company’s headquarters, sales, repairs and warehousing under one roof. The building will enable Allied to include steam turbines in its product line and extend repair capabilities to Westinghouse 501F and GE Frame 7FA+e turbines and parts for a worldwide customer base.

CTC Marine Projects is extending its offshore activities into the renewables sector with a contract from Norddeutsche Seekabelwerke for the installation and trenching of 80 infield cables on the Bard Offshore 1 wind farm development in the western North Sea.

MAN Diesel SE and MAN Turbo AG have completed their merger and now operate as a single enterprise, MAN Diesel & Turbo SE. By combining the complementary product portfolios of the former sister firms, the merged entity will be ‘seeking to pool its expertise in large bore diesel engines and power plants with its strengths in compressor and turbine technologies’, said CEO Klaus Stahlmann.

Eclipse Petroleum Technology, part of Petrofac Production Solutions, has signed an agreement with Weatherford to further develop and market the production engineering mentoring and guidance system, PetroAtlas. The agreement provides a framework for future development, marketing, and distribution that is to be shared by both companies.

Narec has launched a new wind turbine training facility in northeast England. The open access facility is designed to allow E&T providers to deliver academic and industrial training programmes for technicians working in the wind industry and at height, both onshore and offshore. OE

Helix Energy Solutions is actively courting buyers in an effort to divest the company of all its oil & gas business. The company has enlisted financial advisors to explore divestiture options as Helix concentrates on its deepwater well intervention and subsea construction services. It was also announced that Robert Murphy, EVP oil & gas, was leaving the company and that former head of the division Johnny Edwards would replace him during the divestiture effort.

Helix Energy Solutions is actively courting buyers in an effort to divest the company of all its oil & gas business. The company has enlisted financial advisors to explore divestiture options as Helix concentrates on its deepwater well intervention and subsea construction services. It was also announced that Robert Murphy, EVP oil & gas, was leaving the company and that former head of the division Johnny Edwards would replace him during the divestiture effort. Helix offered no timeline for the move. ‘We are still in the process of hiring advisors, so we don’t have a specific buyer or target date. We’re just getting the word out to the industry,’ said director of investor relations Cameron Wallace.

Last year, the company slashed its ownership interest in Cal Dive International, sold its reservoir consulting business and sought divestiture of some Gulf of Mexico shelf assets. Deepwater properties on the market now include the Danny and Noonan fields, which came onstream this year, and Phoenix, which is due to start producing to the Gulf of Mexico’s first ship-shaped FPU, Helix Producer I, in May.

Wallace said the Helix Producer I would not be included in a sale and that the company would retain its 20% and 50% stakes in Independence Hub and the Marco Polo TLP, respectively. Proceeds will be used primarily to pay down debt and shore up the company’s balance sheet, he added. by: Russell McCulley

faces . . .

Vsevolod Cherepanov has been named head of gas, gas condensate & oil production at Gazprom, succeeding the retiring Vasily Podyuk. Cherepanov joined Gazprom in 1993 and most recently served as a deputy general director and chief geologist.

John CS Lau, president and CEO of Husky Energy, is retiring from that position. He will relocate to Hong Kong and assume responsibility for leading the development of the company’s Asia Pacific businesses.

John Gremp has become president and COO of FMC Technologies, succeeding Peter Kinnear as president. Robert Potter , previously SVP of FMC’s energy processing and global surface wellhead businesses, has taken over from Gremp as EVP energy systems. In that role, Potter will be responsible for the energy processing and energy production segment businesses.

Steven Newman is the new CEO of Transocean. Newman succeeds Robert Long, who is retiring. Newman has served as president and COO since May 2008. He has held a number of executive positions at Transocean, including EVP of performance, SVP of human resources, information process solutions, and treasury, and VP of performance and technology.

John Reed Jr has been named CEO of Global Industries. He joins Global with more than 30 years’ offshore industry experience under his belt, having served most recently as CEO of leading installation contractor Heerema Marine Contractors and prior to that headed up former HMC subsidiary Intec in Houston.

Randall Luthi , director of the US Minerals Management Service from July 2007 through January 2009, became president of the National Ocean Industries Association (NOIA) with effect from 1 March.

Michael Bellamy has been appointed general manager of GE’s PII Pipeline Solutions business following the retirement of John Bucci.

Kevin McEvoy , the new EVP and COO at Oceaneering International, has been with the company for 31 years, serving most recently as EVP. In his new role, McEvoy has responsibility for all of Oceaneering’s business operations as well as operating responsibilities for ROVs and subsea products.

Christopher Gaut has been appointed Reservoir Group chairman. Gaut is managing director of majority shareholder SCF Partners, and prior to joining SCF last year was president of drilling and evaluation at Halliburton.

David Evans has been appointed CTO of Sydney, Australiabased Drillsearch and will manage all technical aspects of the company’s exploration, development and production activities. He was previously exploration manager for Vegas Oil & Gas.

Matthew McKinstry and Tommy Yates have been hired by Wood Group’s Alliance Engineering as facility engineers to develop and execute major offshore projects.

Paul Illingworth has joined SSP Offshore as CEO with effect from 1 April, based at the company’s Houston office. Interim CEO L Daniel Wilson remains with SSP in a senior executive capacity. Illingworth was previously SVP business development at Prosafe Production.

Matt Kirk has joined Xodus Group from Acergy to head up subsea operational support and integrity management services. Two other newcomers to the Xodus subsea division in Aberdeen are riser specialist Frank Smith, appointed head of detailed design, and Andrew Wylie, who will lead the company’s project delivery capability. Both were previously with MCS.

Stephen Stuart- Matthews has taken over as regional director for ODE’s London office following the retirement of John Eckhart.

Larry Denver has become president of Knowledge Reservoir. Denver, who also remains chairman of Ascend Geo, previously served with Schlumberger, ION Geophysical and Stratamodel. Also joining Knowledge Reservoir from Ascend is BJ Crouse (pictured, right), who becomes general manager, Middle and Far East.

Franz Zdravistch has been appointed regional manager for the new Houston office of BMT Fluid Mechanics. He was technical manager of Fluent’s oil & gas team and its lead consulting engineer for North and Latin America.

Jim Mann has been appointed subsea wellheads manager at Aker Solutions in Aberdeen. He was previously a senior project manager with Merpro.

Stewart Soirez has been named VP business development for Advanced Logistics, based at its Lafayette office.

Azmir Ahmed has been appointed flexlife’s business development manager, based at the flexible pipe specialist’s new Kuala Lumpur base.

Ken Ferguson , previously with Emtunga Offshore, is the new director of global business development for Superior Energy Services’ HB Rentals division. 

HIGH ACHIEVER: Subsea 7 CEO Mel Fitzgerald won the outstanding contribution award at last month’s 25th Scottish Offshore Achievement Awards in Aberdeen, with the judges’ citation acknowledging his ‘significant and positive impact on the oil and gas sector from both a business and wider industry perspective’. He is pictured collecting the award from trophy sponsor Shell UK’s Paul Garnham.

The SOAA rising star award went to Ryan McPherson , a senior technology analyst with the industry technology facilitator ITF currently managing 15 technology projects and seven calls for proposals. OE