Utilization trends for the worldwide mobile offshore drilling fleet are slightly depressed of late. Overall utilization dipped to an average of 69% last month. Global utilization rates for semis are 78%, below the average for the prior six month period of 82%…
The Macondo well disaster and its ramifications were never far from the surface during the recent GE Oil & Gas annual meeting in Florence, where business leaders gathered in large numbers to discuss the technological and regulatory challenges…
Seaway Heavy Lifting will shortly take delivery of its second heavylift crane vessel, the state-of-the-art Oleg Strashnov. David Morgan looks at some of the new HLV 's novelties and niceties. The Oleg Strashnov has been a while coming…
Andrew McBarnet tries to fathom the future of permanent seismic reservoir monitoring projects.A big pow-wow of industry specialists at the end of last month in Trondheim, Norway, was hoping to get to the bottom of the future prospects for…
Never one to pull his punches, consultant Ian Fitzsimmons applauds the openness of January's National Commission report to President Obama on the Macondo well disaster, but reprimands the UK Health & Safety Executive over its handling of the…
Recent events in North Africa provide a stormy backcloth to the Offshore Mediterranean Conference (OMC) in Ravenna 23-25 March, but the region nonetheless remains a highly prospective one for the offshore sector especially with Noble beginning to unlock the treasures of the Levantine Basin…
Turbulent times in the oil & gas sector will be the backdrop for this year's two premier offshore industry events – Houston's annual Offshore Technology Conference in May and Aberdeen's SPE Offshore Europe gathering in September. But that's…
In the wake of the July 1988 Piper Alpha disaster in the UK North Sea, the Cullen Report introduced a risk management approach to offshore safety, making the production and maintenance of a risk-based ‘safety case' a legal requirement for every UKCS offshore facility…
Field development prospects on the UK Continental Shelf are gathering momentum again, with Nexen (Golden Eagle, Blackbird), Chrysaor (Solan) and BG (Blake increased production) firming up North Sea project and environmental impact details in recent weeks…
Cape Wind clears another hurdleThe Cape Wind offshore wind power project in January received a final permit from the US Environmental Protection Agency to begin construction of the first US offshore wind farm. The agency's approval came a…
A 2000ft plume of volcanic ash from Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull brought chaos and confusion to European airspace last year. North Sea offshore helicopter operators are accustomed to dealing high winds, driving rain and freezing fog, but how did they cope with this new phenomenon…
Following lengthy qualification trials in Norway, MAN Diesel & Turbo has been selected as the supplier of the subsea gas compressors for the Åsgard field. According to field operator Statoil, in comparative trials carried out at the operator's K-Lab testing facility at Kårsto…
During the recent inauguration of the new premises of Alstom Hydro Ocean Energy on the island of Nantes, the French group revealed some of the key characteristics of its Beluga 9 tidal electricity-generating turbine and announced it will undergo its first tests in Canada's Bay of Fundy in 2012…
Newly published Polar class vessel rules from French classification society Bureau Veritas are aimed at speeding Arctic and Caspian Sea oil and gas development by facilitating the building of tank, cargo and offshore service vessels which can operate unsupported by icebreakers in very heavy ice…
For this specially extended edition of his monthly OE column, Professor Michael Economides invited famed horizontal drilling pioneer Jacques Bosio to collaborate on a piece discussing the provenance of this breakthrough technology and its continuing influence on oil & gas well design today…
Subscribe
