The current state of development of methane hydrate resources – ‘from Mallik to the Nankai Trough' – was examined by an international symposium in Japan late last year. Two of the participants, Professor Andrew Palmer and Simon Falser from the…
Mercon Steel Structures in Gorinchem started work at the beginning of February on its first riser access tower (RAT) under a framework agreement signed with Shell UK and NAM last autumn. The 800t structure, due for delivery mid- August, is for NAM's K/15 field…
Ahead of the September launch of its second offshore licensing round, Uruguayan national oil company Ancap opened up a Houston data room in February in hopes of whetting IOC appetites. Jennifer Pallanich paid it an early visit.Uruguay Round II has fair bidding terms according to Santiago Ferro…
Coring practices and equipment used in the Gulf of Mexico's Lower Tertiary needed to adapt to formation conditions to improve on past recovery success. Petrobras' James Meyer opens OE's drilling & completion technology two-parter with a review…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
China constantly shakes many of the world's beliefs, for better or worse, from its economic growth to trade to human rights. There is no doubt that China will become before not too long the world's dominant economic power. It also provides an additional…
The Marin Subsea asset recovery team was recently called in to recover a blowout preventer and lower marine riser package from 488m of water in Brazil. Within 20 minutes of the initial phone call, the Marin team had made a preliminary assessment…
A week after the long-awaited release of a presidential commission’s report on the Macondo disaster, US Interior secretary Ken Salazar announced the latest moves in the reorganization of the agency that oversees offshore oil & gas activities…
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