The global heavy lift vessel market is a difficult place to be. Utilization for the fleet has remained depressingly low since the first oil and gas downturn in 2014, currently hovering around 33% for the global fleet with a lift capacity of over 800 tonnes鈥
Over the past four months we have been flooded by news of just how badly the offshore rig market has been hit during the double whammy of the Corona pandemic and oil price fallout. We witnessed what seemed like a never-ending wave of contract鈥
Robots and robotics have slowly been entering our lives, in various shapes and forms (and fictional characters), from self-driving household vacuum cleaners to highly automated manufacturing systems. Now they鈥檙e heading for the offshore world 鈥 in just as many shapes and forms鈥
Many of the more advanced mechanics of robotic systems are being developed as part of the 云顶赌场老虎机 Robotics for Certification of Assets (ORCA) Hub in Edinburgh. It鈥檚 a publicly funded project led by the Edinburgh Centre for Robotics (Heriot-Watt University and the University of Edinburgh)鈥
The oil and gas industry is currently enduring one of the most challenging periods in its history. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic significantly accelerated an existing decline in global demand for hydrocarbons, resulting in the lowest oil prices for 30 years鈥
