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鈥
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鈥
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鈥
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鈥
The Oil Council's recent World Energy Capital assembly in London shone a light on the new generation of smaller companies from disparate backgrounds now beginning to make their presence felt on the international exploration and production stage鈥
Things are stirring on the UK continental shelf if the attendance at last month鈥檚 Pilot Share Fair in Aberdeen is anything to go by. More than 1000 people, including Meg Chesshyre, turned out to hear from major operators and contractors about their strategies for future North Sea projects鈥
The overhaul of the reservoir model of the giant Forties oilfield 鈥 from data management to full field simulation 鈥 is described here by operator Apache North Sea鈥檚 Jeffery Pyle and Schlumberger鈥檚 Gordy Shanor.Production from the Forties field began in 1975鈥
With a Norwegian sector breakthrough in the area of subsea gas compression very much on the cards for the next year or two, Statoil last month reaffirmed the case for compression in the Åsgard area while one the key vendors targeting this technology鈥
Post-Macondo efforts to improve well containment capabilities on both sides of the Atlantic moved into higher gear last month.In the US it was confirmed that Technip will handle front- end engineering and design of a proposed subsea well containment鈥
Water jetting is now a well-established subsea approach and the technology has evolved significantly in the 30 years since the first mass-flow excavation (MFE) tool reached the market. David Morgan looks at the latest such development: the Marin Group Evo Claycutting system鈥
Aker Solutions has started a six-month integrated operations pilot with Danish operator Dong on the Trym field, an industry briefing in London heard recently. Meg Chesshyre reviews the status of this and other developments on the Aker technology horizon鈥
With the increased complexity of today鈥檚 subsea production systems giving mooring solutions providers much to think about, Viking Moorings chief executive Wolfgang Wandl discusses how his company is rising to the challenge.The global mooring鈥
The ocean energy industry is still at a nascent stage, but burgeoning support in a few key markets, diverse resource potential and maturing technology are boosting the industry鈥檚 prospects for growth. That鈥檚 the verdict of a new IHS emerging energy research market study鈥
There were echoes of the UK鈥檚 Dragon鈥檚 Den and its US reality TV brethren Shark Tank when the great and the good of the private equity world gathered in Aberdeen last month to sample the wares of would-be oil & gas sector high fliers.The occasion鈥
Current projections indicate around £27 billion will be spent on UK offshore decommissioning over the next 40 years, of which £9.2 billion will be spent over this next decade, according to a 2010 Decommissioning Insight brochure presented at the conference by Robert Harris-Deans鈥
