Osprey3 announces further investment to enhance its Operations division with the appointment of Kevin Jamieson as Operations Manager. Based in Kintore, Aberdeenshire, Osprey3 manufacture and supply filtration equipment to remove solids, contaminants, toxins and hydrocarbons from fluids created during Petrochemical production. With sales and rental capacity well established, the investment in the Operations team will give clients the option of having Osprey3 provide complete project management services inclusive of manufacturer-trained personnel to mobilise at short notice and to client locations in support of hired or purchased equipment.

Global energy services company Proserv has launched a new subsea sampling cylinder that can improve the quality of results and reduce risks normally associated with sample transfer. Based on existing technology, the Proserv Subsea Sampling Cylinder (SSC) is the world’s first fully qualified and certified ‘for shipping’ sample cylinder to be deployed in a subsea environment. The system accurately captures well properties throughout the lifetime of a field. Subsea cylinders allow operators to take representative production samples from a subsea system for direct transfer to a laboratory. Proserv’s SSC eliminates the risks associated with handling and transferring samples on the surface, reducing the risk of containment loss and exposure to H2s / CO2 which can present a danger to people and the environment. Andrew Anderson, Senior Vice President for Production Equipment Services (PES) at Proserv, said: “With operators facing increased challenges in maximising production from geologically complex, high pressure and temperature and often remote and inhospitable fields, being able to generate accurate and reliable information from wells is critical in establishing its status and prospects.

M² Subsea today (Wednesday 1st March 2017) announced the appointment of Stuart Bannerman as the company’s new chief financial officer. Bannerman brings more than 30 years of executive management experience to the fledging subsea business, having worked with several high growth oil and gas firms across the globe. In his previous role as chief operating officer for BW Offshore, he played an instrumental part in helping the company achieve record safety and financial performance in 2013-14. He also led the development and implementation of key initiatives which led to the successful and efficient operation of the firm’s fleet of 14 FPSOs. Previous to this, he held the chief financial officer position at Remedial Offshore and regional CFO position at Technip.

Forum Energy Technologies, Inc. has delivered a Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) to ESEA Submarine AS to perform a variety of offshore roles, including inspection, survey and salvage work. The powerful and compact Sub-Atlantic™ Mojave will also be used by ESEA Submarine’s sister company, ESEA Marine AS, which has customers that include fish farms, port authorities and insurance companies. In addition, the Mojave will play a training role in helping ROV pilots to develop their skills. Georg Stranden, general manager at ESEA Submarine, said: “We see opportunities in the Norwegian inshore market and found the Mojave suitable for the purpose because it is a truly mobile system which is very powerful for its size.”

Borets, a global leader in the engineering, manufacturing, sales and service of electric submersible pump (ESP) systems, has purchased a new operations facility in Midland, Tx. The 11.2 acre site, located at 1100 S FM 1788, Midland, provides more than 58,000 sq. ft. of manufacturing and service capabilities, along with approximately 10,000 sq. ft. of state-of-the-art office space.

Delegates at this week’s ITF Technology Showcase will be given an insight into how a novel snake-arm robot could take offshore inspection to a new level ahead of its first trial with Chevron. Technology developer, OC Robotics has proven the capability of the P100 snake-arm robotic inspection system onshore and is now exploring the feasibility of robotic inspection of offshore oil and gas pressure vessels. Snake-arm robots are driven by wire ropes and controlled by OC Robotics’ proprietary software. Snake-arm robots are especially suited to working in confined and hazardous spaces as they can navigate and traverse cluttered environments. Only the arm itself is deployed into the workspace as the main drive motors, electronics and control systems are located away from the inspection area. The project is being funded by Innovate UK’s ‘Energy Game Changer’ programme. OC Robotics & Chevron are exhibiting on Innovate UK’s stand along with a number of companies that secured funding through the competition last year. Innovate is the UK’s innovation agency which aims to drive science and technology innovations that will grow the UK economy - delivering productivity, new jobs and exports.

Dear MTS / IEEE OES Colleagues, On September 18-21, 2017, the OCEANS North America conference will be hosted in Alaska for the first time ever! On behalf of the Marine Technology Society and the IEEE Oceanic Engineering Society, the OCEANS ’17 Anchorage Local Organizing Committee (LOC) is honored to invite your participation in this prestigious event. The venue for OCEANS'17 Anchorage is The Dena’ina Convention Center, a state-of-the-art facility located in the center of downtown Anchorage in close proximity to many great hotels, fine and casual dining, eclectic art galleries, and shopping. Within walking distance is the famous Tony Knowles Coastal Trail with its fantastic panoramic views of Cook Inlet and three majestic mountain ranges - Chugach, Alaska, and Talkeetna ranges. As we develop the full technical program in the coming months, we encourage you to submit a paper to share with the MTS/IEEE OES community and welcome your suggestions for workshops, tutorials or other activities. We look forward to your participation in the OCEAN'17 conference.

Hoover Ferguson Group (Hoover Ferguson), the global leader in container, workspace and packaging solutions for the energy and petrochemical industries and general industrial enterprises, has announced Troy L. Carson as its new chief financial officer. Based in Houston, Carson will be responsible for planning, implementing, managing and controlling all financial-related activities of the company. This includes direct responsibility for accounting; finance; strategic planning; property management; deal analysis and negotiations; investor relationships and partnership compliance; and private and institutional financing.

DNV GL, the multinational provider of risk management services, is further developing its consultancy services to address key industry challenges such as enhancing safety, efficiency and performance. To drive this process, DNV GL has appointed Peter Boyle as Aberdeen Operations Manager and John Morgan as UK Business Development Leader for Risk Advisory Services. Both positions will be based in DNV GL’s Aberdeen office. Peter Boyle says: “It has been a challenging period for the industry, which has led us to innovate our core services for the Aberdeen market. Our main services have become more efficient by concentrating on the elements that add value to operators either by improving safety, or increasing production.”

A multi-skilled team of subsea engineering experts representing the UK has advanced to the semi-finals in the $7 million Shell Ocean Discovery XPRIZE, a prestigious international competition which aims to create the next generation tools, technologies and techniques for rapid, unmanned ocean exploration and discovery. Teams are challenged to design and build new ways to map the ocean floor at depths and a resolution never achieved before using advanced deep-sea technologies for autonomous, fast and high-resolution ocean exploration. Based in the National Centre for Subsea and Offshore Engineering in Newcastle, Team Tao is the only UK team to make the semi-final and will compete against 21 teams from 13 countries vying for their share of the $7 million prize purse. Team Tao brings together industry experts from Tyneside-based subsea engineering specialist Soil Machine Dynamics Ltd (SMD) and Newcastle University who are together developing an autonomous swarm system for rapid surface to deep ocean exploration.

UK-based start-up Rovco has taken its firsts steps into international waters and made significant progress towards growing its global footprint following the completion of two subsea survey contracts in Southeast Asia and the Middle East. The contract awards saw Rovco perform advanced subsea survey work in Fiji and Oman, utilising its state-of-the-art SubAtlantic Mojave, Seaeye Falcon and VideoRay Pro 4 ROVs. Launched in September, the company has also been awarded its first ROV consultancy project with one of the UK's leading engineering solutions providers and recently employed two new ROV pilots. It is now looking to appoint a chief technology officer as it continues to grow its UKCS position and gear up for further overseas expansion. With an increasing pipeline of work, the firm aims to become a leading ROV and inspection company within the next three years, with expertise and capacity to carry out underwater inspection projects across the globe. Currently tendering for work in the Gulf of Mexico, the Middle East and across the UK and Europe, Rovco is poised for further success both at home and further afield.

Craig International has signed a global agreement with energy major, Shell to provide services for equipment stock resale. The oilfield procurement specialist recently launched Craig Collaboration to provide companies with the opportunity to reduce wastage and duplication, recoup financial outlay and sell unwanted items which are often sitting in storage, this is considered a radical shift in the approach to procurement in the oil and gas industry. Craig Collaboration connects companies looking to sell spare equipment with those looking to buy. Oil and gas companies around the world have substantial surplus equipment stock, much of which is sitting in costly storage, and Craig Collaboration will allow them to realise value from this. Jill MacDonald, joint managing director of Craig International, said: “There is a lot of equipment going unused in the oil and gas industry and it makes sense from a business and environmental point of view to reuse it. “We have developed a system that leads the way in improving efficiency right across the supply chain in the oil and gas industry. Rather than waiting for things to improve, Craig International is delivering inventive approaches and investing in products that make life easier and provide value for clients.”

BP group chief executive Bob Dudley will underline the value of the North Sea in the oil major’s global portfolio when he leads the opening plenary session at SPE Offshore Europe 2017 being held in Aberdeen from 5-8 September 2017. Dudley, who calls BP’s UK North Sea business one of its “crown jewels”, will address the hundreds of delegates expected to attend the opening plenary session at Europe’s foremost exploration and production (E&P) technical conference and exhibition. Other senior level plenary speakers will be announced in due course.

Fugro has been awarded a contract by Shell/BG Kenya for the execution of a seabed survey to detect natural leakages of hydrocarbons. The seeps survey complements a seismic exploration programme that was completed recently offshore Kenya. Undertaking a four-week campaign of multibeam data acquisition and precise sampling, Fugro will mobilise its specialised survey vessel, Fugro Discovery, to Kenya in March. Seabed sampling will be carried out using a drop corer and multibeam data will be acquired with the latest deepwater high resolution multibeam echo sounder, installed in a newly designed gondola on the vessel hull.

At the occasion of IDEX/NAVDEX exhibitions, ECA Group is pleased to announce the creation of its subsidiary ECA Middle East in Abu Dhabi. ECA Group wins the trust of new customers in the region and the GCC countries in particular, and identifies numerous business and partnership opportunities in the area. Therefore, in order to be closer to its customers and to better support them, ECA Group creates a new subsidiary in Abu Dhabi: ECA Middle East. The UAE and Abu Dhabi were selected to set up ECA Middle East for having historical and recent customers and many identified business opportunities. Several ECA Group systems are already in service in the Middle East countries, among them: the PAP Mine Disposal Vehicle, the UAV IT180 Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, MVS Military Vehicle Simulator, CAMELEON Unmanned Ground Vehicle..., some of them for many years.

Fugro has announced a partnership with the Shell Ocean Discovery XPRIZE to support its global, three-year competition. The competition incentivises development of rapid, unmanned and high resolution ocean mapping technologies and the partnership supports the first round of testing. Fugro’s role is to provide high resolution deepwater baseline bathymetry data over a 500 km² competition area. The company has recently collected more than 1 million km² of high resolution bathymetry data per year globally, predominantly in water depths greater than 750 metres.

University of Hawaii researchers partner with Schmidt Ocean Institute to map 11,000 square kilometers of the ocean floor, creating detailed images of major seamounts. HONOLULU, HAWAII – In a recent research expedition sponsored by Schmidt Ocean Institute (SOI) and led by University of Hawaii scientist Dr. John R. Smith, over 11,000 square kilometers of the ocean floor were mapped in high-resolution for the first time. Smith, working with Jonathan Tree, University of Hawaii, and Joyce Miller, used multibeam sonar on SOI’s research vessel Falkor to generate detailed maps of portions of the remote Johnston Atoll Unit (JAU) of the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument (PRIMNM).

Subsea Technology & Rentals Ltd (STR); global specialists in the design, production and rental of advanced subsea technology for the offshore industry has announced the appointment of Paul Elliott as General Manager for the Asia Pacific Region. Paul will be responsible for working with STR’s existing customers and agents within the Asia Pacific region to support business and develop new opportunities and relationships.