Atlas Professionals has been chosen as the 1st tier supplier for Dutch-German transmission system operator TenneT for the supply of senior personnel to the North Sea. The contract will allow for Atlas’ senior personnel such as Client Representatives to oversee operations of some of TenneT’s Offshore Projects including the various stages of BorWin, DolWin, HelWin and SylWin in the North Sea sector.

OCEANS'15 MTS/IEEE Washington, DC is pleased to announce that Rear Adm. Tim Gallaudet, USN will be joining Honorary Co-chair Dr. Rick Spinrad as our featured Plenary speakers. The conference will be held October 19-22 at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center. The Plenary Session is part of the opening ceremony on Tuesday morning, October 20, and is open to all registrants. Those not registered for the conference, may attend the Plenary and visit the Exhibition Hall at no charge by registering for "Exhibits Only" to get an entrance badge. Rear Adm. Gallaudet heads the Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command and oversees the collection, processing and exploitation of accurate, relevant and timely oceanographic, meteorological, hydrographic, precise time and astrometric information. In September he will also assume the duties of Oceanographer of the Navy.

HARKAND has successfully carried out the first ever free inertial metrology in Mexico’s waters and at a new depth for this approach in the region. The global inspection, repair and maintenance company achieved the survey results for their client at a depth of 380fsw in the Bay of Campeche, setting a new record in the area. The scope of work saw Harkand working in collaboration with their metrology technology partner Zupt to complete the survey project in support of the installation of an expansion spool piece for a new pipeline and platform campaign in Mexico. AJ Jain, Harkand managing director North America and Africa said: “Our client wanted to know if the inertial metrology would better suit the project over the acoustic method.

Employers and training providers working to achieve the highest safety standards in the oil and gas industry are being invited to submit their nominations for the sixth annual OPITO Safety and Competency Awards 2015. The accolades will be presented at the OPITO Safety and Competency Conference (OSCC) held at the Dusit Thani Hotel, Abu Dhabi 3 November 2015. These awards recognise companies that are committed to building a safe and competent workforce through OPITO standards. The event will bring together around 500 industry, government and training provider executives to explore how the industry maintains competence and continues to keep its people safe in a lower oil price environment.

Students undertaking ROV training at the Fort William based subsea facility, The Underwater Centre, are to benefit from newly revamped courses providing even more contextual training modules. The Centre has been working with industry to identify areas of its ROV training suite which can be enhanced and courses for the remainder of 2015 will reflect this with major developments across the board. Students on the ROV Pilot Technician Course will benefit from entirely unique training elements including time on the Centre’s Loch Sunart ROV vessel and training in the ROV electrical and mechanical workshops, features unavailable at any other facility.

Seabed Geosolutions will soon mobilise for the variation order that was signed today by Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) with CGG to conduct a shallow water seabed survey. The survey is over the Ghasha-Butini field, will take around 12 months and has a value of around USD 125 million. The recent successful completion of the Hail-Shuweihat survey has promoted this variation order, confirming ADNOC’s confidence in Seabed Geosolutions’ ability to operate safely and efficiently.

Subsea Technology & Rentals Ltd (STR); global specialists in the design, production and rental of advanced subsea technology for the offshore energy industry are pleased to announce the addition of IKM Technique’s ROV Gas Sampling Systems to their expanding range of ROV sensors and tooling. The Gas Sampling Unit is designed for taking gas samples of small gas leaks for analysis. The tool is simple to operate and consists of a deployment frame with a funnel, Xlite sampling bottles and two ROV operated valves.

Monterey, California — Two underwater robots, known as remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) – and the teams that built, designed, and operated them – rose above the rest at last month’s Marine Advanced Technology Education (MATE) Center’s International Student ROV Competition. Jesuit High School of Carmichael, California won first place in the Explorer (advanced) class for the third year in a row, while AMNO & CO, a home school team from Seattle, Washington, took the first-place honor in the Ranger (intermediate) class.

Trojan Crates, based at Aberdeen Harbour, is looking to create around 20 new jobs after investing £1m in new premises.

SubC Imaging is excited to introduce the latest version of its SubC DVR software, version 5. Based on valuable input from users and a detailed analysis of the industry’s current needs, this version includes a significant number of improvements over previous versions.

SMD are pleased to announce the delivery of three Quantum Work Class ROV (WROV) systems to China’s largest offshore engineering construction company, COOEC Subsea Technology Co Ltd. SMD were awarded contracts to supply COOEC with three Quantum MkIII 3000m rated WROV systems in the first quarter of 2015. The orders include one 12Te and two 15Te launch and recovery systems, SMD DVECS-S control systems for each vehicle and a comprehensive spares and support package. In addition to supporting COOEC during system mobilisation, the contract includes a comprehensive SMD customer training package for COOEC personnel, with the option for training to take place at SMD's industry leading training suite in North East England, or at the customers’ preferred location.

An Aberdeen-headquartered firm has donated specialist subsea equipment to help solve one of the most tragic mysteries of the Second World War. Ashtead Technology has been supporting attempts to discover exactly what caused the loss of 645 crewmen when the HMAS Sydney sunk on November 19, 1941. In addition, the leading independent provider of subsea equipment rental, sales and services to the offshore industry, has provided 3-D survey equipment to study the wreck and inform conservation of what is a mass grave site.

2G Robotics' ULS-500 underwater laser scanner is now interfaced with EIVA's software, NaviSuite. NaviSuite is an advanced multipurpose software suite that facilitates data acquisition and processing for subsea surveying and engineering operations. The underwater laser scanners developed by 2G Robotics capture high resolution 3D point cloud visualizations. The submillimeter-level resolution generated by these innovative systems provides engineers with the detail and precision needed for detecting and assessing damage, developing design and repair plans, and performing maintenance and installations.

The final phase of a competition to develop novel adaptive autonomous ocean sampling network (AAOSN) management systems for the National Oceanography Centre (NOC) is now underway. Two UK consortia will move forward to develop systems capable of coordinating a suite of marine autonomous vehicles gathering data from the ocean over periods of months, and tracking and sampling dynamic features

Technip has been awarded by TAP(1) a Project Management Consultancy (PMC) Services contract, for a project designed to transport gas from the Shah Deniz field to the European market. TAP project scope includes an approximately 870 kilometer long pipeline, which will start from the tie-in with the TANAP(2) portion of the Southern Gas Corridor project, at the Greece/Turkey border. The pipeline will then go through Greece and Albania, to eventually cross subsea the Adriatic Sea to end in Puglia, Italy, where it will connect to the Italian natural gas network.

Seabed survey company Bibby HydroMap has appointed Mick Slater as their new Operations Director. After 3 years with the company, Mick Slater has been appointed to the role of Operations Director.

Fugro has been awarded the Geotechnical Verification Investigations 2015 programme by Femern A/S, owner of the Fehmarnbelt Fixed Link project. The planned 18 kilometre-long immersed tunnel will connect Denmark and Germany as part of the Scandinavian-Mediterranean corridor, one of the EU’s nine priority network corridors. Detailed knowledge of the subsurface soil properties is key for the proper design and execution of this challenging tunnel construction, for which the world’s largest construction and marine dredging companies are amongst the bidders.

Premier is pleased to announce that it, together with its joint venture partners Talos Energy (operator) and Sierra Oil & Gas, has been awarded Blocks 2 and 7 in Mexico’s Round 1 held in Mexico City on 15 July. The Blocks contain numerous leads in established and emerging plays, located in the shallow water Sureste Basin, a proven and prolific hydrocarbon province in the Gulf of Mexico. Blocks 2 and 7 contain Tertiary clastic plays, typical of the Salinas sub-basin. The forward plan is to acquire, evaluate and reprocess 3D seismic data with a view to firming up drilling locations towards the end of 2016.