The Shell Robert Training and Conference Centre in Louisiana has established a new partnership with Maersk Training, which will see the global safety specialists deliver enhanced training to the Gulf of Mexico offshore workforce

Utility companies have been laying pipes and cables across the ocean floor for more than a century. Prior to the introduction of GPS, marking their position was a difficult and tedious task, fraught with error. It is extremely important to know the exact location of existing lines before undertaking dredging operations or when new pipes and cables are laid down. Regulations require they be buried from several feet to several meters under the bottom to prevent snagging by boat anchors and fishing trawls. The amount of overburden typically makes it impossible to find these lines with conventional metal detectors as the burial depth is beyond their detection range. Two pieces of equipment that have proved most effective are the pinpointing magnetometer and the cable tracker. The pinpointing magnetometer is a very sensitive instrument that locates iron and steel pipes buried up to 16 feet in the bottom, and the cable tracker is powerful enough to detect a power or communications cable at more than 30 feet away.