Highlights of the Week

Subsea World News has put together a recap of the most interesting articles from the previous week (January 26 – February 01).

The subsea firm DeepOcean UK has confirmed it is entering into a statutory period of redundancy consultation with a number of its UK staff, based in its operations in the North East of England.

According to DeepOcean, the consultation will affect 45 members of staff, the majority of which are based in the company’s office in Darlington and its riverside operation in Middlesbrough.

The oil service company FMC Technologies will be reducing its workforce in Norway due to lower offshore activity and cost control from the oil companies.

According to the latest reports, FMC Technologies’ Ågotnes base is set to shed up to 120 jobs, the employees were informed Thursday afternoon. There will also be staff reductions at FMC businesses in Kristiansund and Floro, according to the employee representative.

Technip has been awarded by Stone Energy Corporation both a flexible pipe supply contract and an installation contract for the Amethyst field, located on Mississippi Canyon 26, in the Gulf of Mexico.

The first contract includes the detailed engineering, procurement, fabrication, assembly and testing of a 5-inch production static riser (almost 9 kilometers long) as well as all associated hardware. The second award covers the installation of the pipe as a tieback to the Pompano fixed platform, in approximately 395 meters of water depth.

The Research & Development Corporation (RDC) has invested $4.9 million in a multi-purpose survey, support and research and development vessel to be stationed in St. John’s.

The total cost to design, build and operate such a vessel over a 10-year period is estimated at more than $100 million which will be funded by Fugro GeoSurveys (FGI).

Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee and Taner Yildiz, Turkish Minister of Energy and Natural Resources discussed the main issues of constructing a new gas pipeline across the Black Sea towards Turkey.

The meeting considered the preliminary feasibility study on the new gas pipeline and approved its new route. The four strings will have an aggregate capacity of 63 billion cubic meters a year. 660 kilometers of the pipeline’s route will be laid within the old corridor of South Stream and 250 kilometers – within a new corridor towards the European part of Turkey.