Highlights of the Week

Subsea World News has put together a recap of the most interesting articles from the previous week (April 20 – April 26).

The Houston-based oilfield services major, Schlumberger, is slashing another 11,000 jobs as it fells the impact of downturn in oil prices and lower E&P spending.

In January this year, Schlumberger informed that the company had laid off 9,000 employees late last year, recording a $296 million charge associated with a headcount reduction. In line with the previous announcement, this brings a total of 20,000 job cuts by Schlumberger in just a few months.

Lambert Smith Hampton (LSH) have been appointed to sell an SMD Heavy Duty Inter Array Flexibles Plough formerly operated by Reef Subsea UK as the subsea services specialist fell into Administration earlier in March this year.

Dan Butters and Adrian Berry of Deloitte, the business advisory firm, were appointed as administrators to Reef Subsea UK March 3, 2015, and now asset consultants at LSH have been selected to handle the sale of the plough, delivered in Q1 2013 and used for and completed a 20-month, £80m project on the Gwynt y Mor Offshore Wind Farm, owned by RWE Innogy.

National Oilwell Varco (NOV) has acquired 97% of the shares in Seabox for an undisclosed amount from a group of shareholders led by HitecVision.

Seabox is a Norwegian subsea technology company founded around the patented SWIT technology (Subsea Water Intake & Treatment). The technology enables treatment of raw seawater on the seabed (as opposed to on a platform) for injection into oil & gas wells for pressure support and increased oil recovery.

China has kicked off a new project of building a mother vessel for a 11,000-meter manned submersible as part of the country’s deep-sea research program.

The vessel, Zhang Jian, named after the founder of Shanghai Ocean University, will serve the manned submersible ‘Rainbow Fish’ which is capable of diving to a depth of 11,000 meters. According to reports, the Zhang Jang will be 97 meters long and 17.8 meters wide. It has a designed displacement of around 4,800 tonnes and a 15,000-nautical mile endurance ability.

Newly established subsea company, Impact Subsea, developer of products for Oil and Gas, Renewables and the Underwater Scientific industry introduced themselves to the market recently.

The Aberdeen-based company, and a member of Subsea UK, already signed its first contract with Chinese firm Qingdao Hisun for the distribution of their products which will be introduced to the market in Q3 2015. Subsea World News spoke to Benedict Grant, Managing Director of Impact Subsea about the company’s establishment and future plans in the business.