Offshore event on again after ups and downs

The Offshore Technology Conference set to open at Reliant Center next week will be somewhere between the festive spectacles of the 1970s and the grim wakes of the late 1980s. The rejuvenated annual energy event inaugurated in 1969 is expected to bring more than 50,000 oil and gas industry professionals to Houston. The 35th version of OTC last year drew attendance of 50,921. This is a far cry from the 1982 event that convened amid a run-up in oil prices that followed the oil embargo of the 1970s.