Southern Gulf News

At least one contractor was killed after a fire struck an offshore platform operated by Mexico's national oil company Pemex, the firm said in a statement on Sunday, adding that two others were in "grave" condition.A total of nine workers suffered injuries in the blaze on Saturday afternoon that struck the company's Akal-B platform, located in the southern Gulf of Mexico, where most of Pemex oil output originates.Five of the nine were Pemex employees while the rest were contractors from local service providers Diavaz and COTER.A day earlier…

The commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards vowed on Saturday to reach "the enemy" far and near as tensions soar on key shipping routes where Tehran’s allies have been attacking vessels."Today, we are facing an all-out battle with the enemy," said Guards commander Hossein Salami at a ceremony in the southern Gulf port city of Bandar Abbas, where the Guards' navy unveiled a new ship named "Abu Mahdi" and 100 missile launchers.Salami did not name the enemy, but 22 nations have…

Two workers died and another remained missing after a raging fire broke out early on Friday morning at an offshore platform run by Mexican state oil company Pemex just off the southern edge of the Gulf of Mexico.In posts on Twitter, Pemex said it had accounted for all other workers and said oil production had taken a major hit from the blaze.Video circulating on social media showed the massive platform and its tangle of pipelines engulfed in flames as nearby boats sought to douse the fire with hoses.The platform operates in the company's Cantarell Field…

Five workers were killed and six injured in Sunday's fire on an offshore platform in the southern Gulf of Mexico operated by Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) that cut about a quarter of Mexico's oil production, the company said on Monday.The fire broke out as crews were performing maintenance on the platform, and a search for missing workers continues, Pemex Chief Executive Octavio Romero told a news conference.The platform remains out of operation, with about 421,000 barrels per day of oil lost and 125 wells offline, he said.

An offshore supply vessel was reportedly attacked offshore Mexico on Friday, July 24, in an incident that was described as a "violent armed boarding and robbery of personal belongings."The maritime safety intelligence company Dryad said Monday that the offshore supply vessel Natalie was boarded while conducting operations in the vicinity of the ODIN Offshore platform 12nm NE of Coatzacoalcos."It is understood that the vessel was boarded early morning within hours of darkness. A channel 16 broadcast received from the vessel stated “We would like to inform you that at this moment pirates are getting on board the ship NATALIE which is near the ODIN platform…

TDI-Brooks’ newest vessel R/V Miss Emma McCall has recently completed its first projects for the U.S.-based marine data acquisition services company on behalf of Total and Cairn Energy offshore Mexico. TDI-Brooks has the vessel on a long-term bare-boat charter from Cameron Offshore Boats.The 2003-built Miss Emma is a multi-use oceanographic research vessel outfitted for a wide variety of oceanographic research duties for operations in the Northern/Southern Gulf of Mexico (GOM), U.S. East Coast and elsewhere in the Americas.

The U.S. government on Wednesday issued a warning about the threat posed by pirates to boats and oil installations in the southern Gulf of Mexico, in the latest sign of concern about ongoing security challenges facing Mexico."Armed criminal groups have been known to target and rob commercial vessels, oil platforms, and offshore supply vessels in the Bay of Campeche area in the southern Gulf of Mexico," the U.S. State Department said in an updated travel advisory.The overall risk level for Mexico remained the same in the bulletin…

BP Plc began turning off production at three platforms in the northern Gulf of Mexico and evacuating workers because of the threat from Tropical Storm Cristobal, forecast to make landfall in Louisiana over the weekend, the company said.Norwegian state-oil company Equinor ASA began evacuating non-essential workers on Wednesday and plans to shut production on Friday at its Titan oil platform if the storm continues along its projected path, spokesman Hasting Stewart said.Occidental Petroleum Corp also began flying non-essential workers to shore from central Gulf of Mexico operations…

BC Ferries has awarded Remontowa Shipbuilding S.A. a contract to build an additional liquefied natural gas (LNG)-fueled vessel scheduled to go into service in the Southern Gulf Islands in 2022.This vessel will be identical to the three Salish Class vessels built by Remontowa for BC Ferries in 2016.“Our Clean Futures Plan is our path to replace diesel fuels with clean erenergy options. While this cannot be achieved in a single step, we arecontinually seeking energy sources that offer a cleaner…

Pirates attacked an Italy-flagged offshore supply vessel in the southern Gulf of Mexico, injuring two crew members, the Mexican Navy said on Tuesday, in the latest outbreak of robbery and piracy to hit oil platforms and infrastructure in the area.One of the crew members of the vessel, Remas, received a bullet wound, and the other suffered a concussion, and both were transferred to a nearby hospital, the Navy said in a statement.Owned by Italian offshore contractor Micoperi, Remas…

Following an extensive, multi-phased international tender process, Canadian ferry operator BC Ferries has awarded Damen Shipyards Group a contract to construct two 81-meter ferries. The vessels are part of BC Ferries’ ongoing fleet renewal program. BC Ferries operates 24 ferry routes along the coast of British Columbia, Canada. The new vessels will be able to cover many of the company’s routes to the Northern and Southern Gulf Islands off the coast of Vancouver. Part of a fleet renewal program…

NuBlu Energy has begun the construction of a natural gas liquefaction plant in Port Allen, LA, strategically located along the Mississippi River. NuBlu’s facility will support the region’s high-horsepower fueling applications such as rail, marine, long haul transportation, power generation, gas interruption, asphalt and other energy markets. The facility is slated to be operational and producing high-quality liquefied natural gas (LNG) in the second quarter of 2017. Total planned capacity of the facility is 90,000 gallons per day with an initial start-up capacity of 30,000 GPD. “This project represents the inauguration of a new direction for the LNG energy market.

Tropical storm Earl whipped Belize with wind and heavy rain as it weakened, moving into Guatemala toward southeastern Mexico on Thursday after hundreds of people took shelter overnight. The U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) said at 1200 GMT that Earl had maximum sustained winds of 65 miles per hour (105 km per hour) as it churned about 90 miles (145 km) west of Belize City. Earl had been a hurricane overnight. Late Wednesday, over 1,000 people were in shelters in Belize City, according to Philip Willoughby, who is in charge of the city's emergency management. Dozens of people were also evacuated in Honduras on Wednesday, the government said. As it moves west, Earl is expected to weaken to a tropical depression later Thursday or by Friday morning, the NHC said.

Oil majors are in talks with Mexico’s state-owned Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) as the struggling state-run oil producer seeks partners to develop deepwater crude in the Gulf of Mexico, reports Bloomberg. Petroleos Mexicanos is in talks with Exxon Mobil Corp., Total SA and Chevron Corp. as Mexico’s struggling state-run oil producer seeks partners to develop deepwater crude in the Gulf of Mexico. Pemex seeks Areas of Mutual Interest agreements to evaluate whether the companies have opportunities to work together in offshore areas. The talks would indicate the world’s oil majors are interested in partnering with Pemex to produce the country’s underdeveloped crude reserves or bid with Mexico’s state-owned operator in the country’s first-ever deep water auctions in December.

Schlumberger announced today that Statoil Gulf of Mexico LLC has signed an agreement to license a large part of the WesternGeco Campeche wide-azimuth (WAZ) deepwater multiclient seismic survey in the southern Gulf of Mexico. The license also includes collaboration with WesternGeco in the seismic processing phase. “We are pleased to have the opportunity to collaborate with Statoil in this breakthrough project, which is the first WAZ multiclient broadband survey in Mexican waters of the Gulf of Mexico,” said Maurice Nessim, president, WesternGeco. A fleet of eight vessels is conducting the survey in the Bay of Campeche for the three-year project. The project follows the Mexican government opening licensing rounds to non-government companies for the first time.

An oil platform run by Mexico’s state oil company Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) in the southern Gulf of Mexico suffered what appeared to be an explosion on Monday. Pemex confirmed that there had been an “accident” and a “fire” after a leak of oil and gas, while local media called it an “explosion”. The company claimed to have contained the oil and gas leak that appears to have sparked a fire on its satellite oil platform. However, it said any impact on output remained unclear. Local media said there was an explosion and a fire on the platform. The platform, Akal-H, is part of the Akal field complex, one of the most productive areas within Cantarell, which in the late 1970s was one of the world's top-producing oil fields.

Mexican oil company Pemex said an accident on Tuesday has left an offshore maintenance rig in the southern Bay of Campeche listing, killing two workers, but has not affected crude production. Pemex said the Troll Solution rig, which was contracted to operate in Pemex's Abkatun-Pol-Chuc shallow water oil field, was positioning itself to carry out maintenance on wells linked to the Caan Alf platform. It earlier reported that two workers had suffered minor injuries. "The accident on the Troll Solution platform does not affect production because it is a mobile platform dedicated to well maintenance," Pemex said in a Tweet. Photos circulated on social media showed dark streaks in the water stretching a few hundred meters (yards) from what appeared to be the platform, which was tilting steeply.

An accident on an offshore rig in the southern Gulf of Mexico has injured 10 people, local media reported on Tuesday, but state oil company Pemex had no immediate details on the incident, saying only that no platform had sunk.   Local newspaper Campeche Hoy reported that 10 workers have been injured on a platform with 101 workers aboard. It said one of the supports of the platform had collapsed and that it had partially sunk.     (Reporting by David Alire Garcia; Editing by Simon Gardner)

Mexican conglomerate Alfa He is interested in participating in association with the state oil company Pemex Exploration Projects in fields on earth, aunque también hacerlo the rule in shallow waters, dijo el viernes el director de Energía the company, Raul Millares. Pemex announced last week that he will seek partners in three mature onshore fields that together contain 2P reserves (proven and probable) for about 250 million barrels of oil equivalent (MMboe). The state said it will too for extra heavy oil fields in shallow waters Ayatsil-Tekel-Utsil in the southern Gulf of Mexico, with 2P reserves of 747 MMboe. "We have more preference or vocation to be more exploration in land…

In the International Bid Round 2013, RWE Dea has been awarded two new offshore concessions with operatorship by the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC). The concessions are located in the Gulf of Suez, where the company is producing oil as operator for more than 30 years. Dea will become operator of two new concessions in the Gulf of Suez. Dea will hold a share of 100% of the East Ras Fanar Offshore and 50% of the Northwest El Amal concession, with Edison International SpA holding the remaining 50%. “We are very pleased with the result of the latest Bid Round, as both new concessions provide a valuable addition to our balanced oil and gas license portfolio in Egypt,” says Maximilian Fellner, General Manager RWE Dea Egypt.

Trying to locate subsea power and communications cables has always been a difficult job. Regulations require cables be buried from several feet to several meters under the ocean bottom to prevent snagging by boat anchors and fishing trawls. The amount of overburden on a cable often means it’s too deep to be located with conventional metal detection equipment. The device that has proved most effective in finding them is a cable tracker. This system has two parts, a signal injector and a probe. The injector is attached to the shore end of a line and induces a signal into one of the conductors.

The Harte Research Institute (HRI) for Gulf of Mexico Studies at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi will receive approximately $1.25 million over the next three years to work with Mexican colleagues in the southern Gulf of Mexico to look for residual impacts from the Ixtoc I oil spill of 1979-1980 on coastal areas, fisheries, and the deep sea. This long-term study will reveal what impacts may be in store 30 years after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill. Dr. Wes Tunnell, Associate Director of HRI, is leading the project. He is joined in this research effort by HRI endowed chairs: Drs.

Kvichak Marine delivered two all-aluminum 36.6’ Crew / Pilot Boats to Tymac Launch Service, Ltd. of British Columbia, Canada. The vessels were designed by Kvichak for the specific use of transporting 12 or fewer passengers for BC coast pilots, government officials, ships agents and surveyors, longshoremen, repair crews etc. The areas of operations include Vancouver Harbor, Indian Arm, Howe Sound, the Fraser River and Southern Gulf of Georgia Strait. Powered by twin John Deere 6090SFM85 diesel engines rated for 425 bhp and ZF 305-3 marine gears.