Offshore Exploration

Gulf Capital Acquires Stake in Maritime Industrial Services Co.

According to Rigzone, Gulf Capital has acquired, as part of a large investment consortium, a 21% stake in Maritime Industrial Services Co. (MIS) was acquired as part of a larger private placement that raised $80 million for MIS on the Norwegian over the counter (OTC) market. The private placement will enable MIS, which provides a fully integrated onshore and offshore engineering, procurement, fabrication, construction and shipyard service, to capitalize on the current boom in offshore oil explorations and allow it to enter in a major way into the rig manufacturing business. The current high demand for oil and gas has resulted in an unprecedented amount of offshore exploration activities and boosted worldwide offshore rig utilization to 86%, one of the highest levels ever. This high utilization rate has put pressure on average rig daily rental rates which have peaked at record levels of up to US $180,000 - $200,000 per day. Middle Eastern jack up drilling rigs are working at close to 100% utilization rates and the GCC market for jack up rigs is the fastest growing in the world. MIS, with its extensive offshore construction and fabrication experience and with yards and operations in the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, is ideally positioned to meet the large demand for offshore rigs. MIS has already secured an order to build two Friede & Goldman designed Super M2 Jack up rigs for MOSVOLD Jackup Ltd

Petrotin Moves Ahead With Offshore Exploration Joint Venture

Venezuela has given the state-owned Petroleum Company of Trinidad and Tobago, also known as Petrotrin, approval to enter a joint venture to explore an offshore oil field near the maritime border of the South American nation with Trinidad. Petrotrin reportedly would take a 50 percent interest in the Gulf of Paria East block, a stake that was previously held by Enron Corp., the Number one U.S. natural gas and electricity marketer. No financial details of the deal were immediately available

LR Wins Deal with Maersk Oil

Lloyd's Register (LR) won a contract to provide Maersk Oil with a comprehensive suite of risk-management services to support the offshore operator’s commitment to meet global demand for energy in an efficient, safe and environmentally responsible manner. The agreement requires Lloyd’s Register to support Maersk Oil’s global management of four key areas of operational risk -- hazard identification and risk assessment (HIRA), accident and incident investigation

Crowley Orders Heavy Lift 455 Series Deck Barges

Crowley Maritime Corporation's technical services group has awarded a construction contract to Gunderson Marine of Portland, Oregon to build two additional Heavy Lift Series 400 x 105-ft. deck barges. Once complete, these barges will handle project work for the offshore energy industry in the Gulf of Mexico and elsewhere and will expand Crowley's fleet of this type barge to five. Gunderson is the same company that built the first three barges in the series - the Marty J

Crowley Christens Barge Gunderson

Crowley Maritime Corporation Saturday christened and launched barge 455-2, the second of three Heavy Lift 455 Series flat-deck barges that will be built and delivered to Crowley this year by Gunderson Marine in Portland, Oregon. The three 400-foot by 105-foot-wide deck barges are being built to handle project work for the offshore energy industry - primarily in the Gulf of Mexico. The addition of these vessels helps to expand and keep current Crowley's fleet for customers of the company's

Profitable Year for Shipbuilding Companies

Increased spending on offshore exploration & production (E&P) of oil and gas has increased order-book positions of Indian shipbuilders. ABG Shipyard has an order backlog of Rs 1,300 crore, while Bharati Shipyard has pending orders worth Rs 676 crore on its books. The jump in order books is getting reflected in stock prices of these companies as well. BSL has seen its market cap soar to almost Rs 900 crore from Rs 309 crore at the beginning of 2005

Subsea Operators 'Deep Down' Posts Profit in Q2 2012

Modified EBITDA increases 86% to $1.4 million
 in latest Deep Down Inc. financial report. Deep Down, Inc., an oilfield services company specializing in products and services for the deepwater and ultra-deepwater oil and gas industry, report net income of $639 thousand for the second quarter of 2012, an improvement of $685 thousand over the same period in 2011.    Ronald E. Smith, Chief Executive Officer stated

Inchcape Opens New North American Office

Inchcape Shipping Services (ISS), the world’s leading maritime services provider, has expanded its network in North America with the opening of a new office in Dutch Harbor, Alaska.    “The opening of this office will give ISS a much needed presence in this area of Alaska,” said Tod Gannett, VP US & Canada West Coast & Hawaii. “This will allow us to better serve our current client base as well as explore new business opportunities in the region

Sonar Synthetic Aparture IP Rights Secured by Kraken

Kraken Sonar Systems acquires all Intellectual Property (IP) rights to the AquaPix® Synthetic Aperture Sonar (SAS) technology platform from Marport Deep Sea Technologies Inc. The SAS technology assets consist of all hardware and software intellectual property targeted to military and commercial applications. The transaction had an effective closing date of December 31, 2012. A number of different underwater activities rely on high quality seabed imaging

CSB Still Investigating Deepwater Horizon Spill

The following statement was released from U.S. Chemical Safety Board Chairman Dr. Rafael Moure-Eraso on April 20, the one-year anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon accident:   On the one-year anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig accident I would like to take this opportunity to remember the 11 workers who were killed as a result of this catastrophic explosion and fire. We also wish to express our condolences to the families and coworkers whose lives will be forever impacted