Research Associates News

The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement’s National Oil Spill Response Research and Renewable Energy Test Facility, known as Ohmsett, has now reopened after undergoing significant refurbishment over the past eight months as part of BSEE’s ongoing maintenance plan. Originally constructed and operated by the U.S. EPA in 1974, the facility was passed to the U.S. Navy and then to the Department of the Interior’s Minerals Management Service in 1990. Today, it is the only facility in the U.S. conducting full-scale oil spill response research, equipment testing and training using live oil.

Applied Research Associates, Inc. (ARA) announced Dr. Tom Coolbaugh has joined the team as the Program/Facility Manager for Ohmsett – The National Oil Spill Response Research & Renewable Energy Test Facility. He will have oversight of the day-to-day operations, maintenance and testing at the facility, while ensuring facility users’ needs are met.Dr. Coolbaugh recently retired after 32 years with ExxonMobil Corporation, most recently as the Technology and Advocacy Advisor in the Emergency Preparedness and Response organization.

Heriot-Watt University researchers are to map out the UK’s best sites for carbon capture by studying the geology of depleted gas fields in the North Sea.The team led by Professor John Underhill will use data from industry regulator the Oil and Gas Authority's (OGA) National Data Repository (NDR), which was opened up to access for the first time in 2019.Professor John Underhill said: “The Southern North Sea faces three of some of the UK’s largest carbon emission areas: the industrial hubs of Teesside, Humberside and the Thames estuary.“It also has a number of depleted gas fields that could be re-purposed to store carbon.“We are going to systematically examine the geology of these sites and determine which critical factors allow carbon to be safely stored over long…

The Women’s International Shipping & Trading Association (WISTA) has welcome Portugal to the global network of executive women in shipping.The launch of WISTA Portugal was announced today by Ana Paula Vitorino, Portugal’s Minister of the Sea at Portugal Shipping. WISTA Portugal joins 44 other National WISTA Associations (NWAs).“WISTA International has had a strong relationship with Portugal’s women in shipping,” said WISTA International President Despina Panayiotou Theodosiou. “We are proud to formally include Portugal in the WISTA family. Portugal’s significance among maritime countries, especially in Europe, brings new avenues for business to WISTA…

Offshore exploration is a history of man v. Prospecting for oil is a dynamic art. From a lake in Ohio, to piers off the California coast in the early 1900s, to the salt marshes of Louisiana in the 1930s, to the first “out-of-sight- of-land” tower in 1947 in the Gulf of Mexico, the modern offshore petroleum industry has inched its way over the last roughly 75 years from 100 ft. of water ever farther into the briny deep, where the biggest platform today, Shell’s Perdido spar, sits in 8,000 ft. of water. As a planet, we have two unquenchable thirsts – for water and for oil.

Scientists funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and affiliated with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) have detected a plume of hydrocarbons at least 22 miles long and more than 3,000 ft below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, a residue of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The 1.2-mile-wide, 650-ft-high plume of trapped hydrocarbons was detected during a ten day subsurface sampling effort from June 19-28, 2010 near the wellhead. The results provide a snapshot of where the oil has gone as surface slicks shrink and disappear.

INTERTANKO's Executive Committee and Council Autumn Meetings will take place in Athens 24-26 October 2001. In conjunction with the meetings, INTERTANKO will be hosting an Open Market Seminar on Wednesday, 24 October. Consultancy and Research Ltd. will speak on tanker investments. about oil trade developments in the Black Sea and Caspian region and the consequences of the new pipeline from Baku to Ceyhan. Martin Stopford, H. Clarkson & Co. Ltd. will concentrate on strategic issues in the tanker market against the background of recent events. Finn Engelsen jr, Lorentzen & Stemoco will present prospects for the product tanker market and Jarle Hammer, Fearnleys AS will concentrate on trade developments in the tanker market. Erik Ranheim, INTERTANKO, will introduce and moderate the seminar.

OPEC has seemingly bowed to U.S. pressure for cheaper oil by agreeing to higher output limits, immediately agreeing to turn up the taps by 1.45 million barrels daily, or seven percent. Iran, OPEC's second largest producer, opted out of the deal, saying it feared a price plunge and complaining about interference from Washington. The action, which has been anticipated given the strong political pressures placed on the OPEC ministers, immediately sent petroleum prices into a tailspin, with Brent futures dropping $1.26 to $24.25 per barrel. OPEC won applause from the Clinton administration, which said there was now no need to release national emergency supplies to ease election year political pressure from consumers irate at high gasoline prices.

Advanced Engineering and Research Associates (AERA) Inc., Alexandria, Va., is being awarded a $5,046,276 cost-plus-fixed-fee modification under previously awarded contract to exercise an option for U.S. Navy, foreign military, and material management support services. planning Ship Project Directive configuration requirements, delivery schedules of Government Furnished Equipment and other related management functions, for U.S. Foreign Military Sales (FMS) DDG class ships. This involves purchases for the U.S. Navy (90 percent) and the Governments of Japan (5 percent) and Spain (5 percent) under the FMS Program. Work will be performed in Alexandria and is to be completed by July 2003. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. D.C., is the contracting activity.

The cost of producing oil and gas has risen about 53 percent the past two years, and the trend is expected to continue this year, according to a report released Monday. Business Week reported that those same costs have climbed 67 percent since 2000, but most of the increase has come since the end of 2004, according to an analysis by Cambridge Energy Research Associates and its parent, IHS Inc., which together have created what they call the Upstream Capital Costs Index. The index tracks nine key cost areas for offshore and land-based projects such as construction, equipment and personnel. The rising cost of doing business in the oilfield is expected to be a hot topic when dozens of industry leaders, academics and analysts gather this week for CERA's annual energy conference in Houston.

A chronic shortage of rigs and workers has doubled the cost of producing oil and gas in the North Sea, threatening to make the UK’s domestic oil industry uncompetitive, warned UKOOA, the association of North Sea offshore operators, according to Times Online. Signs that costs are crimping investment emerge in the association’s survey of North Sea activity. Further evidence of the dramatic worldwide oil industry cost escalation emerged in a new index showing a 53 per cent increase in project costs over just two years. The Upstream Capital Costs Index, launched by IHC and Cambridge Energy Research Associates (Cera), climbed 13 per cent in the six months to the end of October because of soaring inflation in hiring rigs, shipyard fabrication and labour.

Facing an exodus of institutional brain power as baby-boomer scientists retire, the Navy is turning to a younger pool of talent for its underwater robotics program, the Washington Post reported. As part of the effort, college students were recently invited to build robots that could perform a series of tasks without human control in a 38-ft. deep research pool. The culmination, the International Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Competition, was a sink-or-swim contest. The robots were required to swim through a gate, find and dock with a flashing light box, locate and tag a cracked pipeline, then home in on an acoustic beacon and resurface in a designated recovery zone. Top prize was $7,000.

Administration (TSA) and the U.S. system port security exercises today in San Francisco. Area Maritime Security (AMS) Committee. secure. governmental agencies and private industry. current Area Maritime Security Plans. rail yard. participate over the next three years. security communities throughout the U.S. Brown, TSA's PortSTEP Project Officer. said Capt. Facility Security. (TSI). various federal, state and local government agencies. Community Research Associates of Alexandria, Va.; Booz Allen Hamilton, Inc. Narragansett, R.I. simulation software and databases to monitor and evaluate the exercises. In addition to TSA and the U.S. PortSTEP exercise.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and the U.S. Coast Guard began a series of transportation system port security exercises in San Francisco recently. The Port Security Training Exercises Program (PortSTEP) is focused on building links within the Area Maritime Security (AMS) Committee. The committee assists the captain of the port in writing, reviewing and updating an AMS Plan in addition to supporting other transportation entities that depend upon the port being secure. The exercise will involve the entire port community, including both public governmental agencies and private industry. The partnership is intended to improve connectivity of various surface transportation modes and enhance current Area Maritime Security Plans.

Oil's eight-month rally hit yet another high Sept. 29 as dealers cited news that U.S. petroleum inventories had dropped to near-three-year lows as proof OPEC supply curbs were biting deep ahead of winter. Benchmark Brent crude blend touched $24.30 a barrel, a 33-month high, after the American Petroleum Institute said crude stocks in the world's biggest oil consumer fell by 3.7 million barrels last week to stand at their lowest levels in almost three years. The underlying picture was even tighter because a slight rise in isolated U.S. West Coast stocks boosted the headline figure and masked a whopping 6.4 million barrel drop in key reserves east of the Rockies. Oil stocks in the U.S.