Helicopter Operators Set for Take-off as Oil Drilling Picks Up
A pickup in offshore drilling is swelling the orderbooks of the handful of helicopter operators that shuttle oil workers to and from remote rigs. Their stock prices, depressed after Big Oil's recent spending cuts, could also be readying for take-off. Bristow Group Inc plans to invest $1 billion this year to procure just some of the 300 new helicopters that Barclays estimates will be needed by the oil and gas industry over the next five years. "We will invest more in this one year than in the last two-and-a-half years combined," said Jonathan Baliff, the chief financial officer of Bristow who will take over as CEO on July 31. With a market value of $2.7 billion…
New Helicopter and Helideck Courses from Maersk
Maersk Training announced the launch of two new offshore emergency courses: the OPITO Helideck Emergency Response Team Member Training and the OPITO 6 Day Combined Helideck and Team Member Training. These two OPITO Accredited courses will kick start this month at the company’s training center in the northeast of Scotland and be delivered using a newly built Helicopter simulator and helideck. Following a significant financial investment last year, Maersk Training in Aberdeen has built a brand new Helicopter Simulator and Helideck fire ground to support its two new courses.
Boeing Deepwater Team Delivers Proposal to USCG
"Deepwater One Team" has delivered a $2.3-billion proposal to the U.S. Coast Guard for the design and development of an Integrated Deepwater System (IDS) that will help the Coast Guard meet vital offshore operational requirements into the 21st century. Construcciones Aeronauticas S.A. (CASA) of Madrid, Spain; Eurocopter, an EADS Company, of Marignane, France; John J. McMullen Associates Inc. (JJMA) of Alexandria, Va.; and Northrop Grumman Ship Systems Avondale Operations, a subsidiary of Northrop Grumman Corporation, located in New Orleans, La. The transatlantic team's proven capability in large-scale systems integration and demonstrated successes in partnering with customers is aimed at providing a best-value system solution to the Coast Guard for its planned multibillion-dollar…
USCG Deepwater: Centerpiece of Coast Guard Transformation
By Gordon I. Throughout the Cold War, the need to maintain strong military forces to deter war with the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact was a mainstay of U.S. national security policy. During today's global war on terrorism, similar linkages exist between a more capable U.S. Coast Guard, improved homeland security, and the deterrence or defeat of a terrorist attack in the maritime domain. The 9/11 Commission Report clearly describes this nexus. "Our report shows that the terrorists analyze defenses," the Commission wrote. "They plan accordingly. Defenses cannot achieve perfect safety. They make targets harder to attack successfully, and they deter attacks by making capture more likely.
