Pump Oil News

Global oil companies are pumping billions of dollars into offshore drilling, reversing a long decline in spending on the decades-long projects, including some in the remote iceberg waters far off Canada's Atlantic coast.Surging oil prices are encouraging the investments, along with Europe's mounting energy demand as the Ukraine-Russia war drags on. Offshore production sites are more expensive to build than onshore shale, the last decade's investment darling. But once they are up and running…

The stranding of the MV Wakashio is one of the biggest environmental disasters in the history of the western Indian Ocean. While the full scale of the disaster is not yet known, the 1,000 tons of oil and diesel that leaked close to one of the greatest marine treasures of Mauritius threatens to destroy this precious habitat. Recovery will be long and the disaster will occupy Mauritius for years to come.Questions now arise: could the accident and the spill have been prevented? Was the country prepared?

Italy's ENI got a conditional consent to start using its floating oil production and storage facility (FPSO) at the world's northernmost oil field in the Norwegian sector of the Barents Sea, Norway's Petroleum Safety Authority said on Tuesday. "The consent means that ENI can start using Goliat FPSO, but it still has to complete the verification process of some equipment and to report back to us," Oeyvind Midttun, a spokesman for the authority said. Both ENI, which operates the field and has 65 percent stake, and Norway's Statoil, which holds the rest, have to carry out a planned verification and to confirm that the facility is ready before starting to pump oil, he added. It was not clear immediately how long the verification process can take.

An offshore drilling platform, operated for Brazilian state-run oil company Petrobras , was partially evacuated after tilting on Friday, but there was no risk of it sinking, the company and the local oil workers' union said on Friday. Crew members were evacuated to another rig after the SS-53 platform, located in the Campos oil basin off the coast of Rio de Janeiro, began to list at about 0100 local time (0400 GMT) Friday, a spokeswoman from the Sindipetro-NF oil workers' union said. The platform had been stabilized and safety measures were being taken, said a Petrobras spokeswoman who declined to give further details. The union spokeswoman also said the rig had been stabilized.

Maritime charity, the Apostleship of the Sea has called for a major change in the way seafarers and fishermen are treated by government authorities when they are the victims of unscrupulous owners. The recent case of 75 Indonesian fishermen illustrates what the Apostleship of the Sea says is a heavy-handed and ill thought out process. Local media have reported on the slave-like conditions endured by the 75 Indonesian fishermen stranded in Cape Town harbor for the last month. Many of the crew had not been paid for two years by the Taiwanese owners and were forced to continue to work…

According to media reports, Russian President Vladimir Putin has declared that the 30 Greenpeace International activists detained by Russian authorities after an Arctic drilling protest are ‘obviously not pirates’, but has suggested that they may have broken international laws. He made these remarks at an Arctic forum in Salekhard. All 30 activists remain under arrest near Murmansk, apparently in different locations. Five people were interviewed last night by the Investigative Committee and served papers confirming they were are being investigated for piracy offences.

Shell announced investment to support phase II of the prolific Parque das Conchas (BC-10) project more than 100 kilometres (62 miles) off the coast of Brazil. This significant investment develops the fourth field in the BC-10 block and continues a successful wave of production growth in Shell’s Upstream Americas business. The full project delivers an energy resource of approximately 300 million barrels of oil equivalent, with production of some 100,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day. “This is another important milestone in our delivery of substantial growth in the Americas," said Marvin Odum, Upstream Americas Director. Shell began production from the first phase of Parque das Conchas in 2009 with production from nine wells in three fields – Abalone, Ostra, and Argonauta B-West.

United States Attorney George E.B. Holding announced that United States District Judge James C. Dever III, sentenced Vaja Sikharulidze, a citizen of Georgia, to one-year probation to include seven days of home detention, which reflected a sentence reduction based upon his substantial cooperation in the investigation. A Criminal Information was filed on April 23, 2010. sikharulidze pled guilty on May 3, 2010 to violating the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships (APPS), in violation of Title 33, United States Code, Sections 1901, et. seq. Sikharulidze, 59, was the Chief Engineer of the Motor Tanker Chem Faros, a 21,145 gross-ton ocean-going cargo ship.

In his weekly address, President Barack Obama spoke of his commitment to helping the people of the Gulf Coast recover and rebuild from the BP oil spill that has threatened their livelihoods. On June 4, the President heard from local residents and small business owners about the hardships that they are facing as a result of this catastrophe. The audio and video is available online (www.whitehouse.gov). I’m speaking to you from Caminada Bay in Grand Isle, Louisiana, one of the first places to feel the devastation wrought by the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Leading world experts in oil spill response have agreed a series of recommendations to deal with future spills of high density oil during the International Maritime Organization’s Third R&D Forum on High Density Oil Spill Response, held from 11-13 March in Brest, France, following the generous offer of the French Government to host the Forum. Large quantities of high density oil are carried by ships either as cargo or as fuel (bunkers). This oil’s characteristics, including high viscosity and tendency to sink, present particular challenges for clean-up operations in the event of an accidental spill at sea. The recommendations adopted…

TotalFinaElf picked Coflexip Stena Offshore and Stolt Offshore to pump oil from the tanker Erika, which sank off France's Atlantic coast. TotalFinaElf, which has faced widespread criticism in France for the disaster, has agreed with the government to pump up to 15,000 tons of heavy fuel still believed to be trapped in the holds of the tanker. The difficult operation, involving two ships with pumps and a tanker to carry the recovered oil to the Donges refinery near Nantes, is scheduled to begin next month. It is expected to be completed in September. TotalFinaElf has estimated the cost of the operation at $57 million.

Singapore's shipyards want a bigger share of the offshore shipbuilding industry, eyeing areas now dominated by South Korea, Japan and Norway. According to Reuters, Singapore-listed yards have secured well over half the 92 oil drilling rigs under construction worldwide, and are now looking to expand capacity in a bid to meet a next wave of demand for vessels and platforms needed to pump oil and gas from the ocean bed to the market. Industry executives see rising demand for deep-water floating production capacity as oil prices remain high and some 84 new offshore fields are set to come on stream in the next five years. As Keppel Corp.

Helmut Sohmen, chairman of BW Group Ltd. may sell shares in its offshore unit as producers order oil platforms to drill fields in deeper water, according to a Bloomburg report. An initial public offering of shares in BW Offshore is possible within the next two years, Sohmen, 66, said, according to the report. The unit operates a fleet of eight tankers converted into platforms used to pump oil from undersea fields. BW Group acquired the offshore business in 2003 when World-Wide Shipping, started in Hong Kong by Sohmen's father-in-law in 1955, acquired Oslo-based Bergesen d.y. ASA. BW Offshore's FPSOs, operate in seas off Mauritania, Nigeria and Equatorial Guinea in West Africa, New Zealand, and Mexico.

In the strictest sense, a liftboat is a self-propelled crane barge that can elevate itself above the water line. It is the cranes that make a liftboat such a valuable tool for building and/or renovating offshore oil and gas structures. A recent example of the working ability of these liftboats is the L/B Myrtle, a 137.5-ft. by 92-ft. vessel with a trio of 245-ft. legs, enabling the vessel to work in water depths of 180 ft. with a 15-ft. air gap. The vessel was built by Bollinger Shipyards in their Lockport facility and sent to Bollinger's Amelia, La. shipyard for the outfitting of the three legs. Montco Offshore, Inc., Galliano, La., owns the vessel. Montco owns six liftboats capable of operating in water depths from 75 to 180 ft.

Two Salvage firms - France's Les Abeilles International and Smit Internationale of the Netherlands - have reportedly told French authorities they could start recovering oil from the wreck of the sunken tanker Erika, which went down on Dec. 12 off the Brittany coast, within a matter of days. An estimated 20,000 tons of heavy fuel remain within the tanks of the ship, which broke in two before sinking. The two firms are ready to use a robot system developed by Norwegian pump specialist Frank Mohn and said they see no need to wait for three or four months to begin the operation, as was previously suggested. They said they could begin operations within two weeks if they got the go-ahead from French authorities and Totalfina…