David Arnold News

There are new-builds, and there are conversions. In lean times, there’s also “life-extension” for FPSOs increasingly seen as the best hope of developing oilfields too pricy as platform projects. Life extension is about making first-time money, cutting costs or continuing to earn when a field or floater enters a new stage. It’s also about safety. Life extension involves major, multiyear considerations for operators and FPSO contractors, and for all approaches to longer life, history is the great decider.

There are new-builds, and there are conversions. In lean times, there’s also “life-extension” for FPSOs increasingly seen as the best hope of developing oilfields too pricy as platform projects. Life extension is about making first-time money, cutting costs or continuing to earn when a field or floater enters a new stage. It’s also about safety. Life extension involves major, multiyear considerations for operators and FPSO contractors, and for all approaches to longer life, history is the great decider.

The University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg, MS, and the Mississippi Regional SeaPerch Committee in mid-May hosted the Fourth National SeaPerch Challenge on the campus of Southern Miss. It was here that 108 teams of 451 middle and high school students – students from 19 states, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and for a first time ever, and international team from New Zealand – convened at the University’s Payne Center and Johnson Natatorium for a weekend of competition and fun.

London's Grand Olympia Hall will be the setting for this year's Shiprepair & Conversion 2000 exhibition and conference from November 15-16. Topics of discussion highlighted in a keynote debate at the conference include conflict between regulators, owners and repair yards over ship standards. An international panel, along with 150 delegates representing all facets of the industry — will look at a common shipyard complaint — the delays of repairs by owners, which has become all too easy by obtaining class extensions. These extensions can be granted with little effort, despite classification society claims of tougher crackdowns on this issue. The conference's opening session is comprised of the industry debate on market trends, price levels, new opportunities and yard competition.