HII Acquires Engineering Solutions Division
Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) has acquired the Engineering Solutions Division of The Columbia Group, a designer and builder of unmanned underwater vehicles for domestic and international customers. As a previous stand-alone division within The Columbia Group, ESD is headquartered in Panama City Beach, Fla., and employs about 30 engineers, analysts, craftsmen and technicians. While ESD’s primary customer is the U.S. Navy, the company develops and builds specialized manned and unmanned undersea vehicles for military customers around the world. It has built or converted specialized craft for a variety of purposes, including support of submersibles and submarines, special warfare, testing of mine warfare systems, torpedo countermeasures and more.
BOEM Issues Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement
The U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), announces the availability of the Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for proposed Central Planning Area (CPA) Lease Sales 241 and 247 and Eastern Planning Area (EPA) Lease Sale 226. The proposed CPA oil and gas lease sales are tentatively scheduled to be held in March 2016 and 2017, respectively, and the proposed EPA Lease Sale 226 is tentatively scheduled to be held in March 2016 under the Proposed Final Outer Continental Shelf Oil & Gas Leasing Program: 2012-2017.
Coast Guard Names Next Top Enlisted Member
The Coast Guard announce the selection of the next Master Chief Petty Officer of the Coast Guard – Master Chief Petty Officer Steven Cantrell. Master Chief Petty Officer Steven Cantrell is the current Atlantic Area Master Chief and will relieve the current MCPO-CG, Michael P. Leavitt, during a change of watch ceremony in May in Cape May N.J. Cantrell hails from Memphis, Tenn., and joined the Coast Guard in 1983. During his career, he has served in various afloat and ashore assignments…
BOEM Announces Meetings for New GOM Oil & Gas Lease Sales
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) will hold a series of public scoping meetings to gather information for an environmental impact statement (EIS) for the proposed oil and gas lease sales in Gulf of Mexico’s Eastern Planning Area offshore Florida and Alabama. This EIS is for proposed Lease Sales 225 and 226, which are included in the Proposed Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program for 2012-2017. A leasing program consists of a proposed schedule of oil and gas lease sales indicating the size, timing, and location of proposed leasing activity for the five-year period following its approval by the Secretary of the Interior.
BOEM Solicits Comments on Oil and Gas Lease Sales
New Orleans, La. — The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management announced that it will open a comment period and hold a series of public scoping meetings to gather information to be used in preparing an Environmental Impact Statement for two proposed oil and gas lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico’s Eastern Planning Area. As the President discussed in his State of the Union address, BOEM has issued a Proposed Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program for 2012–2017, which would make more than 75 percent of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil and gas estimated on the OCS available for development. The Proposed Program schedules two sales (Lease Sales 225 and 226) in the Eastern Planning Area.
Tar Balls Reach Farther Down Florida Coast
According to a June 19 report from the Associate Press, tar balls washed up on Destin, Fort Walton and Panama City Beach, the farthest east the oil has been reported in the Sunshine State. Unfavorable onshore winds were pushing the oil closer, and more tar balls were expected to wash up in the next few days. A large plume of oil was about 30 miles offshore, officials said, and it would land on the Panama City-area beaches in the coming weeks unless the winds change for good. (Source: Associated Press)
