Pressure Testing News

U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) inspectors frequently find immersion suit defects caused by adhesivef ailures between the main zipper and the suit body. These failures, illustrated in the images, compromise watertight integrity and pose serious survival risks from water ingress. Contributing factors to the defects include improper maintenance (e.g., the use of non-approved petroleum based lubricants or scented powders), improper storage, and neglecting to conduct periodic pressure testing. Seam and closure deterioration may not always be detectable during routine visual inspections.

A cargo ship that ran aground off St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands earlier this month has been refloated and towed to a safe mooring location at the Crown Bay Sandfill dock, the U.S. Coast Guard said.Vessel owners and salvors will now coordinate further operations to remove the damaged cargo, remaining oil and conduct further salvage or repair operations for the Bonnie G.The Vanuatu-flagged vessel began taking on water and ran aground on October 4, leading the 12 people on board to be rescued after abandoning ship. No injuries were reported.To refloat the Bonnie G, DonJon-SMIT, Inc.

Victaulic’s forward-thinking vertical integration remains, at the same time, solidly connected to a rich and varied past. It is still common to hear waterfront stakeholders refer to alternative pipe connection systems as temporary or simply as ‘a new development.’ While none of that could be further from the truth, the education of the marine community as to the merits of these products as an alternative to traditional flanges continues. These products – like Victaulic’s market offerings – are indeed mainstream parts of the marine sector, their use limited only by the imagination of designers, builders and operators who constantly find new applications to improve their bottom line. Since the 1920s, Victaulic couplings have demonstrated their value in countless maritime applications.

Regional tankerman service Liquid Services, LLC, is celebrating 25 years of operation on the inland waterways. In what started as a mom and pop shop in Paducah, Ky., in 1992, has flourished into a fully licensed, bonded, and dangerous liquid endorsed tankerman service specializing in safe and cost-effective transfer of liquid materials for the marine industry. “We are family owned, and family operated,” said Philip Chapman, owner and operator of Liquid Services. “We always have been. We also treat our employees like family. In addition to dangerous liquid cargo transfer, Liquid Services also offers tankerman training, hose and line pressure testing, tank barge engine repair, gauging, terminal and barge maintenance and more.

Aberdeen-based subsea cable and connector specialist Hydro Group, has expanded its premises by investing £2 million in a new 13,700 sq ft bespoke facility, set to open in spring 2016. The company currently occupies a 45,500 sq ft facility at the Aberdeen Energy Park, purchasing the additional 0.63 acres of development land from Buccleuch Property and Moorfield Group (Buccmoor LP) to enable it to expand operations and develop a brand new workshop with mezzanine deck. Doug Whyte, Hydro Group Managing Director, said: “The new facility and additional space was required in order to diversify and develop our business. Hydro Group, an Energy Park occupier since 2008, designs and manufactures underwater cables and connectors for subsea, underwater, topside and onshore applications.

Diesel engines specialist Royston has supported and completed the overhaul and maintenance of a range of engine components for a platform supply vessel (PSV) undergoing a scheduled service at Babcock’s Rosyth facility. A change in operating schedules for the E.R. Georgina required a fast four day turnaround of 24 sets of cylinder heads, piston and connector rod assemblies and bottom end bearing bocks that had been removed from the vessel as part of the maintenance of its Rolls Royce Bergen engines.

Testing of Shell’s proposed Arctic-ready capping stack system was supervised this week by the U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) in Puget Sound, BSEE Director Brian Salerno announced today. BSEE Alaska Region Director Mark Fesmire oversaw the testing to ensure compliance with Federal safety standards for oil and gas exploration on the Arctic Outer Continental Shelf. The capping stack, used to contain the flow of oil in the event that all primary and backup blowout prevention equipment fails during drilling…

Motion and control technologies company Parker Hannifin announced the introduction of its new rapid service unit as a part of the existing custom manufacturing operation. According to the company, the rapid service unit can turn certain orders for critical fittings, hose-tube combinations and other custom pieces in the same day they are received. Parker’s custom manufacturing operation was created to provide customers with a source for critical pieces, custom prototypes or uncommon sized parts in one-piece or short-run productions. Parker’s custom manufacturing operation specializes in making custom and non-standard parts in uncommon sizes…

JA Moody, a national distributor for product lines in the navy and commercial marine marketplace, is now a Viega Marine Distributor for the U.S. shipbuilding and offshore markets. Founded in 1899, The Viega Group manufactures and distributes plumbing, heating and pipe joining systems, currently offering more than 3,000 products in North America. Viega manufactures and distributes shipbuilding and offshore piping solutions and claims to be the only manufacturer to offer press fittings in multiple pipe joining materials. Viega ProPress, Viega SeaPress and Viega MegaPress systems can reduce installation time and improve performance in marine markets including megayachts, commercial vessels, military vessels and oil platforms, the manufacturer said.

Ocean Safety said it has been busy since gaining Lloyds Register approval to carry out hydrostatic pressure testing in accordance with TPED (Transportable Pressure Equipment Directive) and things are only set to get busier. During the past year Ocean Safety has noticed a steady increase in business, ranging from fire protection and service companies including Basingstoke Fire, Griffin Fire, Resmar and Wessex Fire, as well as from their core maritime customer base. Don Hawkins of Resmar…

QinetiQ has carried out a fatigue and fracture mechanics assessment of NATO’s submarine rescue vehicle, part of the NATO Submarine Rescue System (NSRS), a multinational project that delivers rescue capability primarily for the partner nations of France, Norway and the U.K. and to NATO and allied nations. QinetiQ’s Marine Structural Analysis & Technical Services team was commissioned to conduct a structural integrity review of the submarine, including a stress-life fatigue assessment, which evaluated the welded joints of the pressure hull against the relevant design standards, and a probabilistic assessment of the likelihood of failure by fatigue.

Braemar Adjusting continues its global expansion with the addition of one director in London, two directors in Houston and an energy adjuster in Singapore. Ian McInroy re-joins Braemar’s London office as a Director in October 2013 from a leading international insurance broking and consultancy group, where his primary responsibilities were to design risk transfer programs for offshore energy construction projects and advise clients on the terms and conditions of their energy contracts.

Falmouth Scientific, Inc. (FSI) announce two new additions to their PLUS FAMILY of measurement instruments: the ACM-WAVE-PLUS and WAVE-TIDE-PLUS, which join the ACM-PLUS acoustic current meter that they say has set a new standard for cost-effective single-point current measurement. The new ACM-WAVE-PLUS provides current speed & direction, wave direction, wave height, and other wave statistics by combining FSI’s enhanced ACM-PLUS technology with a high- accuracy, micro-machined silicon pressure sensor, while the WAVE-TIDE-PLUS provides an economical solution for applications that only need non-directional wave height and tide characteristics.

The workscope involved providing a verified barrier during hot work activities, followed by localized pressure testing of new welds/fittings during a planned shutdown for routine maintenance and the rerouting of new pipework. The pipeline engineering specialist supplied 28 In-Line Weld Test Tools, ranging in size from 2" to 20", and a team of six technicians during the 12 day shutdown window. STATS Group general manager in Qatar, Vikas Shangari, said, “Our In-Line Weld Test Tools are deployed in to ambient pipework to provide a verified vapor barrier…

Halliburton opens its newly constructed Completion Technology and Manufacturing Center in Singapore. The new state-of-the-art facility is located on about 43 acres in Jurong Industrial Park and includes more than 500,000 square feet (46,451 square meters) of manufacturing and administrative space. The facility includes technology laboratories and test facilities, which house complex processes such as high-alloy material precision machining, electrode discharge machines, small deep-hole gun drilling and fully automated high-pressure testing. A second phase of development is underway which includes the construction of the technology administration building…

International oil services company Aker Solutions has expanded its subsea business by establishing a subsea lifecycle service base in Labuan, Malaysia. The objective is to support all installed and future shallow and deepwater projects within the Asia Pacific region. The new service base, which is located in Labuan Federal Territory in Eastern Malaysia, will provide strategic and effective support services for Aker Solutions' onshore and offshore oil and gas customers. An opening ceremony was held at the new site and was officiated by Dave Hutchinson, head of Aker Solutions' subsea business in Asia Pacific. "Our new subsea lifecycle…

The service base, situated in Labuan, Malaysia, is to support all installed and future shallow and deepwater projects within the Asia Pacific region. An opening ceremony was held recently at the new site and was officiated by Dave Hutchinson, head of Aker Solutions' subsea business in Asia Pacific. Labuan Island is located off the northwest coast of Borneo, north of Brunei Bay and faces the South China Sea, and was identified as a strategic location due to its proximity to the current and planned East Malaysian development locations.

A global manufacturer of polymer and syntactic foam-based solutions for the offshore oil and gas industry, Trelleborg officially opened its newly constructed facility in Macaé, Brazil, on 13th September 2012. To support offshore customers in their quest to reach greater subsea depths, the new facility boasts the largest hydrostatic pressure testing vessel in the world. Trelleborg’s President for Offshore and Construction, Fredrik Meuller, commented: “As a business we have a continued long-term strategy to invest in markets with encouraging growth potential.

Specialist engineering company, STATS Group, has completed an 18 month design, manufacturing and installation project to enable the tie-in of a fifth pipeline on Statoil’s Troll A Platform. Statoil’s Troll A platform, located off the west coast of Norway, utilises a system of seal tubes to tie-in risers which are run down the inside of a dry concrete leg. The seal tubes were concreted in place at the base of the riser leg on the gravity base structure in 1991. There are seven seal tubes – four designed for large bore pipe up to 36” - and three designed for smaller diameter pipe up to 20”.

Churchill Drilling Tools Targets More Success With Product Reliability. Aberdeen-based drilling systems specialist Churchill Drilling Tools is to invest half a million pounds and expand its workforce to meet growing demand for its revolutionary technology. The company is on course to record a turnover of £3.5million in this financial year with results up by about 30% on 2011. With more than a decade of hydraulic design experience, Churchill Drilling Tools has produced a range of patented performance and safety improvement technologies, used by more than 50 operators worldwide.

Three weeks of intensive work late last year by engineers from Royston Limited has won praise from the operators of the Normand Installer after it was found to need an urgent engine overhaul before resuming work off West Africa. The 14,506 gt offshore construction support vessel is notable for having a 350 tonne capacity A-frame,  250 and 50 tonne heavy lift cranes, carousel cable/pipe laying system, 500 tonne anchor handling/towing winch system and DP3 dynamic positioning system.

The Hanseatic trading city of Bergen, on the edge of the Norwegian North Sea, has a long maritime tradition. From shipping to aquaculture to offshore oil and gas, this is a city whose economic identity is defined by its ties to the sea. The city is by far Norway´s largest port, with more than 13 million metric tonnes of cargo transported to and from Bergen in 2010. Bergen is also the country´s largest center for aquaculture and marine science research, and is home to the Institute of Marine Research and an active marine science research centre at the University of Bergen.

The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) today issued a Safety Alert relating to the Macondo well blowout. The Safety Alert was distributed to oil and gas leaseholders and contractors working on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). It  briefly summarizes the findings of the Joint Investigation of the Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill, and highlights recommendations for immediate action that leaseholders and contractors can incorporate into their work. ”We must ensure that the lessons learned from the investigation of the Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill are widely disseminated and used to enhance the safety practices used by offshore oil and gas operators and contractors in their day-to-day activities,” said BSEE Director Michael R. Bromwich.