Marine Technology Reporter Blogs - vessels

As a world leader in construction and remote operations in deep waters, Petrobras has been developing new technologies and testing them with their partners in Brazil’s deepwater pre-salt fields for over a decade. Petrobras has historically opted for an incremental strategy to develop its technological capabilities to explore the Brazil’s offshore oil resources. As deepwater discoveries began to enter the production phase, Petrobras opted for using and FPSOs and wet x-mas trees. These discoveries of supergiant oil fields in the Brazilian pre-salt have offered Petrobras an opportunity for reviewing its technological path and it is becoming clear that the national operator has been increasingly inclined to move as much of the oil production systems to the seafloor as possible…

A limiting factor to the increase in the use of LNG fueled ships on a larger scale is the lack of LNG bunkering infrastructure worldwide, with exceptions being northern European countries which have been at the forefront on maritime LNG fuel development, such as Norway and Sweden. DNV GL recently launched a Recommended Practice for authorities, LNG bunker suppliers and ship operators, which provides guidance on how LNG bunkering can be done in safely and efficiently. According to DNV GL, LNG-fuelled ships have logged over 130 ship-years of operation in Norwegian waters. In some parts of the world, operators, suppliers and regulators have gained experience in all aspects of LNG-fuelled ship operations in recent years.

Maersk Line is building the world’s largest container ships to be known as the Triple-E class. Each ship will have a capacity of 18,000 20-foot containers (TEU) or most probably 9,000 40-foot containers, the later being more in use than the former. It’s important to note that TEU stands for twenty-foot equivalent units, therefore when dealing with 40-foot containers, we describe these as FEU (forty-foot equivalent). FEU may also be used to categorize two 20 foot containers. With the launching of this new class of container carrying ships Maersk will break its own world record. The Triple-E class ships are 400 meters long, 59 meters wide and 73 meters high, and the 20 new vessels on order are expected to be deployed on the vital Asia to Europe trade routes.

As deepwater O&G discoveries abound up and down the coast in Brazil and as the early pre-salt discoveries begin to produce, along with other post-salt deepwater discoveries. All three main Basins; Campos, Santos and Espirito Santo are seeing a marked increase in pipe laying by all super major players involved in the development of deepwater plays in Brazil. There has also been an increase in custom deepwater pipe and flowline manufacturing and in the acquisition and leasing of pipelaying vessels for the Brazilian oil frontier. The newest order announced is for the supply of electrical power systems and energy efficient propulsion systems for two deepwater pipe laying vessels with the total order value being $18 million. Daewoo chose ABB to supply these systems.

Compact remote methods of seabed geotechnical drilling, coring and sampling are being developed for deepwater operations and at the forefront of lightweight remote Geothechnical drilling are ROV systems combined to small drilling systems. Two companies, Forum Energy Technologies and Helix Energy Solutions, are leading the way in this technology. Forum Energy Technologies has been successfully employing its Rovdrill™ 3 system worldwide. This is Forum’s third generation Rovdrill system and it is where we will begin to look at the intricacies of these remote subsea coring and sampling systems. The advantages of taking the coring/sampling rig to the seabed are obvious, both from a technical and economic standpoint.

Offshore Ocean Observatories, are composed of suites of surface and subsea instruments and sensors with long-term power supplies and permanent communications links that can feed data to scientific laboratories in real-time. Motivated by advances in computing, telecom, marine architecture and subsea sensor technology, researchers observe the oceans in real-time, for long periods of time, and sky around all the way to deepwater, including imaging and continuous sensor observation along the whole water column to the sea floor. Ocean observatories are designed to answer questions about how the seas and oceans work, their dynamics and peculiarities.

NAVALSHORE 2010 - Trade show and conference for the maritime and offshore industry to take pace next week in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.Organized in Rio de Janeiro since 2004, Navalshore has become the main event for the maritime industry in the Brazil. The 2009 edition gathered 259 companies from many countries such as:  United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Netherlands, China, Italy, Singapore, Austria, Sweden, Poland, Norway, Finland, Chile, Denmark, Argentina, and Brazil. 12,600 professionals from marine construction and repairs attended the event. UBM as organizer of a number of the leading events in the maritime industry, all with international recognition…