Marine Technology Reporter Blogs

The Orteng Group has been investing in turn-key solution for energy systems and automation and is now reaching out to rig module construction and O&G exploration in Brazil. Orteng AC Service, the technology branch of Orteng Engineering, has been introducing AUV´s, ROV´s and Manipulator Arms, through a partnership with ECA Hyatec. During the Rio O&G 2010, the Orteng booth was brimming with subsea tech products such as the AUV Alistar 3000, which is projected to undertake inspection missions using videos and a wide array of sensors up to a depth of 3000 meters. They also had manipulator arms on display and demonstrations of the equipment, including a manipulator arm serving champagne, just to show how precise the equipment is.

The French subsea systems manufacturer has been introducing its range of subsea products in Brazil, including the AUV Alistar 3000 and ROV systems. Since 1981 ECA Hytec has been specializing in the design and manufacture of remote controlled systems for intervention in "hostile" environments. This activities include four main sectors: Subsea (offshore oil & gas, defence, oceanography), Nuclear, Pipes and sewers, boreholes and large bore pipe works (main ducts, galleries...), Environment with Explosive risks. They supply a wide range of o products such as remote controlled vehicles, video systems, robotics systems and remote controlled tools. Some of those are also available for rental.

The SmartBay ocean observing system in Placentia Bay, Newfoundland has secured $224,000 in funding from the Government of Canada’s Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA) to support two years of operations and the development of a sustainability plan. “The success of this user-driven observation system involving fishers, the oil and gas industry, marine transportation, recreational boaters, and municipalities is being piloted in Placentia Bay for potential development and use in oceans around Canada and throughout the world,” said Senator Fabian Manning in St. John’s. The federal government funding support supplements $451,000 in provincial government support for SmartBay announced in September, 2010.

The SmartBay ocean observing system in Placentia Bay, Newfoundland has secured $224,000 in funding from the Government of Canada’s Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA) to support two years of operations and the development of a sustainability plan. “The success of this user-driven observation system involving fishers, the oil and gas industry, marine transportation, recreational boaters, and municipalities is being piloted in Placentia Bay for potential development and use in oceans around Canada and throughout the world,” said Senator Fabian Manning in St. John’s. The federal government funding support supplements $451,000 in provincial government support for SmartBay announced in September, 2010.

The SmartBay ocean observing system in Placentia Bay, Newfoundland has secured $224,000 in funding from the Government of Canada’s Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA) to support two years of operations and the development of a sustainability plan. “The success of this user-driven observation system involving fishers, the oil and gas industry, marine transportation, recreational boaters, and municipalities is being piloted in Placentia Bay for potential development and use in oceans around Canada and throughout the world,” said Senator Fabian Manning in St. John’s. The federal government funding support supplements $451,000 in provincial government support for SmartBay announced in September, 2010.

As fires blazed on an old Petrobras production rig at the Campos Basin on the 19of January, silence was the rule, as has always been the rule with such trivial emergencies such as a large fire on an oil rig. I must be thick or something, but I consider it strange that a major fire on an oil rig only comes to public notice nearly ten days after it happened. Actually I shouldn´t complain because normally these small accidents would never have become known. Hey, no one even died, right, that a failure on an oil transfer pump caused a massive blaze, including a full on electric fire, which took Petrobras´s onsite fire brigades all of half an hour to control, is no big deal! Now imagine that this kind of attitude has been going on for decades.

Abrolhos is short for open your eyes in Portuguese, an expression meaning beware, often used by Portuguese navigators when naming islands flanked by dangerous reefs. There is even a group of islands going by the same name along the west coast of OZ. Not only do these two places (In Brazil and Australia) have a name in common but both are also pristine islands officially protected as ecological preserves by the countries they belong to. Both are also flanked by major Oil & Gas E&P areas. The Brazilian Abrolhos is a whale haven and contains a wonderful yet fragile flora and fauna ecosystem, both on land and underwater. The place is thought to be one of the world´s coral matrixes…

Even as Petrobras allegedly slows its exploration efforts, new discoveries are still being uncorked in the Santos Basin. While the national player announced the start up of the EWT in the Guará area in late December, yesterday a new deepwater pre-salt light oil accumulation is discovered in an adjacent area at the same BM-S-9 exploratory block. The Guara  EWT is producing through well SPS-55, and  is expected to last for five months with a daily production is estimated at 14,000 barrels of oil per day. The Guará area is located in block BM-S-9 and around 300 kilometers off the coast of São Paulo state. The recoverable O&G volumes in Guará are estimated at between 1.1 and 2 billion boe with a around 30º API.

Sales revenues in the 50 companies within Oceans Advance, Newfoundland and Labrador’s ocean technology cluster, have increased by 126 per cent since 2006--31 per cent annually--from $225 million to $509 million. Related sales revenues increased from $129 million to $433 million during that time. Exports increased by 300 per cent. Dennis Hogan, Assistant Deputy Minister of the Province’s Department of Innovation, Trade and Rural Development, reported on the growth of the cluster at the National Research Council’s Institute of Ocean Technology on January 13th. Hogan, who recently completed an MBA in Innovation at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)…

After a nearly perfect drilling campaign on various fronts in 2010, OGX start 2011 with new discoveries in the Campos Basin. Although there was much skepticism at the start of OGX´s creation in 2007, after last year´s performance, the new Brazilian operator, which was created by Brazilian businessman and investor Eike Batista adding to the portfolio of his EBX Group can now easily be considered as a good investment, especially for those who bought in early. Eike´s strategy to hire and partner with Petrobras´s extraordinary geologist and executive Paulo Mendonça was vital not only to gain market value as to bring in deep knowledge of where do drill and how to plan the E&P campaign. It´s important to not that Petrobras´s exploratory success rate more than doubled after Mr.

After SLB launching its geosciences lab late last year, 2011 starts with agreements to build Halliburton and Tenaris Labs at the UFRJ Tech Park, which is already considered the main technology research hub in Latin America.Halliburon and Tenaris Confac recently signed contracts with UFRJ (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro) to build laboratories within the university´s technology complex, which is located at Fundão Island in the north zone of Rio. Both companies will be building research facilities for development of new technologies for the O&G industry. They will join Petrobras, Baker Hughes, FMC, Usiminas and SLB who already have research labs installed in the area.

The importance of increasing the number of maintenance rigs in decreasing accident risks on older production rigs should not be underestimated, and Petrobras will need to speed up their construction, as there is no shortage of old rigs out there.Petrobras is finally increasing its investments on Maintenance and Security Units “Unidades de Manutenção e Segurança” (UMS). The new unit UMS Cidade de Arraial do Cabo, will be supplying logistics support for production rigs at the Campos Basin, its main function will be to increase safety on the rigs through maintenance and renovation in order to increase the life expectancy of these rigs.

The Brazilian government and Navy are considering an ambitious plan for launching an offshore subsea lab to be located at the limit of the country´s territorial waters and beyond the farthest pre-salt playThe idea is to place an oceanographic lab at Brazil´s most remote maritime frontier, in order to have a continuous presence and dominate as area in which hidden natural riches go beyond the pre-salt layers. At the limit of the continental platform, around 350 nautical miles (648 km) from the coast, the potential for mineral reserves under the seabed is considered to be very high. This is not only a government project but also a military matter, which will involve government agencies, the Brazilian Navy, and Brazilian private companies.

The Fisheries and Marine Institute of Memorial University (Marine Institute) in St. John’s, Newfoundland is the first post-secondary institute to adapt Lockheed Martin’s VISTA simulation and training tool for non-defence marine applications. The agreement between Lockheed Martin Canada and the Marine Institute was announced in December. VISTA—visual integrated simulation and training application—is a simulation and training tool originally developed for the Canadian navy to train technicians in the operations, maintenance and repair of complex systems and equipment onboard Canadian vessels. This application has been adopted by navies in Australia, the United Kingdom, Japan and the United States.

Chinese companies such as Sinopec, Sinochem, CNOOC, CSSC are actively pursuing partnerships worldwide, in Brazil this effort is particularly noticeable through recent partnerships with O&G players such as Petrobras, Statoil and Repsol.In the shipbuilding business news of some form of partnership between CSSC and local builders is expected for the near future as the local shipbuilding capabilities expand. In the O&G industry, Sinopec just recently announced its partnership agreement with Spanish operator Repsol. The agreement represented a capital increase of around 7 billion for Repsol Brasil, increasing Repsol Brasil´s total capital to around 17.8 billion. With this agreement 60% of Repsol Brasil still belongs to Repsol, while 40% now belongs to Sinopec.

The massive increase of E&P in Brazil, especially when concerned with deepwater is giving rise to a new subsea equipment and technology industry in the country.Subsea technology companies have been operating in Brazil for many years. FMC Technologies for example has been in Brazil since 1956 and currently has two manufacturing facilities in Rio de Janeiro and one service base in Macaé (Northeast of the city of Rio). Construction of its new Technology Center, announced in July of 2010, is expected to be completed in the first half of 2011. The new facility will work on the development of innovative and cost effective subsea production systems to address the challenges associated with Petrobras' pre-salt oil and gas fields.

The oil industry in Brazil finishes the year with intense activity on all fronts and the efforts are massive. However the risks taken on the deepwater projects and older production rigs may still lead to major spills if not kept in check.Petrobras recently discovered light oil in sandstones reservoirs in the post-salt section of the Espírito Santo Basin. The discovery was the result of the drilling of the 1-BRSA-882-ESS well, known as Indra, located within the BM-ES-32 Block. Petrobras holds a 60% stake and is the operator, Statoil holds the remaining 40%. It is located 140 km from the city of Vitória and was drilled to approximately 3,850 m, from a water depth of approximately 2,100 m, and is the deepest oil discovery at Espírito Santo Basin.

The Brazilian northeast state of Bahia will house various construction yards and shipyards dedicated to rig module construction, such as jackets and floats.Accompanying the growth in ship construction in the Brazilian northeast states, the tropical state of Bahia is showing a marked increase in shipbuilding investments. Along the “Baía de Todos os Santos” or Bay of All Saints, various yards are being built to compete for rig module orders. The major client will undoubtedly be Petrobras, but there are expectations that as the yards increase their efficiency, other national and foreign O&G players operating in the Brazilian offshore will also become interested in placing orders to these new yards.

Petrobras has started the tendering process for machinery for the 28 pre-salt FPSOs to be built in Brazil. Hopes are that such a large order will attract the limited number of marine turbine manufacturers to set shop in Brazil.The tendering process is expected to involve up to 128 units, including marine turbines, generators and compressors. Since there a but a handful of heavy marine turbine manufacturers in the world and with the local content policy demanding around 70% local content from shipboard equipment manufacturers, Petrobras hopes to attract some of the larger global marine turbine, generator and compressor suppliers to install manufacturing plants in Brazil.

PipeWay is a Brazilian company specializing in pipeline inspection technology and pigging unit manufacture. Starting from a small back room in a Brazilian university, the company has grown to be the leading national pipe inspection company and is also gaining international reputation to boot.PipeWay Internatinal was formed by an alliance between a Brazilian company called PipeWay Engenharia and an American company, to work together in North America. PipeWay Engenharia is the sole company in the Southern Hemisphere with fully national production, which manufactures and operates tools for O&G pipeline inspection-pigs, which check anomalies such as ovalnesses, crushing and corrosions, contributing to avoid leakages that may cause ecological accidents.