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DEEPWATER HORIZON

THE DEEPWATER HORIZON - WHERE ARE WE NOW (Vic Gibson 2010)

By Thursday 10th June I am beginning to feel a bit sorry for BP, now Beyond Petroleum rather than British Petroleum. I always thought that, despite their generally overbearing attitude, they could look after themselves, but how can one protect oneself from the invective issuing from the mouth of no lesser person than the President of the United States, who has repeated this day that he will keep his boot on the throat of the offending company, which is BP America More

MORE ACCIDENTS

On 19^th October 2003 the Anchor Handling tug Stevns Power was lost with all hands in calm conditions while supporting the pipelaying vessel Castoro Otto offshore Nigeria. The circumstances surrounding this event were investigated by the Danish Authorities, whose report was published...More

Around 6AM in about 1 meter seas, the navigator went down to the engine room to lower the UBSL pole, so that we could begin surveying.  The chain used to lower the pole suddenly snapped.  There was no safety chain attached....More

The world hardly held its breath as the P-36, possibly the most advanced floating production unit in the world gradually heeled over and on Tuesday 20th March 2001 sank beneath the waves of Brazil's Campos Basin. ...More

OPERATIONS

It is now ten years since the Falklands War. The campaign made military history, the invasion forces sailing from the UK in numbers of British Merchant vessels, and supported by container and cargo ships. Some of these STUFT vessels, Ships Taken Up From Trade, became household names,...More

Not for the first time has the versatility and technological capability of the offshore support fleet astounded the military - although in this case the military were the Russian Navy and their own much more limited capability was exposed to the world...More

Back in April 2001 the Transocean Sedco Forex semi submersible Sovereign Explorer was loaded onto the heavy lift ship Black Marlin in the sheltered waters around Bikinu Fasu, an island off West Africa...More

SAFETY

the UK regulators are really saying that if you are following established rules, guidance and best practice you can consider your risk in carrying out whatever task is being reviewed as ALARP, but first of all you have to decide what hazards are to be assessed. More

 On 27^th November the Oil Industry in the UK held a one day conference to consider the future of the Safety Case. 

It started with breakfast. Disappointingly there were no fried eggs, and so those of us who now normally eat a healthy breakfast due to pressure from our partners More

As a result of the accident on Piper Alpha on 6th July 1988 when 165 people died a Public Enquiry was held under the chairmanship of Lord Cullen, a Senator of the College of Justice in Scotland. The enquiry sought to answer two questions- More

One assumes that the proposal by BP to replace a large number of standby vessels, or as they are now known Emergency Response and Rescue Vessels, with six helicopters was named "Project Jigsaw" because the project would put all the pieces together.....More

In January 2000 the UK Health and Safety Executive published a report entitled "Effective Collision Risk Management for Offshore Installations".

 The problem, as the HSE sees it, is that ships may crash into the North Sea's platforms.............More 

There has been increasing concern in the last two or three years over the apparently increasing number of incidents involving FSPOs and shuttle tankers during offloading activities. In 1997 the HSE, the UK Health and Safety Executive published their own investigations....More

TECHNICAL

The UT704 is probably the most prolific supply vessel type ever built, and may only be exceeded in numbers as a ship type by the American Liberty and Victory ships built during and after the Second World War.... More

In the village which is the oil community in Aberdeen rumors have abounded throughout the year of some sort of liner or groupage service, for the purpose of distributing cargo to installations of different operators from one base. It is not the first time.... More

Firstly the KISS principle, is a means of construction which ensures that a supply vessel built in the Southern States of America can be maintained with only a modicum of effort and expertise, and virtually without backup, anywhere in the world.  More

Back in the mid 1980s one could see stickers plastered on the walls of the pub lavatories and on the back bumpers of ever other car in Aberdeen. "God give us another oil boom. This time we promise we won't piss it away".

 So, time will tell whether the Scots are keeping their part of the bargain,..More

The oil industry has been drilling holes in the seabed for about 40 years. In its first 20 years offshore it moved from about 60 ft of water to 600 feet. In the next 10 years it moved from 600 ft to 2000 ft and in the last 10 years the move has been from 2000 ft to 6000 ft. More

Maersk Contractors recently announced that they have ordered what they call an "ultra harsh environment jack-up" from Hyundai Heavy Industries in Korea, with delivery scheduled for late 2002. More

The movement of the oil industry into the sea has, over the years, required mariners to develop whole new areas of skill. Possible one of the most unusual tasks is that of seismic survey, which used to consist of towing two miles of cable behind a small ship....More

The arrival of the Vidar Viking in Aberdeen during April of 2001 was something of a finale. She is the third of a trio of Moss808s (Formerly Kmar808s) built for B&N Viking and is in the main identical to her two sister ships...More

It is amazing to those of us who have experience of the use of tank cleaning machines, firstly in oil tankers and latterly in the tanks of support vessels, that there are not more used on oil rigs....More

When oil based mud was first developed in the 1970s, the supply vessels of the day were not fitted with purpose built tanks, and initially the product was carried in converted fuel tanks. The result was that little of the product actually reaching the oil rig...More

There will be many seafarers, still at sea who remember the fair copy log book. We all used to scribble our words at the end of the watch, in the knowledge that some-one was going to do better. Those of us who had the misfortune to be assigned to ships crossing the North Atlantic in winter....More

The environmental regulations which prevent the disposal of used drilling fluids to the sea and the unfortunate death of a tank cleaning operative in Peterhead during 2003, have motivated North Sea operators to have a good look at the means of cleaning out the tanks of support vessels without putting people into them. Regardless of the process used, if the mud is in the ship for more than a few days........More

CREATIVE WRITING

I had investigated marine accidents ranging from cruise ship fires to swamped kayaks on Canada’s west coast, but the most bizarre one of all looked straight forward at first.....More

More than two decades ago, James E. Lovelock proposed the "Gaia" hypothesis: The biosphere of earth acts as a single organism.....More

It’s twenty-five years ago when I was last on a rig.  It was not my job, just circumstance that put me there. March 27^th 1980 was not a bad day on the west coast of Scotland, at least, not a bad day compared to what we usually got....More

Every year in the calving grounds of Greenland’s glaciers, 20,000 to 40,000 icebergs are born.  Carried north on the currents, they circle Baffin Bay before appearing in the North Atlantic the following season.  Fewer than 500 drift south to menace shipping and oil installations....More

Why would you give your children away to strangers unless it was to save their lives?
      The parents of the 3,500 children evacuated from Britain in the summer of 1940 to escape from the bombing must have clung to this logic,...More

Whenever the ship was working cargo the "old man", that's the name we seafarers have for the captain, used to expect the mate of the watch and the apprentices to open the hatches. A desire prompted by the wish to save crew overtime. The crew would have been really pleased to get out there at seven in the............More

Back in the early days of oil industry when working hours legislation was not in existence the practices undertaken were to some extent, in my own opinion unlawful to say the least. The drilling industry is hard, rough and time is money......More

You could have been forgiven for wondering who or what the “Caister Nostra” was, but everyone on board the ship was quite clear regarding the current situation.

Mal was just saying “ You go up Fullers hill and.......”, when the Chief , a Geordie, broke in. More

I am an odious little jerk. But I am not alone, as most ship managers fall into this category, generically, if not personally. At least I am sure that is what David Ogilvy would think of us.

Before he got to the bridge the Captain could smell the heat of the Indian morning. The odour was a mixture of dried wood, tar, diesel oil and very faintly overlaying it all, the musky smell of tropical blossoms. More

On the south side of the entrance to Aberdeen harbour, marking the inner end of the channel,  there is a small breakwater projecting northwards, and like a thumb on a right hand a small mole sprouts from the shoreward end of this breakwater. This curious extremity is topped by a capstan..More

Lacking any further entries so far for our writing competition we have included this well known letter to which the response from the shipping company head office was always traditionally "We fail to understand.....".More

GENERAL INTEREST

For the first time in my life I have been on the verge of texting, emailing or calling radio stations as they provided information about and commented on, the slow progress of the Canopus and the Caloosahatchee towards the UK in general and Hartlepool in particular...More

BEAM HIM UP SCOTTY
Victor Gibson

So John Wils has come to the conclusion that the oil industry is rather dull and the oil show, Offshore Europe, to give it its full title is “the same old routine” . And...More