Daily Archives: October 22, 2012
USA: FMC Technologies, Edison Chouest Offshore Team Up
FMC Technologies, Inc. announced today that it has formed a joint venture with Edison Chouest Offshore LLC. The new company will be based in Houston.
Utilizing the subsea technologies, tooling and expertise of FMC Technologies, and the vessel, port logistics and ROV operations of Edison Chouest Offshore, the new company intends to provide integrated vessel-based subsea services for offshore oil and gas fields globally. Services to be offered by the joint venture include equipment intervention, riserless light well intervention, plug and abandonment and other services. The company’s objective is to provide cost-effective solutions to enhance the customer’s ability to initiate, maintain, and increase production from subsea field developments through efficient operations, innovative technologies and a broad inventory of vessels and tools.
”We are pleased to be working with Edison Chouest Offshore to expand the portfolio of subsea services offered by FMC Technologies,” said Tore Halvorsen, FMC Technologies’ Senior Vice President, Subsea Technologies. “This joint venture will provide integrated subsea solutions to address the growing needs of our customers to increase production and improve field recovery rates.”
”We look forward to working with FMC Technologies on this new venture,” said Dino Chouest, Vice President of Operations, Edison Chouest Offshore. “Their leadership in the subsea market combined with our expertise in marine transportation will bring new integrated technologies and operations to the development of subsea fields.”
Subsea World News – USA: FMC Technologies, Edison Chouest Offshore Team Up.
USA: Expro Wins TCP Contracts in Gulf of Mexico
Leading international oilfield services company Expro is celebrating two significant contract wins with Murphy Exploration and Production and BP Americas Inc in the US offshore region.
The Murphy award is for a three-year campaign offshore Gulf of Mexico, while the BP win will see Expro working on a significant campaign in the same region.
Expro will provide tubing conveyed perforating (TCP) services and its drill stem testing (DST) packages for both projects.
Expro is one of the largest global providers of perforating services, providing slickline, e-line and tubing conveyed explosives services. It employs an operational workforce of highly trained and qualified DST and TCP personnel across the global bases. Expro personnel is backed up by perforation experts onshore. DST offers the fastest and safest method of evaluating the potential of a newly-discovered hydrocarbon-bearing formation.
Expro has been offering both services globally for more than 25 years.
Expro’s North America offshore vice president Geoff Magie, said: “These are significant wins for Expro as Murphy is a new customer for us and BP has never used our TCP services before. Murphy is pressing ahead with major development plans in the Gulf of Mexico and this award provides a platform for us to showcase our products and services and provide a quality service.”
USA: Expro Wins TCP Contracts in Gulf of Mexico | Offshore Energy Today.
Foreign jihadists pour into northern Mali
BAMAKO: Hundreds of jihadist fighters poured into Mali over the weekend to support the Islamists who have controlled the north for seven months, ahead of a threatened regional intervention to seize back power.
Residents of the cities of Timbuktu and Gao, Malian security officials and Islamist commanders all confirmed on Sunday that there had been a huge influx of foreign fighters over the past two days.
It comes as the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas), a regional bloc of 15 countries including Mali, prepares for military action in the north.
“In the Timbuktu region and around Gao, hundreds of jihadists, mostly Sudanese and Sahrawis, have arrived as reinforcements to face an offensive by Malian forces and their allies,” a Malian security official said on condition of anonymity.
One resident of Timbuktu said “more than 150 Sudanese Islamists arrived in 48 hours”.
“They are armed and explained that they had come to help their Muslim brothers against the infidels,” he said.
A source close to a local aid group also said that many Sudanese had arrived but added there were also fighters from other countries.
Timbuktu is one of the main cities in northern Mali, which Islamist groups have controlled since overpowering a secular Tuareg rebellion that seized the area in March.
The desert city is now under the control of Ansar Dine, a group led by a former Tuareg rebel leader, and al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (Aqim).
‘They want war, we’ll give them war’
In Gao, further east, a similar influx of foreign fighters was reported by residents.
Since Friday, Islamists have been arriving and reporting to the Islamic police of the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (Mujao), the Aqim offshoot that controls the city, said one resident.
He said he had seen around 10 pick-up trucks packed with armed fighters driving up to Mujao’s main office in Gao.
The Islamist group itself confirmed it was receiving the support of foreigners as Ecowas was finalising its plans for a military intervention.
“They want war, we’ll give them war. This is why our brothers are joining us from all over,” Habib Ould Issouf, one of Mujao’s top leaders in Gao, told AFP.
“They are coming from the camps of Tindouf in Algeria, from Senegal, from Ivory Coast, from everywhere,” he said.
Led by former colonial power France, the international community has urged Mali and its regional allies to speed up preparations for a military offensive.
Ecowas has a 3,000-strong force ready to deploy but its funding and exact make-up remain unclear.
Malian troops could start training immediately for their operation, France’s Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told French television on Sunday.
France has offered logistical support but no troops on the ground.
On March 22, army officers toppled the government in protest at what they said was its failure to equip them to counter a burgeoning rebellion by Tuareg separatists and Islamists in the north.
But that only accelerated the uprising. The ensuing power vacuum in the capital Bamako allowed the rebel forces to quickly seize the north, virtually unopposed.
The Islamist forces quickly sidelined their former Tuareg allies and now control a territory in the north which is larger than France. In the south, the officers who led the coup handed over to an interim administration, but retain considerable influence.
Ansar Dine and Mujao have since implemented an extreme form of Islamic law in the north, amputating the hands and feet of thieves, stoning unwed couples and ordering women to wear full veils.
Western powers have expressed fears that al Qaeda and its affiliates could turn northern Mali into the same type of haven that Afghanistan was a decade ago.
Mali’s interim president Dioncounda Traore flew to Qatar on Sunday for a three-day visit. Some Malian media outlets have accused the oil-rich emirate of supporting the Islamists, but Doha has denied the allegations.
Foreign jihadists pour into northern Mali.
- Analysis: Towards intervention in Mali (EndtheLie.com)
Continents of the World
Mb50's "Liquid Mud" Rant 