The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) will assist the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) as it undertakes its second search for the vessel data recorder (VDR) of the sunken El Faro cargo ship. The U.S. flagged El Faro sank during Hurricane Joaquin on October 1, 2015. All 33 of the El Faro’s crew perished… Continue Reading »
EU competition regulators have resumed their scrutiny of U.S. oil industry services group Halliburton Co’s plan to acquire smaller rival Baker Hughes, a deal which U.S. authorities say is uncompetitive and wants to block. The European Commission, which halted its investigation into the $35 billion deal last month while waiting for more details from the… Continue Reading »
In a widening corruption probe into Venezuela’s state oil company by U.S. authorities, Swiss regulators have agreed to provide U.S. prosecutors with records from at least 18 banks relating to the oil firm. The requests for information from two separate U.S. authorities were part of their investigations into alleged money laundering and corruption in connection… Continue Reading »
In the midst of Brazil’s worst recession in decades, lawyer Thiago Jabor Pinheiro switched firms to focus full-time on one of the only booming fields in the scandal-plagued country: compliance and corporate ethics. For Pinheiro, a massive corruption investigation unfolding at state-run oil firm Petrobras offers a golden opportunity. The scandal broke just as a… Continue Reading »
The Petroleum Safety Authority Norway (PSA) has decided to investigate a well control incident on the Statoil-operated Visund field which occurred on March 17, 2016. Visund is an oil field located east of the Snorre field in the northern sector of the North Sea. The development comprises a semi-submersible steel production, drilling and quarters platform (Visund… Continue Reading »
DNV GL, Gard and The Swedish Club have been investigating a rising number of anchor losses reported over the last several years. Namely, the root cause of many groundings and collisions, lost anchors are among the top five reasons for claims costs. Based on an analysis of damage cases involving anchor and anchor chain losses,… Continue Reading »
Underwater search teams are a familiar sight during major police investigations. But what is it like to make a living probing the country’s murkiest recesses? Submerged in darkness, chilled in near-frozen water, you grope your way through the silt and debris. Somewhere, amid the sludge and the discarded rubbish, is your quarry: a knife, a… Continue Reading »
The National Transportation Safety Board announced that it would launch a second expedition to search for evidence in its investigation of the loss of the cargo ship El Faro, which sank in the Atlantic during a hurricane on October 01, 2015. A key objective of the upcoming mission, which is expected to begin in April… Continue Reading »
Fugro’s Seafloor Drill 2 (SFD2) has completed a multi-site investigation across the North West Shelf of Australia, encountering variable calcareous sediments and delivering results to support a jack-up drilling campaign. The work was performed in water depths up to 112 metres and required in situ testing and sampling to a total length of 323 metres…. Continue Reading »
Statoil is investigating a chemical leak on the world’s first wet gas compressor on the seabed of the North Sea Gullfaks field. The aim of the technology is to increase recovery by 22 million barrels of oil equivalent (oe) and extend plateau production by around two years from the Gullfaks South Brent reservoir. Morten Eek,… Continue Reading »
