Rowan Cos. Inc.,
Houston, has announced that its CEO and Chairman Daniel F. McNease will retire at yearend. Rowan’s board of directors is conducting a search process to consider internal and external candidates to fill McNease’s positions. He joined the company in 1974 and served in many capacities over his long tenure with the company. McNease was appointed president in 2002 and CEO in 2003 and elected chairman in 2004, having served on the company’s board since 1998. He plans to retire from all positions with Rowan.
Rowan is major provider of international and US contract drilling services.
Transocean Inc.,
Houston, will hold a shareholders meeting on Dec. 8, 2008, in connection with the proposal to move the place of incorporation of its group holding company from the Cayman Islands to Switzerland. Transocean’s shareholders will be asked to vote in favor of the transaction at the meeting. Upon shareholder approval, the Grand Court of the Cayman Islands will hold a hearing on Dec. 16, 2008, to approve the move. The transaction is expected to close as soon as practicable following court approval. Thereafter, Transocean would move its executive offices and 14 officers to Geneva.
Transocean Inc. is the world’s largest offshore drilling contractor and a leading provider of drilling management services worldwide.
BJ Services Co.,
Houston, has announced that Dan Daulton, its US technical marketing manager, will help advise US Energy Sec. Samuel Bodman on new and better ways to develop deepwater oil and gas reserves while serving on the government’s 2008–2010 Ultra-Deepwater Advisory Committee. The US Department of Energy appointed Daulton to the committee to help review and report the progress of the nation’s oil and gas research and development program. Established under the Energy Policy Act of 2005, the program includes an annual plan that outlines activities to expand the nation’s crude oil and natural gas supply from extreme deepwater fields. As part of the appointment, Daulton serves on subcommittees for research programs and program benefits and value, as well as the group’s editing committee, which reviews and consolidates all subcommittee reports into a final report for the energy secretary. The advisory committee is managed by the Office of Fossil Energy and includes 14 members representing major and independent operating companies, service companies, academia, and consulting firms. Daulton joined BJ Services in 1980. In his current job, he supports the completion services and chemical services product lines. In addition, Daulton leads a dedicated deepwater business development team that promotes operations in the Gulf of Mexico, as well as offshore South America, West Africa, and Asia.
BJ Services is a leading provider of field development and production enhancement services to the energy industry.
MPR Associates,
Alexandria, Va., has appointed Robert Chapman director of marketing for its product development business sector. Based in California, he has than 20 years of experience in corporate development, domestic and international marketing, strategic planning, operations, and financial management with emerging and global technology corporations. Chapman has served in various executive management positions, including those of CEO and general manager with various emerging-technology companies, where he directed corporate operations, research, corporate governance, marketing, sales, and channel distribution. He graduated from the University of Oklahoma with a BS in engineering physics. Chapman also has training in sales and marketing from Stanford University and executive management training from the Sloan School of Management at MIT. He holds certification in nanotechnology through the California Institute of Nanotechnology.
MPR Associates is an employee-owned engineering services firm that was founded in 1964. It serves the refining, petrochemicals, and power sectors, among others.
Douglas-Westwood,
Aberdeen, has opened an office in New York City to better serve its US clients and expand its North American business. The company has also appointed Steven Kopits managing director of the New York office. He has more than 20 years’ experience in strategic consulting and investment banking. He earlier worked as an investment banker for an energy supply chain boutique firm in New York and was a director of financial advisory services at Deloitte & Touche in Central Europe.
Douglas-Westwood is a leader in market analysis and transaction support in the energy sector, with recognized expertise in offshore oil and gas exploration and production, as well as wind and tidal power.
TSC Offshore Group Ltd.,
Hong Kong, has agreed to acquire the offshore platform equipment manufacturer Center Mark International Ltd. from Lewiside Investments Ltd. in a deal valued at $14.2 million (H.K.). The acquisition will provide TSC with access to Center Mark’s innovative jacking gear box, which together with TSC’s jacking control system, allows the company to offer a complete jacking system. Center Mark’s sole business is the holding of a wholly owned subsidiary, Zhengzhou Jier Technology Ltd.
TSC is principally engaged in the provision of drilling rig products and technology (such as drilling rig control systems, mud pumps, etc.), oil field supplies (such as expendables and accessories for drilling rigs), and turnkey solutions to offshore rigs. In addition, the company provides marketing and consultancy services.
Sulphco Inc.,
Houston, developer of a patented ultrasound process to desulfurize and hydrogenate sour, heavy crude oils, has announced that it successfully duplicated on a commercial scale the positive results recently produced in its Houston laboratory. The company’s latest, 5,000 b/d Sonocracking unit performed in a stable and reliable manner while reducing sulfur content in line with lab results, Sulphco said. Additional technical iterations and analysis will continue as Sulphco identifies, executes, and evaluates the multiple processes necessary to comply with future customer requirements. The company also is focused on minimizing costs associated with the Sonocracking chemical package and the overall material and mass balance to achieve targeted economic thresholds.
Baker & O’Brien Inc.,
Dallas and Houston, has named William R. Donnell managing director, Europe, Middle East, and Africa. To be based in London, Donnell heads the firm’s new European subsidiary, Baker & O’Brien UK LLP, where he will be responsible for expanding the firm’s global consulting practice, especially in the core areas of lenders’ engineering for major construction projects, incident investigation and insurance claim analysis, and energy-related litigation support, arbitration, and dispute resolution services. Joining Baker & O’Brien in 1998, Donnell previously was vice-president and manager of the firm’s Houston office. Prior to that, he worked for Brown & Root Inc., where he last served as managing director, engineering consulting services, and R.B. Lewis Co. Donnell has a BBA and MBA from the University of Texas at Austin.
Baker & O’Brien is an independent professional consulting firm specializing in technology, economics, and management practice for the international oil, gas, chemical, and related industries. The firm also provides technical expertise and advice to industry service providers, such as insurance, legal, and investment firms.
Seismic Micro-Technology Inc. (SMT),
Houston, has announced that Talisman Energy Inc., Calgary, chose SMT KINGDOM geoscientific interpretation software for exploration under the latter’s global new ventures team. SMT KINGDOM is used for screening farm-in opportunities and conducting acreage evaluations; identifying and assessing key strengths and values of opportunities; evaluating key risks and uncertainties; filtering and importing/exporting of data; data loading, well loading, and seismic loading; and fully assessing and appraising new opportunities, often within short timeframes.
SMT is a market leader for PC-based geoscientific interpretation. In addition to its Houston headquarters, the company also has offices in Calgary; Croydon, UK; Moscow; and Singapore.
CGGVeritas,
Paris, has announced that Brian Russell, vice president of CGGVeritas subsidiary Hampson-Russell Software, was to be awarded SEG Honorary Membership at the Society of Exploration Geophysicists’ International Exposition and 78th annual meeting in Las Vegas, Nev., during Nov. 9-14, 2008. Russell is receiving SEG’s second-highest honor for his distinguished contributions to the society and to the SEG Foundation over the past 2 decades. He is an internationally recognized expert in seismic inversion, amplitude variations with offset, and seismic attribute analysis. Russell started his career with Chevron Corp. in 1976 as an exploration geophysicist. He then worked for both Teknica Resource Development and Veritas Seismic in Calgary before cofounding Hampson-Russell Software Ltd. in 1987 with Dan Hampson. In 2002 Hampson-Russell became a wholly-owned subsidiary of VeritasDGC Inc., and in 2007 became a subsidiary of CGGVeritas. Russell is also an adjunct professor in the Department of Geoscience at the University of Calgary and is chairman of the board of the Pacific Institute of the Mathematical Sciences. He has a BS in geophysics from the University of Saskatchewan, an MS in geophysics from Durham University in the UK, and a PhD in geophysics from the University of Calgary.
CGGVeritas is a leading international pure-play geophysical company, delivering a wide range of technologies, services, and equipment to its broad base of customers mainly throughout the global oil and gas industry.
Offshore Marine Service Association (OMSA),
Hanrahan, La., has appointed Joe Kavanaugh to the newly created position of manager of Jones Act compliance. In doing so, OMSA, a trade association that is the voice for the US-flag workboat industry, has taken the unusual step of hiring an experienced investigator to collect evidence on foreign vessels that violate the Jones Act. The law requires that vessels involved in US transportation be owned by Americans, crewed by Americans, and built in America. Kavanaugh will be responsible for tracking the activities of foreign vessels working in the US offshore oil and gas industry, determining whether those vessels are cheating on the Jones Act, and working with enforcement agencies to punish violators. Kavanaugh has many years of experience in enforcing Coast Guard and Customs regulations, working for the US Coast Guard, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and others. He has been actively involved in investigating smuggling, immigration, and drug cases, as well as maritime law violations. He also has also worked as a vessel captain.
OMSA is the national trade association representing more than 250 member companies, including 100 firms that own and operate marine service vessels operating offshore. It is the leading association for the US offshore transportation service industry.
Alliance Engineering,
Houston, has promoted Wayne Mueller to vice-president of its deepwater business unit. He has more than 16 years’ experience in project management and design/construction engineering of numerous offshore fixed structures and floating topsides facilities worldwide. Mueller has been with Alliance since 2004, and was most recently project manager, FPSO developments. With a degree in mechanical engineering and a master’s in petroleum engineering, Mueller is a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Society of Petroleum Engineers, and Marine Technology Society.
Alliance, part of the international energy services company John Wood Group PLC, is an independent services provider to the worldwide oil and gas industry. Alliance specializes in engineering, design, procurement, project management, and construction management of onshore and offshore upstream oil and gas facilities and structures. Capabilities range from feasibility studies through complete turnkey installations.
Wood Group is an international energy services company operating in 46 countries. The group has three businesses: engineering and production facilities, well support, and gas turbine services.
Offshore Solutions BV,
a joint venture of AMEC and GTI NV, has been awarded a contract by Qatar Shell to provide its Offshore Access System that allows the safe transfer of personnel from a vessel to an offshore installation. The system will be used for the Pearl gas-to-liquids project being developed at Ras Laffan, Qatar. Pearl will be the world’s largest GTL project. The Offshore Access System, due to be delivered in Qatar in second quarter 2010, is a heave-compensated telescopic gangway designed to connect and disconnect in 2.5-m Hs (significant wave height) sea states. The award of this contract resulted from the operational success of the first Offshore Access System leased by Shell, working daily in the southern North Sea for over 30 months without a lost-time incident.
Offshore Solutions is a leader in the invention, development, manufacture, and safe operation of the industry’s most advanced marine access systems.
GTI is part of GDF SUEZ Energy Services, a leader in multitechnical services that offers design, realization, and maintenance of installations to energy and utilities management and long-term multitechnical management.
AMEC is a focused supplier of high-value consultancy, engineering, and project management services to the world’s energy and process industries.
Well Control School (WCS),
Houston, has named David Rooker account manager for the Oklahoma/Midcontinent area. He will be responsible for consulting with clients relating to their competency-based training requirements, along with presenting various options of integrated well control training programs offered by WCS.
With over 25 years in the oil and gas industry, WCS, a division of RPC’s Cudd Pressure Control Inc., provides high-quality well control training at its many permanent and traveling schools in the US and internationally.
RPC provides a broad range of specialized oil field services and equipment throughout the US and in selected international markets. RPC’s Oil and Gas Services’ operating business units also include Patterson Services and Bronco Oilfield Services.
Compressco Ltd.,
Oklahoma City, has named Ron Foster president. Previously, he served as Compressco’s senior vice-president of sales and marketing since 2002. Foster brings more than 30 years of executive management, operations, marketing, and sales management experience. Prior to Compressco, he held senior management positions with Wood Group ESP and the Wheatley Gaso pump group of Halliburton. Before that he spent 10 years with Goulds Pumps in sales and marketing positions. Foster is an active member of several regional industry trade organizations that include the American Petroleum Institute, Society of Petroleum Engineers, and the Oklahoma Independent Petroleum Association. He has a BS in economics from Oklahoma State University.
Compressco, a TETRA Technologies company, is a leading provider of production enhancement solutions for marginal and low-pressure oil and gas wells.
Bourbon Offshore Asia,
Singapore, has inaugurated its Bourbon Training Center Asia and its anchor handling tug supply (AHTS) vessel simulator in Singapore. It is the company’s second such training center in Asia, following the opening of its Manila center, dedicated to dynamic positioning, in October 2007. The Singapore center includes a fully equipped bridge, the deck portion of the vessel, and the classrooms needed for theoretical courses and debriefing. Bourbon launched an AHTS simulator in Marseilles in November 2007.
These simulators have been developed by Offshore Simulator Center (OSC) in Norway and are an integral component of the Bourbon internal training policy. They will train crews in anchor handling operations under real conditions, thus ensuring acquisition of the skills required for new employees, those already working on vessels, as well as employees promoted to AHTS vessels.
Bourbon Offshore Asia, incorporated in 2005, is a joint venture company that is part of Bourbon’s offshore division. It manages 10 offshore supply vessels in Southeast Asia, with another 10 units to be delivered in 2009.
OSC is the creator and owner of the first anchor handling simulator for offshore oil and gas service vessels. It is held by Farstad Shipping ASA, Rolls-Royce Marine AS, Norwegian Marine Technology Research Institute, and Aalesund University College.
