People

In addition to serving as Editor-in-Chief of Offshore for more than 20 years, Bob Burke was asked by the US Department of Commerce to act as the industry representative for the first Petroleum Exposition and Oil Conference in Rio de Janeiro; and was instrumental in bringing Offshore into the People’s Republic of China.

Robert Gene Burke, former editor ofOffshore magazine, has died at age 82 of cancer.

For more than 20 years, Bob was Editor-in-Chief ofOffshore. While editor, he toured world centers in Europe and Asia lecturing and reporting on deepwater activity and prospects for drilling. He served numerous times on the board of directors for the National Ocean Industries Association (NOIA) in Washington, DC. He was president and a member of the board of directors of the Association of Petroleum Writers. He was elected several times as president of Pioneer Oil Producers Society (POPS) and served on the advisory committee of Polar Tech, a global conference on Arctic Oil and gas operations. He was a founding member of the technical committee for Deep Offshore Technology.

Bob was asked by the US Department of Commerce to act as the industry representative for the first Petroleum Exposition and Oil Conference in Rio de Janeiro. He was among the first oil writers to enter China when the People’s Republic resumed relations with outside enterprises and was instrumental in bringingOffshore into to that country.

After he retired fromOffshore, he was a consultant on marine and petroleum matters, and conducted worldwide studies to assess new technologies and forecast markets for clients based in Australia, Canada, Brazil, Norway, England, and Europe.

After his time atOffshore, he also served as consulting editor for Aberdeen Petroleum Report, Offshore Oil International, and Brazil Energy. In the early 1990s, he established a non-profit group called Cleaner Seas Inc., to examine oil-spill technology and was president of Environmental Sciences, a study group for the oil and gas industry.

Bob graduated from Baylor University in 1950 with a degree in Journalism. During the Korean War, he served with the 45th Infantry Division in Japan and Korea. He is survived by his wife of 57 years, Jane Hascall Burke; his daughter, Melissa Burke Steger of Houston; his son, Tim Burke and wife Julie of Midland, Texas, and by five grandchildren.

Sand Monitoring Services has namedSarah Baylis as principal consultant for its Integrated Project Engineering department.

The Fluor Government Group has namedEleanor Spector as vice president of contracting.

Fabio Barbosa will be an executive director of the board and CFO for the BG Group starting March 13.

Hyperdynamics has addedCurtis Jackson as vice president – drilling and technology in Houston.

SBM Atlantia has appointedCobie Loper as senior VP, sales and marketing North America.

FMC Technologies has appointedJohn T. Gremp as president and CEO, effective March 1.

Roc Oil Co. has appointedAlan Linn as CEO, effective immediately.

Northern Offshore has appointedGary Bauer as senior VP.

Aker Solutions has appointedWolfgang Puennel as head of the new Well Intervention Services business.

Hyperdynamics Corp. has appointedAndrei Orlov as VP for business development based in London.

Red Spider has appointedDavid Allan as COO.

The Marine Well Containment Co. has formed a management team. The company has appointedMarty Massey former US Joint Interest manager for ExxonMobil Production as CEO. Dan Smallwood, formerly operations manager of Gulf of Mexico and Louisiana for ConocoPhillips, has been named COO for the company. Astley Blair, formerly division finance officer for Chevron Global Supply and Trading, has been appointed as CFO. Charles Miller, formerly vice president production, Shell Brazil Ltda., has been named CTO. Carmine Dulisse, formerly security and emergency preparedness and response manager, ExxonMobil Development Co., has been named HSE officer.

The Marine Well Containment Co. management team oversees final testing of the interim system capping stack. Pictured left to right are: Carmine Dulisse, HSE officer; Marty Massey, CEO; Astley Blair, CFO; Dan Smallwood, COO; and Charles Miller, CTO.

CHC Helicopter has namedTilmann Gabriel is to take over leadership of its global search and rescue (SAR) division.

GE has appointedAnne M. McEntee as VP of Dresser for GE Energy Services, a business within GE Energy.

Nautronix has appointedDavid Cassie as director of strategy.

SeeByte has addedPedro Patron, Joerg Baumgartl, and Sorin Suciu to its engineering staff. 

Company News

Trelleborg Engineered Systems has agreed to acquire offshore Brazil subsidiary of Veyance Technologies Inc.

Achilles has acquired Perth-based Supplybase VRS, a supplier registry for the Australian oil and gas industry, merging both companies’ customer base and operations.

Clough AMEC and Beca of New Zealand are forming a joint venture to offer engineering, operations, and maintenance services in New Zealand.

Bredero Shaw FJS is the new trade name of the business unit grouping most of the former field joint and custom coating application activities of Bredero Shaw.

GE has completed acquisition of Wellstream Holdings Plc.

Fugro N.V. has acquired TSmarine Group Holdings Pty. Ltd.

Keppel Offshore & Marine has taken a 27.77% stake in topside module fabricator Dyna-Mac Holdings via an equity placement.

VAM Drilling will shortly open a fully integrated mill in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, capable of assembling a wide range of drill pipe, risers and landing strings.

DNV says it plans to release detailed design and construction guidance information for floating offshore gas terminals.

Balmoral Offshore Engineering chose the annual Subsea Tieback Forum to announce plans for a new manufacturing facility in Brazil.

Reliance Industries and BP have agreed to form a partnership in India.

Colfax Corp. has acquired Rosscor Holding B.V., a supplier of multi-phase pumping technology and certain other highly engineered fluid-handling systems.

Xodus Group is setting up a Houston operation with plans for major international growth.

Rolls-Royce has opened a new Singapore headquarters office at Centennial Tower.

GE Oil & Gas has agreed to acquire the Wood Group Well Support division for $2.8 billion.

Baker Hughes has opened a new drill bit manufacturing plant in Saudi Arabia.

American Pollution Control Corp.has moved to an expanded nine-acre location in New Iberia, Louisiana.

Reservoir Group has expanded its operations in the United States after forming an alliance with The Mudlogging Co., a Houston-based company specializing in surface logging services.

Tritex NDT has appointed Jack Vilas & Associates Inc.as a new distributor in the US to help promote and support the sale of its range of Multigauge ultrasonic thickness gauges.

Siemens has agreed to acquire subsea engineering companies Poseidon Group and Bennex Group from Norway’s Subsea Technology Group.

Oceaneering Umbilical Solutions is committing $2 million to a new test, qualification, and reliability (TQR) laboratory to evaluate the long-term behavior of deepwater umbilical cables.

Technip UK has awarded NCS Survey a frame agreement for the provision of survey and positioning services onboard its subsea construction and installation vessels in the North Sea.

Kongsberg Marine reports a record length multi-sensor AUV pipeline survey in Hjelte fjord.

BP and FMC Technologies Inc. have signed a five-year, global frame agreement on subsea production systems and life-of-field services.

Technip has signed a frame agreement with Reef Subsea subsidiary Technocean AS for subsea services in the North Sea and offshore Canada over the next four years.

Douglas-Westwood predicts a 23% growth in subsea hardware capex to $139 billion in 2011-2015 compared to the prior five-year period.

Statoil has awarded Technip a €90 million ($123.4 million) contract for work on Gygrid field in the Norwegian Sea.

TGS has signed a letter of intent with CGGVeritas to charter a vessel for 3D multi-client projects in Europe this summer.

Norway’s government has decided to commission more data concerning a future impact assessment of exploration and production in the Lofoten and Vesterålen regions off northern Norway.

MEO Australia has accepted a conditional offer for a farm-in to the NT/P68 exploration permit off Northern Australia.

Reef Subsea AS has chartered its newbuild Polar King to a Norwegian operator for three years with two one-year options.

Chevron USA Inc. has awarded subsea-to-surface engineering, construction, and services on Tahiti Phase II to Subsea 7.

Dolphin Geophysical has contracted Sercel to provide Nautilus and Sentinel systems for its first high-capacity 3D seismic vessel, Polar Duke.

Keppel AmFELS LLC has won a $195-million contract from Perforadora Central in Mexico to build a LeTourneau Super 116E jackup.

Shell Exploration & Production Co. has contracted InterMoor to replace the platform wires on the Auger TLP’s lateral mooring system.

Polarcus Ltd. says it has contracted to provide a 3D seismic acquisition project in the Celtic Sea for Providence Resources PLC.

The just releasedPetrosys 16.9 version now has direct links to Paradigm’s EPOS 2D and 3D navigation and interpretation data.

Cameron has started manufacturing a well capping device that will form part of the UK offshore oil and gas sector’s oil spill response contingency plans.

ITF, the UK oil and gas industry’s technology facilitator, plans to open a base in the Middle East to attract new members and increase awareness of its global technology funding program.

Fugro-Jason has released EarthModel FT 4.2 geological modeling software.

Gazprom and Wintershall have signed a memorandum concerning possible joint development of gas reserves in northern Russia.

Melrose Resources has signed concession agreements for two offshore exploration blocks in the Romanian sector of the Black Sea.

Polarcus has taken delivery of the Polarcus Samur, a newbuild 3D seismic vessel.

CGGVeritas reports signing two joint-venture agreements.

Infield Systems has published a new report on prospects for the offshore Arctic oil and gas sector through 2017.

Top 5 Projects addendum

In the December 2010 issue ofOffshore regarding the Top 5 projects, the article describing the Jubilee project offshore Ghana omitted a company from the supplier list. That list should read as follows:

Aker Solutions fabricated the water treatment modules at its Port Klang facility in Malaysia; VME Process constructed the oil processing facilities at its Batam, Indonesia, yard; Dyna-Mac Engineering Services in Singapore built the gas compression modules; and SOFEC Inc. supplied the external turret for the single point mooring system which was fabricated at Malaysia Marine and Heavy Engineering in Pasir Gudang, Malaysia. This device, located at the vessel’s bow, is said to be one of the largest of its kind engineered to date.

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