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Arctic offshore exploration must be carried out in the short summer (July/August to September), while there is sufficient open water for towed-streamer deployment. Maximum efficiency is essential to make full use of the available acquisition time. Exploring this area responsibly requires specialized equipment and methods, deployed by exceptional crews working closely with local agencies, to meet the environmental challenges.

The editors of Offshore magazine have scoured the globe for the latest and greatest measurement-while-drilling (MWD) and logging-while-drilling (LWD) tools for 2010, and here is the result. The following pages also update the annual MWD/LWD services directory. The full survey is available for download at www.offshore-mag.com.

A high-profile North Sea discovery called for innovative engineering to enable representative formation fluid samples and critical measurements of H2S concentration.

With a cautious rise in drilling activity across the world, operators have to manage projects efficiently and effectively to maximize the potential return. In addition, operators are revisiting mature fields to extract marginal reserves in order to meet production quotas, and this comes with its own challenges.

In a comparison between simulation and physical testing, finite element analysis could simulate accurately complex loading conditions involving multiple component contact and nonlinear material behavior. This validated simulation method can be used to perform optimization and other studies on a virtual prototype of an umbilical. With most umbilicals built for purpose, this provides engineering testing and design validation during front-end engineering without requiring physical tests.

Every pipeline operator is acutely aware of how important safe and efficient repairs are. When a pipeline operates at a billion cubic feet of gas throughput per day, and the flow is shut down for even one day, there is a significant loss in revenue.

The prize of enlightening the reservoir using large-scale, high-fidelity, fiber-optics to provide timely, predictive information on reservoir performance is within our grasp. Fiber-optics revolutionized the telecommunications industry, enabled the World Wide Web, and can do the same for the instrumented oil field.

Subsea systems are used increasingly as the primary field development solution for offshore oil and gas fields. Currently, there are around 3,300 producing subsea wells around the world, with an average age of almost seven years. The sizes of new offshore discoveries are getting smaller. These factors drive subsea operators to be increasingly aware of securing the integrity of the producing subsea infrastructure and of maximizing the recovery from the assets.

Fugro has added two new C-Class seismic vessels to its fleet. Both are designed for challenging offshore areas and both can tow up to 16 seismic streamers on dedicated streamer winches with a capacity of 8,000 m (26,246 ft) of cable.

To extract oil and gas out of the Arctic basin, new tools are needed to model ice loads and their effect on offshore structures.

Aker Solutions’ pioneering decision to assemble a fleet of deepwater subsea construction and well intervention vessels is paying off. Work has already been secured for three of the four new vessels, two of which have so far been delivered.

Recent testing of the Badger Explorer drilling tool has successfully proved the concept. Developer Badger Explorer is now preparing to take the technology forward into a pre-commercial phase.

Bergen-based Beerenberg has won two contracts in the Gulf of Mexico for its newly developed Green Turtle conductor cutting technology, which it developed with partner CalDive International.

For more than a year, the UK’s oil and gas business has been impacted by financial constraints as the continuing effects of the downturn make their mark, restricting the flow of funds available for those looking to drill-out prospectivity or advance discoveries.

GDF SUEZ is preparing to take over operatorship of the Gjøa field in the North Sea when it comes on stream in October. The project will be the making of the company in the Norwegian sector, according to GDF SUEZ E&P Norge managing director Terje Overvik.

Statoil is working on a solution for the Luva gas field in the Norwegian Sea offshore mid-Norway. The field lies in deep waters far from production infrastructure, and in a harsh environment.

Geology keeps pulling oil and gas explorers to Greenland. First there is the sheer size of the area. Secondly, there are catalogued seeps with all the promise they suggest. Third is the prospectivity carried in the seismic data collected to date. All that is missing is an actual oil well. There have been no commercial discoveries. A number of companies expect that to change in a relatively short period of time.

Arctic conditions challenge the engineering of hydrocarbon production facilities and force companies that pursue offshore oil and gas resources in cold regions to face unique risks, requirements, and challenges.

With a wider development of Arctic oil and gas reserves imminent, offshore operators and contracting companies have been busy planning for what some regard as the final frontier.

An “overabundance of caution” was the phrase most often repeated by federal government and BP Plc spokesmen to describe phase testing of their newest subsea hardware innovation aimed to stem the flow of oil and gas from the wild Macondo well in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico.

When the Norwegian government decided in 2006 to set up centers of expertise to promote the country’s business strengths in various areas, it chose Bergen as the centre of expertise for the subsea sector – and with good reason. In and around this attractive city on Norway’s west coast is a dense cluster of companies, from small to large, offering a wide range of subsea technology for the offshore oil and gas industry. The subsea cluster’s main focus is on aftermarket activities – maintenance, modification and operation.

Aker Solutions is one of the world’s top four providers of subsea production systems and related services, and has the broadest subsea portfolio in the market place.

Holland’s offshore services sector is holding steady, despite the recent constraints on new upstream investments.

Bully I, the first of two new deepwater drillships under construction in the Far East, is set to be delivered to Noble Energy this fall.

Last summer, Dockwise successfully delivered and installed the giant topsides for Carigali-Pttepi (CPOC)’s MUDA processing platform in the Gulf of Thailand.

Drillships are figuring increasingly in deepwater exploration in remote areas. Ulstein Sea of Solutions (USOS) is working on various designs which would be suited to operations in frontier regions of the Black Sea, Caspian Sea, and Arctic Circle.