Bruce Beaubouef
Managing Editor
For 30 years, INTECSEA has provided frontier technology leadership for the energy industry's most challenging offshore field development and pipeline projects. The company has designed subsea production systems, pipelines and floating systems for operations in some of the harshest environments, and in locations as diverse as the Black Sea, Arctic Ocean, Mediterranean, the Gulf of Mexico, offshore West Africa, and the South China Sea.
As part of the WorleyParsons Group, INTECSEA offers the industry engineering and project management expertise in its five core areas: subsea systems, offshore pipelines, marine riser systems, floating systems, and Arctic development.
Throughout his career, Mackintosh has successfully established businesses in multiple markets, including Malaysia, Australia and Brazil. His experience covers engineering, construction, project management of marine pipelines, as well as subsea and riser developments, and fixed and floating offshore facilities.
Recently, Mackintosh met withOffshore to discuss the latest trends in offshore oil and gas development, subsea engineering, data management, and the outlook for the industry in the next five to 10 years, and beyond.
Offshore: INTECSEA is involved in a number of technologies. Where do you see the most opportunity for the next 5-10 years, and beyond?
Mackintosh: One of the key areas of technology development for INTECSEA is in data processing and data management. As an industry, we are installing large numbers of sensors and collecting substantial amounts of data on our subsea equipment, flowlines, and risers. However, we need to do a much better job of managing that data. We have so much information that it is sometimes difficult to determine what is important and what is irrelevant.
We are working on an extended web-based environment, designed to capture, integrate, and visualize key data through the asset lifecycle. We can add information through each stage of the project development, then continue to record and update the data through the full field life. As the development matures, the integrated dataset evolves into a "digital asset," which is populated with data, including links to existing operator-specific systems for IMR records and process monitoring to provide a comprehensive, flexible platform to support integrity management through the life of the field.
Offshore: There's been a lot of talk about standardization. What do you think about its place in the industry?
Mackintosh: Various operators and manufacturers have tried to provide some degree of standardization for their developments. This has worked very well for most companies and adds a significant amount of value in terms of equipment change out, manufacturing flexibility, and simplicity in offshore operations. Can more work be done in this area? Yes, absolutely, and subsea companies are taking the lead and moving this forward for our industry.
Offshore: How does INTECSEA respond to calls for more local content in places like Brazil, Mexico, West Africa, etc.?
Mackintosh: This is an absolute requirement for our company. We have to find ways to work closely within the frameworks that are requested by local governments. This is easier to do in some places than others, but we continue to open local offices to meet the local requirements. However, we have to make sure that we have the same quality of engineering in our local offices that we do in our main offices. This means that our subject matter experts have to support engineering in all parts of the world and in several different time zones. One of the areas that we are particularly keen on developing is India. We see a growing market for deepwater subsea and floating systems engineering to support the major East Coast developments by companies like ONGC and Reliance.
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