Daily Archives: March 4, 2017

A Closer Look at Trump’s 10% Defense Spending Increase – Morningstar.com

Posted: March 4, 2017 at 3:46 pm

Investors are optimistic, but we see many unknowns.

Chris Higgins is an equity analyst for Morningstar.

New Office of Management and Budget head Mick Mulvaney outlined a base defense budget, which excludes funding for overseas contingency operations, of $603 billion. Predictably, confusion has set in regarding the actual increase the Trump administration is looking for and what this means for the industry. Weve seen reports of a $54 billion increase in defense spending, Sen. John McCain complaining about only getting a 3% increase, and other reports mentioning a 10% increase.The Obama administration requested $552.8 billion in defense spending for fiscal 2017 and planned $586.2 billion for fiscal 2018. Comparing that plan for fiscal 2018 with $603 billion yields a 2.9% increase, hence McCains complaint. The $54 billion figure compares the $603 billion figure with the Budget Control Act of 2011, which caps defense at $549 billion for fiscal 2018. The 10% increase--assuming some rounding--may be referring to either the Trump administrations defense budget increase versus the fiscal 2017 request or the Budget Control Act caps for fiscal 2018, or both.But there are still many unknowns at this stage in the budgeting process. The $60 billion question is the overseas contingency operations account, which is not included in the $603 billion figure. Our sense is that Mulvaney detests the use of the OCO to circumvent Budget Control Act caps, but defense hawks in Congress have proved more than willing to use it as a slush fund for priorities that dont fit into the base defense budget. The fiscal 2017 OCO budget request was $58.8 billion, and its highly likely that the Trump administration will add about $30 billion to this amount via a defense supplemental spending bill. Despite budget hawks distaste for it, we assume that the Trump administration will generate an OCO request as part of the fiscal 2018 budget process, which implies a total defense budget request for fiscal 2018 of well over $650 billion: $603 billion base funding plus our assumption of at least $50 billion in OCO funding. The Democrats in the Senate (the Republicans effectively control the House) can still filibuster the defense budget; in the past, they have typically demanded parity in defense and nondefense discretionary spending increases. Republicans need 60 votes to circumvent a filibuster in the Senate, which means 8 Democrats will need to defect. In 2016, Senate Democrats did not shy away from using the filibuster against the defense spending bill in Congress; this is why the Department of Defense is still operating under a continuing resolution, which freezes funding at the previous years levels and prohibits new-start programs. We think its a distinct possibility that Congress will finally agree on the fiscal 2017 defense budget, but any fiscal 2018 proposal triggers a filibuster and potentially another continuing resolution that can--particularly if it lasts deep into fiscal 2018--create challenges for industry financial performance. Then there is the budget math. The Trump administration and congressional Republicans want to enact sizable tax cuts for corporations and individuals. Trump also continues to push an infrastructure plan, and we note his recalcitrance toward Medicare and Social Security spending reforms. We also note that recent statements from Trump do not emphasize a balanced budget. To offset other priorities, administration officials have pointed to cuts in other discretionary spending as bill-payers for the planned defense budget increase. The administration has put forward a top-line figure for nondefense discretionary spending of $462 billion, which is roughly $100 billion below fiscal 2016 actual levels and about $54 billion below the caps mandated in the Budget Control Act for fiscal 2018. Our view is that most senators and representatives wont find these cuts to other discretionary spending politically palatable and that a comprise will be required. Another wild card is GDP growth. Assuming average real GDP growth of 1.8% annually and no change to current law, the Congressional Budget Office projects persistent deficits of around 3% of GDP through 2020. If annual real GDP growth goes above 3%, then the budget math looks better. But 3% real GDP growth hasnt been achieved in over 10 years, and the longest consecutive stretch in which the real GDP increased by 3% or more each year was 1983-89. Moreover, promises of faster growth in the face of rising budget deficits combined with no entitlement reform may lead to revolt among the 30-40 Freedom Caucus members in the House of Representatives. Although the administrations budget will face hurdles, we view these first broad outlines as an opening gambit to set the negotiating terms with Congress. The next major milestone for investors will be the formal release of the budget request to Congress. Mulvaney is promising to send a budget outline to Congress by March 16 and hopes to flesh out a more detailed budget plan by mid-May. Regardless of timing, we plan to analyze the presidents defense budget request in detail for investors. After the request goes to Congress, it is a long and winding road through committees and ultimately to a possible vote later this year. Again, we think Democrats in the Senate and potentially fiscally conservative Republicans could block spending increases, which could lead to a continuing resolution, effectively freezing the budget at previous-year levels. In the end, this all may be headed toward another bipartisan stopgap measure--Congress has agreed to several in the recent past--that revises upward but does not completely repeal the caps on defense and nondefense discretionary spending. In the interim, we think the fiscal 2017 defense budget that the Obama administration put forward last year might finally get through Congress, albeit seven months after fiscal 2017 started, thereby ending the continuing resolution under which the Department of Defense is currently operating and providing defense contractors with more clarity. We also believe an OCO increase via a separate defense supplemental spending request is likely.

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March 4, 2017 – EDP Foundation – Utopia/Dystopia / Hctor Zamora: Order and Progress – E-Flux

Posted: at 3:44 pm

Utopia/Dystopia A Paradigm Shift March 22August 21, 2017

Hctor Zamora Order and Progress March 22April 24, 2017

MAAT Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology Lisbon Portugal

http://www.maat.pt

Following its official opening on October 5, 2016, the new MAAT kunsthalle reopens to the public on March 22, 2017, with two major exhibitions that take up the whole building: Utopia/DystopiaA Paradigm Shift, curated by Pedro Gadanho, Joo Laia and Susana Venturaand Order and Progress by Mexican artist Hctor Zamora, curated by Ins Grosso.

Utopia/DystopiaA Paradigm Shift is the first manifesto exhibition to be held in the kunsthalle designed by Amanda Levete (AL_A). Installed in three of MAATs galleries, this key-inaugural project will be a large group show featuring more than 60 works by a range of international artists and architects, some appearing for the first time in Portugal. The show will reveal how the two fields have represented ideas of utopia, or anticipated emerging notions of dystopia, since the early 1970s, with a strong focus on work produced over the last five years. Participants include architects such as Archigram, Archizoom, yr, Didier Faustino, Yona Friedman, Aldo Rossi, Superstudio, and artists such as Kader Attia, Jordi Colomer, Tacita Dean, DIS Collective, Cao Fei, ngela Ferreira, Cyprien Gailard, Jonas Staal, Ryan Trecartin, and Wolfgang Tillmans.

The preview opening will be held on March 21 with special performances by Michelangelo Pistolleto and Allard van Hoorn which will take place outside the new building.

Hctor Zamora presents a new version of the performance/installation Order and Progress, in which the remains of traditional Portuguese fishing boats from different coastal regions temporarily occupy MAATs Oval Gallery. The performance, previously presented at the Palais de Tokyo in 2016, will take place in the Oval Gallery on March 22, at 6pm, coinciding with the museums opening to the public.

The opening programme continues in the galleries at the Central Power Station with a new exhibition from the EDP Foundation Art Collection. What I Am is the thirdin a series of thematic surveys from this collection of Portuguese Contemporary Art. Curated by Ins Grosso and Luiza Teixeira de Freitas, the show examines the autobiographical and self-referential dimension of artistic creation. With Helena Almeida, Jos Barrios, Sara Bicho, Mauro Cerqueira, Miguel Faro, Jorge Molder, Julio Sarmento, Antnio Sena, Joo Queiroz and Joo Pedro Vale, amongst others.

Other exhibitions on view at MAAT include Liquid Skin, by Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Joaquim Sapinho, curated by Alexandre Melo (Boiler Hall), the group showVariable Dimensions - Artists and Architecture, curated by Gregory Lang and Ins Grosso(Central 1), and Archive and Democracy by Portuguese artist Jos Mas de Carvalho, curated by Ana Rito (Ashpit 8).

Exhibitions opening in May with ARCOLisboa 2017 Coinciding with the second edition of ARCOLisboa, on May 17 the museum will open three new exhibitions: a large-scale project by Cuban artist Carlos Garaicoa, which will occupy nearly 1000 sq. m of the kunsthalles Oval Gallery; and two exhibitions in the galleries of Central Power Station, both by Portuguese artists: a site-specific work by Joo Onofre at the monumental Boiler Hall, and APQHome, an art installation by Ana Prez-Quiroga.

ARCOLisboa takes place between May 18 and 21 at Cordoaria Nacional, just a few meters from MAATs new building.

Open call:APQ HomeAna Prez Quiroga We are looking for:Artists, curators, critics, art historians, architects, filmmakers, performers, theater practitioners, choreographers, writers, musicians, textile designers, food artists, interdisciplinary collectives, & other related areas.

APQHome is a project consisting in a domestic spacea house and its objectsand a garden, inside the MAAT exhibition space. It is a total work of art that requires the participants intervention in an immersion that, in a 48-hour period, aim to perform the everyday life, in a total art/life fusion experience.The participants will have the opportunity to spend two nights at the museum, occupying this domestic space in a program taking place between May 16and July 30, 2017.

Open call: Starting on March 8, registration forAPQHomeis open until June 8, 2017.

More info here.

The kunsthalle AL_As kunsthalle, which contains four distinct gallery spaces, captures the essence of the exceptional 38,000 m2 riverside site and its extraordinary light. Blending structure into landscape, and conceived to create significant new public spaces, it is designed to allow visitors to walk over and under, as well as through the building, while the undulating roof offers panoramic views towards the river and across Belm. The building creates a constantly changing place filled with aquatic reflections that interplay with the overhanging faade covered in 15,000 three-dimensional tiles, a reference to Portugals rich tradition of ceramics.

The completion of the architectural project will also include a park designed by Vladimir Djurovic Landscape Architecture, as well as an elegant pedestrian bridge, also designed by AL_A (both set for May 2017), that will land on the new kunsthalle roof, making the campus and waterfront more accessible to the city.

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March 4, 2017 - EDP Foundation - Utopia/Dystopia / Hctor Zamora: Order and Progress - E-Flux

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Bahamas Ministry of Tourism’s statement on The Swimming Pigs of Big Major Cay, Exuma – Yahoo Finance

Posted: at 3:40 pm

NASSAU, Bahamas, March 3, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Bahamas Ministry of Tourism regrets the deaths of several of the swimming pigs, as recently reported.

The world-famous swimming pigs of Exuma attract millions of visitors to The Bahamas annually. The Bahamas remains a wonderful destination for visitors and scores of pigs still await visitors on Big Major Cay (Pig Beach), Exuma.

Bahamian Minister of Agriculture and Marine Resources, V. Alfred Gray, has said that the pigs found dead on the cay were found to have died from ingesting sand. Minister Gray said a report from the chief veterinary officer in his ministry concluded that some of the pigs had "a good amount of sand" in their stomachs.

The Minister concluded that in conjunction with the appropriate agencies, protocols will be put in place to govern the industry and protect the animals.

For more information about the swimming pigs visit bahamas.com/swimmingpigs.

The Islands Of The Bahamas have a place in the sun for everyone. Each island has its own personality and attractions for a variety of vacation styles with some of the world's best golfing, scuba diving, fishing, sailing, boating, as well as, shopping and dining. The destination offers an easily accessible tropical getaway and provides convenience for travelers with preclearance through U.S. customs and immigration, and the Bahamian dollar is on par with the U.S. dollar. Do everything or do nothing, just remember It's Better in The Bahamas. For travel packages, activities and accommodations information, call 1-800-Bahamas or visit http://www.Bahamas.com. Look for The Bahamas on the web on Facebook Twitter and YouTube

Photos accompanying this release are available at: http://www.globenewswire.com/newsroom/prs/?pkgid=42238 http://www.globenewswire.com/newsroom/prs/?pkgid=42239

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Another Crime Warning for Travelers to Nassau, Bahamas – Cruise Law News

Posted: at 3:40 pm

Yesterday, the U.S. Overseas Security Advisory Council (OSAC) issued a security message for U.S. Citizens traveling to Nassau, Bahamas), titled Staying Safe during Spring Break in the Bahamas.

It starts with: "avoid being alone with strangers, jet ski, taxi, or scooter operators. Be particularly cautious on secluded beaches; criminals target such isolated areas. When traveling, use only clearly marked buses or taxis, as unlicensed taxi drivers have been linked to a variety of violent crimes."

The warning ""strongly" recommends that travelers "avoid patronizing jet ski rental operations" who "continue to commit sexual assaults and other crimes against tourists."

It warnsnot to "allow yourself to be driven off alone with a scooter operator. Unlicensed scooter operators and rental services have been linked to assaults, including sexual assaults."

OSAC cautions against excessive drinking ashore -"Visitors found alone or incapacitated have been victims of sexual assault, robbery, and physical assault. Watch your drink at all times. Intoxicated young women may be targeted for drugging and sexual assault."

OSAC refers to the U.S. State Department's warning that "the criminal threat level for New Providence Island (includes Nassau and Paradise Island) is rated as critical." The critical crime warning reads:

"Armed robbery and sexual assault are major criminal threats facing U.S. citizens in New Providence. The U.S. Embassy has received multiple reports indicating tourists have been robbed at gunpoint or knifepoint in tourist locations in the downtown areas of Nassau; several of these incidents occurred during daylight hours. The U.S. Embassy has received reports of sexual assaults in tourist areas as well. The Bahamas has one of the highest incidences of sexual assault in the Caribbean . . "

If you are a parent of a teenager or a college student cruising to Nassau this month on Spring Break, I suggest discussing these issues.

Have a thought? Please leave a comment or join the discussion on our Facebook page.

Photo credit:Jpatokal at wts wikivoyage - GFDL, commons / wikimedia (top photo of Bay Street in Nassau); TampAGS, for AGS Media - CC BY-SA 3.0, commons / wikimedia (bottom photo of cruise wharf in Nassau).

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Bahamas PM Apologizes For Flipping Bird, Saying He Lost Control While Defending Family – Caribbean360.com (subscription)

Posted: at 3:40 pm

Perry Christie apologized in Parliament.

NASSAU, The Bahamas, Thursday March 2, 2017 A sombre and penitent Bahamian Prime Minister Perry Christie faced the nation yesterday and apologized for theobscene gesture he made at a political meeting earlier this week.

Christie, who has been at the centre of a public furor after sticking up his middle finger at a public meetingon Monday night, offered his deepest expression of regret in a statement delivered in the House of Assembly yesterday.

I really stand to express my regret, to indicate specifically that it related to specific individuals, he said.

At the political meeting held in Fox Hill, a pumped up Christie shocked his supporters when he made the gesture, after detailing that it was how he had responded to man who challenged him to deny that he owned a particular condominium.

Yesterday, a more composed Christie insisted the gesture was not him, but he took responsibility for losing control while defending his family.

There was never any intention to speak to any other person or issue other than those who were attacking me or my familyand I would hope that those who may have been offended by it who were present, would accept that that is a matter that I would not have wished that I did.

He used the occasion to vent his frustration about persistent malicious attacks against his family.

Christie said that he makes an effort to ensure his family is not subjected to any degree of embarrassment regarding his conduct, but admitted it was exceedingly difficult and sometimes he did not know how to respond.

He questioned why the public, even those in the Christian community, did not speak out against unfair and false allegations levelled against him and his family and, by extension, other members of the wider public.

What is it about Christian charity, or the lack of it, that stops right-thinking persons from making interventions in public life to say that what you said about that lady is not right; it is not the right thing to do?

However, the Prime Minister urged the countrys young people not to see his inappropriate action as an example to follow.

Asking and answering whether he would do it again, in that place, at that time, on that occasion, for the reasons I was speaking, he said, the answer is no.

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AT&T to Bring Back 3000 Offshore Jobs – 24/7 Wall St.

Posted: at 3:40 pm

AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) has reached a tentative settlement with the Communications Workers of America over the 20,000 people the telecom employs in its Southwest region. Among the concessions AT&T made was that it would bring back 3,000 jobs, most are which are overseas.

The Communications Workers of America announced that its:

District 6 bargaining committee has reached a tentative agreement with AT&T Southwest, District 6 Vice President Claude Cummings reported.

The tentative four-year settlement provides for pay raises, paid parental leave, affordable healthcare and enhanced benefits for the 20,000 AT&T workers in Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas.

A key provision of the proposed settlement commits AT&T to bring 3,000 jobs, the majority of which are sourced offshore, into bargaining units in District 6.

This is not the first confrontation, or settlement, AT&T has had with the big union. According to a report last year in Fortune:

A group of some 2,000 workers in AT&Ts Internet business voted to authorize a strike as their contract expired last week, though no strike has been called and talks are continuing between representatives of the Communications Workers of America union and the company. And members in a larger, 15,000 member unit covering traditional telephone service workers in California and Nevada, also represented by the CWA, have been picketing AT&T events as negotiations over their next contract drag on.

Shortly thereafter, AT&T and the union reached an agreement. However, going forward, the relationship between the two organizations is hardly friendly.

By Douglas A. McIntyre

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Offshore sand could help replenish beaches – The Westerly Sun

Posted: at 3:40 pm

NARRAGANSETT Frequent storms and sea-level rise will make beach replenishment increasingly necessary in southern Rhode Island, and there is more than enough offshore sand to do the job.

Bryan Oakley, an assistant professor of geology at Eastern Connecticut State University who monitors beach erosion, and URI oceanographer John King, who located the sand deposits, presented their findings at the University of Rhode Islands Narragansett Bay campus on Feb. 28 as part of Sea Grants Coastal State discussion series.

Westerlys most dramatic beach restoration was in 2014, after Superstorm Sandy damaged Misquamicut State Beach. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers $3 million restoration effort involved trucking in 84,000 cubic yards of sand from an inland quarry.

From this section: Moratorium on quarries could buy town time

Oakley, who lives in Westerly and tracks changes to the profile of Misquamicut Beach, showed photographs of the beach before, during and after the replenishment of the beach, or berm.

They came in and put 65,000 cubic meters thats 84,000 cubic yards of sand, he said. It cost $3.1 million from glacial upland material .... After replenishment, one of my students said it looked a lot like a highway, not a bad description of it, about as soft as macadam if you were trying to sit on it that first spring.

Oakley said he wanted to see how long the new sand would remain on the beach, so he and his students mapped the area using a global positioning system. They created a model that showed that 39 percent of the sand had been washed away less than a year after the project was completed.

Thats actually not bad, Oakley said. Weve also had no major storms, and since January we havent been out. Well be back out in a couple of weeks, and were looking at some other techniques to get detailed pictures of sections of the beach and see if we can get a handle on some of the offshore distribution as well.

At $36 a cubic yard, upland sand is considerably more expensive than sand dredged from the ocean bottom, which costs $15. Oakley said the benefits of supporting a vital sector of the Rhode Island economy outweighed the expense of replenishment if those costs were kept low. Its economically practical when your rates are relatively low and the economic benefits are high, he said.

In comparison with states like New Jersey, the southern Rhode Island coast is relatively undeveloped, so beach replenishment here is less frequent.

If you think about the stretch from Watch Hill to Point Judith, weve got several large sections of undeveloped barrier beach, Oakley said. Quonochontaug, East Beach, Moonstone thats a great resource, and we should be happy we dont have this level of development that warrants running out and spending millions of dollars to dump a lot of sand on the beach.

Offshore deposits

King warned that sea-level rise would eventually render discussions of beach replenishment irrelevant. You kind of have to put this in the context of were in the midst of a slow-moving disaster of a magnitude weve never seen before due to global climate change, he said. And Im a climate scientist. So when these folks start talking about OK, were going to stop the ocean, I just say, Yeah, sure you are. You may slow it down for a while, but youre not going to stop it.

With funding from the federal Bureau of Energy Management, King mapped sections of the ocean floor in federal waters just outside Rhode Islands 3-mile limit. The goal of the project was to find a source of sand that would be large enough to be used for extensive beach replenishment initiatives.

With beach replenishment, you either go big or go home, he said.

Kings team first used sonar to determine the composition of the ocean bottom and the thickness of the sand deposits. They also took samples of the bottom to determine the quality of the sand. The upland sand used in the Misquamicut replenishment was coarser than natural beach sand and did not match the texture of the existing beach.

When youre doing this kind of thing, you not only need to know if its sand, you need to know if its high-quality sand, he said. King said he knew from looking at geological data that the best sand would likely be found off the coast near Charlestown, where it had been deposited when the glaciers retreated 20,000 years ago.

We sort of zeroed in on this area along the south coast, he said. Theres a thing called the Charlestown moraine, its like a long pillow, which is actually a glacial terminal moraine a big pile of material that builds up in front of an ice sheet.

In front of the terminal moraine was a huge lake, which was created by a dam made by the ice sheet and the moraine behind it.

So you had a very, very big glacial lake, and streams coming off of this ice sheet into the lake, forming big deltaic deposits. So these loaves of material are deltas that were actually debris coming from the melting ice sheet, sometimes underneath, a little bit over the top, carrying a lot of sand and gravel, he said.

Kings team decided to take a closer look at the sand and gravel deltas and created profiles of what are known as glaciodeltaic deposits, and they are huge. The newly mapped deposits are estimated to contain approximately 160 million cubic meters, or 209,272,099 cubic yards, of sand.

We have an order of magnitude more sand out there than we need anytime soon, King said.

The next phase of the project will involve a Special Area Management Plan of the areas where promising deposits have been found to determine the effects that mining the sand might have on the marine ecosystem.

The question is, can you go out there and remove 5 to 10 feet of this material without having a really devastating impact to the bottom, and thats a question we dont have an answer to yet, King said. Thats where the SAMP approach comes in. At some point, we have to talk about what are the impacts to habitat.

cdrummond@thewesterlysun.com

@CynthiaDrummon4

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You Can’t Have Offshore Wind Power Without Oil – Forbes

Posted: at 3:40 pm


Forbes
You Can't Have Offshore Wind Power Without Oil
Forbes
The Block Island Wind farm's launch late last year signified the United States' official entry into the offshore wind industry. And while European countries have been generating electricity by spinning turbines offshore since 1991, the US is eager to ...
Regulators Updated on 1st US Offshore Wind Farm OperationsU.S. News & World Report
OC offshore meteorological tower step toward wind farmDelmarva Daily Times

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Time For Change: Meeting The Challenge Of Offshore Rig Moves – Manufacturing.net (blog)

Posted: at 3:40 pm

Once a scenario has been simulated, contractors can project the right cost, depreciation and value in an upcoming contract before the rig move process begins. Being able to see the impact of moving a rig from one company to another is a benefit of accurate forecasting you get from a single end-to-end, fully integrated solution. The ability to forecast in this manner saves time and money for drilling contractors, critical in the oil and gas industry - now more than ever.

Once a rig move has begun, drilling contractors require visibility over vast data sets - accounting currencies, work orders, maintenance transactions and more. During the move, management also need to monitor the environmental impact, cost of operations, support for quality assurance and health & safety management.

Unfortunately, many drilling contractors still struggle with their disjointed and unintegrated solutions. None of their existing systems are comprehensive or agile enough to fully map the diverse requirements, processes and extra transactions required on a rig during a move. By bringing together all these data streams into a single solution, drilling contractors can reap the benefits of analyzing large amounts of real-time information - presenting an accurate picture of events and enabling well-informed decision making during the move.

Having access to a rigs complete maintenance history in one solution enables traceability, but also guarantees compliance. The global oil and gas environment demands a solution which can quickly adapt to compliance regulations to reduce non-compliance risk. Rig move solutions must enable full visibility into IFRS, US GAAP and SOX compliance as well as efficient risk management and environmental impact. Because the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea has divided the sea into zones with different legal status and applicable law, and other rules may apply in territorial waters within 12 nautical miles of a coast, rigs crossing these jurisdictions may need to conform to different rules. Rig move must also take into account differing regulations for the asset itself, including the number of lifeboats, fire and gas detection systems, number of individuals allowed to sleep in a single cabin and other criteria.

From beginning to end, manual transactions pose significant risk to rig moves - causing inaccuracy, delays and spiralling costs. If a drilling contractor begins a rig move with fragmented systems, there is a risk the finance department will see an inaccurate picture of how the move has taken place.

Fragmented systems handling rig move processes may mean it takes the finance department months to recognize a rig has been moved to a new location. This lack of visibility and delay of information sharing significantly hinders operations, while backtracking to correct data creates unnecessary overhead costs. A solution lacking in integration may also result in rigs are moved from one locale to the next without being reconfigured to account for different regulatory regimes, placing the organization at risk of fines and recertification.

The right enterprise software can extract necessary data and then alert users of what objects need to be cancelled, closed and/or transferred from projects to conduct compliant and well-documented rig moves. This functionality enables a much more cohesive transfer of data, improves documentation for finance, optimizes processes and reduces error postings, manual corrections and overall transactions.

Real-time visibility, optimized solution processes and accurate forecasting bring real value to drilling contractors during mission-critical rig moves. These benefits directly contribute to industry efforts to reduce overheads and cut unnecessary costs.

For some organizations, adapting to the challenges of a rig move in the transforming oil and gas market may be intimidating. With the support of solutions designed to maximize operations, compliance and the bottom line, offshore drillers can make inefficient rig moves a thing of the past.

Patrick Zirnhelt is aVice President with heavy involvement in Enterprise Service & Asset Management at IFS North America.

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New Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales Trailer Brings Us More Action On The High Seas! – LRM Online (press release) (blog)

Posted: at 3:39 pm

Pirates of the Caribbean is one of those franchises that seemed to have randomly fallen off a cliff. After the first film in the franchise, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, hit, the series seemed to have real promise. Unfortunately, fans seemed to like the films less and less as it worked its way through Dead Mans Chest and At Worlds End. However, despite this seemingly declining interest, Disney went forward with a fourth film, On Stranger Tides. While the film didnt perform very well in North America, it more than made up for it overseas, and still managed to crack $1 billion at the worldwide box office.

But after the success of On Stranger Tides, conversation around a sequel kind of dried up. Perhaps it was Disney reading the signs that the franchise needed a bit of a break, or perhaps it was simply a matter of getting the script where it needed to be. Either way, it would be over six years until wed be getting another Pirates movie.

Even after all this time, the prospect has admittedly been met with an underwhelming enthusiasm from fans. While many enjoyed the initial films, it seemed to have overstayed its welcome. But Disney has had a great track record in the past five-plus years, and in that time, theyve managed to produce mostly good films, much to the surprise of the entire industry. Perhaps the upcoming Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales would be worth watching after all. The first teaser and Super Bowl spot were both pretty solid, but would it hold up with a Jack Sparrow-filled trailer?

You be the judge.

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New Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales Trailer Brings Us More Action On The High Seas! - LRM Online (press release) (blog)

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