Category Archives: Offshore

The Inertia Contributing Writer

Southern right whales are at the center of the fight against offshore oil development in the Great Australian Bight. Photo: Sea Shepherd

'Operation Jeedara' Sea Shepherd from Fair Projects on Vimeo.

Within a year of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill which spewed 140 million gallons into the Gulf of Mexico the Australian government began greenlighting offshore oil drilling in the Great Australian Bight, a vast undeveloped bay on the continents southern coast.

The region is one of the last large remaining areas of marine wilderness on the planet, and a critical nursery for southern right whales, among other species. As the Great Australian Bight Alliance puts it: BIG OIL=BIG RISKS, and the group has mounted a campaign to prevent offshore drilling in waters it calls far rougher, far more remote and far riskier than the Gulf of Mexico.

Those efforts are the focus of Operation Jeedara, a forthcoming documentary by Sea Shepherd, the ocean conservation group, which debuted in Australia around Earth Day. The film premiered in the United States on World Ocean Day, June 8, at the Harmony Gold Preview House in Hollywood.

Weve got to protect these healthy intact marine ecosystems for our own survival on this planet, says Jeff Hansen, Director of ship operations for Sea Shepherd Global.

From the looks of the trailer, the film promises to be a powerful look at the lives human and otherwise that could be in jeopardy from offshore drilling in the region.

The bight supports an incredible number of sea life, including whales and marine mammals thanks to nutrient upwellings. Scientists estimate that around 85 percent of the species that live in the Great Australian Bight are found nowhere else on Earth, according to the alliance.

A spill on the scale of the Deepwater Horizon must never happen to the Bight whose clean and healthy waters support peoples lifestyles and local industries right across southern Australia, the Alliance says on its website. Coastal communities people from Western Australias southern coastlines, across the coasts and peninsulas of South Australia and Victoria, to the beaches of Tasmania value and rely on our clean oceans, beaches, islands, reefs and fisheries.

Appearing in the film alongside Sea Shepherd founder Paul Watson, will be a few recognizable faces from Hollywood: actors Holly Combs, Richard Dean Anderson and Cliff Simon.

Sea Shepherd is currently figuring out its distribution strategy, so be on the lookout for the film.

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Sea Shepherd's New Film Documents the Fight Against Offshore Oil in the Australian Bight - TheInertia.com

A final regulation by the federal Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement doubles to one year the time offshore oil and gas operators will have to coordinate development operations and retain their leases in federal waters of the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf.

This rulemaking extends the time from 180 days to one year between production, drilling or well-reworking operations on a lease, said BSEE Director Scott Angelle. These additional months mean companies doing business on the Outer Continental Shelf will have more planning flexibility, which will help them be more cost efficient, create more jobs and maximize the economic benefit for the entire nation.

The change was mandated by Congress with the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2017 that became law in March. BSEE set to amending its regulations in response, and a notice of the final rule, titledOil and Gas and Sulphur Operations on the Outer Continental Shelf Lease Continuation Through Operations,was published in the June 9 issue of the Federal Register.

The extension of time also affects related BSEE guidance documents, such as NTL No. 2008-N09, and unitization agreements that follow a BSEE-approved model, the bureau said in announcing the rule adoption. BSEE plans to revise the relevant notices to reflect the extension of the 180-day requirement to one year, and encourages parties with existing unit agreements to consider revising those agreements to reflect the change.

The lease time extension comes as Trump administration officials promised sweeping reform and streamlining of permit processes, to expedite new transportation and energy infrastructure projects. At the Department of Transportation in Washington, D.C. Friday, DOT Secretary Elaine Chao and Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke appeared with President Trump to talk about permit reform.

Its a new Interior, we want to be a partnerwe are about to embark on one of the largest reorganizations in department history, said Zinke, whose agency is also looking to revamp how it manages offshore energy. Were going to change that because America wants action.

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BSEE doubles offshore oil lease time limits to one year | WorkBoat - WorkBoat (blog)

The Piper Alpha disaster in the North Sea, UK, which killed 167 people in July 1988, is the deadliest offshore oil rig accident in history.

Discovered in 1973 and brought on stream in 1976, Piper Alpha was one of the biggest offshore oil platforms in the UK producing more than 300,000 barrels of crude a day (about ten percent of the country's total crude production). The offshore platform started producing gas in the early 1980s and had three main gas transport risers and an oil export riser before disaster struck, destroying the entire facility causing an estimated loss of $1.4bn.

The Piper Alpha disaster occurred due to gas leakage from one of the condensate pipes at the platform on 6 July 1988. The pressure safety valve of the corresponding condensate-injection pump was removed during the day as part the routine maintenance of the pump. The open condensate pipe was temporarily sealed with two blind flanges. The temporary disc cover, however, remained in place during shift-change in the evening as maintenance work was not complete. The condensate-injection pump was not supposed to be switched on under any circumstances.

Communication errors however led the night crew staff at the platform to turn on the pump after the other pump tripped. It resulted in leakage of gas condensate from the two blind flanges causing gas ignition and serial explosions on the platform. Only 61 out of the 226 workers survived the disaster and it took close to three weeks to control the fire.

At the time of the disaster the platform was managed by Occidental in block 15 of the UK Continental Shelf, about 120 miles north-east of Aberdeen.

The Alexander L. Kielland was a semi-submersible platform accommodating the workers of the bridge-linked Edda oil rig in the Ekofisk field, about 235 miles east of Dundee, Scotland, in the Norwegian continental Shelf. The Platform, operated by Phillips Petroleum, capsized in March 1980, killing 123 people.

Only 89 out of 212 workers survived the accident and most died by drowning as the platform turned upside down in deep waters. The platform capsized after the failure of one of the bracings attached to one leg of the five-legged platform structure, after strong winds created waves of up to 12m high on the day of the accident.

Once the first broke, all bracings attached to the leg failed in succession, the platform lost one of its five legs and the entire structure tilted 30 degrees. Five of the six anchor cables snapped but the platform was stabilised for some time by the remaining single cable, which ultimately snapped.

Official investigation concluded that the root cause of the accident was an undetected fatigue crack in the weld of an instrument connection on the bracing.

The Seacrest Drillship disaster in the South China Sea 430km south of Bangkok, Thailand, killed 91 crew men on the 3rd of November 1989. The 4,400t drillship was anchored for drilling at the Platong gas field owned and operated by Unocal. The drillship was capsized by the Typhoon Gay which produced 40ft high waves on the day of the accident.

The Seacrest drillship, also known as The Scan Queen, had been operational in the Gulf of Thailand since 1981 as a drill ship for Unocal. The drillship was reported missing on 4 November 1989 and only found floating upside-down by a search helicopter the next day. The capsize was believed to have occurred so quickly that there was no distress signal and no time for the crew members to respond to the disaster.

Just six out of the 97 crew members onboard were rescued by fishing boats and the Thai Navy. Apart from the severe weather condition the seaworthiness of the drillship was questioned as the likely cause for the tragedy.

The ship also had 12,500ft of drill-pipe in its derrick, which was believed to have resulted in a unstable high centre of gravity.

The Ocean Ranger oil drilling rig disaster which occurred in the North Atlantic Sea off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada, on 15 February 1982 is one of the deadliest offshore oil rig accidents in history. The offshore oil drilling capsized and sank killing 84 crew members onboard.

The semi-submersible mobile offshore drilling rig owned by Ocean Drilling and Exploration Company (ODECO) was hired by Mobil Oil of Canada for drilling exploration well at Hibernia field at the time of accident. One of the biggest rigs built by then, the 25,000t rig was 396ft long, 262ft wide and 337ft tall, with the capacity to operate 1,500ft beneath water and drill up to a depth of 25,000ft below the seabed.

The rig was capsized due to a very strong storm which produced 190km/h winds and up to 65ft (20m) high waves. On 14 February 1982, it was reported that a porthole window had broken and water had entered into the ballast control room of the Ocean Ranger. The ballast control panel was noticed to be malfunctioning two hours later.

Crew workers abandoned the rig and moved into the lifeboat stations but only one lifeboat with 36 crew members inside could be launched successfully. At least 20 crew were reported to be in the water before the rig sank between 3:07am and 3:13am after staying afloat for about one and half hours. Out of the 84 workers who drowned, 46 were Mobil Oil employees.

The Glomar Java Sea Drillship disaster which took place on 25 October 1983 in the South China Sea caused the death of 81 people when the drillship capsized and sank at depth of 317ft about 63 nautical miles south-west of Hainan Island, China, 80 nautical miles east of Vietnam.

The 5,930t Glomar Java Sea drillship was built by the Levingston Shipbuilding Company of Orange, Texas, in 1975 and delivered to Global Marine. The 400ft long drillship was contracted to ARCO China at the time of the disaster. The vessel had performed drilling for ARCO in the Gulf of Mexico between 1975 and 1881, and operated off the coast of California for some time before its arrival in the South China Sea in January 1983.

Operations ceased prior to the arrival of tropical Storm Lex as it approached from the east of the drilling site. Global Marine's office in Houston, Texas, reported that the drillship was experiencing 75kt (138.9km/h) winds over the bow, but the contact was abruptly lost.

No survivors were found in the extensive search operation conducted thereafter. The wrecked drillship was found in an inverted position 1,600ft south-west of the drilling site. Only 36 bodies were found, and the remaining 45 crew members were presumed dead.

The Bohai 2 oil rig disaster in the Gulf of Bohai off the coast of China in November 1979 is the sixth most fatal offshore oil rig disaster. It caused the death of 72 out of 76 people on board as the Bohai 2 jack-up rig capsized and toppled in the sea water.

The accident was caused by a storm which occurred while the rig was being towed. Fierce winds broke the ventilator pump of the platform causing a puncture hole in the deck resulting in extensive flooding.

The loss of stability due to flooding coupled with severe weather conditions eventually led to the capsizing of the jack-up. The accompanying tow boat could not rescue the crew members, who were also believed to lack proper training on emergency evacuation procedures and the use of lifesaving equipment.

The post-disaster investigations reported a failure in correctly stowing the deck equipment prior to towing. It was also reported that standard tow procedures were not followed given the bad weather conditions. The sunken jack-up rig was eventually salvaged with explosives by the Yantai Salvage Company in April 1981.

The Enchova Central Platform disaster in the Campos Basin near Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, killed 42 people in August 1984. The accident occurred due to a blowout which caused a fire and explosion at the central platform of the Enchova field operated by Petrobras.

Most of the workers were evacuated from the platform by lifeboats and helicopter except for 42 workers who lost their lives during the evacuation process. Malfunctioning of the lowering mechanism of a lifeboat caused the death of 36, while six died as they jumped from the platform into the sea. The lifeboat remained vertically suspended because of the failure of the bow hook and eventually fell 20m deep into the sea as its supporting cables snapped.

Another disaster struck the Enchova platform on 24 April 1988 as one of its 21 wells blew out and eventually ignited. The well suffered a blow out while undergoing a work-over to convert it from oil production to gas production. The fire caused by the blowout on the platform led to massive damage topside, however all the workers were safely evacuated to the nearby floating accommodation ship without a single casualty.

The platform remained on fire for a month and Petrobras eventually drilled two relief wells to control the blowout. The platform was declared a total loss and replaced by a new facility that commenced production nearly 18 months after the accident.

The Mumbai High North disaster on 27 July 2005 in the Arabian Sea, around 160km west of the Mumbai coast, killed 22 people. Mumbai High North, one of the producing platforms of the Mumbai High field owned and operated by India's state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), caught fire after a collision with the multipurpose support vessel (MSV) Samudra Suraksha.

Strong swells, pushed the MSV towards the platform hitting the rear part of the vessel causing rupture of one or more of the platform's gas export risers.

The resultant gas leakage led to ignition that set the platform on fire. Heat radiation also caused damage to the MSV and the Noble Charlie Yester jack-up rig engaged in drilling operation near the platform.

The accident caused significant oil spill and a production loss of about 120,000 barrels of oil and about 4.4 million cubic metres of gas a day. ONGC opened a new platform at Mumbai High North in October 2012.

The Usumacinta Jack-up disaster, which occurred on the 23rd of October 2007 in the Gulf of Mexico, claimed 22 lives after a collision with the PEMEX-operated Kab-101 platform in the Bay of Campeche.

The Usumacinta Jack-up was positioned alongside the Kab-101 platform to complete drilling of the Kab-103 well. A storm with winds of 130km/h and up to 8m of waves created an oscillating movement, which eventually caused its cantilever deck to hit the production valve tree on the Kab-101 platform.

The collision resulted in oil and gas leakage leading to the closure of the safety valves of two production wells at the platform. The crew members were, however, unable to seal the valves completely, which resulted in continued leakage of oil and gas which eventually ignited causing fires on the platform. 21 people were declared to have died during the evacuation and one worker missing in the rescue operation was presumed dead.

The Usumacinta Jack-up also suffered two more fire breakouts in the month the followed, during well control operations. The fire was, however, extinguished without any loss of life and complete control of the well was achieved by the middle of December 2007. Approximately 5,000 barrels of oil was reported to have lost from the well without being recovered.

The C.P. Baker Drilling Barge disaster in the Gulf of Mexico on 30 June 1964 resulted in the death of 21 people and injured 22 after fires and a explosion occurred on the drilling barge.

C.P. Baker Drilling Barge constructed Reading & Bates in 1962 was deployed for drilling operation for Pan American Petroleum Corporation in block 273 in Eugene Island, Gulf of Mexico, at the time of the accident.

The two 260ft long hulls suffered a blowout on morning of 30 June 1964. Water gushed into the vessel through open doors on the main deck and the barge lost electric power soon thereafter.

The entire drilling barge was engulfed with fire and explosion just minutes of noticing the blow out. Only 22 out of the total 43 crew on board survived the disaster, most of which saved their lives by jumping from the port bow. The vessel sank upside-down in the water after heeling aft for around 30 minutes. The rescue operation confirmed eight as dead and 13 crew missing who were presumed dead.

Elgin and Franklin lie in the UK North Sea's Central Graben, approximately 240km east of Aberdeen and in water 93m deep.

Considered one of BP's most technically challenging projects ever, the Atlantis platform is the deepest moored floating dual oil and gas production facility in the world.

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The world's worst offshore oil rig disasters - Offshore ...

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Saqib Rahim, E&E News reporter

Gov. Chris Christie signed the Offshore Wind Economic Development Act in August 2010. The policies were never enacted. Office of Information Technologies/State of New Jersey

When five wind turbines went live off the Rhode Island coast last December, it left some in New Jersey envious.

Not that long ago, they were supposed to be first.

On a cloudless August day in 2010, Gov. Chris Christie (R) visited the southern port of Paulsboro, N.J. He was there to sign the Offshore Wind Economic Development Act, which aimed to support at least 1.1 gigawatts of turbines off the state's coast, using an innovative tool called an offshore wind renewable energy certificate (OREC). New Jersey, with its bounteous wind, shallow water and prime spot on the grid, would build the United States' first offshore wind project and become the hub of a new industry.

But the policies never bore fruit. Democrats and offshore wind supporters say Christie got a taste of national politics and went sour on renewable energy. State regulators say they never saw a project worth approving.

Today, New Jersey has no offshore wind. Last year, Rhode Island switched on the United States' first-ever project. And Maryland, Massachusetts and New York enacted policies that could build 4 to 5 GW off the Atlantic coast. One megawatt of offshore wind can power 400 to 500 households, according to state estimates.

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In Jersey, seven years have left a bitter taste all around, and now offshore wind advocates are just waiting out Christie's last term. The primaries wrapped up this week both candidates support offshore wind and the election is in November.

"This has been sitting here for seven years, ready to go forward. It's just been sitting there. All the pieces are in place," said state Sen. Stephen Sweeney (D), president of the New Jersey Senate and a former steelworker, whose district includes Paulsboro. "As soon as a new governor comes in, the ORECs will be done."

Richard Mroz, whom Christie named president of the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities in 2014, said the truth is more banal: BPU has been finalizing its regulations, and they're ready.

"Anybody that says this has something to do with the fact that we just don't like offshore wind, or just make accusations like that, I take issue with that because the record speaks for itself," he said. "When an application's made here, we'll deal with that."

Offshore wind has always been an expensive proposition. But over the last decade, scale-ups in Europe have made it a commercially plausible one. In the United Kingdom, the cost of power from offshore wind has fallen by a third in the last five years, according to S&P Global Ratings. Last year, Germany approved a 480-MW installation that its developer, Dong Energy, says will require no subsidy. The industry is forecasting further cost reductions, driven by scale.

Block Island, America's first offshore wind farm, started producing power off Rhode Island's coast in December. Deepwater Wind LLC

So 2010 was a long time ago, in offshore wind terms. In political terms, it was a lifetime ago.

Christie, then a former prosecutor running against then-Gov. Jon Corzine (D), vowed to become New Jersey's "No. 1 clean energy advocate."

"There's no doubt that renewable energy is our future here in New Jersey, and there is really no better time for us to begin the discussion of not only how it will lead us to energy independence, but also how it will help create more good-paying middle-class jobs for New Jerseyans," he said in a 2009 campaign ad. "It's a change that President Obama stands firmly behind. I couldn't agree more."

Christie won the election, and in April 2010, he laid out a renewable energy strategy focused on energy independence for the state. "Home grown sources must include wind and solar, particularly off-shore wind," he said in a statement.

Offshore wind was still immature and expensive, even in Europe, and Cape Wind's misadventures in Massachusetts were understood. But its partisans said New Jersey had optimal conditions to make it work: strong, steady winds, high power prices, and shallow water that would be cheaper to build in.

Also of import: a port. Paulsboro, wedged up the Delaware River across from Philadelphia, had a century-old oil terminal that needed something new to do. Like most of the state, the area was hemorrhaging jobs. Sweeney, the area's senator, had helped launch a quarter-billion-dollar renovation of the facility. He had offshore wind in his sights.

"Offshore wind is great, with the manufacturing, assembling of the components, you need a big location to do that," he said. "Whoever has the location's going to be able to capture the manufacturing."

The trick was making the money work. If offshore wind was a premium product, the premium had to be worth it.

The bill Christie signed in August 2010 was meant to deliver. It directed the BPU to create an OREC subsidy that brought offshore wind into the state's energy portfolio at least 1,100 MW worth. To attract manufacturing, it extended up to $100 million in tax credits for supply-chain businesses.

To be considered, though, a project had to prove its "net economic benefit": that it created jobs or economic activity that justified the cost.

In October 2010, Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno (R) courted offshore wind business at a conference in Atlantic City.

"We have the richest package of incentives, the smartest population of workers, the best climate and the political will to get you here on time and on budget," she said, according to the Courier-Post, a regional newspaper. "We need your business, and we will fight for it." She gave the audience her cellphone number.

In May 2011, state regulators received an application for the state's first project. An in-state company called Fishermen's Energy wanted to build a six-turbine, 24-MW installation about 3 miles off Atlantic City, in state waters.

That would be quite visible from shore. But Atlantic City wasn't Cape Cod; it was a depressed casino town desperate for any economic spark. Even the local fishing community supported it.

But the $200-million-plus project needed money, and to get that, it needed ORECs.

"At the time, it made perfect sense," said David Roncinske, a representative with Wharf and Dock Builders, Pile Drivers, and Divers Local Union 179, whose members would have been called in on the project. "Let's do a small project first to get our feet wet, and then we'll go utility-scale."

Fishermen's Energy said it could have the turbines built within two years of approval.

"Atlantic City has always embraced the new, the unique, the unusual," said Paul Gallagher, a former prosecutor in the city and onetime chief operating officer and general counsel for Fishermen's Energy. "They were quite excited to have wind turbines offshore."

In June 2011, according to a report by the left-wing magazine Mother Jones, Christie took a secret day trip to Colorado. He'd been invited to speak at the Koch retreat, an annual gathering of conservative power players headed up by two of the most powerful men in the energy world: Charles and David Koch.

Christie's anecdotes and gibes had the audience in stitches, according to leaked audio of the speech. He told the story of how a Republican governor had forced a blue state to reckon with its fiscally wasteful ways.

President Obama hadn't woken up to reality, he said.

"This is not hard," he said. "We spend too much. We borrow too much. We tax too much. It is time to turn those three things around."

Within just a few months of signing the offshore wind bill in Paulsboro, Christie had become a darling of the national small-government movement. In October 2010, he'd drawn national attention for rejecting a federally supported transit tunnel to Manhattan. In May 2011, he pulled New Jersey out of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. News reports suggested he had met with the Kochs and Republican donors, as the GOP scouted for someone to challenge Obama in 2012.

In the end, Christie was never nominated. But looking back, offshore wind supporters said, that's when the political will behind their issue vanished.

"Truth be told, there was a lot of disagreement internally on both sides" among members of the wind industry as well as the government, said one longtime observer who asked not to be identified. "If there was a strong desire by leadership to get it done over the last seven years, it would be done."

The issue was this: Technically, the ORECs still didn't exist. Christie had signed a bill directing BPU to develop them; it hadn't. Wind advocates say that effectively left the state with no subsidy for the technology. (The BPU disputed that, saying it moved the regulations through a special process and that it wrapped up in 2013.)

"The Christie Administration remains supportive of offshore wind development," the governor said in a June 2011 energy "master plan." "New Jersey may be one of the first states to support the construction of one or more offshore wind facilities, but it must not rush headlong into long-term contracts between offshore wind developers and [utilities] until the State has determined there are net economic benefits realizable through this promising technology."

Fishermen's Energy had friends and foes in New Jersey, but now it was facing much tougher conditions. The company couldn't submit an application that satisfied regulators.

The company wanted to keep its options open for a turbine supplier; the BPU asked them to pick one. The company said the cost of the project would fall if it successfully received $100 million in federal support; BPU said, If. The project shrank from six turbines to five.

The process drew out for three years. Gallagher said BPU stopped returning Fishermen's calls.

"If you don't want to get to yes, there's no reason to talk to your adversary," Gallagher said.

BPU issued its final denial for Fishermen's in March 2014. Mroz, the BPU president, stood by the decision. "The Fishermen's Energy application was deficient for several reasons," he said. "The project really did not present either what was necessary, and on the finances did not sufficiently quantify what the costs would be."

Fishermen's legal appeals failed, and it couldn't find another way to finance the project. Its president left this year for a German offshore wind company. Gallagher is looking to liquidate the assets.

"The truth is, we just ran out of time and money, although it's still fully permitted. In the right environment, we could begin construction tomorrow, pretty much," Gallagher said. "It's a missed opportunity. It's a shame."

In the end it was a U.S. company, Deepwater Wind LLC, that brought offshore wind to the United States. The company found a sleepy community off the Rhode Island coast that had been importing diesel by ship. The 30-MW project, first proposed in 2008, uses turbines made by General Electric Co.

Thirty MW isn't exactly a power plant, and $290 million isn't cheap, and 10 years is a hell of a timeline. But to wind builders, it's proof: You can put actual steel in actual water, if policy, community support and a business case all coalesce.

Other states want to build at full scale.

The governors of Massachusetts and New York have made separate commitments that amount to 4,000 MW of offshore wind by 2030. Maryland based its OREC policy on New Jersey's, and last month it awarded 368 MW worth. Regulators said Maryland seeks to be the "first mover" and manufacturing hub of the industry (Energywire, May 18).

That last one stung Sweeney, the senator representing Paulsboro. He hopes New Jersey can grab a piece of the pie.

"Offshore wind's great, but I want the jobs. I want the full-time, permanent jobs," he said. "I want to capture every penny of it. ... I'm on the water, and I've got a brand-new port."

Developers haven't given up on Jersey. Dong, the Danish giant, still holds an area that it said could host over 1,000 MW of wind. U.S. Wind Inc., one of the Maryland awardees, has a lease it believes could host over 1,500 MW.

The gubernatorial primaries were held on Tuesday. Guadagno, Christie's lieutenant governor, won the Republican nomination; in a May debate, according to the Newark Star-Ledger, she was quoted as saying, "We could be the first offshore wind-turbine producer from soup to nuts." Phil Murphy, who will represent Democrats, has proposed building 3,500 MW of offshore wind by 2030, which would be the largest commitment by any state so far.

Dong and U.S. Wind are doing preliminary studies on their acreage. Paul Rich, director of project development at U.S. Wind, imagined New Jersey could have the ORECs "in play hopefully sometime next year."

"We're not doing anything new than what they did in Europe. It's not like we have to invent something here," he said. "A lot of lessons have been learned, and a lot of lessons have been adopted by us."

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How NJ lost its lead on offshore wind - E&E News

IHC IQIP has developed a new crane tool for contractors working in the offshore wind sector that aims to reduce costs and increase efficiency.

The company said the combi lifting spread reduces crane movements by over 50% when lifting multiple pieces of equipment.

This is because socket connection clamps within the lifting connector allow for easy connections with different pieces of installation equipment, it said

The crane also reduces the amount of time needed to manually connectthe slings between the crane and the installation equipment, IHC IQIP said.

IHC IQIP technical account manager Henk van Vessem said typical offshore cranes have a set of slings to connect to equipment that requires the main hook to be lowered to deck level to connect and disconnect the slings.

This requires manpower and time and it also generates considerable wear to the crane sheaves and wires making the project more costly, he said.

We wanted to find a way to reduce the crane movements and thus speed up the installation process.

Image: reNEWS

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Dutch lift for offshore - reNews

The U.S. is new to offshore wind turbines. As recently as 2016, the country's first commercial wind farm went live, and the governmentapproved 11 commercial leasesfor farms along the Atlantic Coast.

But there are potential dangers.

Because forecasters predict a busier-than-usual Atlantic hurricane season, scientists wonder if these turbines can weather the weather. Researchers think half of all new turbines in risky areas willbe destroyed20 years after they're built.

A new studyconcluded wind speeds for Category 5 hurricanes could average 90 meters per second. If that's right, offshore turbines might be toast.

SEE MORE: Some Coal Miners In Wyoming Might Soon Be Farming Wind Instead

International standards suggest turbines should withstand speeds of 50 meters per second but that only accounts for hurricanes up to Category 2.

The study's authors said manufacturers should keep these results in mind when designing turbines.

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Offshore Wind Turbines May Not Be Tough Enough To Endure Mother Nature - ABC2 News

NCAR scientist George Bryan is a co-author of a new study appearing in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. The following is an excerpt from a news release by the University of Colorado Boulder.

Offshore wind turbines built according to current standards may not be able to withstand the powerful gusts of a Category 5 hurricane, creating potential risk for any such turbines built in hurricane-prone areas, new University of Colorado Boulder-led research shows.

The study, which was conducted in collaboration with theNational Center for Atmospheric Researchin Boulder, Colorado,and the U.S. Department of EnergysNational Renewable Energy Laboratoryin Golden, Colorado, highlights the limitations of current turbine design and could provide guidance for manufacturers and engineers looking to build more hurricane-resilient turbines in the future.

Offshore wind-energy development in the U.S. has ramped up in recent years, with projects either under consideration or already underway in most Atlantic coastal states from Maine to the Carolinas, as well as the West Coast and Great Lakes. The countrys first utility-scale offshore wind farm, consisting of five turbines, began commercial operation in December 2016 off the coast of Rhode Island.

Turbine design standards are governed by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). For offshore turbines, no specific guidelines for hurricane-force winds exist. Offshore turbines can be built larger than land-based turbines, however, owing to a manufacturers ability to transport larger molded components such as blades via freighter rather than over land by rail or truck.

Read the full news release.

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Offshore wind turbines vulnerable to Category 5 hurricane gusts - UCAR

DUBAI, June 9 Qatar's riyal fell further against the U.S. dollar in the offshore forwards market early on Friday because of concern about capital outflows due to the diplomatic crisis hitting the country.

One-year dollar/riyal forwards rose as high as 630 points, their highest level since December 2015, when a plunge of oil and gas prices caused concern about the viability of Gulf economies. In that month, the forwards peaked at 650 points.

Five-year Qatar credit default swaps, used to hedge against the risk of a Qatari sovereign debt default, rose to 93.6 points from 90.1 late on Thursday. (Reporting by Andrew Torchia; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

TORONTO, June 9 The foreign exchange options market is showing much less risk of a sharp drop in the Canadian dollar than before last November's U.S. election, which could spell bad news for speculators who have heavily shorted the underperforming currency.

By Bruno Federowski SAO PAULO, June 9 Yields paid on Brazilian interest-rate future contracts slipped on Friday after annual inflation dipped to a 10-year low, spurring bets that the central bank would likely cut rates sharply next month. Rate-future yields reflected the perception of a nearly 90 percent probability that the bank would lower the benchmark Selic rate by 75 basis points to 9.5 percent at its July monetary policy meeting. Many investors unwound bets on

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Qatar riyal falls further versus dollar in offshore forwards market - Reuters

The study, carried out by Xodus Group, an engineering consultancy with experience in the oil and gas, utilities, and renewable industries, concluded that there are a range of technically feasible options available to develop an offshore wind project off the coast of Guernsey. However, it also cautioned that due to higher costs, the majority of the project should be funded by the States of Guernsey to secure the lowest cost of finance.

Amongst the reports other findings were:

The current preferred site is offshore towards the 12nm boundary. This location is in relatively deep water and most suited to the new floating wind turbine structures;

The lowest cost site is likely to be in the shallow waters off the north coast (or any coastal site). However, this near shore location may have visual and other human impact.

Consideration should be given to pursuing an extended wave and wind data gathering programme that could be relatively low cost but high value for the future.

According to Xodus, the States of Guernsey Renewable Energy Team have been progressing the recommendations following receipt of the report.

Peter Barnes, Lead Officer for the Renewable Energy Team, said Wind technology is continuing to mature and will offer increased levels of security and independence of supply. Guernsey is well positioned to benefit from those developments.

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Study concludes that offshore wind viable in several Guernsey locations - Renewable Energy Focus

Building wind farms in the ocean is still more expensive than building them on land. But maybe not for much longer.

A new report from McKinseyfinds that fast growth, increased investment, bigger wind farms, falling costs and new technologies are driving new project bids to record lows in Europe.

Late last year, the Netherlands approved a bid for its cheapest offshore project yet, 54.50 ($61.10) per megawatt-hour, a sharp drop from the 72.70 ($81.50) per megawatt-hour bid for the same site just five months earlier. Denmark set its own record in a November auction, with a winning bid of 49.90 ($55.94) per megawatt-hour, down 50 percent from 2014.

Some of these bids are coming in at grid parity prices as well. In a German auction in April, the average winning bid for the projects was far below expectations, with some bids coming in at the wholesale electricity price -- meaning no subsidy is required.

One caveat: these are prices, not actual costs, McKinsey noted. Until the parks are actually built and running, it is impossible to know if they can be profitable at these prices. But companies would not be competing so fiercely -- the Dutch auction saw 38 bids -- if they didnt think they could be.

Offshore wind still costs about 40 percent more than onshore wind and 20 percent more than solar PV on a levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) basis -- about 120 to 130 per megawatt-hour for 2016 projects, according to McKinsey.

But because offshore wind is at an earlier stage of development, its prices can be expected to fall further, faster, thus improving its competitive position. Indeed, McKinseys normalized wind farm data, which creates comparable figures for different sites based on water depth, site preparation, subsidies and other factors, shows how a combination of improvements could lead to projects in 2020 coming in at costs 68 percent below 2010 figures, as the following chart indicates.

Bigger turbines are a big deal, driving much of the cost reductions. Just last week, Vestas released its 9.5-megawatt offshore turbine, two to three times bigger than the standard turbines from only a few years ago By 2024, 13- to 15-megawatt models will likely hit the market, McKinsey predicts.

Improved logistics and operations and maintenance could translate into savings of as much as 10 per megawatt-hour in LCOE. Some of this involves a degree of cooperation across operators in sharing crew transfer vessels, helicopters and jack-up barges -- specialized vessels with steel support legs that can be lowered to the sea floor to give them stability to lift heavy turbines. But improved operations start with the relentless application of advanced analytics to improve predictive maintenance, condition monitoring, and component replacement, McKinsey noted.

Contracting and procurement could add another to 5 to 10 percent in cost savings, a figure thats actually being exceeded by the more adept wind farm developers today, McKinsey noted. At several companies, this rigorous purchasing approach has translated into 15 to 20 percent price reductions in the procurement of turbines. Improving project execution could cut costs by another 3 to 5 percent, and as for financing, each percentage-point decrease in the cost of capital brings a 5 to 10 percent improvement in LCOE for renewables.

Europe holds 90 percent of the worlds offshore wind capacity, giving it a maturing supply chain, a high level of expertise, and strong competition, the report notes. This European expertise is now being applied to other markets such as the United States and Asia, with the promise of cheaper and better-planned and -executed projects driving increased investor interest and government support.

In the U.S., the countrys first offshore wind project in Massachusetts is finally moving ahead, and the state has a goal of 1.6 gigawatts of offshore wind in the next decade. New York's first offshore wind push will be a90-megawatt project30 miles southeast of Long Island, and the state wants to add up to as much as 800 megawatts of capacity -- a process that kicked off with Statoil's win of a development area off New York's coast for $42 million in December.

In Asia, China has made offshore wind part of its five-year energy plan, and Korea and Taiwan are also considering offshore wind as part of their future energy mix, the report noted. Although in some areas of the world, the LCOE of offshore wind may never become at par with, say, solar PV, the value it can bring -- as less-intermittent baseload power generation near urban demand centers, offsetting supply deficits from solar PV in winter -- can make it a valuable addition to the energy mix.

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Offshore Wind Reaches Cost-Competitiveness Without Subsidies - Greentech Media