Highlights of the Week

Subsea World News has put together a recap of the most interesting articles from the previous week (December 22 – December 28).

Royal IHC launched Subsea 7’s latest pipelay vessel SEVEN SUN, on friday 19th december 2014 at its shipyard in Kinderdijk, the Netherlands.

Seven Sun is the third of four vessels Subsea 7 has ordered to operate for Petrobras offshore Brazil.

Recently in November, IHC successfully launched Subsea 7’s 550t pipelaying vessel, SEVEN RIO, at its shipyard in Krimpen aan den IJssel, The Netherlands. The naming ceremony was carried out by Anelise Lara, Petrobras Executive Manager for the Libra Project.

Sub-Atlantic has secured three international contracts with a combined value of over £3.5 million for the manufacture of three specialist remotely operated vehicles (ROVs).

The firm will provide IKM Subsea in Norway, Italy’s Globe Exploration and Total Marine Technology of Australia with observation class vehicles that are widely used across the offshore energy and defence industries.

Belgian students paid a visit to Uljanik shipyard in Croatia and witnessed the construction process of Jan de Nul’s multipurpose vessel ‘Isaac Newton’.

The vessel with deadweight of 10,500 tonnes and a total length of 138 m is currently under construction in Pula and it’s expected to be delivered mid-2015. It will be a trenching and offshore support vessel, a subsea rock installation vessel and a cable laying vessel.

Oslo-listed seismic player Petroleum Geo-Services (PGS) said it expects lower earnings for this year and a further decline in profits in 2015 due to drop in oil prices and exploration cost cuts by the offshore oil companies.

The company expects its EBITDA to be around $700 million for the year 2014 while setting up a 2015 guidance somewhere in between of $550 and $700 million. In order to cut costs the company also announced that it will be postponing the deliveries of its newbuild seismic vessels Ramform Tethys and Ramform Hyperion.

Subsea pile driving specialist MENCK, an Acteon company, is providing the largest and most powerful hydraulic hammer in the world to assist Bilfinger Marine & Offshore Systems with the installation of sub-sea foundations for Project Sandbank, a new 72 turbine strong wind farm in the North Sea.

Known as the ‘Gentle Giant’, the MENCK MHU 3500S hydraulic hammer exerts a massive 6.2kJ per tonne of weight, with a pile sleeve that is 6,5m in diameter.