Whether you’re attending an event in Moscow, or London, or Paris, or Aberdeen, or Oslo – or where ever you might be right now – we hope you can find a bit of quiet time to browse a few of the articles we’ve pulled together in this issue.

Closest to home for us is Nor-Shipping, and we’re privileged to include a letter from Marianne Lie, Director of the Norwegian Shipowners’ Association, who describes the NSA’s contribution to NCS offshore oil and gas activities.

Also from the NSA, we have an interview with Lars Christian Alsvik a new director in charge of the association’s commitments in the High North, environment and HSE – an appointment that demonstrates the NSA’s continuing commitment to security and environmental issues. Mr. Alsvik comes to the NSA from Norsk Hydro, so his observations are especially interesting from an oil and gas industry perspective.

As part of the events leading up to Nor-Shipping, a representative from the magazine attended a tour from Norway’s far north to Murmansk, Russia. The resulting article provides insight not only into the future of shipping in the Barents Sea (especially when it comes to LNG), but reveals how the giant Shtokman gas field has grabbed the imagination.

But Shtokman is only part of the huge Russian oil and gas story. We have a report from the Petroleum Services at Deloitte & Touche that sheds light on how the future of Russian offshore oil and gas may turn out.
When it comes to foretelling the future of prospective fields, it can’t be crossed fingers and guess work. We have several contributions that describe how geologic surveys (in up to four dimensions) ensure exploration success.

EMGS explains how seabed-logging technology is a game-changer that’s revolutionising exploration performance. An electromagnetic (EM) method of locating offshore hydrocarbon reservoirs, read how this innovative technology – first commercially applied November 2002 – has been readily adopted.

Collecting seismic data in the marine environment, as described by EPI, has evolved since the mid 1990s in the North Sea to time-lapse or four-dimensional (4D) in order to monitor changes over time.

Offshore drilling and production is another focus in this issue. From GustoMSC, we hear about how the company has developed concepts for self-installing and re-usable production jack-ups or mobile production units (MOPUs) for the production market – all based on field-proven designs.

While traditional floater types have been ship-shaped FPSOs, semisubmersibles, TLPs and SPARs, Sevan Marine’s novel cylinder shaped design is well worth reading about.

Preset moorings for mobile offshore drilling units (MODUs) have been increasingly used in the offshore oil and gas industry, and we hear from InterMoor and Trident Offshore about why this strategy has proven successful.
And this is only a part of what’s here. Hope you have enough quiet time to go around.