Commentary, 5/6 2011Aug 15, 2011 Ever Deeper
As oil prospecting developed into an industry in the latter half of the nineteenth century, drilling in coastal fresh and salt waters was performed by means of landfill or piers, eventually making use of barges. But it wasn’t until the late 1940s that the oil industry truly moved offshore, drilling out of the sight of land in the shallow waters of the Gulf of Mexico off Louisiana’s coast.
From the Editor… 5/6 2011Aug 15, 2011 Leveraging Innovation
As we prepare to attend the Underwater Technology Conference – UTC 2011 – in Bergen, we’ve found it useful to keep in mind that a significant aspect of the event will be to examine how operators and suppliers can leverage the continuous innovation that’s taking place on the Norwegian Continental Shelf, the North Sea and other oil provinces around the world.
The Wind in Subsea’s WaveAug 15, 2011 Signs of fresh markets can be as subtle as a job ad. Wanted: “cable specialist, offshore wind power,” says the ad from Statkraft, Statoil’s partner in the Forwind consortium – one of many offshore consortia surrounding Britain with thousands of wind turbines. While wind is subsea’s fastest growth market, it isn’t its only expanding business area. For growth elsewhere see the barometer “subsea shipping”.
By William Stoichevski.
The Electric Work Class ROV Comes of AgeAug 15, 2011 As offshore oil and gas developments move into deeper waters and harsher environments, demand is growing for innovative subsea solutions that not only deliver greater reliability and performance but also address the need to protect the environment. AAK Subsea is focused on meeting these challenges with the commercial introduction of its 200-horsepower ELSUB electric work class ROV.
Subsea FutureAug 15, 2011 The research project “A Knowledge-Based Norway” concludes that the oil and gas industry is by far the most important in Norway. In 2008 the value creation from this industry was 1/3 of the Norwegian GNP. In the subsea industry, each employee contributes an average value creation of 2 million NOK per year. According to The Norwegian Oil Industry Association (OLF), in 2009, the oil and gas industry contributed with close to 50% of all Norwegian exports.
By Trond Olsen.
Media: My Favourite iPad Apps Right NowAug 15, 2011 As I write this, the Apple iPad 2 is unavailable in Norway due to huge demand, and tablets and e-readers are firmly established as mainstream products. When Apple launched the iPad 2 in March this year, they cleared one million in sales in the first weekend alone. The first version of iPad sold 15 million units in less than a year, and Samsung announced in April that their Galaxy Tab had sold 6 million units. Tablets are here to stay, and we can expect a lot of Windows-based versions to come soon. In the meantime, I am going to focus on Apple’s tablet wonder, and here is a list of my 20 favourite apps for the iPad right now, 10 for work and 10 for play (some are sort of both, but bear with me).
By Erlend Gram Simonsen.
