Daily Archives: April 19, 2017

Offshore Drilling Blowout Preventer - WSJ Wall Street Journal (subscription) President Trump is filling out his Administration, but too slowly, and an offshore drilling proposal shows why having personnel to mind the store is so important. and more »

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Offshore Drilling Blowout Preventer - WSJ - Wall Street Journal (subscription)

April 19th, 2017 Jason Jiang Greater China, Offshore 0 comments

Haiying Enterprise, a subsidiary of China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC) and an ultrasound scanner manufacturer, has signed an agreement with Tongguang Cable Group, Jiangsu Tongguang Marine Opto-electronic Technology and Beijing Minghua Xinda to establish an offshore engineering joint venture.

The new joint venture Zhongchuan Offshore Company will mainly engage in the businesses of offshore EPC and maintenance, offshore engineering technology, subsea engineering technology and offshore equipment leasing.

Haiying Enterprise, Tongguang Cable Group, Jiangsu Tongguang Marine Opto-electronic Technology and Beijing Minghua Xinda will invest RMB41m ($5.95m), RMB29m, RMB20m and RMB10m to get 41%, 29%, 20% and 10% equity shares in the joint venture respectively.

Liu Yu, general manager of Haiying Enterprise said the joint venture will meet the demands from Chinas offshore development strategy under the One Belt and One Road initiative and will promote the development of the offshore engineering industry.

Jason Jiang

Jason worked for a number of logistics firms following his English degree, then switched this hands-on experience to writing and has since become one the most prolific writers on the diverse China logistics industry writing for a host of titles including Supply Chain Asia, Cargo Facts and Air Cargo Week. Jasons access to the biggest shippers with business in China has proved an invaluable source of exclusives.

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CSSC subsidiary sets up offshore engineering JV - Splash 247

John Antczak, Associated Press 3:09 p.m. PT April 18, 2017

This undated photo provided by the California State Lands Commission shows Platform Holly, an oil drilling rig in the Santa Barbara Channel offshore of the city of Goleta, Calif. The platform will be decommissioned and its operator is seeking bankruptcy protection, nearly two years after the platform was idled when an onshore pipeline ruptured and spilled a massive amount of oil into the ocean, the state and Venoco LLC said Monday, April 17, 2017.(Photo: State Lands Commission via AP)

LOS ANGELES (AP) A Southern California offshore oil platform will be decommissioned and its operator is seeking bankruptcy protection, nearly two years after the platform was idled when an onshore pipeline ruptured and spilled a massive amount of oil into the ocean, the state and company said Monday.

The State Lands Commission said it received documents from Venoco LLC relinquishing rights to the South Ellwood oil field leases in the Santa Barbara Channel northwest of Los Angeles, including Platform Holly and a pier in the city of Goleta.

Platform Holly has not produced since May 19, 2015, when an onshore, underground line owned by Plains All American Pipeline spilled more than 120,000 gallons of crude into the ocean. The line, which transported oil produced by Holly, remains shut down and there is no estimate for when it might reopen.

Denver-based Venoco, which acquired the leases in 1997 from ExxonMobil, simultaneously announced it has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and expects its assets to be sold. Most are in Southern California, except for an onshore field in Texas.

"Today's filing is the result of unfortunate circumstances impacting the company's financial strength, including the ongoing closure of Plains All American Pipeline's Line 901," Mike Wracher, Venoco's chief operating officer, said in a statement.

He added: "We have pursued a number of market-based and regulatory solutions to address these challenges during the last year. Despite these considerable efforts, our financial position now compels us to take this action."

Venoco had been seeking to restructure as recently as last summer to eliminate $1 billion of debt, but said at the time that low price oil prices and the Line 901 shutdown were serious problems.

The State Lands Commission said the relinquishment of claims to the leases effectively ends commercial oil and gas production in state waters at that location in the Santa Barbara Channel and leaves about 85 million barrels of oil in the ground. New offshore oil and gas leases are prohibited by California's Coastal Sanctuary Act.

The decommissioning of Platform Holly is a "landmark in the evolution of California's energy portfolio," Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, the commission's chairman, said in a statement.

"As President Trump voices his determination to expand oil drilling and twentieth-century energy policies, California is pioneering the sustainable alternative that protects our coastlines and environment while gaining a strong foothold in the future energy and global economy," it said.

Platform Holly stands a few miles off the south Santa Barbara County's coast, part of a series of oil platforms in waters between the mainland and the Channel Islands.

The decommissioning decision was celebrated by people who have been working to get rid of offshore drilling since the 1969 blowout of a Union Oil Co. platform in the Santa Barbara Channel fouled 30 miles of beaches, killed thousands of birds and other sea life, and gave rise to the American environmental movement.

"This marks the end of an era of offshore oil production in this location, and we will never again go back," said state Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson, D-Santa Barbara.

The commission said it will develop a plan for the costly process of plugging 32 wells in the South Ellwood Field, removing Platform Holly and decommissioning the Goleta Beach Pier, a process expected to take three years.

Venoco will remain responsible for securing and maintaining the facilities at its own cost until May 1, when the company will be temporarily reimbursed by the commission until a third party is hired. The commission said it will involve itself in the bankruptcy process and submit claims for costs against Venoco.

The commission noted that Venoco generated about $160 million in state revenue from royalties and rent without any significant spills on state property during the past 20 years.

Read or Share this story: http://www.vcstar.com/story/news/2017/04/18/goleta-offshore-oil-platform-decommissioned/100621976/

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Goleta offshore oil platform to be decommissioned - Ventura County Star

The worlds first LNG fuelled offshore construction vessel being built for DEME will be powered by Wrtsil.

Finnishtechnology group Wrtsil has been selected to supply the engines and propulsion machinery for the first offshore construction vessel to be powered by liquified natural gas.

The ship was ordered in March byBelgian operator Dredging International (DEME)at the Cosco shipyard in China.

The 210-meter-long vessel, namedOrion, will be powered by four 9-cylinder Wrtsil 46DF dual-fuel electric propulsion engines, and two 6-cylinder Wrtsil 20DF dual-fuel engines. Wrtsil will also supply two custom made retractable thrusters, four underwater demountable thrusters, the Wrtsil LNGPac storage and supply system, as well as commissioning, site supervision and extended project management services. The Wrtsil equipment is scheduled for delivery to the yard in the latter part of 2017.

The Orion is expected to be delivered to the owners in 2018 and will undertake operations involving the installation of offshore windfarms in locations around the world.

The decision to utilise clean burning LNG fuel represents our commitment to provide environmentally sustainable solutions for our operations. Wrtsil has extensive experience and vast technological know-how in this field, which is why we have selected them as our partner in this project, says Jan Gabriel, Head of newbuilding and conversion department at DEME.

We are pleased to have been involved in this newbuild project from the conceptual design stage, since this enables our input on providing the most fuel efficient solution. We are also delighted that the Wrtsil 46DF engine has been selected, as the dual-fuel version of this well proven and popular engine has only recently been introduced, says Arthur Boogaard, General Manager, Business Development Special Vessels at Wrtsil.

DEME is a long-standing customer of Wrtsil and has, in recent years, utilised Wrtsil solutions for numerous vessels, including three hopper dredgers, a cable installation vessel, a cutter suction dredger vessel, as well as the Orion offshore construction vessel.

gCaptain is the top-visited maritime and offshore industry news site in the world. Since 2007, gCaptain has proven to be a highly effective platform for information sharing and a source for up-to-date and relevant news for industry professionals worldwide.

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Wrtsil to Power World's First LNG-Powered Offshore Construction Vessel - GCaptain

Tat bazaar eBay has threatened to stop Australian buyers doing business with offshore sellers if the nation goes ahead with a plan to charge local sales taxes on imported goods.

Australia levies a goods and services tax (GST) at a rate of ten per cent, collected at the point of sale. But the tax is not applied to imports valued at under AU$1,000, leading local retailers to complain they can be undercut by offshore online sellers.

An 2011 inquiry found that charging GST on imported items valued at less than $1,000 would cost more money than it would raise, but that hasn't stopped Australia's current government from plowing ahead with a plan to collect GST on imports anyway and to start doing so as of July 1st 2017.

An inquiry into the plan will be held later this week and submissions on the proposal have been published ahead of hearings.

eBay's submission (PDF) is a doozy because it says Regrettably, the Governments legislation may force eBay to prevent Australians from buying from foreign sellers. The tat bazaar argues that it is unfair that it do all the heavy lifting so that third-party sellers using its platform collect GST. Rather than do that work, eBay thinks it best to just cut Australians off from the world.

Amazon.com's submission (PDF) is a little more constructive, suggesting that local logistics providers collect GST instead of offshore retailers. This plan is advanced because logistics companies already collect GST on higher-valued imports, so have done the work required to collect GST.

Amazon and eBay both argue that the idea of asking them to become GST collectors is stupid because not all online shops would comply and Australia's government can't compel those without local presences to lift a finger in the cause of GST collection. Australian shoppers would quickly figure out which offshore retailers collect GST and shop with those who don't, negating claims of increased revenue flowing from the scheme.

UK-based sports goods outfit Wiggle uses the same argument, complaining it would be at a disadvantage compared to those who aren't investing in Australia. It also says (PDF) that the July 1 deadline is nowhere near enough time to change their systems to collect GST.

At this point readers around the world might be wondering why Australia would bother with such an obviously flawed plan. There's two reasons why the nation is bothering. First, Australia's running big budget deficits and the government is keen to be seen to be doing something, not least because local retailers are banging the "we pay tax and so do all the people we employ" drum.

Secondly, the plan also covers digital imports which currently evade GST. Netflix, for example, serves content from Australian soil but claims it is an offshore vendor immune to GST. Fixing that up will see a few bucks flow into Australian coffers, the better to build roads, hospitals, schools and line the pockets of storage vendors by subsidising telcos' metadata retention rigs.

Adobe's already signalled it will collect GST on cloud services sold locally, but provided from only-AWS-knows-where.

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eBay threatens to block Australians from using offshore sellers - The Register

April 18th, 2017 Grant Rowles Asia, Offshore 0 comments

Offshore vessel operator Emas Offshore, one of the only companies in the Ezra Holdings group that hasntfiled for chapter 11, has had its fully-owned subsidiary Lewek Champion Pte Ltd served with a statutory demand from Hai Jiang 1401 Pte. Ltd., a special purpose vehicle controlled by Chinas ICBC Financial Leasing.

The demand comes after ICBC terminated the bareboat contract for a pipelay vessel Lewek Champion in March after Emas Offshore defaulted on a payment of $1.58m.

ICBC is demanding that the Emas Offshore pays a sum of over $195m within 21 days or it will apply to have the struggling company wound up.

Ezra Holdings, the parent company of Emas Offshore and guarantor for the charter, filed for chapter 11 protection in the United States in March.

Emas Offshore said it is seeking legal advice on the matter and is assessing the impact of the demand against the group.

Grant Rowles

Grant spent nine years at Informa Group based in London, Sydney, Hong Kong and Singapore. He gained strong management experience in publishing, conferences and awards schemes in the shipping and legal areas, working on a number of titles including Lloyd's List. In 2009 Grant joined Seatrade responsible for the commercial development of Seatrades Asia products. In 2012, with Sam Chambers, he co-founded Asia Shipping Media.

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Emas Offshore hit with wind up threat after ICBC serves demand ... - Splash 247

New York Times:Germany Strikes Offshore Wind Deals, Subsidy Not Included

European governments have spent large sums of money in recent years subsidizing giant offshore wind projects in hopes of creating a clean source of energy that could eventually pay for itself. Now that moment may be here -- and a lot sooner than expected.

On Thursday, the Danish company Dong Energy, the largest offshore wind developer, won the right to build two large wind projects in the German North Sea with no government subsidies -- a highly symbolic first for the industry.

The company will receive the revenues from the electricity generated by the wind farms. German consumers will pay the substantial costs of connecting the wind farms at sea to the power grid.

Bloomberg:Saudis Target 30 Solar, Wind Projects in $50 Billion Pledge

Saudi Arabia will develop 30 solar and wind projects over the next 10 years as part of the kingdoms $50 billion program to boost power generation and cut its oil consumption.

The worlds biggest exporter of crude oil will produce 10 percent of its power from renewables by 2023, Energy Minister Khalid Al-Falih said Monday at a conference in Riyadh. It also plans to generate an unspecified amount of electricity from nuclear plants.

The country is currently seeking bids to build 700 megawatts of wind and solar power capacity in a first round of tenders.

Renewable Energy World: Geothermal Makes Breakthrough in Canada's Federal Budget

For more than a decade, advocates of geothermal energy have pushed for the same kind of treatment other energy producers receive from Canadas federal government -- with little progress. But with the release of the federal budget on March 22, that changed.

The budget included the expansion of financial mechanisms to geothermal, which will allow these emerging renewable energy operators to write off more expenses. The change is significant for geothermal energy, which requires higher upfront investments than wind or solar.

Atlantic:How Wall Street Once Killed the U.S. Solar Industry

A new paper in Science Advances argues that enormous changes transformed the structure of the U.S. economy in the 1970s and 1980s, making it impossible for American firms to develop new industries and markets. They specifically gutted the solar industry, depriving the technology of funding at a critical moment in its development.

Max Jerneck, the papers author and a researcher at the Stockholm School of Economics, says that these dynamics still exist. Unless they are also addressed, they will likely limit the effectiveness of a carbon tax or cap-and-trade program, he says.

China Daily:Chinese Firm BYD Opens Electric-Bus Factory in Hungary

Chinese vehicle manufacturer BYD opened its first European electric bus factory in the northern Hungarian city of Komarom on Tuesday.

BYD is expected to invest a total of 20 million euros ($21.3 million) in the project to 2018.

Currently, there are 32 employees, but the company plans to employ around 300 people to assemble up to 400 electric buses a year on two shifts, which will be exported to customers across continental Europe.

After producing electric buses and coaches, the company will begin making electric forklift trucks and light commercial vehicles.

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Dong Energy Will Build 2 Offshore Wind Farms in Europe Without ... - Greentech Media

IEFFA

Europe achieved its lowest-ever bid for an offshore wind power project last week in a German auction in the North and Baltic Seas, an event that backs up a recent trend of cost reductions.

Germanys first so-called reverse auction for offshore wind shifts away from a feed-in tariff schemes in an approach intended to drive down costs.

The German auction fetched an average bid of 44 per megawatt hour and one bid of zero euros, following a general trend of lower prices in similar auctions in Denmark and the Netherlands.

In Germany, the bids are on top of the wholesale power price. As a result, a bid of zero euros will receive only the wholesale power price.

In Denmark and the Netherlands, bids are an all-in amount, which comprises the wholesale power price, plus a sliding tariff that tops up the difference to the bid amount.

In all three countries, successful bidders will receive a free onshore and offshore grid connection and connecting sub-sea cable. So as a result, a bid of zero euros, as in Germany last week, is not exactly unsubsidised.

That said, its good to keep in mind that offshore wind projects take a while to build: last weeks German auction was for projects to be completed by 2025 at the latest. The auction revealed the cost of offshore wind not today, but in up to eight years time, assuming the project is completed.

Notwithstanding these caveats, costs for offshore wind appear to be falling.

PERHAPS MOST SIGNIFICANTLY, COMPETITIVE AUCTIONS HAVE DRIVEN DOWN THE SUPPORT PRICE DEMANDED BY DEVELOPERS,compared with previous, publicly administered prices under former, fixed feed-in tariff schemes.

In addition, a step-change in turbine sizes has helped, with turbines now about to produce around 8 megawatts up from 3-4 megawatts a few years ago. Meantime, rising investor confidence has driven down costs of capital.

Cost reductions are good news for renewable energy growth in north European countries, where winter peak demand coupled with northern latitudes make solar power a more medium-term prospect.

These regions have access to robust offshore wind resources in the shallows of the North Sea encircled by Britain, Norway and northern continental Europe.

And in a notable advantage over other variable renewables, offshore wind fulfils a much greater proportion of its theoretical nameplate capacitycalled load factorcompared with solar and onshore wind power, because the wind at sea blows stronger and more often.

Britain is the world leader in offshore wind deployments, with more than 5 gigawatts installed. In Britain, load factors last year were 37% for offshore wind, versus 24% for onshore wind, and 11% for solar.

Figure 1 below shows the recent cost trend in Denmark, the Netherlands and Germany. Britain is not included, given its regime pricing includes the costs of the offshore grid connection, making direct comparison difficult. In the case of Germany, we include last weeks maximum and minimum bids (60 and 0 per MWh), and add a hypothetical power price of 50/MWh, reflecting expectations for much higher German power prices in the 2020s.

Figure 1. Bids in offshore wind reverse auctions since 2010, Denmark, Netherlands, Germany

Gerard Wynn is an IEEFA energy finance consultant.

Source: IEEFA. Reproduced with permission.

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Offshore wind costs maintain falling trend in Germany, Denmark, Holland - RenewEconomy