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The Pacific offshore helicopter symposium will be held in Australia next month in the Sydney Convention and Exhibition Center at Darling Harbour.

Topics to be discussed at the October 8 event include the new CASA rules on commercial operations such as the latest IFR, copilot qualifications and multi-engine performance standards.

Changes to the latter could result in many hospital helipads and oil rig platforms operations being considered unsuitable for the current crop of medium to heavy helicopters, unless the new EASA rules are modified.

For more information, contact the Australian Helicopter Industry Association at [email protected]

Australia To Host Offshore Helicopter Symposium | Aviation International News

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The council representing the interest of the oil and gas industry in Malaysia is set to launch an aviation working group to continue to expand its competencies and to better understand the role that aviation and especially helicopters play.

Malaysian oil and gas industry looks to aviation safety - News - Shephard

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The oil and gas sector needs to recruit 120,000 new employees worldwide over the next decade to avoid a skills shortage, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers research, and companies in the sector are pushing hard to attract employees into the interesting and exciting (not to mention well remunerated) industry.

Oil and gas sector 'needs 120,000 new employees' - Telegraph

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SEATTLE — Shell Oil has not disclosed new safety measures since a critical federal report in March, and it has not applied to drill in the Arctic in 2014. Six months after federal officials chastised Shell Oil for its faulty offshore drilling operations in the Arctic, the company has yet to explain what safeguards it has put in place or when it plans to resume exploring for oil in the vulnerable region.

http://www.trbimg.com/img-52437487/t...g-20130925/600
Shell Oil’s Kulluk drilling barge off southern Alaska in December

Shell's 2012 return to offshore Arctic exploration after a generation away was marred by high-profile problems, including hefty fines for polluting the air and a drilling rig that ran aground. The company canceled its 2013 drilling season, and its 2014 operations are in question.

The Interior Department is scheduled to unveil a set of tightened safeguards for offshore Arctic drilling before the end of the year, regulations whose need is underscored by Shell's difficulties.

"If we don't do this right, we are opening America's Arctic to catastrophic industrial disasters," said Jim Ayers, former director of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council, who helped review the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico for the U.S. Coast Guard.

The Arctic is home to some of the most extreme weather conditions in the world. It is covered in ice for eight to nine months each year and cloaked in darkness for a third of that time. The closest Coast Guard base is nearly 1,000 miles away.

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A spokesperson for Husky Energy said the crew were doing pre-flight checks on the Henry Goodrich oil platform around 9:30 a.m. when there was a problem with the chopper's "Stability Augmentation System."

Cougar tried to send a maintenance engineer to the platform, but the helicopter was forced to turn back because of fog.

The grounded Sikorsky aircraft stayed on the rig overnight while workers returned to St. John's on an offshore supply vessel.

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Since oil and gas exploration in T&T has moved further into deep water, rig crews will now benefit from state-of-the-art transportation offered by Bristow Caribbean Ltd (Bristow) with the newly-acquired Agusta Westland AW139 helicopters and the development of a $100 million facility at Piarco.

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The helicopter is the workhorse for the off-shore oil and gas exploration and production industry. The ever-increasing demand for energy, ever escalating prices of crude oil and the discovered existence of oil and gas in off-shore areas ensure that there is a hectic increase in off-shore oil exploration in recent times. More and more hitherto untouched off-shore areas are being explored and developed through large public and private sector investments. Helicopters form an essential and critical part of off-shore operations as they connect these facilities to the mainland.

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Iain Hepburn, 18th December 2013

BP says it has made a significant find in the Gulf of Mexico – as it prepares to celebrate its most successful year for new field exploration in a decade.

The British supermajor has struck oil for the third time in the region, this time at the Gila prospect, around 300miles southwest of New Orleans.

The deepwater exploration well was drilled to a depth of 29,211 ft, and found multiple Paleogene-aged reservoir sands.

Now appraisal work is underway on the find to determine just how big the discovery is.

“Gila continues our successful drill out of the prolific Paleogene play system in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico,” said BP’s global head of exploation, Mike Daly.

“Subject to successful appraisal, Gila, Tiber and Kaskida together offer the potential for significant future oil developments in the Keathley Canyon area.”

The firm’s two similar finds in the Gulf of Mexico have yielded significant results for BP, with the 2009 Tiber discovery believed to contain up to 6billion barrels of oil, and the Kaskida find in 2006 which contains 3billion.

BP owns a majority interest in the prospect, along with ConocoPhillips.

The find comes as the company announced its most successful exploration year in a decade, with seven potentially commercial discoveries made from 15 wildcat wells.

Among the significant finds were the Pitu discovery and Pitanga wells off Brazil, and the Lontra find off Angola, which it holds a 30% stake in.

“The exploration results that BP has seen in the fourth quarter alone include a new play opener in a frontier basin offshore Brazil, together with discoveries in emerging plays in our production heartlands of Angola and the Gulf of Mexico,” sad Daly.

“We are very pleased that both these frontier and core portfolios are starting to deliver and anticipate leaving the year with nine further wells operational, sustaining our recent momentum into 2014.”

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7 Feb, 14 Weststar Aviation Services Sdn. Bhd., a member of the Weststar Group of Companies, today announced the successful launch of its first regional expansion in Asia after its new Songkhla base in Thailand commenced operations on a seven-year PTT Exploration and Production (PTTEP) contract last Friday.


Weststar Aviation Services expansion into Thailand comes after a joint venture with its new Thai partner, United Offshore Aviation (UOA), the offshore aviation arm of the Nathalin Group of Companies, which is one of the largest transportation and energy group of companies in Thailand and has multiple business interests in Marine Transport, Green Energy and Ship Management, amongst others.


PTTEP is a leading Thai Petroleum Exploration and Production Company that is amongst the top ten public listed companies on the Stock Exchange of Thailand and operates more than 40 projects around the world.


“We are very pleased to announce our new presence in Thailand. The joint-venture with UOA represents another big step forward for Weststar Aviation Services and reflects our growing presence in the global offshore aviation industry,” said Tan Sri Syed Azman Syed Ibrahim, Group Managing Director of the Weststar Group.


The seven-year PTTEP contract, with an option for a two-year extension, is worth RM2billion and will utilise six AgustaWestland AW139 helicopters and a total of 140 staff at the Songkhla base.


The Songkhla base is Weststar Aviation Services’ seventh operations base and marks the Malaysian corporation’s second venture overseas, with its first international base having commenced operations for Tullow Oil in Nouakchott, Mauritania in May last year. Weststar Aviation Services currently services contracts totalling more than RM8billion with one of the largest and most modern offshore helicopter fleets in the world.


It is a highly positive start to a year in which the top Southeast Asian offshore aviation service provider expects to announce further overseas ventures in the coming months.

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