Fugro is to boost its marine site characterization services for the oil and gas industry in the Republic of Guyana with a new strategic alliance with Ground Structures Engineering Consultants Ltd. The new relationship will facilitate training for Guyanese citizens and support local economic development.

A team of researchers funded by the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement began testing new oil burning technology at the U.S. Coast Guard’s Joint Maritime Test Facility on Little Sand Island off the coast of Mobile.

The company will as a subcontractor of Kvaerner take part in upgrading the platform after operator Statoil exercised an option in an agreement awarded in April 2016. The option is for work in the engineering, procurement and construction phase of the project. Aker Solutions' share of the work is valued at about NOK 1 billion and will be booked in the company's first-quarter orders.

On behalf of its client Seaway Heavy Lifting, subsea technology company Seatools completed the development, manufacturing, and installation of a piling instrumentation and control system for the Pile Installation Frame (pre-piling template) which will be used for the construction of a large offshore Windfarm. Seaway Heavy Lifting will commence the offshore installation operations in April of this year.

GE Oil & Gas opened a new facility in Takoradi Port, Ghana, expanding its global footprint and supporting local investment. The company committed to deliver more than 45,000 training hours for Ghanaian personnel over the next five years, as it seeks to build a world-class team locally.

Eni has successfully drilled the Amoca-2 well in the shallow waters of Campeche Bay, offshore Mexico, confirming the presence of oil in multiple reservoirs.

Phase 1 of Johan Sverdrup is under development, with first oil scheduled for late 2019. The partners will now proceed with maturing Phase 2 for the investment decision and submission of the plan for development and operation (PDO) in the second half of 2018. Phase 2 is scheduled to come on stream in 2022.

Endeavor Management is pleased to announce a second phase follow-on to its earlier successful Joint Industry Project (JIP) "Stocking the Decommissioning Tool Kit" completed in 2016. That JIP delivered results covering eleven (11) topics and identified several areas for additional work.

GE (NYSE: GE) and Noble Corporation plc (NYSE: NE) jointly announces a partnership to collaborate on the Digital Rig(SM) solution, enabling data-driven operational efficiency by using data analytics, with the target of a 20 percent reduction in operational expenditure across the rigs.

International engineering and operations support services contractor ODE, an integral part of the DORIS Group, has successfully completed a key workscope for Scaldis Salvage & Marine Contractors. This contract was to provide engineering support for the removal of the topsides and jacket from a Normally Unattended Installation (NUI) as part of the decommissioning project for the Horne & Wren gas fields in the Southern North Sea.

Subsea 7 announces the award of a large(1) contract by BP as part of the deepwater Mad Dog 2 development, located approximately 190 miles south of New Orleans.

Ocean Scientific International Ltd. (OSIL) have recently supplied Exploration Electronics with a custom built 10m Vibrocorer system for use in their rental pool.

Statoil successfully bid on 13 leases in the US Department of the Interior’s central region Gulf of Mexico lease sale 247, which took place on 22 March. The company was the high bidder on all but two of the leases targeted, securing a stake in all of its main priorities.

U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke has announced that Lease Sale 247 for oil and gas parcels in the Gulf of Mexico garnered $274,797,434 in high bids for 163 tracts covering 913,542 acres in the Central Planning Area of the Outer Continental Shelf offshore Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. A total of 28 offshore energy companies submitted 189 bids. The sum of all bids received totaled $315,303,884.

The Shah Deniz consortium has announced the sail away of the second jacket for the Shah Deniz Stage 2 platforms. The Quarters and Utilities (QU) platform jacket sailed away to the Shah Deniz contract area in the Caspian Sea from the Heydar Aliyev Baku Deepwater Jackets Factory (BDJF) ahead of schedule on 15 March.

Chevron Corporation announced that its subsidiary, Cabinda Gulf Oil Company (CABGOC) Limited, has commenced oil and gas production from the main production facility of the Mafumeira Sul project offshore Angola.