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Thunder Horse Site Visit

May 14th, 2005 by James


Yesterday, members of the team I work with made a one-day site visit to the Thunder Horse platform. For those that are not familiar, this facility is the biggest offshore oil and gas platform in the world. It floats in >6,000′ of water with subsea wells and anchors on the bottom, and two pipelines that deliver the oil and gas to points downstream. The day we visited, the platform is being moored in place by the Balder, the Union Manta, with the RSV Innovator providing some ROV support.

We caught an S-76 helicopter out of the New Orleans Lois Armstrong airport and flew to the platform in the morning. We inspected the areas on the platform where we will be working, and met with the platform’s Hookup and Commissioning Team. We were lucky to be there for lunch on Friday - seafood day - so we got to indulge in boiled shrimp, fried shrimp, and crawfish etouffe…:-)

For our flight back, the helicopter pilots took us straight up the Mississippi River, from South Pass up to the Huey P. Long Bridge, and then to the airport. This was a GREAT opportunity to get some creative shots of the wetlands and industry below.



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New House - Moving In

May 12th, 2005 by James


Sarah and I have pretty much moved into our new house. There are still a few boxes to unpack, and the furniture needs moving around, artwork still to hang, etc. but it’s starting to look like home!



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Offshore Technology Conference

May 12th, 2005 by James


Last week was the annual Offshore Technology Conference in Houston. I got to spend two mornings at the show, and met up with friends from around the globe. Dr. Steve Constable was here from San Diego presenting a paper about controlled source EM expoloration methods, and a friend from Berkeley, Dr. James Stear presented a paper about the metocean criteria and damage assessment from Hurrican Ivan. On the last day of the show, all of the Ocean Engineering alumni from UC Berkeley got together for a great dinner at Pappadeaux’s


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