OREANDA-NEWS. January 16, 2014. More than 150 representatives from nearly 50 leading international offshore companies recently participated in Saudi Aramco’s Offshore Technology and Project Execution Exchange meeting in Houston.

This represented the first of its kind set of workshops for the offshore contractor community jointly organized by Saudi Aramco’s Offshore Project Management and Aramco Services Co. (ASC).

The meeting created a collaborative exchange of information on the latest offshore technologies and project management execution methodologies for both shallow and deep waters to increase awareness for the offshore projects workload.

Nabilah Al-Tunisi, general manager of Northern Area Projects Management, hosted the workshop. She was joined by Nabeel Amudi, president of ASC, and other members of ASC management and staff from within the subsidiary’s contracting organization.

The United States is a major supply market for Saudi Aramco, and Houston is considered a major offshore hub in North America.  The venue choice was most appropriate and strategic as the region includes multiple key contractors and owners with a significant amount of offshore facilities and projects.

On the first day, Saudi Aramco presented the objective of the workshop, followed by detailed descriptions of the technical and functional requirements of the various types of offshore projects and technologies. Multiple videos were presented describing major offshore programs recently completed by Saudi Aramco, such as Manifa and Karan fields developments in addition to the Safaniyah Electrification Project.

The videos illustrated to the audience the extent of Saudi Aramco’s offshore program, highlighting the complexities, interconnection and interfaces of the offshore platform, pipelines and the cables along with the onshore facilities and related infrastructure. These programs served to demonstrate the viability of the company’s capital investments and raise awareness in order to increase contractor interest to invest and participate in the execution of the projects.

The offshore facilities presented include well-head platforms, subsea cables and pipelines, observation well platform, control system replacement, major field electrification to support submersible pumps installation, automation and SCADA, accommodation platforms, offshore vessels and drilling rigs. The workshop also highlighted the offshore technology currently in use including umbilical, flexible pipe, multiphase flow meters, high efficiency photovoltaic systems, 3D modeling, scraping and in line inspection and electrical submersible pumps. Existing offshore challenges and methods for addressing them were also discussed, including subsea inspection, pipeline integrity solutions, existing structure assessment, laser scanning of existing facilities, vessel tracking systems and subsea completion.

Subsequent workshops followed the rest of the week including one-on-one focused technical exchange sessions with the contractors to better understand their capabilities and areas of specialties. Furthermore, contractors with experience in deep waters presented their capabilities and outlined the various solutions that could be considered for any deep sea development.