Subsea World News has put together a recap of the most interesting articles from the previous week (February 02 – February 08).

Shell’s announcement on awarding the Brent field decommissioning contract to the Allseas’ Pieter Schelte attracted comments and reactions from maritime workers union.

According to RMT “a vessel which is named after a top German Nazi jailed for war crimes at the end of the war,” doesn’t have a place in UK. RMT also pointed out that “the vessel operates under a Panamanian flag of convenience, employing socially-dumped foreign labour on pitiful pay and conditions.”

A thirty day public consultation on plans to begin decommissioning of the Brent oil and gas field in the North Sea will start mid-February.

The decommissioning programme, submitted by Shell, for the Brent Delta platform (one of four installations located in the field) recommends that the 23,500 tonne ’topside’ of the platform is removed in one piece by a heavy-lift vessel ‘Pieter Schelte’ that arrived in Rotterdam in January.

GC Rieber Shipping ASA said that The HV V Golf companies have not fulfilled the obligations related to the seller’s credit, regarding the sale of the company’s shares in Reef Subsea.

GC Rieber Shipping sent a notice of default to the two HV V Golf companies. The company said that it has reasons to believe that the HV V Golf companies will not fulfill the terms of the agreement.

Oceaneering International has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire C & C Technologies (C&C), a privately-held global provider of survey services, for approximately $230 million in cash.

Headquartered in Lafayette, Louisiana, C&C is a provider of ocean-bottom mapping services in deepwater utilizing customized autonomous underwater vehicles and provides marine construction surveys for both surface and subsea assets, as well as satellite-based positioning services for drilling rigs and seismic and construction vessels.

The importance of having a variety of capabilities in subsea services is the focus of a new campaign by Dutch geoservices company Fugro.

Every two weeks Fugro Subsea will spotlight a different challenge faced by companies that develop, install and operate seabed assets such as wind turbine foundations, pipelines and platforms. Addressing issues of logistics, efficiency, safety and the environment, Fugro’s ‘Subsea Ingenuity’ initiative will identify familiar and not-so-familiar problems faced by the offshore industry, the company said.