Subsea 7 S.A. (Oslo Børs: SUBC, ADR: SUBCY) today announced the early termination of the day-rate contract for Subsea 7’s Pipelay Support Vessel (PLSV), Seven Mar, working for Petrobras, offshore Brazil, effective 31 May 2016. The contract was due to expire at the end of 2016 and as a result the Group backlog has diminished by approximately USD 47 million.

Impact Subsea is pleased to announce the delivery of ISA500 units to the British Antarctic Survey (BAS). The ISA500 units have been selected to monitor the position of an ice boring tool in the Antarctic hundreds of meters below the surface. During deployment of the ice boring tool, the ISA500 units measure the distance at multiple points from the tool to the outer bore wall. This allows the bore diameter to be monitored and regulated during the deployment of the tool.

US-based Hydroid has installed a new subsea hyperbaric testing system (HTS), made by Telemark Technologies, at its manufacturing facility in Pocasset, Massachusetts. Hydroid, which is a subsidiary of Kongsberg Maritime AUV Group, manufactures marine robotic systems. The newly installed testing system simulates hydrostatic pressures found at depths of up to 6,000m and will be used to test Hydroid's autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) and other marine robotics products to ensure their integrity at rated depth.

As Finland gets underway with development of its first offshore wind farm, developers are optimistic over what the project means for future development of offshore wind in the country. Early work on the 120 million euro (US$134.2 million), 40 MW Tahkoluoto wind farm began this spring, and is being led by Finnish wind energy production company Suomen Hyötytuuli Oy. For Siemens — which next summer is installing 10 of its 4-MW SWT-4.0-130 turbines at the wind farm — it is not only the company’s first commercial offshore project in Finland, but its most northerly one too.

Next Geosolutions, an independent geoscience and engineering service provider, has shared lessons learned from the company’s involvement in the Trans-Mediterranean pipeline inspection activities. In 2014, Next Geosolutions completed the first of a two campaign project of nearshore survey and inspection works of the Trans-Mediterranean pipeline, a natural gas pipeline system running from Algeria via Tunisia to Sicily, and then to mainland Italy.

For more than a thousand years, the statues of a king and his queen lay broken and abandoned in the murky waters of the Nile delta. They had once stood outside a temple, proud red granite figures five metres tall decorated with the symbols of power — he with the double crown embellished with a serpent, she with a crown of cow horns, sun and feathers, the dress of a royal wife.

During the initials days of USNS Maury's maiden voyage, the Naval Oceanographic Office's (NAVOCEANO) civilian survey detachment conducted initial testing of routine over-the-side operations and the ship's equipment. Testing of equipment also included the underwater cameras, which will be used for autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) launch and recovery operations.

China's No. 2 science and technology priority out of a recently released list of 100 would take its countrymen almost 2 miles beneath the surface of the South China Sea. Bloomberg reports on China's intention to build a manned deep-sea platform from which it could hunt for minerals, an idea in the works for a decade and now given accelerated priority, according to a Science Ministry presentation Bloomberg viewed. Concrete details are scarce—no blueprints, no word on cost, for instance—but the thinking is that a dozen or so crew members could stay inside the movable platform for up to a month at a time. It would "be mainly for civil use, but we can’t rule out it will carry some military functions," says a government researcher.

Summer 2016 is heating up with new and upcoming advances in Navy diving technologies at the Naval Surface Warfare Center Panama City Division (NSWC PCD). Underwater Systems Development Project Engineer Dennis Gallagher and his team are developing what can be described as a "next-generation" and "futuristic" system for the Navy diving community. The Divers Augmented Vision Display (DAVD) is a high-resolution, see-through head-up display (HUD) embedded directly inside of a diving helmet.

The Sandshark UUV (unmanned underwater vessel) is evolving. The increasing availability of inexpensive UUVs has made the future uncomfortable for submarine crews but a lot safer for most seagoing vessels be they military or commercial. Since the 1990s the U.S. Navy has been taking advantage of smaller, lighter, more effective and cheaper electronic components to build smaller devices. This shrinking includes batteries, sensors, communications and software. This has presented unprecedented opportunities.

We're really excited to announce a new ArduSub/Pixhawk controlled underwater underwater vehicle, the BlueROV2. The 6-thruster vectored configuration, coupled with strong static stability, provides a vehicle that is smooth and stable, yet highly maneuverable. The BlueROV2 provides the capabilities of a high-end mini-ROV at the price of the most basic commercial ROVs. It can reach depths of 100m and is highly expandable for new sensors, payloads, and capabilities.

This year’s Subsea Upcoming Company of the Year award is given to a disruptive technology for inspection, maintenance and repair operations for the subsea related industries. The award «Subsea Upcoming Company of the Year» is granted every year to a young company in the subsea industry. This year, the award goes to the Trondheim-based company Eelume for their resident autonomous intervention vehicles.

The U.S. government agency created after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill plans in coming weeks to unveil tougher financial requirements for offshore oil producers aimed at protecting taxpayers from the risk of cleaning up abandoned oil rigs, an agency executive told Reuters. Under the new guidelines, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) will demand additional guarantees to cover producers’ legal obligation to plug offshore wells and dismantle rigs in the Outer Continental Shelf once they have extracted oil and gas, according to Renee Orr, chief of Strategic Resources at the agency. Currently, companies are exempt from providing supplemental bonds for the cleanup-process, known as decommissioning, if the total estimated liability is less than half of their net worth.