got what it takes to work offshore? 06 - Rigzone

DECEMBER 2014

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CAMBODIA SEEKS TO REKINDLE PETROLEUM INVESTORS’ INTERESTS

ISRAELI OIL, GAS EVENT OFFERS PLENTY OF FOOD FOR THOUGHT

GOT WHAT IT TAKES TO WORK OFFSHORE?

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CONTENTS 06

DECEMBER 2014 ISSUE 08

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ANALYST Trevor Crone

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EDITORS Cheang Chee Yew Gene Lockard

EDITOR EMEA Jon Mainwaring

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SENIOR EDITORS Karen Boman Matthew Veazey

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OVERCOMING CHALLENGES CONFRONTING THE OIL, GAS SECTOR CAMBODIA SEEKS TO REKINDLE PETROLEUM INVESTORS’ INTERESTS

UPSTREAM OIL, GAS 08 WHAT CAN LEARN ABOUT BIG

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“OVER”-A WORD HEARD OFTEN AT OSEA ISRAELI OIL, GAS EVENT OFFERS PLENTY OF FOOD FOR THOUGHT

MANAGING EDITOR Saaniya Bangee

WEB/GRAPHIC DESIGNER Abigail Peraria

CREATIVE DIRECTOR Eric Duenas

VP CONTENT

PLAY NOT JUST FOR 16 FREE KIDS ANYMORE

DATA FROM SOCIAL MEDIA

Bertie Taylor

FOLLOW

WHAT IT TAKES TO 10 GOT WORK OFFSHORE? WWW.RIGZONE.COM Wondering how to get published in RZNews or submit press releases or story ideas? Send Press Releases to [email protected], and Story Ideas to [email protected]

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RZNEWS DECEMBER 2014

OUTLOOK

OVERCOMING CHALLENGES CONFRONTING THE OIL, GAS SECTOR By Gene Lockard

@GeneLockardRZ

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n recent years, the U.S. oil and gas industry has – somewhat like a teenager – gone through some growing pains. The combination of 3D seismic with horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing in shale formations has been a boon to oil and gas production, but the process itself and the rate of growth in production has at times seemed a bit wild and wooly, particularly to those outside the industry. However, amid increasing public scrutiny and voter referendums, and calls for greater safety, the industry faces what could be a period of reflection as it charts a path for sustainable growth in the coming years. The industry faces a number of challenges that can and must be overcome to keep the momentum going. Water issues, including both the amount of water used in drought-prone areas, as well as the disposal of flow-back from fracking and the amount of truck traffic taking water to the drilling

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site; setbacks from residential areas; increasing public concern regarding air and water issues; a move toward a younger, more diverse workforce as older workers retire from the industry; the changing geopolitics regarding trading partners that is a direct result of the country’s increasing energy security amid record and near-record production levels; growing the energy infrastructure and refinery capabilities to keep up with this increased production – these are just a few of the myriad challenges to be met as the industry moves further into the 21st century. The energy industry is already at work on each of these issues, but more remains to be done. An unprecedented amount of collaboration between academia and industry is underway in an effort to develop a pipeline of students well-versed in science, technology, engineering and math – the STEM disciplines – and therefore ready to

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step into industry positions in the coming years. Meanwhile, more senior and experienced workers are being prompted to stay on as mentors to this new group of workers. But the industry must become more open to diversity to fill the number of positions created by growth in the industry, and by retiring workers. While communication efforts to those outside the industry have improved, the industry could do a better job of communicating with the public regarding setbacks and other issues of importance to citizens in developed municipalities. There continues to be misinformation from both sides, resulting – in some instances – in outright bans on fracking that might or might not be permanent. To be sure, a reliable, affordable and sustainable source of energy is necessary to maintain the lifestyle that much of the civilized world currently enjoys. Projections by most thought leaders suggest that fossil fuel will continue to be the main source of this energy for many years. As Dr. Vladimir Alvarado, associate professor of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering at the University of Wyoming recently told Rigzone, we do not want to go back to a time

when we did not depend on fossil fuels in our everyday life. However, as Alvarado also said, more than the least necessary must be done to maintain sustainability and to leave as small a footprint as possible. Today’s students, who will be tomorrow’s energy industry workers, must think in terms of their community and the environment in order to maintain the current growth in the industry. Leaders within the oil and gas industry can and must be proactive, anticipating resistance ahead of projects, and then make efforts to get the word out about not only the necessity of the industry’s end-use fuels and products, but also the beneficial aspects of a robust energy industry working with enlightened community leaders outside the industry in ways that serve both the people of the community, and the industry itself.

The energy industry is already at work on each of these issues, but more remains to be done.

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E&P

CAMBODIA SEEKS TO REKINDLE PETROLEUM INVESTORS’ INTERESTS By Cheang Chee Yew

ambodia, despite not possessing any petroleum producing asset due to a protracted delay in developing the offshore Block A, is trying to rekindle fading investors’ interest in its upstream oil and gas sector. A lack of investment interests from petroleum firms has prompted Cambodia to announce its intention to invite bids for 19 onshore oil and gas exploration blocks, Reuters said Nov. 5, quoting Diep Sareiviseth, deputy director general in charge of international petroleum affairs at the Ministry of Mines and Energy. So far, no timeline has been set by the government for the onshore exploration block bidding exercise, which will be “available for any interested companies.” The Kingdom is also planning to drum up interest in its offshore blocks located in the Gulf of Thailand. The first round of a pilot public bidding process – with firms submitting applications to the authorities with an outline of their proposed project and financial commitment – could commence as early as 2015, Meng Saktheara, secretary of state at Cambodia’s Ministry of Mines and Energy, told The Phnom Penh Post Nov. 5. Cambodia was previously viewed as a potentially new oil and gas frontier in Southeast Asia and foreign energy companies got excited after Chevron made

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@RZcheeyew.cheang

the country’s first petroleum discovery in Block A in 2004. The U.S. oil major submitted a production permit application (PPA) in 2010 for the Apsara oil discovery, but failed to get approval from the authorities. Disagreement between the Cambodian government and Chevron, which by then, had already spent over a decade in exploration and development work on Block A, eventually led the company to dispose of its 30 percent share in the permit to a fellow joint venture, Singapore-based KrisEnergy Ltd., for $65 million in August. Following Cambodia’s formal approval of the Chevron’s Block A sale, new operator KrisEnergy and joint venture partners hope to take a final investment decision (FID) for the Apsara development after agreeing on terms and conditions, including fiscal terms, of the PPA with the government. First oil from the project, expected to produce 10,000 barrels per day in the first phase, could flow as early as 34 months after FID. “We hope … we will be able to steer the Apsara development plans forward to first production as quickly and cost effectively as possible,” Richard Lorentz, KrisEnergy’s director Business Development, said in an Aug. 11 press release. Of the other onshore and offshore exploration blocks awarded by the

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government earlier, Mirach Energy Ltd. – a Singapore-based firm – said its subsidiary CPHL (Cambodia) Co. Ltd. had just received approval from Cambodia’s Ministry of Environment for an Initial Environmental Social Impact Assessment Report for offshore Block D, which is located near Block A. The firm is now working on an environmental impact assessment report before getting permission to conduct drilling in Block D. “Our length and timeliness of our review process depends greatly on the quality of the company’s study,” Sao Sopheap, spokesman for Ministry of Environment said, as quoted in Phnom Penh Post. Perhaps the snail pace in developing petroleum projects in the country lies with an unattractive investment regime in Cambodia, rather than its oil and gas potential. Such a view appeared to have resonated with the government, finally. “The perceptions of investors at the moment suggest that we still have a lot to do in regards to developing legal frameworks for the petroleum law, and make amendments to the tax law. So they are waiting,” Saktheara said. The public bidding process “will hopefully prove to us how competitive the market is out there for our remaining blocks. We would like to try this as a pilot only – it is

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Our length and timeliness of our review process depends greatly on the quality of the company’s study

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where real transparency will come,” he added. More clarity about the Cambodian petroleum industry is being planned by the state. This may include a full oil and gas extraction law as well as regulations that deal with worker safety, social responsibility and biodiversity, possibly drafted by the end of 2015, Saktheara said, adding that the government is also considering higher tax rates for oil and gas mining operations. Cambodia is being nudged into action as it has little option if the kingdom wants to draw investment dollars into its upstream petroleum sector. After all, there is finite capital available due to competition from potential oil and gas projects in the region, such as new hotspots like Myanmar as well as neighboring producers such as Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand. How far the Kingdom succeeds in rekindling investor interests in the upstream petroleum sector will hinge on the government’s desire to remove obstacles in the development of Cambodia’s oil and gas assets.

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TECHNOLOGY

WHAT UPSTREAM OIL, GAS CAN LEARN ABOUT BIG DATA FROM SOCIAL MEDIA By Karen Boman

@KarenBoman

Upstream oil and gas companies can get more from data by learning a lesson from other industries: companies that regard data as a valuable asset are leading the Big Data revolution, according to a paper presented at the Society of Petroleum Engineers’ Annual Technology Conference and Exhibition in Amsterdam in late October. Historically, the oil and gas industry has generated a lot of data in its operations, and is considered by some to be the original Big Data industry. Increases in processing power, declining computation and storage costs, and the rising number of sensor technologies embedded in devices have already impacted the exploration and production (E&P) sector. Modern seismic data centers can easily contain as much as 20 petabytes of information, enough information that, if put on a single bookshelf, could circle the Earth’s equator about six times. Breakthroughs in mathematics – most notably geometry – have

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significantly helped Big Data practitioners see through Big Data digital information, which frequently is noisy, messy, raw, unstructured and dynamic. The development of software platforms such as Google’s MapReduce or its open-source rival Hadoop also have made Big Data possible. “And while seismic data sets are notoriously large and cumbersome, many other aspects of the E&P industry are also generating significantly more data than they used to,” said paper authors Robert K. Perrons, Queensland University of Technology, and Jesse W. Jensen with Intel Corporation. “What is more, there’s every reason to believe that this trend towards more digital information is just getting warmed up. Current estimates suggest that the total amount of digital data in the world – including things like books, images, emails, music and video – is doubling every two to three years.” The Big Data approach to analyzing this data is a relatively new concept

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that could significantly reshape the industry. However, the Big Data revolution is unfolding differently in the oil and gas industry compared with other industries. In industries such as healthcare, financial, retail and media, companies are gaining new and valuable insights by using new techniques to analyze massive data sets in ways that were never possible with smaller ones. These insights tend not be discovered by testing hypotheses between variables whose relationships are well understood; rather, they are found by applying advanced analytical techniques to massive numbers of variables that, at first blush, might seem to be unrelated. Companies on the cutting edge of Big Data are not just creatively value by monitoring relationships about which they already know, but finding patterns and making predictions based on complex relationships that were previously unknown. While scientists have traditionally sought to understand the causality and mechanisms underlying these relationships, Big Data leaders frequently care about the “what” far more than the “why”. “Therein lies a fundamental difference of opinion between the E&P sector and other industries that are considered leaders in Big Data,” said the paper authors. “While there’s no denying that the upstream oil and gas industry is swimming in digital information – and indeed, several Big Data technologies have been used for much longer in this industry than in many others – the way we manage data doesn’t actually bear much resemblance to how it gets

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The E&P sector’s digital revolution is unfinished

used in companies like Facebook and Amazon.” “The E&P sector tends to regard data as information that describes the state of an asset; leaders in Big Data, by stark contrast, realize data is a valuable asset in and of itself.” While many E&P companies today “clearly” do not consider most of their digital information to be mission-critical to their profitability, this outlook will likely change in the years ahead. The paper authors raised a number of questions, including how E&P companies should reshape their contracting and collaborating strategies to allow for the integration and high-level analysis of data within an organization. The authors also asked how Big Data could change the E&P industry’s business model, and whether E&P companies should cultivate teams of data scientists to address the rising importance of increasingly multidisciplinary nature of IT and data management. “The E&P sector’s digital revolution is unfinished,” the paper authors noted. “The industry has succeeded handsomely in learning how to generate a staggering amount of data, but we’re still collectively wrestling with the question of what to do with it.” “The industry’s digital revolution will be completed when we come to terms with how to monetize the data that we’re now capable of collecting and use it to create all the value that it can.”

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THE RIG FLOOR

GOT WHAT IT TAKES TO WORK OFFSHORE?

By Trevor Crone @RZOffshoreGuy

Figuring out what you want to be when you grow up or considering a major career change can be a daunting task. For most professions, you have a pretty good idea of what will be expected of you. If you think you want to pursue a career in the offshore drilling industry you’re almost taking a leap of faith because without having been there it’s impossible to know what it’s going to be like. Hopefully I can shed some light on the offshore experience and to help you have a smooth transition into this rewarding industry. When I broke into the offshore drilling industry in 2001 I wasn’t entirely sure what I was getting myself into. My total knowledge of the industry was that the money was pretty good, the time off was great but the work could be hazardous at times. A few friends of mine had worked offshore as roustabouts and roughnecks during the summer while they were on break from school. They were excited when I shared my plan with them and were eager to pass along useful pieces of advice like “don’t get killed” and “don’t fall overboard.” Now those are extremely good suggestions that

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everyone should definitely follow but they weren’t exactly helpful in getting me ready for what awaited. Just getting hired proved to be a lot more difficult than I had expected. Most drilling contractors are only interested in you if you have at least 6-months of experience. I didn’t have 6-minutes of experience so most of my job applications got no response. The adage “it’s not what you know but who you know” is alive and well in the oilfield. Network every chance you get! After several discouraging months I caught a lucky break; I was contacted by a friend of a friend of a friend who was a barge engineer. We spoke for a while over the phone and he agreed to deliver my application to his HR department. A week later I was called in for an interview which was followed up by a thorough physical and a week after that I was on my way to a dock to catch a crew boat. The hiring process can move quickly for offshore positions and when they call, you’re usually needed within a few days so be prepared. Most companies will have some sort of initial training program they’ll put you through to prepare you for life on a

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rig as well as to give you the basic knowledge you’ll need to function safely out there. During this 1 or 2-week long training period you’ll likely get a few certifications out of the way such as basic firefighting, CPR and rigger’s training. At the training site, the company is also likely to provide you with whatever items of clothing they’ll require you to wear while you’re working. From there, it’s either off to your rig or home for a few days until they figure out which operation needs personnel the most. Roustabout is an entry level position and the duties are somewhat different depending on whether you’re assigned to a semisub, drillship or jackup. Regardless of the rig, you’ll be working for one of the crane operators and there will be a lot of cleaning and painting in your future. Being a roustabout definitely isn’t rocket science but it puts you in a position to observe and assist with almost every position onboard your rig. Pay attention, work hard and identify other positions onboard that interest you. You’ll be expected to work a 12hour shift which is called a “tour”. Time should pass by quickly while you’re on tour because there is never a shortage of tasks to accomplish. When you’re off tour your goals should be to clean up, eat and get some sleep. Most rigs will have some sort of a TV/movie room and workout facilities. Wifi is also pretty common as well as TVs in a lot of rooms. Bear in mind that a lot of this

depends on the type and age of rig you’re assigned to. You should also be prepared to eat due to the galley serving 4 meals per day and a neverending rotation of deserts. I gained almost 10 pounds after my first few months. Possibly the most important ingredient of a successful transition offshore is the rig crew. You’ll be working with a group of people that hail from several different areas with varying degrees of education. As you get to know them, you’ll find out that you share hobbies and beliefs with many of them and that there is some underlying aspect of your personalities that caused each of you to gravitate to the offshore industry. In short, you’ll make some of the strongest bonds of your life. People tend to argue that you miss out on too much while you’re away. You just need to decide if missing a few holidays and birthdays is a fair trade for a handsome salary and the freedom of having 2 to 4 weeks off at a time. If you decide that this type of work is for you, visit Rigzone’s Career Center to start your search. Posting your resume is free and you can apply for as many jobs as you like. Also, take a look at the Rigzone Salary Tracker to get an idea of what wages are being paid for various positions in the industry.

HAVE QUESTIONS? NEED ANALYSIS? TWEET @RZOFFSHOREGUY

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EVENTS

“OVER”A WORD HEARD OFTEN AT OSEA By Cheang Chee Yew

@RZcheeyew.cheang

“OVER”

seemed to be word frequently used by conference speakers to describe the state of the offshore oil and gas industry at the Offshore South East Asia 2014 (OSEA2014) in Singapore in early December. An oversupply of rigs, over production of oil and over-priced petroleum projects were just some of the topics discussed at the 20th OSEA conference and exhibition – a biennial tradeshow in Singapore that has served the offshore petroleum sector and its supporting industries in the region since 1976. While miniscule in terms of attendance compared to the annual Offshore Technology Conference in Houston, OSEA2014 managed to attract more than 28,600 attendees from 65 countries and regions, conference organizer Singapore Exhibition Services (SES) highlighted in a Dec. 5 media release. “Representatives from major industry players and SMEs had a productive time, be it from sourcing for the right equipment or services, networking with regular and new business leads, or picking up fresh and

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varied perspectives from industry’s movers and shakers,” Chua Buck Cheng, project director for Engineering Events at SES said. Douglas-Westwood’s chairman John Westwood was one speaker who provided his perspective of the offshore industry at the conference in Singapore – home to two of the world’s largest rig builders – Keppel Corp. Ltd. and Sembcorp Marine Ltd. The offshore oil and gas industry currently faces an oversupply of rigs, which is evident in some mobile offshore drilling unit (MODU) sectors, Westwood said. This has led to a deflation syndrome, with field operators waiting for rig rates to fall. Such a scenario, where “high drilling costs are the killer” prompted field operators to look at exploration drilling as it is the easiest target for the “re-focusing”, the Douglas-Westwood consultant noted, adding that “the latest generation rig assets will win work, but at what price?” There is an unprecedented investment in drillships, with an anticipated oversupply creating a difficult market for the next five years. The current book to fleet ratio of 61 percent for drillships, suggesting oversupply, is exacerbated by the fact that 44 percent of the fleet has yet to secure

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contracts, the British-based consultancy company said. In contrast to drillships, strong growth was expected in global demand for semisubs as the segment is relatively under-invested with new supply likely to be absorbed faster than drillships. Chinese yards, with their lower costs and attractive financing terms, are fueling the oversupply of rigs worldwide. China now has 32 percent of the global MODU orderbook, compared to Singapore with 21 percent, South Korea 19 percent, Brazil 13 percent and others 15 percent. Chinese yards account for 43 percent of the jackup orders and 37 percent of semisubs, with these companies “already proactively marketing drillship capability,” Westwood added. With OSEA2014 taking place just after the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) decided at their Vienna meeting to maintain production, the question of over production of crude was a topic for discussion. “The cartel [OPEC] has refused to do anything terribly meaningful about the global energy glut, which it has created, almost as much by its own production surge, as it has by American shale. If OPEC reduced its production, it would clearly have a stabilizing effect on prices,” Dan Eberhard, CEO of Canary, LLC. told the conference. Cost overruns were another “over” raised at the conference, this time in reference to the liquefied natural gas (LNG) sector in Australia. While the country is now constructing several LNG projects, which will propel Australia to overtake Qatar as the largest LNG exporter in 2018, the issue of costs has dampened its attraction as an investment destination for energy

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The latest generation rig assets will win work, but at what price?

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companies. Around 67 percent of LNG projects in Australia were over budget compared to the time when the final investment decisions were made, far higher than the global average of 38 percent, according to Cyrille Scart, Asia Pacific LNG and natural gas consultant at Poten & Partners. For projects that experienced cost overruns, those under development in Australia were around 31 percent over budget, compared to the global average of 23 percent, he commented, noting that only three of Australia’s current LNG projects – Ichthys, Wheatstone and Prelude – are on budget, while project costs for Gorgon, Queensland Curtis LNG, Australia Pacific LNG and Gladstone LNG have seen increases. Labor costs were a big contributory factor for the cost overruns in Australia’s LNG industry; the available workforce was too small to simultaneously handle several LNG construction projects. “In our view, you reached this type of situation due to labor … You are losing people and you want to keep them so you increase the wages. This was because you had a fundamental need for experienced labor at exactly the same time,” Scart said. Still, the conversation between industry players will not end with the conference as solutions are needed to deal with the challenges facing the offshore oil and gas sector in the years ahead.

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EVENTS

ISRAELI OIL, GAS EVENT OFFERS PLENTY OF FOOD FOR THOUGHT

By Jon Mainwaring @oiljon

Recently I was in Israel for the inaugural Universal Oil & Gas conference that aimed to highlight the potential of the country’s nascent oil and gas industry. The conference, which took place between November 18 and 20 next to the Dead Sea, was a great opportunity to learn all about the potential of Israel as a frontier hydrocarbon region as well as the pitfalls of doing business in the country.

Israel, not only has several trillion cubic feet of offshore gas that is being developed offshore by Noble Energy and its partners, it also has a huge onshore oil shale opportunity thanks to the work of Dr. Harold Vinegar – a former Chief Scientist at Royal Dutch Shell plc. Dr. Vinegar, who I was fortunate enough to have dinner with while at the conference, has a grand vision of using an in-situ heating method he has devised to extract oil shale contained within Senonian Bituminous source Israel, not only has several trillion rock that is prevalent cubic feet of offshore gas that is being throughout a large part developed offshore by Noble Energy of Israel. Indeed, Dr. and its partners, it also has a huge Vinegar conservatively estimates that the onshore oil shale opportunity... country could hold as much as 250 billion

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| www.rigzone.com ... hopefully – progress will have been made not only with Israel’s oil and gas regulations but also with helping the Palestinians to provide for their energy needs. barrels of such oil shale onshore. However, UOG 2014 also raised important questions about whether Israel has the right regulatory setup in place to properly exploit its newfound oil and gas wealth. Not only did speakers – such as Dr. Ruth Dagan, who heads law firm Herzog Fox & Neeman’s environment and climate change practice – complain of “erratic and unclear” oil and gas regulations, but chats with delegates revealed to me a strong sense that the Israeli government needs to sort out the rules under which oil and gas firms will operate. And then there are the inevitable political questions regarding Israel and its relations with the Palestinians and other countries in the Middle East. To say that relations between Israel and the Palestinian National Authority haven’t been good recently would likely qualify for the understatement

of the year. However, Israel’s emerging oil and gas industry – as well as the existence of some one trillion cubic feet of gas in Palestinian waters offshore Gaza – offers some hope for a more peaceful coexistence. One session at the conference showed how private businesses could cooperate to exploit gas resources and improve energy infrastructure in the Palestinian territories, where demand for electricity far outstrips supply. Meanwhile, Israeli companies now have gas export deals in place with companies operating in Jordan and Egypt. The UOG conference was reasonably well attended given that it represented a first foray by the organizers into Israel, with some 160-plus people from Israel and abroad making their way to the Dead Sea for the event. There is a second UOG conference scheduled for next year, when – hopefully – progress will have been made not only with Israel’s oil and gas regulations but also with helping the Palestinians to provide for their energy needs.

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TECHNOLOGY

FREE PLAY NOT JUST FOR KIDS ANYMORE By Karen Boman

ree play is not just for playgrounds anymore; it being used inside corporate America to spur innovation in technology. This free play can range from set periods of time during the day when employees are free to experiment with technology to plain play, such as ping pong. Cambridge Consultants is one such company that is allowing its employees to “play” at work in order to find new ways of applying technology to solve problems. To achieve this end, the company established the Cambridge Consultants Corporate Development Program. This program has been in existence since the company’s inception over 50 years ago. During this time, the program has produced a number of breakthroughs – from new ideas that become core technology that Cambridge then license to different industries, to companies that spun-out, including Cambridge Silicon Radio (CSR) now a billion dollar company, Frances Metcalfe, associate director in oil and gas at Cambridge Consultants, told Rigzone. “The CDP program at Cambridge Consultants is quite unique and a huge part of what we do,” Metcalfe commented. “Not only does it support employees and enable us to foster creativity in new ways, but it also enables our business as a whole to develop our own, non-competing IP to create a dialogue with industries.” “CDP ideas always correlate to what we want to achieve as a business or some adjunct to that. And because we build our skill base to interest staff, it leads to greater retention – when working on things we are passionate about –

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@KarenBoman

particularly the motivated, intellectual employees we hire – we’ll want to stay longer,” Metcalfe commented. With an array of skills under one roof, the engineers from one industry can quite often find a connection between how to transfer an innovative solution from one industry to tackle a technical challenge in another. This crossfertilization enables industries, oil and gas in particular, to manage risk when introducing new concepts. To solve the problem of offshore oil leak detection, Metcalfe’s team is capitalizing on the firm’s world-class fluorescence detection techniques, typically leveraged by the medical technology team in clinical diagnostics equipment like fertility monitoring and pregnancy tests, and broadening its use to become an oil spill detection technology platform. “The CDP program is enabling us to pool our resources, if you will – utilizing our skills in sensor design, data fusion and probabilistic signal processing in order to identify and deliver a new solution that can detect the natural fluoresces of even tiny amounts of oil in or on water,” said Metcalfe. Aveillant is another example of how Cambridge has taken CDP idea and transformed them into large, successful businesses through cross-fertilization. “We saw the potential to use a radar technology – used for collision prevention and pedestrian protection for the automotive industry – for use in clean-technology initiatives. Wind turbine clutter is one of the largest obstacles for wind developing in the

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Not only does it support employees and enable us to foster creativity in new ways, but it also enables our business as a whole to develop our own, non-competing IP to create a dialogue with industries.

the UK, caused by aviation radar issues – wind turbines can mimic aircraft on an air traffic controller’s radar screen,” said Metcalfe. Aveillant’s holographic radar technology will become the mainstream solution to wind turbine clutter, potentially unlocking many wind far developments while allowing for safe and reliable operation of airport primary surveillance radar. Newpark Drilling Fluids also allows its employees time to fiddle around with technology and new ideas and see if they can make the idea affordable and profitable for the company, said Lindsay Fraser, director of technology for Newpark, at a media event in Houston in October. The company is always on the lookout for technologies from other industries that could be applied to oil and gas, and doesn’t discount pie in the sky ideas. While maybe one in three or four of these ideas work, these ideas are the gamechangers in the oil and gas industry. These gamechangers will be needed as the industry faces challenging environments such as high pressure, high temperature wells in deepwater, as well as addressing these issues in an environmentally friendly manner. Unplugged adult play offers two primary advantages, both of which can boost worker durability, said Washington D.C.-based professor, health journalist and author Jenifer Joy Madden. Madden is the author of The Durable Human Manifesto and editor of the website, The Durable Human.

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One advantage is that, many jobs today involve almost non-stop input of information and data. “What can sometimes suffer is the time to reflect and consider all the incoming input,” Madden told Rigzone. “Getting away from the screen in ‘play’ like activities such as ping pong allows the mind to digest information. Just as an idea often pops into our minds when we’re in the shower when we are “doing nothing”, new ideas and insights can strike when we take a break from the job.” To spur new insights and ideas, Google has bought for thousands of its employees the online tool Headspace, which provides 10 minutes a day of mindful meditation. “But a mental break doesn’t have to cost anything. By simply stepping outdoors, we get a few moments of downtime while nature’s breezes and scents calm down frazzled nerves.” Having some unplugged play time also gives workers a chance to use their highly evolved muscles, which tend to atrophy when not used. “Scientists are just learning that, in addition to pumping up the body, exercise beefs up the brain,” said Madden. In a study of older adults, those who walked a few times a week lost less brain volume than their peers who got no physical activity. “Being active also improves employees’ health and stamina and thereby lowers healthcare expenditures.”

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