JW Fishers ROVS Now Available With Side Cameras
JW Fishers (East Taunton, Massachusetts) announced in May that it has added side cameras to its remotely operated vehicles (ROVs). The vehicles can now be equipped with two additional side cameras, each with its own separate underwater housing, and the operator can set the camera's viewing direction. The side cameras feature a high-intensity light-emitting diode ring light and capture high-resolution color video, just like the ROV's primary cameras.

Pelican Appoints Stephan Corti
Senior Vice President of Worldwide Sales
Pelican Products Inc. (Torrance, California) has appointed Stephan Corti its senior vice president of worldwide sales. He will serve in the strategic role of driving Pelican's global sales growth by opening and developing new markets and partnerships, the company said. Corti has more than 20 years of international sales and marketing management experience, and prior to joining Pelican, he served as Technicolor's senior vice president of worldwide sales and marketing. Corti is fluent in English, French, Italian and German and holds an advanced degree from the Harvard Business School, an MBA from Virginia Commonwealth University-School of Business and Ph.D. and master's degrees from the Université de Nice Sophia-Antipolis.

Salazar Orders Six-Month
Moratorium on Deepwater Drilling
On May 27, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar called for new operating standards and requirements for offshore energy companies and ordered a six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling. He also suspended proposed exploratory drilling in the Arctic and canceled a pending lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico and a proposed lease sale off the coast of Virginia.

The recommendations in the 30-day safety report Salazar sent President Barack Obama include a recertification of all blowout preventers for floating drilling operations; stronger well-control practices, blowout prevention and intervention procedures; tougher inspections for deepwater drilling operations; and expanded safety and training programs for rig workers, according to a statement from the Department of the Interior.

"As we marshal every resource in support of the massive response effort for the BP [London, England] oil spill, we must take appropriate action to prevent such a disaster in the future," Salazar said. "We are taking a cautious approach to offshore oil and gas development as we strengthen safety and oversight of offshore oil and gas operations."

Salazar is ordering a moratorium on drilling of new deepwater wells until the presidential commission investigating the Deepwater Horizon oil spill has completed its six-month review. In addition, permitted wells currently being drilled in deep water in the Gulf of Mexico (not including emergency relief wells being drilled to stop the flow from the damaged BP well) will be required to halt drilling at the first safe stopping point and then take steps to secure their wells. Additional safety checks will be imposed on ongoing deepwater drilling activities as they prepare to shut down their operations. The Department of the Interior will be issuing notices to lessees and other documentation necessary to implement the moratorium.

Salazar said the administration will continue to take a cautious approach in the Arctic and, in light of the need for additional information about spill risks and spill response capabilities, will postpone consideration of Shell Oil Co.'s (Houston, Texas) proposal to drill up to five exploration wells in the Arctic this summer.

The secretary also cancelled a proposed 2012 lease sale for offshore Virginia to allow additional consultations with the Department of Defense on military training requirements in the area, and canceled a lease sale for the Gulf of Mexico that was scheduled for August 2010.

MMS Director Elizabeth Birnbaum Submits Resignation Amid Reported Agency Mismanagement
S. Elizabeth Birnbaum submitted a letter of resignation as director of the Minerals Management Service (MMS) on May 27. Though reports suggested that Birnbaum had been fired, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar told the U.S. House Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment and Related Agencies that she had chosen to leave the post.

"Elizabeth Birnbaum is a strong and effective person and leader," Salazar said. "She helped break through tough issues including offshore renewable development and helped us take important steps to fix a broken system. She is a good public servant. She resigned today on her own terms and on her own volition."

The resignation came after a report from the Department of the Interior's acting inspector general cited numerous violations of regulations and inappropriate behavior among MMS employees. The report was compounded by an earlier report in 2008 that revealed corruption and similar transgressions among the agency's royalty-collection staff. Additionally, the agency had come under fire in recent weeks for its handling of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

"I'm grateful to the president and to the secretary for allowing me to serve this administration and the country," Birnbaum said. "It's been a great privilege to serve as director of the MMS. I have enormous admiration for the men and women of the MMS who do a difficult job under challenging circumstances. I'm hopeful that the reforms that the secretary and the administration are undertaking will resolve the flaws in the current system that I inherited."

New Wave Energy Device Prototype
Being Tested in Loch Ness
AWS Ocean Energy (Inverness, Scotland) has begun testing its new wave energy device in Loch Ness in the Scottish Highlands.

The company has deployed a one-ninth-scale model of its AWS-III device, a ring-shaped, multicell, surface-floating wave power system, and is aiming to deploy a full-system prototype in 2012 and a precommercial demonstrator plant during 2013, representatives said.

"In developing the design of the AWS-III, we believe we have addressed the fundamental barriers to delivering practical wave energy," Simon Grey, chief executive officer of AWS Ocean Energy, said. "We have eliminated moving mechanical parts in contact with seawater by using a novel system of flexible diaphragms arranged around a steel hull and incorporating air turbines."

A single utility-scale AWS-III, measuring around 60 meters in diameter, will be capable of generating up to 2.5 megawatts of continuous power, the company said. The scale device will generate no electricity, but it will provide valuable design data and confirm the AWS-III's revenue generation potential, AWS continued.

Subject to financing and planning consents, the company plans to have a 10-megawatt precommercial demonstration farm operating in 2014, according to representatives.