In early 2001, INTEC decided to re-establish its presence in the U.K., building upon ongoing projects in London. During the fall of 2001, INTEC became aware of an opportunity to acquire Fuel Subsea Engineering. INTEC was immediately interested since Fuel had over 30 specialist subsea engineering employees, and an office in Woking, Surrey, where INTEC had intended its office to be located. On January 1, 2002, Fuel became the Subsea Hardware Business Unit of INTEC Engineering (U.K.), Ltd. John White managed Fuel for many years and will continue with INTEC as the Business Unit Manager. John is widely respected in the subsea engineering industry and brings a wealth of experience and knowledge to INTEC.

WWoking is on a fast rail service from London’s Waterloo Station and is in the commuter belt of the greater London urban area, halfway between London’s major airports of Heathrow and Gatwick. INTEC’s London office is strategically placed for Clients, many of whom are also located on the south-west side of London.

Two other Business Units complete the suite of services to be offered from INTEC’s new London office. The Engineering Projects Business Unit, led by Graham Taylor, who is currently managing INTEC s efforts on the Simian-Sapphire Development Project for Burullus. This major project is being performed through INTEC’s joint venture with Bechtel in their West London office. Simian-Sapphire interconnects with and is being developed alongside the Scarab-Saffron Project, which was initially staffed from INTEC’s Houston office.

Newly established in the London office is the EPCM Projects Business Unit, led by Tony Cunnington. Tony has worked in INTEC’s Delft office on the Blue Stream Project in 1999. He has also worked with Peter Roberts, Managing Director of INTEC’s London Operation, and Chris Tam, INTEC’s Vice President Operations in Houston. As the EPCM group develops, it will facilitate INTEC’s greater involvement in capital projects, including EPC project management and post-design construction supervision assignments. Its first contract has not been signed, but negotiations are advancing, and project work is expected to commence later this year.

A few years ago, Fuel Subsea Engineering created its own design of a diverless subsea connector system. Alongside this, they had also developed comprehensive and field-proven processes for procurement, assembly, testing and installation of subsea hardware. Such impressive experience is welcomed by INTEC, and helps to underpin our ability to provide full service to our Clients - from concept through commissioning.

Fuel Subsea Engineering originated as Furness Underwater Engineering in the late 1970’s. Ten years later, Fuel and INTEC worked together on one of BP’s early West of Shetland design and prototype testing programs, known as DISPS (Diverless Subsea Production System). Dave McKeehan, INTEC’s Senior Vice President Technology, conducted much of the pipeline work in Fuel’s offices in Woking. Coincidentally, during the same time period, a different Fuel team was a leading participant in EDIPS (Esso Deepwater Integrated Production System), another design and prototype testing program targeted at the West of Shetland environment and water depth. In fact, Fuel’s DMaC (Diverless Maintained Cluster) System, a direct spin-off from EDIPS, found its first practical application for BP on the Foinaven field to the West of Shetland.

DMaC started life as a deepwater field development scheme focused on delivering cost efficiency through flexibility in field layout and installation schedule. It was designed to be installed from a drilling rig. The large size of diverless connection equipment available at that time was a major constraint to the Client’s design and commercial objectives. Fuel solved this problem by inventing the compact flowline and control umbilical connection now known as the DMaC Connection System. It is the small size and low weight of the inboard porch assembly that gives the system its ability to readily interface with most third party equipment such as trees, manifolds, and pipelines. The DMaC Connection System can connect flowlines on as little as one-meter centers. There simply is no other system that will allow 16 flowlines to connect into a 5 meter square plan area.

The DMaC System is a drag-to-place system where the flexible flowline is placed on the seabed and dragged to position by winches located on the ROV. To date, over 500 DMaC flowline and control umbilical connections have been completed in the West of Shetland, some in service since 1996.

The increase in London area services will benefit our current Clients, and demonstrate to potential Clients that INTEC is a full service organization.

The Horn Mountain Field Development Project includes a production and processing Spar facility in about 5,420 feet water depth within Mississippi Canyon Block 127. After processing, dehydrated gas and treated crude oil will be transported via dedicated export pipelines connected to the Spar with Steel Catenary Risers. The 10-inch gas export pipeline is routed approximately 41 miles to a fixed platform in 300 feet of water at Main Pass Block 260 for tie-in to the Destin System. The 12-inch oil pipeline is routed approximately 36 miles to a platform in 345 feet of water at Main Pass Block 289 for tie-in to the Odyssey system.

The export pipelines have been laid on the seabed with the SCR terminations temporarily capped until after the Spar facility is installed. The governing wall thickness criterion for deepwater pipeline design was selected to be hydrostatic collapse, and buckle arrestors were placed every 1,920 feet.

Two major industry records were set during this project:

• Deepest pipeline installation in the GOM with a maximum water depth of 5,460 feet.
• The world record for conventional pipelay rate with 9,083 meters (5.64 miles) laid in one day.

he view from an airplane at 38,000 ft is always fascinating, especially along the route from Kuala Lumpur to Perth. About an hour before our destination we pass the Houtman Abrolhos, a cluster of small flat islands off the Australian west coast. They appear barren and uninhabited, and from this altitude don’t hint at the terrible events that took place there almost 400 years ago, when in June 1629 the Batavia, a Dutch East India trading ship ran aground on a reef. The grounding itself was unfortunate, but not unusual. The captain had kept to an easterly course after leaving Cape Good Hope, wanting to take advantage of the southwest trade winds and westerly currents for as long as possible, before turning north towards Batavia, the current Jakarta. His problem was that in those days longitude could not be accurately established due to the lack of clocks that could work reliably aboard a ship. As a consequence, he was closer to the Australian west coast than he thought and hit the reef in the middle of the night. There were 341 people onboard, including crew, a contingent of soldiers, representatives of the VOC (the Dutch East India Company), and passengers seeking their fortunes in the colonies. The ship also carried a considerable amount of trading goods, including 12 chests of silver.

All but 40 people got off alive and made for the islands. They salvaged as much of the supplies and sails as they could before the hull was bashed to pieces on the coral. After they set up camp the captain and 36 soldiers and crew members set out in the longboat looking for water on Australia’s barren west coast, and when they didn’t find any, spent a month sailing all the way to Batavia, where they organized a rescue mission. Meanwhile, events on the islands took a nasty turn when a small group of the crew took control and established a rule of terror, aiming to capture the expected rescue ship and start a pirating business (for which the salvaged chests of silver would be a good start). They gradually killed off about 100 of the men, women, and children in the party.

Three months after the shipwreck, the rescue ship arrived. The mutineers tried to get to it first, but failed and were taken prisoner. The leaders of the mutiny were tried on the spot and hanged. The rest of the group were taken to Batavia where an inquiry and trial took place,

In 1995, a replica of the Batavia was completed using seventeenth century tools, materials, and methods. The ship is on display in Holland, and presents a very interesting look at how such vessels were built and how cramped it must have been for those hundreds aboard. In the Maritime Museum in Freemantle, I was able to view, among other things, a piece of the original hull, some of the silver coins the captain had not been able to recover, and the skeleton of a 6 ft tall victim of the murderous reign of the mutineers. It makes this story very real.

What I find most remarkable is that in those days of terribly difficult logistics, an organization existed that could maintain a successful trading business (most ships actually made it), keep accurate ship manifests and other records that can still be viewed today, launch a rescue mission and investigation, and conduct what appears to have been a fair inquest and trial at a location 10,000 miles from headquarters. When I cover this distance in a few hours going from one INTEC office to the next, and reflect on the IT and communication resources we have at our avail, I am humbled by the entrepreneurial and inventive spirit of those days. Our forefathers managed global organizations with a lot less to work with except their resolve and a set of strong operational and management processes.

Fortunately, our pilot knows latitude as well as longitude, and we’re landing in Perth, exactly where we planned.

References: Batavia’s Graveyard by Mike Dash, published by Weidenfeld and Nicholson. ISBN 0 575 07024 2.

W. J. Timmermans
President

The very mention of Australia for most people conjures up images of dusty outback plains and bounding kangaroos. Whilst these things are not hard to find outside the metropolitan region, there is an Australia that is not just solely reserved for crocodile hunters who have the teeth of their victims attached to their hatbands.

Perth is unmistakably a part of Australia that blends urban living with a rugged outback way of life in which few non-indigenous people would survive. The very size of Western Australia alone is beyond the comprehension of most people. At four times the size of Texas, the British Isles and all of Continental Western Europe would fit into this State with room to spare. When Western Australia is combined with the other states and territories, it comprises a continent as large as the contiguous United States.

Perth is on the very western point of this continent and is the most isolated city in the world. It is closer to Singapore than it is to another main Australian city. This isolation, however, does not make it a difficult place to live. Instead, it serves to create a self-contained and self-reliant city, which has undergone phenomenal growth in the last 50 years to become a "teeming mass" of over a million people. The city is still expanding at a rate far faster than any European city. With its location on the Pacific Ocean providing a balmy Mediterranean climate, Perth is clean, safe, and above all, breathtakingly beautiful. It is clear why people flock here. These are the reasons we chose to relocate here. In practical terms, the city possesses everything you need, including shopping malls, three world class universities, and a three tiered education system - government funded, church schools, and prestigious private schools. Also, the beaches are clean, safe, and accessible for a variety of activities including swimming, surfing, fishing, diving, and snorkelling. Even with the number of people in Perth, the area is hardly busy, so you can do what you want, when you want to, without large crowds of people. It is a world away from the crowded streets of London.

In Australia, you are not just limited to the city. There are a number of World Heritage areas in close proximity to Perth. Monkey Mia is a six-hour drive northward, but well worth it to witness the grace and beauty of dolphins swimming a few feet away from you and dugongs (sea cows) in their natural environment. In the other direction from Perth, and an easy weekend getaway, is the Dunsborough/Margaret River region, which offers some of Australia’s finest wines and best surf. The Wet Dreams Surf Competition is held here each year. Rolling breakers with 17 second wave periods impact directly onto the beach.

If beach activities do not appeal to you, there are also many cultural pursuits to enjoy. Perth abounds in fine restaurants, and the diverse cultural mix of the populace adds to this, so that on one street you can find Italian, contemporary Thai, Chinese, Vietnamese, Japanese, and many other styles of eating houses. Caf culture is also becoming popular; all serving an array of wonderful things done with coffee and milk.

By far the most difficult thing about living in Perth is finding the time to do everything, especially when a good book by the pool is so appealing.

On the business side of Perth, and with a little help from other offices worldwide, INTEC has completed a variety of work for Mobil, Chevron, Santos, Apache and Woodside. We are building on these relationships, and look forward to some interesting subsea, FPSO, pipeline, and terminal projects in the near future. The Perth office is focused on high value engineering, innovative systems, and business solutions for our Clients, thus becoming an integral part of INTEC’s growing global business. We cover a large region , and our staff also supports the Kuala Lumpur office throughout the greater Asia and Australasia territories. Other offices may have noticed a few "Aussie" recruits in their midst; this is part of our strategy to encourage a sense of "INTEC" before returning home.

There are many old friends and colleagues here from the U.K. and Norway working with a variety of companies. This combination of staff from many international companies makes Perth one of the most cosmopolitan cities that I have worked in and definitely is "The Place to be."

Greetings from "Down Under!"