Sparrows Group has successfully retained its current North Sea Mechanical Handling and Crane Management contract with BP, which will extend the working partnership between the two companies to over 50 years.

Hydrocarbon production from the ‘Golden Triangle’ – incorporating the deepwater (>500 m water depth) plays of Brazil, the US Gulf of Mexico and West Africa – will peak in 2019 due to the lack of projects sanctioned in recent years.

W&T Offshore, Inc. (NYSE: WTI) announced last week, that the Ship Shoal 349 A-18 well, its most recently completed well in its Mahogany field, was successfully brought on production on January 17, 2017.

Shell has agreed to sell a package of UK North Sea assets to Chrysaor for a total of up to $3.8bn, including an initial consideration of $3.0bn and a payment of up to $600m between 2018-2021 subject to commodity price, with potential further payments of up to $180m for future discoveries.

TGS announces the Otos multibeam and seep study project in the U.S Gulf of Mexico.

Eni successfully drilled and tested Merakes 2, the first appraisal well of the Merakes discovery under the Production Sharing Contract (PSC) in East Sepinggan. The block is located in the prolific offshore Kutei Basin and the Merakes discovery is 35km from the Eni-operated Jangkrik field, which is expected to start producing through a Floating-Production Unit in the second quarter of this year.

Bibby Offshore, the leading provider of subsea installation and services to the offshore oil and gas industry, is pleased to announce the long-term extension to the charter of its dive-support vessel (“DSV”) Bibby Topaz, owned by Volstad Maritime. The terms and conditions of the extended charter arrangement have been adjusted to reflect the current market environment and are now based on a more mutual sharing of risk and reward.

In December 2016 Damen Shipyards Group signed a contract with Norway-based VOLT Service AS for a Utility Vessel (UV) 4312 to be delivered in Q1 2018.

Subsea 7, a global leader in seabed-to-surface engineering, construction and services, has taken delivery of Seven Arctic and Seven Kestrel, successfully completing a substantial and targeted fleet investment program that has added six new-build vessels to the Subsea 7 fleet since 2014.

In January of this year, Dutch subsea technology company Seatools completed a R&D program on a subsea liquid storage technology.

Continental Shelf Investment Capital Corporation (CSIC), the investment affiliate of Continental Shelf Associates, Inc. (CSA) has acquired the stock of Morgan & Eklund, Inc. (M&E), a hydrographic and land survey firm based in Wabasso, Florida.

A subsidiary of TechnipFMC has entered into an agreement with INPEX Operations Australia for Riserless Light Well Intervention (RLWI) services in the Ichthys field, approximately 220-kilometers offshore of Western Australia, for the Ichthys LNG Project.

Refinery Margins Healthy Despite Distillate Length

McDermott International, Inc. has been awarded a substantial contract from Saudi Aramco for engineering, procurement, construction and installation (EPCI) services in the Safaniya and Zuluf fields offshore Saudi Arabia.

GE Energy Connections (NYSE: GE) was recently chosen to supply its MV7Series 5 Level (MV7-5L) drive, which will sit topside on a floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) unit for the Greater Enfield project. Located 60 kilometers (km) off Exmouth in Western Australia, the project aggregates production from the Laverda Canyon, Norton over Laverda and Cimatti oil accumulations.

The start of every year calls for time to reflect on the last. The offshore and marine industry can look back on 2016 as one of the most bruising in recent memory. The downturn has been tough and drawn out, with increased divestment, more stringent environmental regulations and a prolonged shipbuilding cycle that has resulted in overcapacity.