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Seminar Report
IMCA Diving Division Seminar 2001
13 September 2001, Stavanger Forum, Norway
The first annual IMCA Diving Division seminar took place on 13 September at the Stavanger Forum conference centre in Norway, alongside and building on the success of the tenth annual Marine Division event.
Despite the events of 11 September in the USA, a combined total of over 180 participants were still able to attend and participate in lively, constructive debate across a range of issues affecting the marine contracting sector world-wide. Our thoughts go out to those in America who have suffered tragic losses and our understanding is extended to those who were unable to travel to the event.
IMCA's newsletter report on the event appears below, but for full details on the printed report of proceedings, containing the presentation material in full and summaries of workshop discussion, click here.
GREAT SUCCESS IN STAVANGER
IMCA Newsletter - Issue 21, October 2001
Despite world events, over 80% of the expected delegates arrived in Norway for September 13 to enjoy IMCA's two day annual marine seminar, held jointly for the first time this year in parallel with a one day conference on offshore diving.
Like everyhere else that week, proceedings began with a short silence to show respect for those affected. Olav Sønderland, Chief Constable of Stavanger and Head of the Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre for Southern Norway, then gave a presentation about the roles and value of DP vessels in emergency intervention. He explained the range of tasks assigned to the Norwegian search and rescue services, including various operations that the petroleum industry is well equipped to deal with.
Following on, Jen-Christian Terjesen, Country Manager for Halliburton Subsea, gave a presentation showing how contractors respond to marine emergencies. This covered Halliburton's response to such incidents as the search for the helicopter lost off Norne in 1997; the recovery of the bunkers from the wreck of the battle cruiser Blucher; the survey of the wreck of the Estonia; and the recovery of bodies from the wreck of the Kursk. This highlighted how, on each occasion, specialist vessels and equipment (for search and rescue, emergency, and post-casualty situations) were required from within the industry. Moreover, as in the offshore industry, they were supplied as events demanded.
Next, Olav Hauso of the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate spoke about regulatory developments in the Norwegian sector for DP vessels and DSVs. The striking element of this talk was how, through unique co-operation between government and industry, some 22 regulations and four guidelines developed over 16 years are to be condensed down to four thematic regulations and four guidelines to take effect from January 2002.
Diving Session
David Jenkins, Coflexip Stena Offshore Asia Pacific, opened these sessions by discussing the somewhat emotive subject of thermal testing for hyperbaric lifeboats and, in particular, the issues arising in a tropical environment. He discussed the environmental and logistical challenges of working within the Asia-Pacific region and the technical requirements of hyperbaric evacuation - safe launch of a lifeboat, the ability to control the chamber environment - and the need to plan and recover/ decompress divers to a safe location.
David explained that the IMCA thermal testing protocol, which he uses for testing his company’s hyperbaric lifeboats, reflects the need for a test method which uses readily available technology and makes it relatively easy to conduct a test on site.
Following on from this, Joar Gangenes of Stolt Offshore AS discussed diver exposure to contamination, an increasingly common area of concern. He outlined the preventative measures currently available and work being undertaken to develop suitable monitoring equipment for detecting potential hazards. He noted that acute contamination can be prevented by the use of risk assessment during planning and before work is undertaken, where contamination is known, and by putting appropriate operating procedures in place. However, Joar also stressed that much more work is need on this thorny topic, a point reiterated during the afternoon workshop session.
Crawford Logan completed the morning session of the diving conference by presenting the preliminary results from the IMCA survey of past experience and employment profiles among diving personnel. This covered the period January-December 2000 and considered all divers (both surface supplied and saturation divers) and diving supervisors. Crawford explained that he had only analysed the data provided for the North Sea, but that the full survey had covered the Mediterranean, Middle East, India, Asia-Pacific, North America, Australia and the Rest of the World. We await detailed results of this work with interest.
Diving Workshops
Afternoon workshops included one about DP bridge to dive control communications. This brought together people attending the separate diving and marine sessions for a lively joint discussion on a topic which is crucial for diver safety. Other workshops covered diving in contaminated waters and a continuation of the discussion on the thermal testing of hyperbaric lifeboats.
The two-day Marine Division seminar continued on 14 September - click here for a full report.
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