From the President -  2010

The recent event in the US Gulf, sadly causing loss of life and severe environmental damage, has shown that the risks inherent in the offshore oil and gas business are all too real.

At IMCA this incident has caused us to ask ourselves about working together industry-wide – including operators, contractors, suppliers and industry bodies – to improve the situation in our area. We should endeavour to minimise risks and put in place stronger prevention and recovery mechanisms through the creation of more effective processes and systems. Paramount to achieving this is the superior strength of a supply chain that works together for the benefit of the industry as a whole.

An industry-wide approach to bring together representatives from all key parties to discuss such issues is something IMCA is working hard to facilitate. As an independent body eager to represent all stakeholders in our industry, IMCA would like to play a facilitation role to act as a conduit for change.

One such opportunity was our recent Offshore Construction Insurance Workshop in London in April which set about doing just this. The event enjoyed wide participation and was very positively received. An example is the discussion on builders all risks (BAR) insurance which brought all the relevant parties together and also discussed the risk balance in the contracts between clients and contractors. IMCA would like to further expand this forum and include dialogue with others including associations like OGP.

MCA learns from time to time that invitations to tender are issued that require the bidders to undertake a larger than normal amount of engineering work in order to tender. This may indicate that the FEED study for a project has been minimised, perhaps to save cost and time in today’s climate. However, it does not look fair to require ‘free engineering’ from scarce resources for which no compensation is paid.

This is a small matter in comparison with the challenges that have arisen from the US Gulf blow-out. However, I think these points are related to the overall discussion about how costs and risks are shared in our industry.

Johan Rasmussen, Acergy
IMCA President 2009