Dear Members,
Welcome to this May edition of Making Waves.
WTI oil price has made history in the last couple of weeks, for all the wrong reasons – going negative by almost $40/barrel. Whilst this was driven by the characteristics of the oil futures trading market in the US, it has impacted oil prices everywhere.
Against this background, we are starting to see the serious economic impact of the combination of COVID-19 and low oil prices reflected in the quarterly results of the major oilfield services companies. The strong headwinds therefore continue, but I am confident that the strength, resilience, and exceptional talent in our industry will see us making the right decisions for the future.
Peter Parry, from the global management consultancy Bain & Co, was a keynote speaker at our 2018 Annual Seminar and the firm has just updated their view on the oil supply/demand outlook under a number of scenarios. They have kindly shared this document and two webinars with us - these are available on our COVID-19 webpage (under 'Featured Information')
At IMCA we continue to work remotely and this is proving to be a very effective mechanism in supporting our Members. Webinars have replaced or traditional regional meetings and are working well.
Our web page on COVID-19 is regularly updated as we receive information from members of the HSSE and Marine committees on the practical problems and solutions they have found in managing the complex crew logistics in our business. I would like to thank everyone who has contributed to this effort and welcome feedback and additional information from all our member companies. IMCA’s liaison work with other organisations on COVID-19 such as the IMO, ICS, IOGP, OCIMF, OGUK, IACC, and IMHA is an ongoing process and details are posted on our webpage as soon as they are available.
The technical committee work continues with a high level of activity and we are seeing very good engagement and contributions from our committee members. Likewise, our work on the CPD programme is going well. We are in the early stages of designing the DPO App and around 500 diving supervisors are now registered on their CPD App. We look forward to this initiative gaining traction in other important segments of our work, as a very effective and cost efficient way of maintaining continuous professional development records in safety critical offshore roles.
Finally, we welcome Phil Towers as Technical Adviser in our Diving Division and Mark de Barr as Technical Adviser in our Marine Division. Both are highly experienced professionals who will be well known to many in our industry and will, I am sure, make a strong contribution in moving our work forward.
As always, let’s all stay safe and healthy.
Allen Leatt, IMCA Chief Executive
On 10 March IMCA announced that the International Maritime Organization (IMO) Sub-Committee on Ship Systems and Equipment (SSE) at its 7th session had endorsed the establishment of an intersessional Correspondence Group.
IMCA’s Security Committee has a strategic objective of raising awareness about security issues that can potentially harm Member companies. IMCA shares relevant information from recognised sources with Members via a regular Security Bulletin. IMCA encourages Members to be aware of these bulletins and share the contents with their employees or use the materials shared as part of any existing company security awareness programme.
Launched on 1 May 2019, IMCA’s DP Practitioner Accreditation Scheme has received close to 1000 enquiries in its first year.
In February IMCA played a key role in leading a roundtable discussion on standardisation in the Offshore Renewable Energy Industry at an industry run event in London.
