“The best ever” is the view of Hugh Williams, Chief Executive of the International Marine Contractors Association (IMCA) on looking back at the association’s recent Annual Safety & Environment Seminar held in Rio de Janeiro.

“Not only did we have more people than have ever attended one of these two day events in all of its 12 year history, but, out of the over 180 attendees more than 40 of them came from Petrobras, or other clients, and 70% had never previously been to an IMCA event anywhere in the world, so we certainly achieved the objective we set ourselves three years ago when we established our South American Section of creating greater awareness and recognition of IMCA, and of its aims and objectives,” he explains.

“We got off to a flying start with a keynote address by Lauro Antônio Puppim, Subsea Maintenance & Inspection Manager of Petrobras who said that he believed the great challenges lying ahead of us in the immediate future are three-fold – intense growth, innovation and high standards of SMS (safety management systems). He also highlighted the importance of large investment in the integrity of subsea assets; and addressed internationalisation and the importance standardisation, the sharing of information and knowledge, and of spreading that ethos.

“In looking at the growth pattern he quoted the current numbers at Petrobras – 12 installation vessels with continuous long-duration contracts; 15 ROV support vessels, three saturation diving vessels; 40 vessels for anchor handling; 60 survey contracts, and in the last year alone 14,000 surface dives were completed and 2,000 saturation dives.

Tags: IMCA