Full-scale testing of a sub-sea pump destined for Murphy Oil’s Azurite project in West Africa is the highlight of one of two “warm-up” field trips this week, as the Underwater Technology Conference, or UTC, gets underway in Bergen, Norway.

Conference goers leave the Framo Engineering Sub-sea Test Dock facility at Fusa unless they opted instead to visit Aker Kvaerner Subsea’s aftermarket base a the Ågotnes coast base, also on the west coast of Norway near Bergen.

Booming sub-sea activity means a third workshop will be under construction at the site, which is “work” for some 300 staff.

The two-day UTC event continues Tuesday and Wednesday with no fewer than 40 presentations held concurrently in three parallel streams. The streams change every couple of hours by sessions, of which there are 12 — from completions and pipeline developments, to subsea processing and control systems.

No political antics, as the all-expert group go clean on the engineering challenges they face and the solutions thought up. Delegates meet up for the trips on Monday, 12:30 at Greighallen in Bergen.