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People & Company News dations for successful future careers.An investor in the future of engineering, Sonardyne Interna- tional Ltd. has recently made a substantial donation to the Al- ton College Fundraising Appeal for a new Engineering and Design Technology Center. The donation brings forward the Center?s building completion date to Autumn 2013 and will enable the college to teach 310 students a year. Located close to Sonardyne?s UK manufacturing headquar- ters, Alton College attracts aspiring engineers from across Southern England, providing them with the opportunities and support to achieve their full potential. With application num- bers for Engineering and Design Technology courses dou- bling over recent years, the over-subscribed course has been restricted by its current facilities. To rectify this, the college launched a fundraising appeal, hoping to generate the required £2.46 million for the design and build of the new centre. Once complete, the centre will house two well-equipped workshops for wood, metals and plastics; facilities for turning, welding and casting; Computer Aided Design (CAD) and Computer Aided Manufacture (CAM) facilities; two technology labora- tories and a technician work station and secure tool store. EPC Offshore Invests in Growth Project management and concept development specialist EPC Offshore has invested $3.5m in a new Aberdeen of ce in a strategic move which will enable the company to recruit more staff, expand its service offering to clients and reaf rm its commitment to the region. It agreed a long term lease on a three-story, 7,000 sq. ft. Grade A building at 56 Carden Place in the heart of the city?s West End. Preece Joins CeonaMark Preece will join the executive team of Ceona as Execu- tive Vice President Commercial & Business Development and will report to Steve Preston. Preece was scheduled to join the company on June 2, 2013. Preece has extensive senior man- agement, commercial, operations and business development experience gained both in the UK and international Oil & Gas and Offshore Renewable energy markets. Before joining CEONA he was CEO at the tier two subsea start- up company Reef Subsea, SVP Business Development & Mar- keting at Acergy, Managing Director with Bibby Line Ltd, and earlier was with Technip SA, Co exip Stena and Stena Offshore where he was Managing Director Canada & Caspian, and Senior Vice President UK and International Business Development. In his earlier career he was a Ship?s Master, a Marine Super- intendent and a Project Manager. Preece is a Master Mariner with an MBA from Henley Management College. Xodus Wins Premier Contract International energy consultancy Xodus Group won a contract worth $2m to deliver the subsea Front End Engineering Design (FEED) study for the Premier Oil Catcher project in the Central North Sea. The scope of work will involve two phases. A review of previous and current studies, preliminary process  ow diagrams and investigative work to identify structural functional re-quirements, will lay the foundations for the subsequent select phase. At this stage, Xodus will develop and engineer  eld and subsea archi- tecture,  ow assurance processes, subsea control systems, pipelines and tie-ins, as well as providing tech- nical safety and risk support.The Catcher  eld is located in block 28/9 and is potentially one of the larger North Sea discoveries in recent years. Xodus will assist in the FEED for the three riser systems for each of the wells, to allow production from the  eld through the subsea tie-back.In the last four years Xodus has secured £11 million worth of FEED contracts for FPSO projects and has been involved in more than 50% of completed FPSO FEEDs in the North Sea. Coastline Surveys Completes Geotechnical Investigation for Navitus Bay Coastline Surveys completed a geotechnical investigation of the seabed cable route at the proposed Navitus Bay offshore wind park, off the South coast of England. Mike Unsworth, Project Manager for Navitus Bay, said: ?We have worked with Coastline Surveys during previous phases of the project. The team?s thorough knowledge of the proj- ect, combined with their geotechnical expertise and extensive experience of working along the south coast, made them the obvious choice for this latest piece of work.? Using its own 24m survey vessel, MV Flatholm, along with their C-COREHP vibrocorer, Coastline Surveys successfully completed sampling at 22 locations along the planned route for the cable. The route runs from the shoreline to approxi- mately 12 miles off shore. On investigating the ocean  oor, the team expected to  nd marine sands overlaying bedrock, with a range of depths throughout the area. It soon became clear that the site was made up of a variety of soil conditions ranging from soft silts to dense sand and clays. Navitus Bay required undisturbed quality samples where pos- sible, but particularly around the palaeochannels, where  ne grained material and peat deposits were also expected. Coastline Survey?s C-COREHP unit has a real-time Pen- etrometer  tted to it, to monitor the rate of penetration during sampling. This was especially invaluable in areas of softer loose sedi- Andrew Wylie, senior consultant at Xodus Group June 201340 MTRMTR #5 (34-48).indd 40MTR #5 (34-48).indd 406/3/2013 1:29:56 PM6/3/2013 1:29:56 PM