Page 6: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (April 2012)

6Maritime Reporter & Engineering News Founder:John J. OMalley 1905 - 1980 Charles P. OMalley 1928 - 2000 Maritime Reporter/Engineering News is published monthly by Maritime Activ- ity Reports, Inc. Mailed at Periodicals Postage Rates at New York, NY 10199 and additional mailing offices. Postmaster send notification (Form 3579) regarding undeliverable maga- zines to Maritime Reporter/Engineering News, 118 East 25th Street, New York, NY 10010. Publishers are not responsible for the safekeeping or return of editorial material. ©2011 Maritime Activity Reports, Inc. 118 East 25th Street, New York, NY 10010 tel: (212) 477-6700; fax: (212) 254-6271ISSN-0025-3448USPS-016-750No. 4Vol. 74 MemberBusiness Publications Audit of Circulation, Inc.www.marinelink.com MARITIMEREPORTER ANDENGINEERING?NEWS All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of the publishers.EDITORS NOTEThe cover of this edition, our traditional Offshore Annual? in conjunction with the Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) in Houston, is one of my favorites simply because of the breadth of its coverage. The image is Eidesvik Offshores Viking Lady, a unique vessel that arguably is one of the greenest? vessels in the world, a three-year-old LNG-fuelled ship. And today the vessel is ready to receive its new energy storage battery pack, a technology that will enable it to fully leverage its fuel cell technology as part of its propulsion system, operating in a similar fashion as hybrid cars have for several years. It is no small coincidence to find the Viking Lady working amongst another symbol of environ- mental advance, an offshore wind farm. While our Offshore Annual? has long-been the domain of matters surrounding the discovery and recovery of offshore oil and gas, a sustained high oil price; increasing global demands for reduced emissions; and more efficient technologies in generating and transferring power via renewable technologies has conspired to push offshore wind and tidal power projects from field tests to commercial production. While the U.S. still lags Europe by a large margin in the development of offshore wind projects, a trio of attorneys from Blank Rome LLP find that the Obama Administrations policy to 80% of our nations electricity from clean sources by 2035 is starting to spur business, as they report in their column entitled Renewable Energy: Marine Renewables Sector Begins to Take-off in 2012? start-ing on page 18. The emergence of renewable offshore energy sources is in fact spawning a new mar- itime niche, as the portfolio of custom design, built and outfitted vessels specifically tailored to service offshore renewable projects is growing rapidly. In the second of three articles examining the power of renewables, our German correspondent, Peter Pospiech, looks at the emergence of offshore wind projects among Germanys traditional off- shore oil and gas suppliers, in The Power of the Wind,? starting on page 45. And starting on page 50 is my interview with Doug Keefe, Executive Director of the Fundy Ocean Research Center for Energy (FORCE). For those not familiar with the Bay of Fundy tidal environment, it is one of the most prolific tidal sites on the planet ? the Everest? of tidal power ? with 160 billion tons of water flowing through the bay each tide, with 14 billion tons squeezing through the Minas Passage at up- wards of five meters per second. While there is much focus here and throughout the industry on renewable energy, there is still no doubt where the money lies, and that is still in offshore oil and gas. It appears now that there is seri- ous traction among oil and gas producers again in the Gulf of Mexico, particularly in the deepwater sector. U.K.-based analyst Douglas-Westwood recently issued a report that projects $232 billion in Global Capex in the deepwater sector through 2016 ? or to put it in perspective, 90% more than was spent in the preceding five years. DWs Jennifer Harbour gives a comprehensive overview of the investment, broken down by world region, starting on page 56. Rounding out our energy coverage, we sent (figuratively, of course) Ned Lundquist to the Arctic. While the melting ice cap has multiple implications for the planet, in the sphere of maritime and off- shore energy it is literally the Wild West, with a host of political, technical and logistical challenges to address. While the interest in tapping the energy potential under the cap is well-recorded, the Arc- tic is a unique region with some challenging hurdles that must be addressed to ensure safe, efficient operations as well as procedure and technology to help clean up when disaster strikes.