From Houston (BN): BP announced settlement agreements with Transocean and Halliburton, resolving remaining legal disputes between the companies as a result of the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster.

Under the agreements, BP will pay $125mn of Transocean’s legal costs and stop trying to collect a share of Transocean’s insurance proceeds, $538mn.

Transocean, meanwhile, will indemnify BP against injury claims by Transocean employees or pollution claims due to fuel leakage from Transocean’s sunken Deepwater Horizon drilling rig.

Transocean also announced it has reached agreement with the Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee, representing victims of the spill, to pay $212mn plus attorney fees to private plaintiffs and local governments. Halliburton did not disclose details of its settlement with BP.

Meanwhile, BP awaits final federal court determination of its penalties in the accident, in which 11 workers died and millions of barrels of crude spilled.

Also in the BP Macondo tangle, a new study blames the spill for the most severe dolphin die-off ever recorded in the Gulf of Mexico. Scientists cited unusual adrenal insufficiency and severe pneumonia as causes of death.

The study arose from the Deepwater Horizon Natural Resource Damage Assessment being conducted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, other federal and state agencies and BP.

Phil Cooper has left his role as global technology director at INTECSea, based in the UK. This is one of those ‘no one’s talking’ situations – which mean money is involved – but SEN understands that this was an unexpected move and Phil is less than thrilled with this outcome. Surely he will pop up again somewhere soon.

Another recent departure that had to be kept under wraps during ‘gardening leave’ – or should that be ‘fishing leave’ considering he was based in Cornwall and can see the ocean from his abode – is Brian Green who had been managing director of Severn Subsea Technologies, sister company to LB Bentley under the Severn Glocon banner. SEN has heard that Bentley-Severn, like others, is facing tough trading and was looking to lose a salary.

The estimable Ian Ball – surely the oldest working subsea engineer as he hit 80 this week – is going back to the future. Having completed his stint with INTECSea, he is returning to India, where he supported Reliance Industries a decade ago as it moved towards its first subsea development at KG-D6, reportedly to assist ONGC with its upcoming seabed development work - top subsea guru!

UTEC SURVEY has merged NCS Survey with its Aberdeen based operations, UTEC Survey Construction, to form one organisation in EMEA – UTEC NCS Survey.

As a result of this UTEC will consolidate its Mediterranean operations into the Aberdeen based organisation and close its Naples office. UTEC and NCS are both part of the Acteon group of companies which specialises in subsea services.

UK and Netherlands-focused PARKMEAD has raised a US $21.1mn war chest to help fund a mergers and acquisitions campaign.

Tom Cross, exec chairman of Parkmead, said, ‘The current climate in the oil & gas sector is creating a significant number of opportunities, both at an asset and corporate level. This successful placing has put Parkmead in an excellent position to capitalise on these opportunities.'

Emergency pipeline repair specialist IRM SYSTEMS has opened a new operations base in Houston.

The new base will support customers throughout The Americas, as far north as the Arctic.

One of the primary aims of its Houston enterprise is to further develop its risk management services, particularly its integrity assessment and mitigation capabilities for pipelines, steel catenary risers, and fixed risers.

DNV GL Group has appointed Remi Eriksen as the company’s new Group President & CEO. He is succeeding Henrik O. Madsen, who is retiring on 1 August.

A new report has revealed that NORTH SEA oil and gas workers believe that they have little or no protection from losing their jobs following the collapse in wages and working conditions blamed on the current downturn. Many feel the unions representing them have failed to stand up to the big companies.

An Oilandgaspeople.com survey of more than 1,000 oil and gas industry workers indicated that 38% of those surveyed within the UK North Sea sector felt the only way to make their voices heard and protect their rights would be to strike.

UK North Sea producer IONA ENERGY made a loss after tax of $13.6m in Q1 2015, increasing from a loss of $338,000 in the same period a year earlier. Revenues were $8.1m, down from $35.6m a year earlier.

Oilfield services provider BUMI ARMADA BERHAD recorded a Q1 net profit of US $19.8m this year, up 11% from the same period a year earlier.

Revenues increased by 22% in the period to $157.2m, boosted by the Eni 15/06 fpso conversion project and higher conversion activities from the Kraken fpso project.

Offshore