Leading Lights of the Subsea Oil & Gas Sector Honoured at Prestigious Industry Awards
12 February 2009
Oil and gas industry body Subsea UKhas announced the winners of its third annual business awards at a gala dinner, sponsored by Technip, in
The Subsea Business Awards 2009 highlight the hard work and excellence of subsea organisations and individuals from across the
Subsea 7 won the award for Subsea Company of the Year at the black-tie event on Tuesday, February 11. A leading subsea engineering and construction company servicing the oil and gas industry, from its
Best New Business to the Subsea Industry was Flexlife Ltd. Established in April 2007, Flexlife Ltd identified a gap in the market for an innovative consultancy to offer solutions for flexible pipe projects, to deliver them and deal with integrity management. Since then, the company has worked to secure a profile at a national level and is on course to become a multi–million international business with a fast-growing reputation for commercial and managerial excellence. In order to recognise the new talent coming into the industry, the award for Best Young Personality of the Year went to James Knipe of MCS. Knipe joined MCS as a graduate in October 2007 and, after demonstrating a high level of technical excellence, was promoted to project engineer within six months. Using the company's in-house software, he developed solutions for modelling pipelines which led to software updates and provided MCS with a technical platform from which to bid for and win advanced pipeline engineering projects. Despite only being in the industry for less than two years, Knipe has displayed such a level of technical excellence and competence during a recent project that he wrote a paper on the subject which was accepted for the Society of Underwater Technology conference in Perth, Australia and won ‘Best Abstract' at MCS' Annual Technical Conference. The award for Greatest Individual Contribution to the Subsea Industry went to David Brookes of BP. Brookes has a history stretching back almost 30 years in the subsea and pipeline industry. Since joining BP in 1980 as a pipeline engineer, he has worked his way up the ranks, taking on increasingly responsible positions. Notably, during the 1990's, he was responsible for BP's global technical strategy for subsea production technologies. Following this, Brookes became subsea project manager on BP Foinhaven, at the time the most significant deepwater, subsea global project, while recently he was appointed chief subsea engineer - a newly created position which recognised his unique knowledge and skills. Brookes has travelled extensively throughout his career and has not only acted as an ambassador for his company but also for his country. He has chaired and helped organise many subsea conferences all over the world and has remained at the cutting edge of subsea development for 20 years. Brookes has been vice president and chairman of Council for the Society of Underwater Technology (SUT) and is a past recipient of the SUT's David Partridge Award. Most recently he was elected President for the SUT and is truly, an internationally recognised figure for his outstanding detailed knowledge of subsea technology, its development and application. Commenting on the winners, Subsea UK chief executive Alistair Birnie said: “These awards are an opportunity to highlight those who have made a difference to our industry by demonstrating flair, creativity and vision. Yet again the standard of entries was very high, displaying the broad range of personal and corporate success stories within the subsea sector. “Not only are the awards a celebration of our industry's success but also a formal recognition of those talented individuals who have the ability and desire to take the industry into a new era.” Sponsored by Triton Group, the Subsea 09 Conference"Exploiting the Potential" -
