We were having a series of rain storms, but this one (actually two thunderstorm cells in a row) brought us a double rainbow that formed a perfect arching bridge we could see from start to finish. Unfortunately I could not get the entire rainbow in the images but I think you can get a feel for the beauty of the storm. It left as quickly as it came with the after glow breaking out under the western clouds.

As an added bonus I have included pictures of my “BlueStorm” Suzuki GTX 1300 Hayabusa. The name, Hayabusa, comes from Japanese for Peregrine Falcon as they can both reach 200mph. I haven’t tried and I am not about to, but it is still a thrill to ride.

Logan and I took a ride to Pointe du Bois on the Sunday and met up with other riders from Winnipeg. Logan has a Honda CBR125 that looks amazingly like the CBR600.

Lac du Bonnet June Storm 2008

I had an opportunity to attend the Eurocopter SAR conference in Brighton for June 3rd and 4th, 2008. I hope to write about my experience but in the meantime I have posted some pictures of the event including those of the French Military EC225 that was brought in to do demo flights. As from my pictures you can see I had a “Captains” eye view of the procedures as the Chief Pilot for Europcopter demonstrated the EC225 SAR capabilities.

Eurocopter SAR Conference Brighton UK 2008

An FPSO?

I saw the import invoice for the Agbami FPSO. $1.2 Billion. That was impressive, but we did not get the full impact of being impressed until the vessel showed up in Nigerian waters. The Agbami FPSO is not only one of the largest in the world and is also one of the largest floating marine vessels in the world with only a few ships like the Knock Nevis and the USS Ronald Regan being larger. Even if it was the largest vessel today, however, the status would not last long because each successive FPSO is built larger than the last .

I organized the first two helicopter flight to the FPSO the first morning of its arrival. The idea was to get the customs and immigration officers on board and get the vessel cleared and signed over to Chevron before the end of the year. The timing was critical as she only arrived on Dec 30th giving us only two days as a window of opportunity. I realized that night we were going to be fine when I heard a squall line move through with rain thunder and lightning. That was what we needed to clear the air of the Harmattan dust haze that might have delayed our launch.

We got away on time and here are some of the amazing images I managed to capture as we caught the FPSO in tow on the way to its final mooring. This vessel made it all the way from Korea under tow at an average of 5.4 knots and arrived less than 48 hours before the deadline. Needless to say all Chevron was very happy to have it cleared and signed over before the New Year. Now the work begins.

http://www.rigzone.com/news/article.asp?a_id=21607

“The Agbami FPSO will be moored in about 4,700 feet water depth, and at least 40 subsea wells will most likely be necessary to fully exploit the field. The FPSO will be designed to handle 250,000 barrels of oil per day, 450 million cubic feet of gas production per day and 450,000 barrels of injected water per day. Approximately 415 million cubic feet of gas per day will be re-injected. Designed to store approximately 2.2 million barrels of oil, the Agbami vessel is set to be on location for more than 20 years.”

Chevron Agbami FPSO Arrival in Nigerian Waters

November was a busy month anyway as we are preparing for the imminent arrival of the Agbami FPSO for Chevron Nigeria, but it was made near impossible by the fact that we needed to audit all the helicopter service providers who will be flying on the contract. That includes ACN (CHC Global), Bristow Nigeria (Bristow Group) and Pan African Airlines (Bristow Group). Leading the team was Mike Simmons and Clive Christenson from Chevron Aviation Services. We spent a full two weeks completing the job. In PH and Lagos I did not get many pictures, but was able to knock off a few in Escravos and found a few willing posers.

Pan African Airlines Nigeria November Visit

While we were in Port Harcourt Clive and myself did a flight with ACN out to the Sedco-Energy. We stopped on the way to drop off passengers on the Toisa Perseus a service vessel helping to get the field ready for the Agbami FPSO. David, the Deputy Chief Pilot of ACN, did the honors and even agreed to be “snapped”.

ACN / CHC Helicopter Flight to Deep Water Nigeria