Offshore companies ink MOU on engineering standards

Vaseem Khan, Vice President, Engineering for McDermott, signs the MOU

MAY 18, 2016 — McDermott International, Inc. (NYSE:MDR) reports that it and 14 other leading offshore companies have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to establish engineering industry standards.

Known as the Standardization Unified Joint Industry Project (JIP), the one-year agreement sets out the terms and conditions on which the signing parties will establish industry standards for offshore engineering.

The aim is to reduce cost and increase predictability without compromising safety in international offshore oil and gas engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) topside projects by using standardized bulk materials and equipment, construction and qualification procedures, and documentation requirements.

As part of the agreement, all parties also agreed to comply with all applicable laws, rules and regulations in the performance of the MOU and in particular with all applicable anti-trust, anti-competition and anti-bribery laws.

Joining McDermott for the signing ceremony, held at the recent OTC event, were officials from offshore engineering companies Wood Group Mustang, DNV Korea Limited, Technip, Samsung Heavy Industries Co., Ltd. (SHI), Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering Co., Ltd. (DSME), Hyundai Heavy Industries Co., Ltd. (HHI), Royal Dutch Shell, Chevron and MODEC International.

Classification societies signing the agreement were American Bureau of Shipping (ABS), Bureau Veritas (BV), Korea Offshore & Shipbuilding Association (KOSHIPA), Korea Marine Equipment Research Institute (KOMERI) and Lloyd’s Register.

Vaseem Khan, Vice President, Engineering for McDermott, said that McDermott welcomes the opportunity to partner with stakeholders, customers and industry peers “to craft standards that deliver sustainable cost reductions without compromise to safety or operability.”

“McDermott, with its unique and worldwide engineering-through-installation expertise is well placed to understand the challenges of standardization and has built its reputation for engineering excellence over the past 94 years,” Mr. Khan said. “As the industry moves to arrest and reverse the cost and schedule inflation of the past decade, a core element is offshore and subsea product standardization with a move to agnostic solutions which are industry specific but operator independent.”