Comment by BVAA Director,Rob Bartlett

Greatest Briton?

50 years ago today the UK buried its Greatest Briton, Winston Churchill. I may be biased in that opinion due to a combination of the fact that I was born so close to his passing, I share several of his names, and finally there is – it is alleged – a family connection to the old boy!

There’s no resemblance obviously. However there is significant supporting evidence of the ‘greatest’ claim, principally his winning the national poll for the accolade carried out on national TV some years ago. The Churchill episode was recently re-run as part of the 50 year commemorations, but it was the competition runner-up that caught my attention, the Great Engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

Not for the first time then had a politician trumped an engineer. Given the state of the oil and gas market at the moment, I fear that may be happening again.

The recent Wood Report was a review of UK offshore oil and gas recovery and its regulation by Scottish businessman and self-made billionaire Sir Ian Wood. Unlike the revered and often audacious Brunel, whose work is highly visible, Sir Ian’s achievements are less well known outside his field. Sir Ian’s commercial successes are however hugely impressive, whereas many of Brunel’s – although magnificent in size and ambition - were actually commercial disasters.

So Sir Ian Wood gets my vote. It does seem however that he’s struggling to get the attention – or at least appropriate action out of the Government who commissioned – and ‘accepted in full’ - his report.

My friends at Douglas Westwood stated recently that production from oil wells declines naturally at around 9% per annum. So to serve a static market, we need to find sufficient new sources to plug that gap, just to stay still. No industry expert I know of has yet predicted a global sustained slump in demand, indeed it is widely predicted and expected to recover in the relative short term. So we need new exploration, and as it takes so long to develop new fields, we need that to happen now!

But even that may not be sufficient to save the UKCS. North Sea companies are haemorrhaging jobs at an alarming rate citing the prevailing market conditions. Bizarrely however I hear that some companies are still clinging to ancient and entirely inappropriate valve specifications, or over specifying valves for no good engineering reasons, other than perhaps some lack of confidence on the part of the itinerant workforce that seems prevalent in some EPCs (see Barrie Kirkman’s ‘Gold Plating’ article on page 8).

In my opinion two things must happen without delay.

• The UK Government must implement the practicalities of the Wood Report with extreme urgency – this cannot wait. Cut the Tax now to encourage desperately needed investment.

• Valve buyers and specifiers must engage with the valve experts – the manufacturers – to ensure what they are specifying is ‘fit for purpose’ and not grossly over-engineered. It could save them a lot of money. My telephone number is 01295 221270.

Published: 24th February 2015