Bennett Offshore, L.L.C., is an independent

naval architecture Naval architecture, or naval engineering, is an engineering discipline incorporating elements of mechanical, electrical, electronic, software and safety engineering as applied to the engineering design process, shipbuilding, maintenance, and op ...

, design and consulting firm founded in 1997 by William T. Bennett, Jr., to deliver engineering services to the offshore industry. Bennett headquarters are located in

Houston, Texas Houston ( ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and in the Southern United States. Located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, it is the county seat, seat of ...

, and the company has an engineering office in

New Orleans, Louisiana New Orleans (commonly known as NOLA or The Big Easy among other nicknames) is a Consolidated city-county, consolidated city-parish located along the Mississippi River in the U.S. state of Louisiana. With a population of 383,997 at the 2020 ...

. Bennett Offshore provides traditional naval architecture, structural, mechanical and electrical engineering as well as hydrodynamics and other marine- and offshore-related services. In addition, the firm is involved in design, modification, and construction supervision of marine vessels, liftboats and other offshore mobile drilling and production units. Bennett Offshore worked in collaboration with the Offshore Technology Development group of Keppel Offshore & Marine to design the ORCA series of self-propelled, self-elevating platforms.

History

Founding

In the spring of 1997, William T. Bennett, Jr., retired from his previous position as CEO of Friede & Goldman and established his own

and consulting firm, Bennett & Associates, L.L.C. He worked at first out of his own home, employing a single structural engineer. By the fall of 1997, Mr. Bennett had acquired a nearly 100-year-old building on historic St. Charles Avenue in

. Over the next few years, the company grew while providing engineering services to the offshore industry.

Bennett co-designs Keppel "B-Class" jack-up

In 1998, Mr. Bennett and his team were invited by Keppel FELS in

Singapore Singapore, officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island country and city-state in Southeast Asia. The country's territory comprises one main island, 63 satellite islands and islets, and one outlying islet. It is about one degree ...

to co-design what was to become the popular "B-Class"

jack-up A jackup rig or a self-elevating unit is a type of mobile platform that consists of a buoyant hull fitted with a number of movable legs, capable of raising its hull over the surface of the sea. The buoyant hull enables transportation of the unit a ...

; a rig ordered in 2014 by UMW Drilling became the 75th B-Class jack-up ordered from Keppel since 2000. Bennett engineers also contributed to the design of Keppel's A-Class and N-Class jack-ups.

Bennett designs Q-4000 semisubmersible

In 1999, Cal Dive International approached Bennett & Associates to complete the basic design (and later the detailed design) of a

semisubmersible Semi-submersible may refer to a self-propelled vessel, such as: *Heavy-lift ship, which partially submerge to allow their cargo (another ship) to float into place for transport *Narco-submarine, some of which remained partially on the surface *S ...

. In 2000, Richard Michel from Bennett & Associates and William Strong of Cal Dive jointly presented a paper at the

Offshore Technology Conference Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) is a series of conferences and exhibitions, focused on the exchanging technical knowledge relevant to the development of offshore energy resources, primarily oil and natural gas. It was founded in 1969. There a ...

showcasing the capabilities of the "Quantum 4000" (or Q4000). The semisubmersible was delivered in 2002. In 2010, the Q4000 was one of the auxiliary drilling platforms supporting the well containment efforts during the ''

Deepwater Horizon ''Deepwater Horizon'' was an ultra-deepwater, Dynamic positioning, dynamically positioned, Semi-submersible platform, semi-submersible offshore drilling Oil platform, rig owned by Transocean and operated by the BP company. On 20 April 2010, ...

'' incident. It retrieved the failed BOP from the well for further investigation.

Publication : "Jack Up Units - A Technical Primer"

In 2005, Bennett & Associates and

Keppel FELS Seatrium Limited provides innovative engineering solutions to the global offshore, marine and energy industries. Headquartered in Singapore, the Group has over 60 years of track record in the design and construction of rigs, floaters, offshore p ...

co-authored a document titled "JACK UP UNITS - A Technical Primer For The Offshore Industry Professional." The intention was to provide industry personnel with an introduction to jack-up platforms and their design considerations. This document has since become known in the industry as simply "the jack-up primer."

Hurricane Katrina

In August 2005,

Hurricane Katrina Hurricane Katrina was a powerful, devastating and historic tropical cyclone that caused 1,392 fatalities and damages estimated at $125 billion in late August 2005, particularly in the city of New Orleans and its surrounding area. ...

made landfall on the Louisiana and Mississippi coasts. The ensuing levee failures in New Orleans left the city without power and other basic services for months. As a result, Bennett & Associates temporarily relocated its employees to Houston. When utilities were restored to their New Orleans building, Bennett & Associates reopened the original St. Charles Ave. office and retained the Houston office as company headquarters.

Bennett designs MinDOC (ATP "Titan")

In 2006, while looking to acquire an offshore drilling platform, ATP Oil and Gas approached Bennett & Associates and expressed interest in MinDOC, a design for a multi-column deepwater spar alternative conceived years earlier by Mr. Alden "Doc" Laborde and Mr. Bennett. Bennett & Associates was awarded a contract and designed the ATP "Titan," which became the first US-built deepwater dry tree drilling and production platform.

Keppel acquires Bennett & Associates

In January 2012, Bennett & Associates was acquired by Keppel Offshore & Marine to enhance Keppel's design and engineering capabilities. Bennett & Associates continued to provide engineering services to the offshore industry, as it traditionally had done, while offering additional services made possible by its association with a global organization possessing extensive offshore construction experience. In collaboration with Keppel, Bennett began work on the design of a series of self-propelled, self-elevating platforms.

Bennett & Associates becomes Bennett Offshore

Following the 2012 acquisition of Bennett & Associates by Keppel Offshore & Marine, Bennett & Associates changed its name to Bennett Offshore to reflect its expanded role in the offshore industry brought about by affiliation with Keppel.

ORCA series of self-propelled, self-elevating platforms

Working in collaboration with the Offshore Technology Development group of Keppel Offshore & Marine, Bennett Offshore designed a range of self-propelled, self-elevating platforms named the ORCA series. Utilization of ORCA platforms includes construction support, light drilling, well intervention, well plug and abandonment, coiled tubing operations, wind farm installation, gas compression and accommodation. The first ORCA 2500, customized for the Middle East and North Africa, was delivered to a Qatari rig operator in February 2016. An ORCA 3500 is currently under construction by

for delivery in Q4 2017.ORCA 3500 ordered from Keppel

References

External links

Bennett Offshore website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bennett Offshore LLC Companies based in Houston 1997 establishments in Texas Marine engineering organizations Consulting firms established in 1997 Architecture firms based in Texas