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Oil patch insider: ELKO buys chunk of 88 Energy shares;
Navy divers prepare for Arctic theater
Kay Cashman Petroleum News
88 Energy said March 22 it has entered into a share subscription agreement with ELKO International LLC in which ELKO will be issued 360 million shares at a share price of 1.8 cents. The deal will make ELKO one of the largest shareholders in the ASX and AIM listed Australian firm, per 88 Energy’s website.
The lead contractor on site at the Merlin 1 exploration well on the North Slope in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, ELKO is 100% owned by Alaska geologist and resident Erik Opstad.
“The market appears to be anticipating a win for 88 Energy … with punters running its share price up from a close of $0.017 yesterday to an intraday high of $0.023 today on big volumes. Only a week ago it was trading at around a cent,” Matt Birney reported March 22 in The West Australian.
The Merlin well in 88 Energy’s Project Peregrine is targeting the prolific Nanushuk oil reservoir, in which Oil Search, Bill Armstrong and ConocoPhillips have announced major discoveries in the last few years.
- KAY CASHMAN
Navy divers prepare for Arctic battlefront As the U.S. military prepares for a future conventional war after decades of asymmetrical conflict, the Navy’s diving community is giving increased focus to what it takes to operate in the frigid waters that Arctic missions may require in the not-too-distant future, The Navy Times reported on March 19 in an article written by Geoff Ziezulewicz , a senior staff reporter for Military Times, who focuses on the Navy. He covered Iraq and Afghanistan extensively and was most recently a reporter at the Chicago Tribune.
Divers with the Virginia-based Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit 2 took part in a third cycle of ice dive training in February at Camp Ripley, Minnesota, Ziezulewicz reported.
The course is conducted by a combination of experienced Navy divers and civilian instructors and aims to get the dive community ready should they be asked to head beneath the ice in an Arctic climate, he wrote.
Diving beneath 18 inches of ice presents its own hazards and challenges, according to the command and senior divers in the unit.
It’s an environment a world away from the bathtub-temperature waters of Virginia and Florida where much of the unit’s dive training takes place, Ziezulewicz wrote.
“Divers usually have direct access to the surface,” Chief Warrant Officer 2 Joshua Slack told Ziezulewicz for The Navy Times. “Knowing we’ll be diving under the thickness of ice we try to prepare them mentally for the rigors.”
One facet of the training involves switching out a diver’s breathing apparatus while underwater, Slack said, but in cold environments, the body reflexively tries to inhale when one’s face is suddenly struck by icy water.
Thus, divers must train to make sure they are expelling their breath when a cold blast of water hits them.
“Obviously, aspirating water under the ice is largely problematic,” Slack said.
In addition to the cold, it’s extremely dark when diving under ice, so during the training divers are aided by patches of ice above them that have been cleared of snow to allow sunlight in and assist with orientation, Master Chief Jason Mette told Ziezulewicz.
Emergency procedures take on a more urgent tone under the ice as well, since divers can’t simply surface if things go wrong, Slack said.
In case of an underwater problem, divers are instructed to stick a screw into the ice above and standby while rescue divers deploy lines and do 360-degree sweeps in the murky depths, Slack told Ziezulewicz.
The water was between 36 and 38 degrees during February’s training, and everyone dove with a partner.
And while diving in such an environment can be daunting, Mette said he emphasizes the same principles as any other dive scenario.
“I like to stress to the guys three things: trust topside personnel; trust in your dive buddies, and trust in your equipment,” he said.
Navy divers conduct a variety of missions for the fleet, from salvage and recovery to ship and submarine repairs, as well as “saturation diving,” which can involve “working and living at extreme depths for days or weeks at a time.”
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