Marine engineering company Oceaneering (OII 1.25%) yesterday announced it had secured contracts with a subsidiary of Transocean (RIG +0.29%) to provide three subsea blowout preventer control systems that will add more than $40 million to Oceaneering's subsea products backlog.
The contracts are for discrete hydraulic systems that will be used on existing semi-submersible drilling rigs that Transocean is modifying to comply with recently issued standards requiring subsea blowout preventers with a single shear ram to be upgraded or replaced.
Shear rams are the last line of defense for blowout protection. When activated, they shear off the drill string causing the ram to block the hole and seal it off preventing the release of oil and gas. It was the blowout preventer that failed on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico.
