Project management and engineering firm Cube, which specialises in designing and delivering bespoke structural/mechanical hardware for the offshore and subsea environments, beat SPEC and Subcon Technologies for the Innovation and Technology award at the awards in Perth.

 

"Thank you to Woodside, because not long ago they did a tender, and we competed in that," Mahaffy, who was a principal structural project engineer at the Perth oiler before founding Cube in 2008. said when accepting the award. 

 

"They presented us with a problem and said ‘do you have a solution this, and can you present it, and can you cost it?'

 

"We were given the opportunity to compete on the basis of ideas - and I can assure you that is a lot more rewarding.

 

"We are very touched, because the opportunity started there, and were very grateful for that."

 

Woodside vice president and chief technology officer Shaun Gregory flagged at AOG in Perth in February that the oiler was open to a new concept whereby the operator proposes a problem and the market takes the risk to find a solution.

 

That opens up the field for experts and supply chain companies to collaborate to find the solution, then tender for work rather than for the operator to go straight to a major contractor that will only subcontract it out to a technical specialist anyway.

 

Perth group Nexxis, which brings inspection and robotic innovation together in Australia for cutting-edge solutions, won the New Enterprise award.

 

Nexxis supplies specialist cameras, visual inspection and non-destructive equipment, including x-ray and ultrasound machines, to heavy industries to see and measure the integrity and condition of assets regardless of size or location, particularly across Australia, Asia and Africa.

 

The winner of the Collaboration award was Wood Group's Subsea Equipment Australian Reliability (SEAR) joint industry project, which facilitates knowledge sharing between industry participants to improve subsea equipment design and reduce the requirement for costly and time-consuming interventions in challenging Australian warm-water offshore environment. 

 

The second phase of that project was launched during AOG 2017, and includes Woodside, Inpex, Shell and PTTEP.

 

In accepting the award, Wood Group SEAR JIP project manager Adriana Botto gave special credit to the initiative's "mastermind", Woodside subsea controls engineer Harvey Smith, who was subsea controls engineer at Wood Group's JP Kenny for a year before joining the Perth oiler.

 

Intervention Engineering project engineer Sarolta Pudney won the Emerging Talent award; while SEA board member, Atteris asset and integrity business manager Allison Selman, won the Special Recognition Award.

 

Selman has driven SEA's 12-month mentoring program, called WISE, to increase the level of gender parity in engineering within the subsea industry.