Ken Arnold, NAE, contributed greatly to the responsible development of offshore oil and gas resources. Among Ken’s achievements – lead engineer for a major offshore operator, entrepreneur who founded a successful engineering and management company, author of production textbooks, distinguished SPE lecturer and university instructor, NASEM Marine Board member, and safety leader who participated in the development of OCS regulations and standards.
Ken explains how his new engineering company was involved in the Gulf’s first “Rigs to Reactors” initiative:
My first job as Paragon Engineering Services was to advise Westinghouse on the ability of their yard in Jacksonville, FL to fabricate offshore jackups.
They had built a total facility with acres under roof, a huge drydock, and the biggest gantry crane in the US to fabricate large nuclear reactor vessels which stood on top of a barge hull which contained all the equipment necessary for a power plant. They had an order for, I think, 12 of these units. The plant was designed to complete one a year through an assembly line type of process. The facility was approved by Nuclear Regulatory Agency, and others. The piping model of the barge hull (this was in 1980 before we had 3-D models and large complex facilities were often constructed in scaled plastic) had a footprint as big as my house.
The goal was to make identical units which would be floated to a shore-based site where it would be sunk and protected from waves, etc.
Then came Three Mile Island and all orders were canceled.
Ken recalls further:
They eventually decided not to get into the rig fabrication business. The only thing I know of which was ever fabricated in the huge fab building was some cars for a ride at Disney World. I drove by the site many years later and the gantry crane was gone and it had been turned into a container port. I am not sure what happened to the huge drydock.
On Labor Day 2026, BOE is proud to salute the thousands of dedicated offshore professionals, in the US and around the world, who work in remote locations under challenging conditions to support their families and power economic growth.
The overwhelming majority of offshore workers do their jobs skillfully and conscientiously, and are committed to protecting their colleagues and the environment. It is their lives that are threatened, their “back yard” that is polluted, and their jobs that are at stake if accidents occur.
Fortunately for us, energy exploration and production doesn’t stop on holidays. BOE wants offshore workers to know that their important contributions to society are greatly appreciated, on Labor Day and throughout the year.
Contrary to what you might see or read on social media, the Strait of Hormuz has not “opened” by continental rifting between Iran and Oman. This waterway is the locus of converging plate tectonic interactions between the Arabian and Asian plates and offers a natural laboratory to study plate tectonic subduction and collision.
This narrow waterway, only 60- to 24-miles wide, is the passage for one-fifth of the world’s oil transportation, or about 20 million barrels per day. According to the International Energy Agency, 80 percent of this oil goes to Asian markets; however, any major disruption in oil flow impacts the global economy because of the international connectedness of the oil industry.
Upthrust of Jurassic-Cretaceous sediments of the vanished Tethys Ocean outcropped in Oman along the Hormuz Strait. Photo courtesy of Joe Versfelt.
North Sea pioneer JL Daeschler comments on the passing of Sir Ian Wood: “A great North Seas leader who had an amazing career. He founded the Wood Group, an internationally important engineering firm. Mustang Engineering, well known to the US offshore industry, became part of the Wood Group in 2000.”
I knew Ian in the early North Sea development stage. He became Sir Ian Wood. We used to chat at various conferences in Houston, Stavanger, and Aberdeen. Ian was an energetic man, who had a friendly a approach to our North Sea challenges. He was a true Aberdonian entrepreneur who employed 1000’s in offshore related disciplines worldwide.
Sir Ian turned his father’s fishing business into the Wood Group oil giant, leading the way as Aberdeen blossomed into Europe’s energy capital. When Sir Ian announced his retirement in 2012, Wood Group employed 41,000 people in 50 countries.
MMA’s public notice about support for space launch activities (Rigs-to-Rockets) recognizes the importance of collaboration between the highly innovative offshore and space industries.
In that regard, Seagate Space, a Florida company, is moving forward with plans for offshore launches. Seagate is “developing cutting-edge maritime infrastructure to avoid land site limitations and scale orbital launch cadence for commercial, government, and defense missions.”
Seagate’s Space Gateway-S platform has adopted features that have been widely applied by the offshore industry:
Autonomous dynamic positioning – developed and advanced by the drilling industry
Modular architecture – common in offshore facility design
Pontoon design – ala semi-submersible drilling units
Mobility – like mobile offshore drilling units (MODUs) – jackups, drillships, semi-submersibles
Space Florida, a public corporation and innovation connector, recently announced a partnership with Seagate Space:
EXPLORATION PARK, Fla.—June 2, 2026—Today,Space Florida announced Project Manta, a strategic investment in Seagate Space to expand Florida’s launch capacity through specialized maritime solutions. Space Florida’s Board of Directors approved an investment to prototype and demonstrate key elements of Seagate Space’s novel offshore launch infrastructure system, setting the stage for future development and manufacturing within the state of Florida.
“Submerged reactor systems have been safely deployed in naval applications for decades, demonstrating their potential as a reliable source of energy in demanding marine environments. While no commercial deployment on the Outer Continental Shelf is planned or approved at this time, it could greatly strengthen America’s energy security in the future,” said MMA Acting Director Matt Giacona. “With nearly 3.2 billion acres of the Outer Continental Shelf under federal jurisdiction, this MOU is an important step toward building the technical expertise, regulatory clarity, and interagency coordination needed to assess whether and how this technology could be responsibly implemented in the years ahead.”
“The Outer Continental Shelf presents a significant opportunity to support the future of America’s space economy. Offshore launch, re-entry, and recovery infrastructure could expand operational flexibility, increase capacity, reduce constraints on growing launch demand, and strengthen the nation’s commercial and national security space capabilities. With approximately 3.2 billion acres under federal jurisdiction, BOEM is uniquely positioned to help evaluate this emerging opportunity,” said Acting BOEM Director Matt Giacona. “This Request for Information is an important first step in assessing how offshore development could support the next era of U.S. space leadership.”
Rigs-to-Rockets is one of the alternative OCS uses promoted on this blog. Sea Launch was the first company to launch rockets from a converted semi-submersible drilling rig (photo above).
Kudos to BOEM for this initiative. Their Federal Register Notice is attached.
The Declaration of Independence is worth reading, if you haven’t done so in a while. The signers did not know if this radical idea would last one year, 10 years, or 100 years. They certainly did not imagine that what they were declaring would last for 250 years, and that the citizens of the country they created would be celebrating what they declared every year for so many years.
IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people. He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within. He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands. He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers. He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance. He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures. He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation: For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States: For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world: For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury: For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies: For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments: For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation. He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands. He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
The 56 signatures on the Declaration appear in the positions indicated:
Column 1 Georgia: Button Gwinnett Lyman Hall George Walton
Column 2 North Carolina: William Hooper Joseph Hewes John Penn South Carolina: Edward Rutledge Thomas Heyward, Jr. Thomas Lynch, Jr. Arthur Middleton
Column 3 Massachusetts: John Hancock Maryland: Samuel Chase William Paca Thomas Stone Charles Carroll of Carrollton Virginia: George Wythe Richard Henry Lee Thomas Jefferson Benjamin Harrison Thomas Nelson, Jr. Francis Lightfoot Lee Carter Braxton
Column 4 Pennsylvania: Robert Morris Benjamin Rush Benjamin Franklin John Morton George Clymer James Smith George Taylor James Wilson George Ross Delaware: Caesar Rodney George Read Thomas McKean
Column 5 New York: William Floyd Philip Livingston Francis Lewis Lewis Morris New Jersey: Richard Stockton John Witherspoon Francis Hopkinson John Hart Abraham Clark
Column 6 New Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett William Whipple Massachusetts: Samuel Adams John Adams Robert Treat Paine Elbridge Gerry Rhode Island: Stephen Hopkins William Ellery Connecticut: Roger Sherman Samuel Huntington William Williams Oliver Wolcott New Hampshire: Matthew Thornton
Bryan Domangue presents the coveted Order of the Alligator citation to Mike SaucierLars Herbst welcomes Mike Saucier to our prestigious retirement organization (fMMS).
After 41 years of offshore safety leadership, Mike Saucier, an outstanding engineer and manager, is retiring from the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE).
Like many of the offshore program’s stalwarts, Mike earned a petroleum engineering degree from the Louisiana State University (LSU). In 1984, he began his Federal career in the Houma District Office of BSEE’s predecessor, the Minerals Management Service (MMS), where he was mentored by the great John Borne.
Mike has held many important engineering and supervisory positions including Drilling Engineer and District Manager in the highly regarded Houma District Office, Regional Supervisor for Field Operations, Regional Supervisor for District Field Operations, Acting Deputy Regional Director for District Operations, and Senior Technical Advisor for the Office of the Director. When the New Orleans District Manager retired during a hiring moratorium, Mike stepped up and assumed those duties as well.
Mike impressed his colleagues with his commitment to safety achievement, the essential core element of the offshore program. His diligence, and his firm, fair, and consistent enforcement of the safety and pollution prevention regulations, earned him respect throughout the offshore industry.
Mike is an avid outdoorsman who enjoys hunting and fishing, and has 4 grandsons to mentor in those skills. Note the impressive achievements cited in the Order of the Alligator certificate (below) 😉. The Order of the Alligator recognition is most fitting given Mike’s alligator hunting expertise, which greatly impressed those of us who were unfamiliar with such exploits!
In recognition of Mike’s outstanding career, the Board of Directors of the former Minerals Management Service (fMMS) has unanimously voted to induct Mike into the fMMS Hall of Fame! Mike receives (is sentenced to? 😉) lifetime membership in the fMMS and a registered copy of the offshore world’s prized masterpiece, the painting Rig at Sunset 😉. (image and short explanation below).
Congratulations to Mike! You made a difference!
“Rig at Sunset” was painted 50 years ago by a US Geological Survey (USGS) employee who chose to remain anonymous. Initially, the masterpiece was presented to USGS (later MMS) engineers and scientists who had made important contributions to the offshore oil and gas program. Understandably, the intended recipients were so humbled by the magnificence of the painting that they could not accept it. As the painting grew in value and international prominence, framed copies were presented to outstanding retirees and the original painting was kept at a secure, undisclosed location.
Bud's Offshore Energy (BOE) 