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Recent accidents in the oil and gas industry have renewed interest in whether behavioral sciences can provide insights that can be translated into safety interventions.

Regulations are driving increased decommissioning activities in the Gulf of Mexico. Incomplete data is one of the obstacles in planning decommissioning. As fields have changed ownership over time, key information has been lost, creating challenges for the current operator.

Complexity is now a day-to-day parameter in the world of the subsea engineer. We are not developing these systems for fun; huge value is associated with maximizing recovery from these deep, remote oil and gas reservoirs.

Engineers in the oil and gas industry make tough decisions for a wide variety of issues, including risk and safety, and about design and other types of tradeoffs, as well as operational assessments.

Cost estimation for facilities depends on early concept selection and critical inputs, often complicated by uncertainty in one or more of the critical inputs. Empirical cost models and cost modeling methods using these inputs vary in degrees of scope, comprehensiveness, and robustness.

Operators are increasingly recognizing the need for a systematic assessment and management of flexible pipe integrity, but the identification of critical criteria and the means to best achieve valid and efficient inspection and monitoring (I&M) continues to evolve.

Facilities engineers in the oil and gas industry have grown in stature over the past decade—the huge sums of capital we now spend have assured that. We are a growing presence as facilities become larger and more complex.

This regular column addresses the social side of engineering. We are pleased to include an article written by two of the more prominent names in decision-theory research. Dale Griffin and Thomas Gilovich describe interesting and important insights from the study of heuristics and biases.

Investments in floating production systems are expected to increase sharply over the next five years, driven by a surge in installations.

I extend a warm welcome to 2013, which henceforth will be known as the year of the facilities engineer. We are playing a more important role today than we ever have in the delivery of hydrocarbon assets to meet the world’s energy needs.