We would like to extend a big THANK YOU to all the speakers for giving up their time and contributing their knowledge and expertise. Also a huge THANK YOU to all the delegates and exhibitors for helping to make DI 2005 a successful event, we look forward to seeing you again at DI 2006.

DI 2005 this year focused on strategies being employed by the stakeholders and oil companies in deepwater zones around the world, before examining in more detail some of the key technologies coming to the fore as the industry moves to commercialise ultra-deep reserves.

The importance of forging long-lasting partnerships that give all the players in a deepwater region adequate returns for the huge amount of time and effort they sink into bringing field developments from the drawing board to reality was clearly paramount. These relationships, such as those between the stakeholder community and the oil companies, and between the oil companies and the main contractors, were discussed in detail.

Mark Thomas, Chairman of DI 2005, commented: "The event once again attracted a strong cross-section of speakers and delegates from the deepwater industry, all of whom were able to make unique contributions and give their own strategic insight and perspective into what is the offshore sector's fastest-growing business area. We shall be looking to further evolve DI's scope in 2006, based on the excellent content and feedback from this year's forum. In particular we shall be looking to build in at least one or two technology-specific presentation and discussion sessions, probably focusing on ultra-deep subsea systems and production hub infrastructures, in addition to enhancing growing recognition of DI as an unrivalled forum for high-quality strategic content."

Dr Edmund Ayoola, General Executive Director of E&P at the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, highlighted the need for a long-term perspective when developing a deepwater province, including the necessity of co-operation with operators particularly in the early years, establishing a reliable fiscal regime and the goal of ensuring steady growth in local content participation in the industry and continually evolving deepwater strategic aims as experience grows. Patrick McVeigh, Manager, Deepwater Exploration & Development for Shell E&P, outlined the company's efforts to build the deepwater learning curve with partnerships as a key aspect of this, with the partnerships focused on project delivery, on time, on budget and "doing it right". McVeigh highlighted in particular Shell's partnership efforts in Nigeria, Brazil and the USA, and how important it was to have aligned decision making with other oil companies. John Forman, Director of Brazil's National Petroleum Agency, discussed the deep and ultra-deepwater potential of Brazil's basins and its ongoing licensing strategies, while Nita Nautiyal, Deepwater Strategy Advisor for ChevronTexaco's Nigeria/Mid-Africa business unit talked delegates through the company's portfolio off West Africa and its project management process. Nery Vicente Milani De Rossi, Manager, Espirito Santo Unit, for Petrobras focused on the company's light oil discoveries that are transforming its offshore plans and launching a wave of new deepwater floating production field development projects onto the market, while BP E&P Technology Group's Roy Roberts, Senior Development Engineer, Offshore Systems, outlined the operator's methodology for adopting the right technology development approach for its deepwater projects, the characteristics and usage of development concepts so far, and the influences and impacts of current technology challenges such as ultra-deepwater production and HP/HT considerations. Also presenting were AkerKvaerner's Henrik Hannus, Manager, Deepwater Business Unit Norway, who gave an exclusive insight into the company's ultra-deep semisubmersible platform concepts, case studies and the way forward in terms of modular topsides and automated design, while Ian Nash, Senior Project Manager at INTEC Engineering for the planned MEDGAZ pipeline, took delegates through a detailed technical analysis of the hugely complex project that is implementing some of the latest state-of-the-art design and construction technologies. Jim Mann, General Manager at Nautronix, outlined the outstanding advances made by the company's NASNet acoustic technology on deepwater projects, while Will Rowley, Director at Infield Systems, gave an outstanding overview of the market potential of the world's deepwater frontier zones, including analysis of field development facility expenditure trends.