Chris Lawlor
LAWLOR, Christopher David Fintan (Chris), BSc MSc (1954-2014)
Chris was born in England on 19th September 1954 and started his engineering career in the UK in the late 1970s. He completed an Honours degree in Mechanical Engineering at Sussex University and then went on to complete a Masters degree in Offshore Structures at Cranfield University. Chris started his working life in the oil & gas industry in London, firstly at BP and then at Kongsberg Subsea Developments as senior subsea engineer.
In 1988 Chris and his wife Liz migrated to Perth, WA, where Chris joined Wholohan Grill & Partners (later to be part of the Worley Parsons group). Over the next 25 years Chris worked at Pipeline Technologists, Kvaerner RJ Brown, Kvaerner Oilfield Products, and finally at Woodside Energy.
Chris played a key role in many West Australian subsea development projects including East Spar, Laminaria, Gorgon, North Rankin, Goodwyn, Angel, Wanaea Cossack, Griffin, Saladin, North Herald, South Pepper and Harriet. Overseas subsea developments where Chris’s involvement was key included Jerneh (Malaysia), Lufeng (China), Albacore Leste (Brazil), Nam Con Son and Lan Tay (Vietnam), Buchan, Magnus, Forties, Balmoral and Alba (UK) and Troll, Oseberg, Albatross, Gullfaks, Gorgon, Frigg and Heidrun (Norway). Amongst his clients were BP, Shell, Chevron, Mobil, Texaco, Esso, Norsk Hydro, Statoil, Woodside, BHPP and Apache.
The engineering skills in Chris’s kit bag included subsea production system design and development, subsea manifold design and fabrication, subsea pipeline design and installation, subsea pipeline spanning and stability as well as riser design and analysis. Chris possessed a vast knowledge of subsea engineering, spanning more than 35 years. Always looking at the big picture, yet able to resolve the details. He was passionate about accuracy of information and would be relentless in ensuring that the facts were correct and made logical sense. When Chris signed off a document, you could be sure it was reliable and accurate. He was confident and self-assured, but never strident or overbearing.
Chris was the consummate engineer and was passionate about subsea engineering and new technology. In the mid-2000’s he helped establish the Perth branch of the Society for Underwater Technology (SUT). His enthusiasm for subsea engineering was infectious and he devoted much of his working life to coaching and mentoring others, across both industry and academia. As a testament to this, the SUT committee honour Chris’s contribution to the subsea community by offering an annual engineering student scholarship. His widow Liz presented the Inaugural ‘Chris Lawlor Scholarship’ at their AGM at Fraser’s restaurant in November 2014 and has returned every year in November since then to present that year’s award.
In between his engineering role at Woodside, Chris was adjunct visiting fellow at the University of Western Australia (UWA) teaching different elements of the subsea engineering degree course.
Chris was diagnosed with cancer in 2012 and passed away on 11th October 2014, much too young, leaving a void in the lives of many relatives, friends and colleagues.
Author: Keith Binns, January 2023.
The author thanks Mike Morison for allowing his eulogy for Chris to be drawn from in the writing of this biography.
