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Vol. 231 No. 7 |
Schlumberger has inaugurated a new technology facility in Norway. The WesternGeco Oslo Technology Center (WOTC) offers a collaborative environment where clients can work alongside WesternGeco and Schlumberger technical experts and universities to help solve exploration challenges. The newly relocated center houses engineering, testing, integration and support facilities for all the organization’s seismic and electromagnetics acquisition technology.
Titan Specialties, a provider of perforating and cased-hole logging technology, has acquired the downhole logging tools business of Kesh Downhole Measurements Inc. The Edmonton, Alberta-based company will operate under the name Titan Specialties, ULC. In addition to the cased-hole logging and measurement-while-drilling gamma business acquired from Kesh, Titan Specialties will also carry a full range of perforating guns and associated hardware, addressable and select-fire perforating switches, and setting tools, and will be the distributor for Guardian Global products in Canada.
Ikon Science, a geoscience technology company, and Stingray Geophysical, a specialist in seismic permanent reservoir monitoring, have entered into an agreement to cooperate in the development, marketing and delivery of a new time-lapse technology and services offering to the upstream oil and gas industry. The technology, using multicomponent sensors permanently installed on the seabed, will enable the monitoring of fluid, pressure and geomechanical changes during production. By combining time-lapse seismic and production data into a 3D geological model, predicted changes can be validated with 4D seismic modeling.
Wilon Resources, an energy exploration company with operations in the Appalachian Basin, announced its acquisition by US Natural Gas Corp. US Natural Gas Corp. engages in the exploration and production of crude and natural gas. Its operations are in the Appalachian Basin centered around Kentucky and West Virginia.
Al Shaheen Energy Services and GE Oil & Gas have signed strategic partnership agreements to support the continued growth of Qatar’s oil and gas industry and consolidate GE’s presence in the Middle East. Under the first agreement, Al Shaheen Energy Services will become a 50% strategic joint venture partner in GE Oil & Gas’ PII Pipeline Solutions business. In addition to its pipeline inspection and integrity services, PII Pipeline Solutions will also establish a dedicated integrity and inspection center in Qatar. The partners also signed a 50/50 joint venture agreement creating the Al Shaheen GE Services Co. to perform aftermarket services for the GE Oil & Gas installed fleet in Qatar.
TGS-Nopec announced another season of long-offset data acquisition on the Norwegian Continental Shelf in cooperation with Fugro. The data to be collected includes about 15,000 km for the North Sea Renaissance (NSR) survey in Holland, Norway and the UK; about 10,000 km for the Mid-Norway Regional (MNR) survey in the Norwegian Sea; and 15,000 km for the Norwegian Barents Sea Regional (NBR) survey in the Barents Sea. Two vessels, Bergen Surveyor and Northern Genesis, will be dedicated for the NSR project. The data will be processed at TGS’s imaging center in Bedford, UK. Fugro will contribute two vessels, Geo Arctic and Akademik Lazarev, to acquire the MNR and NBR data, respectively, and will process the data acquired on those two projects.
T3 Energy Services has received the ABS Certificate of Conformance for the company’s Middle East facility located in Dubai, UAE. The facility was assessed by ABS Quality Evaluations and found to be in conformance with the requirements set forth by ISO 9001:2008. The quality management system is applicable to the repair, remanufacture and manufacture of blowout preventers, valves, choke-and-kill manifold assemblies and other oilfield-related assemblies and components.
Baker Hughes has installed Centrilift XP enhanced-run-life electrical submersible pumping (ESP) systems in six vertical subsea boosting stations on the seafloor at Shell’s Parque das Conchas (BC-10) project in the Campos Basin offshore Brazil. The ESP systems—located about 5 miles from the FPSO facility in 5,250–6,250 ft of water—are designed to boost up to 100,000 bpd of fluid, which is the maximum capacity of the FPSO. BC-10 achieved first oil in July 2009 with the wells flowing naturally. Production through the vertical boosting systems began in November 2009.
The Oilfield Technology Group of Hexion Specialty Chemicals announced startup of a new manufacturing plant and the opening of additional transload facilities to provide resin-coated proppants to fracturing service companies and operators. The new plant, located in Cleburne, Texas, produces the ValuBond curable resin-coated proppant. The plant, along with its transload operation, serves the surrounding Barnett Shale area. In addition to the Cleburne facility, Hexion has also opened new proppant transload facilities in Corpus Christi, Texas; Rock Springs, Wyoming; Fairview, North Dakota; and Batesville, Arkansas. The Corpus Christi location serves the emerging Eagle Ford Shale play in South Texas.
Baker Hughes opened its Eco-Centre waste management facility in Peterhead, Scotland, providing the North Sea oil and gas industry with the highest level of environmentally compliant waste-processing services, from rigsite to final disposal. A full-service facility to treat all of the liquid and solid waste generated during drilling operations, the Eco-Centre includes remote monitoring capabilities, allowing companies online access to track their waste streams.
The 30,000-sq-ft facility can process more than 30,000 tonnes of drill cuttings and 490,000 cu ft of liquid waste annually. Each company’s drill cuttings are segregated, creating a transparent and fully auditable trail. Cuttings are processed to reduce oil content to less than 0.5%, allowing for disposal in approved landfills. Liquid waste is treated to separate and remove all solids and hydrocarbons, allowing the remaining liquid to meet or exceed the regulatory standards for reuse or disposal.
The facility also includes Baker Hughes’ Fluids Environmental Services Global R&D Center, serving as a primary hub for emerging technologies designed to reduce the environmental impact of the oil and gas industry.
The Eco-Link online remote-monitoring software system was specifically designed for the Eco-Centre. In addition to providing full tracking and auditing capabilities, the software lets customers generate reports at any point, ensuring that regulatory agencies have a consolidated audit trail of a company’s waste.
Following processing, the cleaned solid materials are used in place of quarried aggregates to cap local landfill sites. The recovered oil is used to fuel the processing mill at the center, while recovered water is used to cool and rehydrate the recovered solids. To minimize use of local water resources, rainwater is captured and used for a variety of purposes, including fire suppression.
The Peterhead Eco-Centre facility is the first purpose-built plant of its kind for Baker Hughes and serves as a model for future global waste management services. Baker Hughes is currently engaged with E&P companies in other offshore areas to assess local environmental requirements and determine how the concept can be applied.
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