OTC spotlights offshore innovation

The Offshore Technology Conference announced 14 award recipients for its second annual “Spotlight on New Technology” program.

• AGR Subsea: RMR Riserless Mud Recovery System – A riserless dual gradient technology that collects well returns from the openhole sections and enables reuse of tophole drilling fluid and controlled handling and disposal of drill cuttings.
• Aker Kvaerner: Stepped Diameter Tendon – Extends the commercial application of TLPs to water depths beyond 4,000 ft. Lower sections are made up of small-diameter, thick-wall pipe, and upper sections are large-diameter, thin-wall pipe with excess buoyancy to carry to the lower sections.
• Cameron: DC All-Electric Subsea Production System – Subsea system powered by direct current rather than hydraulics is capable of operating efficiently in deep water and at record distances from host facilities.
• Expro International Group: Subsea Safety System – Provides well control function and disconnect capabilities during well installation, workover, intervention and well test operations.
• Expro International Group: Cableless Telemetry System. Allows real-time information to be recovered from remote sensors using the available conducting (steel) well infrastructure.
• Halliburton Energy Services Group: PoroFlex Variable Reach Annular Barrier Tool – Enables zonal isolation capability in open hole completions, allowing use of production management tools and techniques that were formerly only possible in cased hole completions.
• KROHNE Inc.: Altosonic III Ultrasonic Flowmeter for Custody Transfer – A dedicated three-beam liquid ultrasonic flowmeter with no moving parts for custody transfer of light hydrocarbon products. Designed to replace turbines and PD meters.
• Kvaerner Oilfield Products: Carbon Fiber Rod utilization within Subsea Umbilicals for axial stiffness enhancement – In extreme water depths, carbon fiber is far more efficient than steel due to its high stiffness-to-weight ratio.
• Mustang Engineering: LNG Smart Vaporization – Used to efficiently regasify liquefied natural gas (LNG). Can reduce fuel gas consumption and NOx and CO₂ air emissions by as much as 90% across a wide range of temperatures and humidity.
• Norse Cutting & Abandonment: Abrasive Waterjet Cutting (AWJC) system for severing Multistring Conductors Below Seabed – Environmentally friendly method for cutting multistring casing in plug and abandonment and conductor slot recovery projects.
• ProPure AS: C100 H₂S Scavenger Mixer (Offshore H₂S removal) – Onsite H₂S removal using scavenger supplied in a controlled manner to an annular injection chamber and atomized, resulting in rapid mass transfer of H₂S to the scavenging agent.
• Schlumberger: PressureXpress pressure-while-logging service – Tool developed specifically for formation pressure and fluid mobility testing enables measurements to be taken in a fraction of the time required by multifunctional testers.
• Shaffer: Continuous Circulation System (CCS) – Allows drilling fluid circulation to be maintained while making connections with conventional drill pipe during drilling. It creates a sealed pressure chamber around the tool joint to be broken, into which pressurized drilling fluid is introduced, equalizing pressure.
• Weatherford International: Optical Flowmeter – Provides real-time downhole flow measurement of liquid and/or gas using sonar optical technology. Designed for permanent downhole installation, it is deployed as part of the production tubing during completion.