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Vol. 224 No. 11 |
John Wood Group PLC has acquired Baker Energy, the energy services business of Michael Baker Corp., for $37.9 million in cash. Baker Energy provides a broad range of operations and maintenance services to oil and gas operators, both onshore and offshore. The company operates in the US, including deepwater activity, and in Africa and the Asia Pacific region. Employing about 2,400 people, Baker Energy will operate within Wood Group’s Engineering & Production Facilities division.
Aberdeen-based Exceed has launched the first drilling consultancy to specialize solely in deepwater projects. Founder and co-director Ian Mills, who has 25 years of experience in the oil and gas industry, including senior roles at Shell and BP, has launched the new division to provide a full well project capability from conceptual design, exploration and evaluation to full field development. Two directors and 20 well specialists will be joining Exceed, which anticipates its first project starting in the fourth quarter of 2009.
FMC Technologies, Inc., will acquire Multi Phase Meters AS (MPM). Based in Stavanger, Norway. MPM is a specialist in the development and manufacture of high-performance multiphase flowmeters for the oil and gas industry. FMC will have 100% ownership of MPM upon closing, with an initial cash payment of about $30 million.
Baker Hughes Nederland Holdings BV, an indirect subsidiary of Baker Hughes Inc. (BHI), has acquired a 40% equity in JOA Oil & Gas BV. (JOA). Under terms of the agreement, BHI will license and have unlimited access to JOA’s JewelSuite software, an integrated reservoir modeling tool that uses 3D gridding technology for building accurate reservoir models. BHI will also fund a large part of the development required to incorporate some of BHI’s in-house engineering applications, especially those pertaining to the near-wellbore area, and its geomechanical technologies acquired earlier through GeoMechanics International (GMI).
Geosciences and engineering consulting company Knowledge Reservoir announced new initiatives in Improved Oil Recovery. The company is expanding its activity in Latin America by starting its third field optimization project in Peru, adding to recent activities in Argentina, Colombia and Mexico. In Oman, the company is executing the fifth regional field review and redevelopment planning study since entering the region in 2007, and will recommend and manage the implementation of a combination of IOR and field redevelopment programs over the next 12 months. Knowledge Reservoir has also began a series of field review studies in Thailand, using experience gained in Malaysia, Indonesia, and Vietnam.
Schlumberger announced the opening of the new reservoir completions manufacturing center in Dammam, Saudi Arabia. The new center represents an investment of about $25 million in manufacturing equipment, facility lease and inventory, and houses a team of design and manufacturing engineers specialized in the production of customized downhole reservoir completions equipment. The center provides a collaborative environment in which joint oil company and Schlumberger teams can develop and manufacture completions solutions for applications in reservoir types found in the Middle East.
T3 Energy Services, Inc., has opened a new Wellhead & Production Systems Facility in Fort Nelson, BC, Canada. The facility will serve as a field support base for the recently discovered Horn River basin gas shale. It will have test, assembly and repair capabilities, supported by manufacturing capabilities from the T3 Nisku Operation.
Cutting Underwater Technologies (CUT), a specialist cutting services provider to the decommissioning and abandonment industry, developed new machines and methodologies to complete the partial removal (down to the top of the footing) of the North West Hutton Platform in the UK Sector of the North Sea. The work was commissioned by Heerema Marine Contractors and involved CUT using its diamond wire technology to make 77 separate cuts, including those of the massive corner legs, 120-in. OD and 2.75-in. wall thickness (including 14 grout and vent lines) the two launch runner legs and other jacket structural members. CUT utilized four specialized Diamond Wire Cutting Machines (DWCM) of 10, 18, 30 and 50-in. cutting capacity, along with custom-built 60–120-in. modular DWCM. The company introduced several innovations for the project, including:
• A “castellated’’ method of cutting through the target to maintain maximum stability of the severed structure prior to the lifting operation
• Remotely operated wedging system
• Electronic feedback and monitoring system to supply, in real time, accurate information to the surface engineer on cutting progress being made. This allows overall optimization of the cutting procedure.
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