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Vol. 234 No. 6
Halliburton’s 215,000-sq-ft technology center in Houston is home to 550 innovators focusing on chemistry, sensor physics and electronics. The building is certified LEED Silver, and the flooring of the rooms indicates to workers what personal protection equipment to use, based on work function. The open layout facility was designed to encourage collaboration, and, with 90% of the workforce in cubicles, interaction and idea exploration is made easier. The center includes a designated collaboration room, plus laboratories for drilling fluids, analytical chemistry, cement fluids, production enhancement fluids, geomechanics, formation evaluation physics and electronics, and drilling electronics.
Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell visited an offshore drilling rig and production platform in the Gulf of Mexico last month, capping a two-day visit to the DOI’s regional offices that oversee oil and gas development in federal waters. Jewell was accompanied by Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) Director Jim Watson and a BSEE Gulf Region inspector on the visits, which included seeing firsthand LLOG’s drilling operations onboard the ENSCO 8502 rig. There, she observed a cementing operation for a production well and was briefed on LLOG’s development plan for the area. Jewell then visited Chevron’s deepest producing facility, a semisubmersible platform in a 6,500-ft water depth, approximately 125 mi southeast of New Orleans.
A firm of experienced aerospace and manufacturing managers is bringing its expertise to oil and gas markets. RMDC provides expert consultants in the fields of project management, systems engineering and manufacturing. With an average of more than 20 years of direct, hands-on management of large, complex, high-profile systems, the new firm offers oil and gas companies services that will reduce risk and avoid costly errors. RDMC provides assessments and diagnoses of projects and designs, with the goal of identifying current and future problems, creating more efficient operations, and developing targeted solutions. The firm provides complete product management processes, or targeted support to one or more areas of need.
Tenaris will invest $70 million to build a new sucker rods mill with a production capacity of 1.8 million units per year, to serve its growing North American market. It will be built alongside Tenaris’ welded tubes mill in Conroe, Texas, and start-up is planned for the second half of 2014. The new mill will include non-destructive testing (NDT), forging lines, heat treatment and threading and finishing processes, a coupling shop and a centralizer line. The investment will create 200 new jobs, once the mill is fully operational. Tenaris has production facilities in Europe and South America.
Clariant has invested in Ultimate EOR Services, a provider of EOR solutions based on proprietary technologies developed within the Center for Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin (UT). Ultimate EOR Services has made discoveries that have improved the efficiency of EOR solutions and lowered costs. Its services include: candidate reservoir screening; developing surfactant formulations for specific reservoirs; advanced modeling of oil field performance; and full-field optimization.
Caterpillar Global Petroleum has been awarded the contract from Estaleiro Enseada do Paraguaçu (EEP) to provide the diesel generator sets for the main and propulsion power, as well as the emergency power, for six drillships EEP will build. The drillships were ordered by Sete Brasil, which has charter contracts with Petrobras for these vessels. The drillships are to be used in the Brazilian pre-salt ultra-deep layers drilling program. After construction, the rigs will be chartered by Petrobras for 15 years, and will be operated by drilling contractors Odebrecht Oil & Gas and Etesco. Each of the six drillships will be powered by six 16CM32 main diesel generator sets, and the emergency power will be provided by one 3516B generator set.
Three artificial lift specialists have combined to form Shores Lift Solutions. In combining Shores-Sentry, Rod Lift Consulting and Waters & Waters Services, the new company will provide artificial lift pumping units and rod equipment, optimization solutions and field services to oil and gas operators. Mark Houser is the president and CEO of Oklahoma-based Shores Lift Solutions, and Dewayne Atwell has been named president of the company’s pumping unit division. Rod Lift Consulting will now be known as the Shores Lift Solutions rod lift consulting division, with Dave Jones as the division’s president. Waters & Waters Services will form the new company’s field services division. Jesse Waters, son of Waters & Waters founder Ron Waters, will serve as the new division’s president.
COOPER Valves has moved from a 10,000-sq-ft manufacturing warehouse, and separate office building, to a 60,000-sq-ft facility that includes a 12,000-sq-ft corporate headquarters, as well as a 48,000-sq-ft manufacturing shop and warehouse. COOPER Valves’ new facility is at 4659 Wright Road in Stafford, Texas.
Tendeka will open an office in Canada as part of its larger plan to grow its presence in the Americas. The Canadian office is the latest addition to the company’s array of 18 regional bases. Tendeka provides swellable packers to the North American market, and has supplied packers for use in conventional and unconventional applications in liquid shales, including the Bakken, Eagleford, Utica, Niobrara and Permian plays. The company has a presence in Calgary.
Drill bit manufacturer Varel International has set a new field benchmark for ROP with the first run of its V516DG1PR Voyager bit in South Texas. The new 8¾-in. Voyager design and cutter configuration drilled from 2,750 ft to a 7,400-ft depth, for a total of 4,650 ft in 30 hr, and an average ROP of 155 ft/hr. This bit drilled faster than any other run in the same interval within seven miles, and drilled 41.5 ft/hr faster than the average offset. When pulled, the drill bit exhibited minimal damage.
Mokveld has been awarded the subsea anti-surge control valves contract for Statoil’s Åsgard subsea gas compression project. Aker Solutions was awarded the contract by operator Statoil to supply a complete subsea compression system for Norway’s Åsgard field. In cooperation with subsea integrators Oceaneering, FMC and Aker Solutions, Mokveld has developed, and successfully qualified, an 8-in., API 5000 subsea axial control valve.
Santrol, a Fairmount Minerals company, announced the acquisition of self-suspending proppant technology from Soane Energy of Cambridge, Mass., that will enable operators to improve hydrocarbon production by substantially increasing the surface area of propped fractures to the reservoir. The proppant, which is suspended in the fracturing fluid, is transported farther for substantially better propped fracture length. The technology eliminates the need for certain fluid additives. The proppant is evenly distributed throughout the full length of a created hydraulic fracture by enveloping traditional proppant, such as Northern White sand, in a polymer that suspends it in the hydraulic fracturing fluid. Once the proppant is placed in the fracture, traditional breakers remove the polymer, leaving the proppant in place, where it remains suspended in the fracturing fluid throughout the entire delivery process.
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