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Vol. 234 No. 3
Bridon International has launched a $7.87-million technology center in Doncaster, England, for research, development and testing of wire and fiber ropes for challenging applications, including deepwater lifting and mooring. Staffed by 30 engineers and technicians, the Bridon Technology Centre has a unique range of purpose-built test equipment, forensic laboratories and benchmarked processes for evaluating rope fatigue, bending, torque turn and multilayer spooling under controlled conditions. A 3D digital microscope enables test engineers to examine metal fatigue at 1,000X magnification, with simpler sample preparation than with an electron microscope. The facility also includes ovens for accelerated ageing of the ropes to investigate strength loss over time.
Stork Technical Services has secured more than £15 million of new work with a major North Sea operator. The contract award will see Stork’s subsea team deliver a range of integrated subsea inspection, repair and maintenance (IRM) workscopes, including thruster change-outs, over a five-month period utilizing ROVs and air/nitrox diving from dive intervention craft and dive support vessels. The services will be delivered from a combination of bespoke dive intervention craft and the company’s dedicated dive support vessel, Adams Vision.
Cameron has reached an agreement with China’s CNPC to establish a JV for the manufacture of pipeline ball valves, mainly to support CNPC’s plans to build a pipeline across China in the coming decade. Under terms of agreement, Cameron will license its technology to the JV and establish a full-scale manufacturing operation in Tianjin, China, with CNPC Bohai Equipment Manufacturing Co. This JV will be the exclusive pipeline valve manufacturing entity within CNPC.
Logan International Inc. held the grand opening of its Cutten Road facilities in Houston, Texas. This latest expansion adds 36,000 sq ft of space that is jointly occupied by the company’s wholly-owned subsidiaries, Logan Xtend and Logan Oil Tools-Power Swivels.
Halliburton has been selected by Statoil to provide multilateral technology (MLT) for two mature fields offshore Norway. The three-year frame agreement includes two optional periods of two years, each, and has an estimated value of more than $200 million. The new FlexRite Multibranch Inflow Control (MIC) junction and the FlexRite Intelligent Completion Interface junction, of which Statoil has installed more than 150, will form the basis of this frame agreement. Together, these sealed junction MLT systems enable flow control capability for all laterals in multiple-legged MLT wells.
Newpark Mats and Integrated Services has commemorated the production of its 250,000th DURA-BASE Advanced-Composite Mat, produced in Lafayette, La. Given that these mats last five times longer than wooden mats, this milestone also marked the preservation of over 1 million trees, along with saved costs in transportation and emissions.
Shell U.K. has awarded an engineering, procurement, installation and construction contract to Technip for the Gannet F Reinstatement project, in the North Sea, 180 km east of Aberdeen, at a water depth of 95 m. The contract covers the replacement of the Gannet F flowline at the Gannet Alpha platform, as well as the fabrication and pipelay of an 11.8-km pipe-in-pipe, installation of a 4.5-in. gas lift pipeline, and trenching and installation of an 11.9-km umbilical.
Strongwell Corp. has agreed to allow Redwood Plastics to be its only authorized distributor in western Canada for Strongwell’s EXTREN structural shapes, DURAGRATE molded grating, and DURADEK / DURAGRID pultruded grating. Headquartered in Vancouver, B.C., Redwood Plastics has seven branches in western Canada, the northwestern U.S. and southeastern U.S., where it will stock these products.
TAM International opened a new district office and shop in Midland, Texas. The 11,500-sq-ft facility offers a full range of drilling, completions, and workover tools and services, including the PosiFrac multi-stage fracture system for rapid-growth markets, including the Permian basin.
Wild Well Control has become ISO 9001:2008 Quality Management Systems-certified. The certification is for worldwide emergency response for well control and containment, and non-emergency services for well control engineering, training, incident prevention, and well-related marine and subsea intervention and decommissioning services, based from Wild Well Control’s Houston location.
Jaya Holdings Limited has delivered the new state-of-the-art, multi-purpose, offshore support vessel Jaya Pride. The 78-m vessel, which can accommodate up to 148 passengers and crew, is classed by the American Bureau of Shipping and will deliver under the Singapore flag. Jaya Pride is fully compliant with SPS Code 2008 and features one of the largest lattice boom cranes that the companies have installed on a self-propelled vessel. The crane is a Liebherr model with 40 tons of lifting capacity and a 40-m reach, or 50 tons at 20 m. It is also man-riding rated for personnel transfer.
Natural gas firm BG Group has agreed to sell its U.S. assets to EXCO Resources. The deal cover BG’s interests in shallow, non-core, conventional producing assets and acreage in the Cotton Valley formation for $132.5 million. These assets, covering 54,165 net leasehold acres across East Texas and North Louisiana, aren't required to be held by BG in order to hold, drill and produce the undeveloped Haynesville/Bossier formation shale reserves, which lie beneath the Cotton Valley formation.
Oceaneering International has secured contracts with a subsidiary of Transocean, to provide three subsea blowout preventer (BOP) control systems. These contracts add over $40 million to Oceaneering's Subsea Products backlog. The contracts are for discrete hydraulic systems that will be used on existing semisubmersible drilling rigs that Transocean is modifying to comply with API’s recently issued standard API 53, which requires subsea BOPs with a single shear ram to be upgraded or replaced.
BMT Group Ltd. has acquired Western Australian marine and coastal specialists Oceanica Consulting. Established in 2000, Oceanica has provided specialist consultancy services for marine, coastal and estuarine environmental issues, working with corporate and governmental clients throughout Western Australia.
Rolls-Royce has been awarded a $40 million contract to supply equipment and related services to power the flow of natural gas through the Uzbekistan section of the Turkmenistan-China natural gas pipeline. Rolls-Royce will supply Asia Trans Gas, a joint venture between Uzbekistan's Uzbekneftegaz and China’s National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), with three RB211 gas turbine driven pipeline compressor units for operation at a compressor station on the 530-km Uzbekistan section of the 1,830-km Turkmenistan-China natural gas pipeline.
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