JPT

 

Vol. 58 No. 7

July 2006

Company News

Emerging Technology

  • Roxar announced that its oil-in-water monitor for enhanced water characterization will be piloted by Statoil on its North Sea Sleipner A platform. After a trial period at three locations, the technology will become commercially available in January 2007. It was developed in a joint-industry project involving Roxar, TNO Science and Industry (which patented the ultrasonic measurement technology), Statoil, Eni SpA, Shell, and Petroleum Development Oman.
  • WellDog Inc., a Wyoming-based energy technology company, received a U.S. $200,000 grant from the Stripper Well Consortium at Pennsylvania State U. to develop a best-practices guide for coalbed natural gas development, including multizone completion wells. WellDog will partner with Black Diamond Energy to analyze wells in the Powder River basin in Wyoming. 
  • Aker Kvaerner started a pilot installation of its MultiBooster subsea multiphase pump system on the Lyell field on the U.K. continental shelf on behalf of CNR Intl. The company said the system increases oil recovery and enables longer step-out distances between subsea assets and host facilities by adding energy to the wellstream, which allows for lower wellhead pressure and increased production rates.
  • Canadian Natural Resources, Husky Energy, and Nexen are funding a 3-year, U.S. $9.6 million project at the Petroleum Technology Research Center in Regina, Canada, that will research vapor heavy oil extraction. Vapor extraction, or vapex, uses solvent gases such as butane or propane to reduce the viscosity of heavy oil.

Corporate Moves

  • Shareholders of Sibirskaya Neftyanaya Kompaniya, or Sibneft, voted to change the company’s name and headquarters. Russian gas firm Gazprom, which has a stake of more than 75% in the company, will rename the company Gazprom Neft and move its headquarters from Moscow to St. Petersburg.
  • Cooper Cameron, a global provider of offshore control equipment, has changed its name to Cameron.
  • Amerada Hess changed its name to Hess Corp. The firm also said it is selling most of its onshore oil- and gas-producing assets along the Gulf Coast of Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi.
  • Engelhard Corp. broke ground on a multimillion-dollar processing facility in Sanders, Arizona, to produce frac-sand proppants. The facility is scheduled to be operational in the second half of this year.

Mergers & Acquisitions

  • Baker Hughes completed the sale of its 30% minority interest in WesternGeco to Schlumberger for U.S. $2.4 billion in cash. Baker Hughes expects to record a pretax gain of approximately $1.74 billion on the deal.
  • Schlumberger acquired Ødegaard A/S, a Copenhagen-based supplier of advanced surface seismic data inversion software. Ødegaard specializes in applications of seismic data to determine rock parameters critical to better reservoir characterization and improved recovery.
  • Halliburton Fluid Systems, a division of Halliburton’s Energy Services Group, acquired all patents, intellectual property, current assets, and existing business associated with rotary vacuum dryer technology. The renamed RotaVac RVD technology will complement the company’s existing drilling-waste-management technology, the company said.
  • Pogo Producing Co. has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire privately held Latigo Petroleum Inc. for U.S. $750 million. Pogo will acquire 275 Bcf of estimated proven reserves on approximately 404,700 net acres in west Texas.

Contracts and Tenders

  • Weatherford Intl. announced that BP Exploration Operating Co. Ltd. has awarded it a new contract for providing tubular-running services on a pan-European basis. The contract could be worth as much as U.S. $150 million over a 5-year term, with potential further extension periods.
  • Halliburton’s Production Optimization Div. has been awarded contracts by four Shell E&P companies in Europe to provide completion products and services for oil and gas operations in the United Kingdom, The Netherlands, Norway, and Ireland.
  • Aker Kvaerner has signed a contract with Statoil for design and delivery of the world’s largest system for capturing and recovering crude-oil vapors. The new system will treat all vapors emitted from ship loading of crude oil at the oil company’s Mongstad terminal on the Norwegian west coast.
  • TAM Intl. North Sea Ltd., a subsidiary of TAM Intl. Inc., has been awarded a 3-year contract by a Danish oil company in Qatar to provide openhole zonal isolation in horizontal completions using its Fluid Reactive Expanding Elastomer Casing Annulus Packers.
  • Halliburton’s Landmark unit and information management and storage provider EMC Corp. signed an agreement to jointly develop E&P information life-cycle management solutions. The partnership is geared toward helping companies more efficiently and cost-effectively capture, archive, and leverage data throughout the entire E&P life cycle.
  • Geoscience software and services provider Paradigm signed a memorandum of understanding to invest in OpenSpirit Corp., an independent software company that focuses on upstream applications and data.
  • Offshore classification firm ABS has been awarded contracts for the first jackup drilling rigs to be built in the United Arab Emirates. Four units will be built to ABS standards: two units for Thule Drilling ASA and two units for Mosvold Drilling Ltd.

General

  • Upstream oil and gas technology and service provider Expro Intl. Group won the Oil, Gas, and Water Industry Sector Award from the Royal Soc. for the Prevention of Accidents.