People
Fugro Oceanor’s technical manager,Guttorm Hanssen, has died. Hanssen was a pioneer of the offshore industry in Norway.
Vo Thi Huyen Lan has joined the Bourbon board of directors. She replaces Victoire de Margerie.
Superior Energy Services has appointedJohn Prejean as VP of corporate sales in Houston.
NPD has appointedBente Nyland as director general. She succeeds Gunnar Berge, who left the post in June 2007.
The Minerals Management Service has appointedMike Saucier as deputy regional supervisor for district operations in the office of field operations for the Gulf of Mexico region.
ITF has appointedMax Rowe as chairman. The organization also has added BP’s Oonagh Wergren, Expro’s Gavin Duncan, and Weatherford’s Stuart Ferguson as board members.
Knight has namedRickey Tauzin as Gulf Coast regional sales manager covering South Texas, East Texas, and Louisiana.
Cyclotech has appointedDave Morton as regional manager. Morton will be based at the company’s office in Rubislaw Den North, Aberdeen.
Stable Services has appointedDave Rodman as operations director.
Baker Hughes has appointedNelson Ney as president of Centrilift and VP of Baker Hughes Inc.
Occidental Petroleum has appointedStephen I. Chazen as president and CFO.
NOF Energy has appointedNeil Kirkbride as chairman.
Otto Energy has appointedJohn Jetter as non-executive director of the company.
OceanWorks International has appointedErnst Fihn as general manager of its Houston facility.
M. Christophe Pettenati-Auzière, president of Geophysical Services has resigned. Thierry Le Roux, group president and COO of CGGVeritas, will take over Pettenati-Auzière’s responsibilities.
Tom Ehret, chief executive of Acergy will step down in 2008. Ehret will continue as a non-executive director, following the handover to the new chief executive.
GVA Consultants has appointedHolger Eriksson as MD and Peter Larsson as business development director.
Tan Sri Dato’ Megat Zaharuddin binMegat Mohd Nor has joined the board of Woodside Petroleum as a non-executive director.
Sandvik Materials Technology has appointedPetr Balik as its new product manager for oil and gas.
Geotrace has addedSteve Svatek to the company’s technical implementation and production testing group.
Lloyd’s Register has appointedIain Light as global oil and gas director. Based in Aberdeen, Light will direct the oil and gas division’s global strategy.
MCS has appointedAngus Reid as pipeline team leader.
Offshore Marine Services has appointedStewart MacRae and Kevin Smith as directors of its UK operations based in Aberdeen.
Noble Energy has appointedDavid R. Larson as VP of investor relations.
The Minerals Management Service has appointedJoe Gordon as regional supervisor for field operations in the Gulf of Mexico.
Foster Marketing Communications has appointedKristy Blosch as public relations account executive.
SeaBird Exploration’s CEO,Dag Reynolds, has resigned. Tim Isden, executive chairman of the SeaBird board, will replace Reynolds.
Acteon has appointedShahrokh Mohammadi as VP of operations for InterAct, the group’s recently formed management services company.
Companies
Shell and ExxonMobil have agreed to sell their combined interests in four fields in the northern North Sea to Fairfield Energy and Mitsubishi.
Noble Drilling (USA) has ordered NOK4 million ($715,000) in mooring engineering and delivery from ODIM ASA.
Genesis is set to acquire the 50% interest held by PGS in their joint venture company, Genesis Petroleum Europe.
Swiber Holdings has received a contract extension from Brunei Shell Petroleum Sendirian Berhad. The $200-million contract covers the transportation and installation of facilities offshore Brunei.
SPD, Petrofac’s well operations business, has won a long-term global contract from the Korea National Oil Corp. for the provision of drilling management support services. The multi-million dollar contract includes operations in Canada, Kamchatka, Kazakhstan, Korea, Nigeria, and Yemen covering both onshore and offshore operations.
Dresser-Rand has signed a $50-million blanket purchase order with Pemex covering all aftermarket parts and services. The deal will help streamline transacting business with the national oil company, Dresser-Rand says.
MCS has been named Innovation Exporter of the Year 2007. The award recognizes companies that make significant contributions to the exporting sector resulting in a new technology, product, or service. MCS was named the winner for its design and delivery of engineering and software solutions to the subsea industry.
Swift Energy has executed definitive agreements with subsidiaries of Origin Energy to sell some of its New Zealand assets for $87.8 million. Additional agreements for the sale of the remainder of Swift Energy’s New Zealand assets are being negotiated and are anticipated to be in place in early 2008.
FMC Technologies has acquired CDS Engineering.
The privatization ofPNOC Exploration has been pushed to 2Q 2008.
BW Offshore has been awarded an $80-million contract for delivery of production, mooring, and offloading systems for Nexus Floating Production’s FPSO Nexus II.
BP has awarded a global Engineering and Project Management Services agreement to Intec Engineering covering subsea facility projects over six years. According to the agreement, Intec will provide call-off supply of services tailored to the specific project.
Oil & Gas UK has introduced a new joint operating agreement for oil and gas fields on the UK continental shelf.
Yokogawa Corp. of America and Wood Group Turbine Control Services have signed a cooperative agreement for turbine and rotating equipment controls solutions.
Offshore Marine Services UK has opened a new marine consultancy division. John Reid, UK director of marine operations, will manage the new venture.
Noble Denton Malaysia has acquired a Petronas license. The license will enable the company to provide a range of consulting and risk assessment services as an independent company.
Fugro has acquired William Lettis & Associates, a geological consultancy with headquarters in Walnut Creek, California.
Prosafe is to divide its operations among two newly listed companies: one focusing on accommodation and service rigs, the other on floating production.
Jurong Shipyard has acquired a 70% stake in Shanghai Jurong Marine Engineering & Technology.
Stupp Bros. has begun construction and integration of a spiral weld facility within its Stupp Pipe complex in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Keppel O&M has launched the Keppel Offshore & Marine Technology Center. Keppel O&M will invest $103 million to fund the center’s activities over a 5-year period.
SembCorp Marine has formed a 60:40 joint venture with Nasser Mohammed Al-Mukairish and Partners Co. to set up a greenfeld shipyard to repair vessels and conduct marine work off Saudi Arabia.
EPConsult has opened an office in Aberdeen.
Chevron and Massachusetts Institute of Technology have launched a five-year global energy research program to develop remote, ultra deepwater exploration and production technology.
Products
McCrometer introduces V-Cone flow meter
The new V-Cone design has no moving parts and provides built-in flow conditioning, which nearly eliminates the upstream/downstream straight pipe runs required by most flow meter technologies.
The flowmeter only needs 0 to 3 straight pipe diameters upstream and 0 to 1 downstream to operate effectively. It fits in tight installations aboard FSPO vessels and in subsea applications. Accuracy is +0.5%, with a repeatability of +0.1%.
It operates over a wide flow range of 10:1 and supports line sizes from 0.5 to 120 in. (1.2 to 305 cm). It requires virtually no recalibration or maintenance and conforms to the American Petroleum Institute’s API 22.2 testing protocol for differential pressure flow measurement devices.
Unlike traditional DP instruments such as orifice plates and venturi tubes, the flow conditioning function of the V-Cone flowmeter is built-into the basic instrument. The V-Cone conditions fluid flow to provide a stable flow profile that increases accuracy. It features a centrally-located cone inside a tube. The cone interacts with the fluid flow and reshapes the velocity profile to create a lower pressure region immediately downstream.
The pressure difference, which is exhibited between the static line pressure and the low pressure created downstream of the cone, can be measured via two pressure sensing taps. One tap is placed slightly upstream of the cone and the other is located in the downstream face of the cone itself. The pressure difference can then be incorporated into a derivation of the Bernoulli equation to determine the fluid flow rate.
The cone’s central position in the line optimizes the velocity of the liquid flow at the point of measurement. It forms very short vortices as the flow passes the cone. These short vortices create a low-amplitude, high-frequency signal for excellent signal stability. The result is a highly stable flow profile that is repeatable for continuously accurate flow measurement.
SKF unveils low-friction shaft-sealing solutions
SKF has unveiled a new line of low-friction Waveseal shaft-sealing solutions. The new products feature a specially molded lip to form a sinusoidal pattern around the shaft surface. According to SKF, this unique pattern enables lubricant to be pumped back to the bearing for optimized lubricant retention while pushing dirt away from the lip/shaft surface to protect against contamination.
The specially designed lip generates 25-35% less heat at the contact point, generates 20% less friction torque or drag, curbs shaft wear, and provides greater lip lubrication compared with standard lip versions.
The Waveseal series is available in nitrile rubber or fluoro rubber to fit shaft diameters from 0.250 in. (6.35 mm) to 12.250 in. (311.15 mm) and 12 mm (0.472 in.) to 280 mm (11.024 mm). Additionally, a non-hardening, water-based polyacrylate coating on the outside diameter of the seal compensates for small imperfections in housing bores.
Swagelok releases welding system M200 power supply
The system features a high-resolution, 12.1 in. (307 mm) color industrial touch. Users can choose from one of three forms to enter weld programs, including automatic weld schedule programming. The M200’s automatic shield gas control, simplifies set-up of shielding gas, requiring no use of a separate flow meter.
Multi-language capability is built into the M200, requiring no separate programming or special ordering. Built-in languages are English, French, German, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese (simplified and traditional).
The M200 works with all currently available Swagelok weld heads. It includes four USB ports, Ethernet port, USB device (output) port, VGA output, and serial port. All gas and electrical connections, plus the integral, high-speed thermal printer are easily accessed from the unit’s side panels.
OceanWorks to deliver Acoustic Corer
OceanWorks has been awarded a contract by Newfoundland-based PanGeo Subsea Inc., acoustic technology development company, to design and build their first Acoustic Corer.
This subsea tool, the first in a suite of 3D sub-seabed imaging products, will produce a high-resolution sub-seabed image that can be used to detect and locate geohazards such as large boulders or buried pipelines. In order to create this image, the Acoustic Corer will require sonar heads to be scanned over the seabed to create a dense sampling grid over a survey area of 12 m (39 ft) in diameter.
OceanWorks is designing the tool to be deployed in up to 600 m (1,968 ft) of water from a typical oilfield support vessel. It is linked to the vessel via an electro-optical umbilical.
The system is transported and launched in a compact configuration and unfolded using a hydraulic system as it approaches the seabed. The system is landed on the seabed where computer controlled servo motors will position the boom and sonar heads to create a 10-cm (4-in.) sampling grid.
New cement reacts to microleaks
Schlumberger has developed FUTUR active-set cement technology that automatically seals microleaks in a cement sheath.
Schlumberger says the active components of the FUTUR cement system remain dormant after pumping and placement of the primary cementing operation until it is exposed to hydrocarbons, such as those seeping through cracks or microannulae in the cement sheath. Upon activation by contact with hydrocarbons, the FUTUR cement sheath self-repairs.
Schlumberger says this new technology can be mixed and pumped as a lead or tail system during any primary cement job. The properties of this system are comparable to those of conventional cements meaning it can be pumped with standard cementing equipment and no additional equipment or personnel are required, the company says.
