ITF to Fund New Drilling and Completion Technologies
ITF, the global oil Industry Technology Facilitator, is calling on drilling and completions technology experts from industry, research and academia to identify the key technology drivers that will lead to increased drilling efficiency and optimized recovery at two upcoming workshops. The Technology Challenge Workshops (TCWs) are being held on May 26 (Drilling Efficiency) and May 27 (Completions Technology), 2010, at the Hilton Post Oak Hotel, Houston, Texas.
The TCWs will result in a Call for Proposals with up to 100% funding available for projects that will increase efficiency, optimize recovery and lower costs through improved drilling efficiency and innovative completions technologies.
Neil Poxon, ITF managing director said: “ITF’s major operator and service company membership has identified drilling and completions technologies as two areas that can deliver significant long-term efficiency, hydrocarbon recovery and cost benefits to the industry. The workshops will provide a forum for experts from the operating and service companies, independent technology developers, academia and research organizations to debate the needs of the industry and kick off the process of finding and funding solutions that will effect tangible technical and economic improvements.
“As oil and gas exploration moves into increasingly challenging environments, drilling costs are the biggest single item of expenditure. ITF members are keen to develop fit-for-purpose drilling techniques by exploring new methods of deployment with increased efficiency and ultimately lower cost and risk,” he added.
Worldwide drilling and completions expenditure was estimated at more than $250 billion in 2008 by petroleum consultants at Spears and Associates. With rig costs estimated to comprise $92.5 billion (37%) of this total, improving drilling efficiency, technology and equipment reliability will have a impact on the bottom line. Completions technology challenges being discussed at the workshop will likely include optimizing lower completions, minimizing control lines, effective controls of several zones, maximizing recovery and autonomous data monitoring.
Owned by 23 major operator and service companies, ITF is a champion for technology development. Working with technology developers and its members to identify exploration and production (E&P) technology needs, the not-for-profit organization supports the development and implementation of new technologies into the industry. Over the last 10 years, ITF has funded 142 joint industry projects (JIPs) with a funding value of approximately £42.6 million.
For further information visit: www.oil-itf.com/index/event-diary or to register to attend either TCW contact: a.martin@oil-itf.com.
New Oil and Gas Compliance Software Company Launched
An experienced team of software developers for the oil and gas industry announced the launch of a new company called ComplyData LLC. The company develops industry-specific software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications to address employee and compliance management issues, including US Department of Transportation operator qualification and environmental, health and safety regulations.
ComplyData also announced the launch of its flagship product, the ComplyData Intelligent Portal™ (CDIP™), a subscription-based solution that allows oil and gas companies to organize compliance, safety and regulatory information easily and effectively. The Comply Data Intelligent Portal is a centralized, flexible and affordable alternative to manual processes and database-dependent systems.
“The oil and gas industry is heavily regulated, and the ever-changing regulatory requirements can be overwhelming,” said Darla Bell, managing director of oil and gas for ComplyData. “Regulators are requiring more communication and transparency between owner/operators and contractors, so we created the ComplyData Intelligent Portal to streamline the compliance process, allowing users to spend more time building their business and less time on paperwork or database systems that are difficult to use and in many cases create more work and inefficiencies.”
The ComplyData Intelligent Portal utilizes a next-generation user interface, giving customers access to multiple applications simultaneously. It also offers an easy-to-use method of communication and compliance management between companies.
“We have spent more than 12 months working with our Customer Advisory Council and beta users to make sure the ComplyData Intelligent Portal is as efficient and easy to use as humanly possible,” said Jim Wilmsen, managing director of technology for ComplyData. “What’s more, throughout our research and development cycle, we stressed affordability. Based on the tremendous feedback from our beta users, we think we’ve struck the right balance of performance and price.”
Through the use of its proprietary Industry Specific Applications (ISAs), ComplyData is able to meet the needs of any industry that demands fast information from multiple sources. While ComplyData’s first segment concentration is on oil and gas, the company plans to expand into other industries as it grows.
“We look forward to continuing the evolution of this product and an unlimited set of applications,” said Wilmsen.
Savi Unveils RFID Solution to Improve Safety
Savi Technology, a division of Lockheed Martin, has released a new Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) application to improve safety. Savi’s SmartChain® solution can now be leveraged by the oil and gas industry to improve supply chain and work-related activities, reduce downtime, and provide a consolidated view of real-time data to make better decisions.
The SmartChain release automates information on the status and integrity of assets and products as well as the safety of personnel throughout the oil and gas value chain, including exploration and production, refining and distribution operations. The announcement was made at the annual RFID Live! Conference in Orlando, Florida. “Real-Time visibility and management of equipment and personnel can minimize operational downtime and failures,” Savi’s Steven Clarke pointed out during his presentation in the Oil and Gas track.
SmartChain is enterprise-level software that optimizes operational readiness, improves asset utilization and minimizes unplanned events by providing actionable information on the location and status of assets such as Cargo Carrying Units (CCUs), rail cars, tools and drill pipe. SmartChain also monitors the integrity of mission-critical equipment such as pipelines and the status of products and personnel in refineries.
“Not having the right tool at an offshore platform or oil rig can actually shut down the whole process for a day or two, costing tens of millions of dollars,” said Dr. Ben Zoghi, an engineering professor at Texas A&M University and director of the RFID Oil and Gas Consortium. “RFID technology solutions can solve new challenges faced in the petroleum industry by helping companies more effectively utilize assets at a time of high oil demand worldwide and constrained capacities, as well as detect potential system failures and locate personnel in times of crisis.”
“Already proven in the world’s largest and most complex supply chains, our SmartChain solution can revolutionize the efficiency and effectiveness of Oil and Gas operations by providing true end-to-end visibility,” said Savi CEO David Stephens. “SmartChain for the petroleum industry draws on two decades of experience providing complete wireless supply chain solutions, coupled with domain and technology expertise from our partners.”
Stephens emphasized that the SmartChain solution also can be adapted and applied to the chemical, energy, utility, mining and defense supplier industries, all of which have related challenges around the management of assets, yard equipment, inventory, personnel and safety.
Fugro Selects Paradigm Software for Depth Imaging
E&P Software provider Paradigm announced that Fugro has selected Paradigm’s depth imaging technology to enhance productivity and accuracy across global operations. The announcement was made at the 2010 American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG) Annual Convention and Exhibition in New Orleans.
“As an international company, our operations demand that software delivers precise results in a wide variety of geological environments,” said Andy Cowlard, Managing Director of Fugro Seismic Imaging. “We chose to deepen our commercial relationship with Paradigm because their tools provide the power and flexibility we require.”
The selected workflow is designed to provide geophysicists with a high-quality, globally deployable, depth imaging and interpretation solution, backed by Paradigm’s network of local support offices. The solution combines the imaging power of the Paradigm™ GeoDepth® pre-stack depth migration suite with the interpretation speed of the fast, true waveform event propagator.
“Fugro is a diverse company operating in every major region around the world,” said James Lamb, Paradigm’s Exec. VP for the Americas. “To support Fugro’s goals, we have delivered a comprehensive, universally applicable depth imaging solution that will cater to their current and future needs.”
Invensys Simplifies SCADA with Wonderware System Platform 4.0
Invensys Operations Management announced the release of its Wonderware® System Platform 4.0 software, which delivers new information services, new device connectivity functions, tiered historian capabilities and improved Web visualization. These enhancements enable plant operators to manage and control equipment and processes more effectively. In addition, information systems personnel can more easily integrate and make use of real-time manufacturing information, and users can be updated continuously on the company’s overall operations performance.
Wonderware System Platform’s new tiered historian capabilities simplify data time-stamping, information aggregation, retrieval and reporting, and improve information security and disaster recovery across distributed operations. The platform historian is also available as a standalone offering, Wonderware Historian 10.0.
The Information Server 4.0 component of the platform now provides the rich experience and performance of real-time ArchestrA graphics for Web visualization for more functional and effective KPI reports and HMI graphics. Using the company’s open platform, customers’ graphical configuration efforts can be reused easily and managed across their manufacturing enterprises, both as Wonderware InTouch® HMI graphics and inside their Web applications.
“The Wonderware System Platform 4.0 software provides a single, scalable and open platform for SCADA, HMI, MES and EMI software, addressing the business and functional needs of industrial automation, operations and information personnel,” said Steve Garbrecht, director of product marketing at Invensys Operations Management. “Its plant model-based, integrated configuration environment provides a logical representation of the physical processes being controlled and supervised, enabling rapid configuration and deployment of component object-based industrial applications. This software platform solution allows our engineering teams, along with our ecosystem partners and customers, to accelerate flexible innovations that are aimed at achieving operations excellence.”
Paradigm Maximizes SKUA Performance on Intel Platforms
Paradigm, purveyor of E&P software solutions, announced the results of its technological collaboration with Intel® Corp. The two companies jointly worked on the integration of the optimized linear algebra routines from Intel MKL into the latest version of Paradigm™ SKUA® 2009, enabling the software to take full advantage of the Intel multi-core processor architecture. This resulted in optimizing the computation time of the matrix inversion step used inside the construction of a SKUA model by a factor of up to 50 times. The announcement was made at the 2010 American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG) Annual Convention and Exhibition in New Orleans.
“The computation of the SKUA UVT transform relies on solving a large system of equations representing geological constraints given by the users,” said Jean-Claude Dulac, Paradigm’s Exec. VP of Science and Technology. “Thanks to Intel’s scientific libraries optimized for Intel processors, we have a solution that will allow our customers to work with the highest degree of efficiency, maximizing their return on new multi-core equipment investments.”
This collaboration with Intel enabled Paradigm to benchmark the Intel X25E Solid State Disk versus a traditional Hard Disk Drive for Out-Of-Core models. Tests showed that Solid State Disk usage increases the speed by an additional factor of 1.4 in overall computing time.
These two combined speedups enhance the performance of SKUA 2009 by nearly two orders of magnitude, allowing customers to work on higher resolution models that produce a more accurate structural and stratigraphic representation of the subsurface.
“Working together, Paradigm and Intel were able to unleash the Intel Xeon® processor 5000 sequence-based platform, solid state disk and software technologies, and deliver substantial performance improvement for seismic data interpretation and structural modeling,” said Andrey Semin, HPC Technology Manager, Intel Software and Services Group. “This improvement will have long-term benefits for exploration and production, and the cooperation between Intel and Paradigm demonstrates our ability to solve customers’ challenges with state-of-the art platform and software technologies.”
Fugro Selects OpenSpirit as Integration Solution
Fugro has signed a corporate-level Business Partner Agreement to leverage the OpenSpirit interoperability framework across its family of companies and products. Fugro Data Solutions and Fugro-Jason will be the first of the Fugro companies to take advantage of the OpenSpirit SDK.
The OpenSpirit framework will enhance Fugro’s ability to streamline data search and transfer between applications and data stores, resulting in increased efficiency and productivity for data management and geoscience staff and reducing overall IT and data management costs.
Currently, Fugro Data Solutions is working to OpenSpirit-enable the Trango Data Management suite, which provides advanced master data management capabilities for corporate seismic, well and geological report data. OpenSpirit connectivity will improve exploration asset management and data availability for data managers. Commercial release is expected in the first half of 2010.
In tandem with the work at Fugro Data Solutions, developers at Fugro-Jason are working to provide cross-discipline connectivity to users of PowerLog and Jason Geoscience Workbench, a petrophysics, geology, interpretation and modeling solution. Fugro Jason is a leader in reservoir characterization technology, and has utilized OpenSpirit for specific solutions for several years.
“We have heard from our customers that the ability to get control of their data assets and enable seamless use of these assets in interpretations systems will greatly benefit their workflows. We believe our efforts to enable users of Trango and Fugro Jason applications is an excellent step to helping our customers derive additional value in their organizations,” said Deryl Williams, President of Fugro Data Solutions Canada.
“We are committed to Fugro’s success and appreciate the opportunity to grow this strategic partnership and make a difference across their entire organization,” said Dan Piette, President and CEO of OpenSpirit. “This business partner agreement is an investment in our technology, as well as our people and future vision.”
Fugro and OpenSpirit plan to continue working together to improve data connectivity and performance for customers.
EnergyIQ Updates Loader with OpenSpirit Integration
EnergyIQ has released their OpenSpirit-enabled EIQ Loader 2.0, allowing oil companies to read data from the IHS EnerdeqML Domestic data feed, and write it to any OpenSpirit-enabled data store. EnergyIQ joined the OpenSpirit Partner Program in October 2009.
“We worked with OpenSpirit and IHS to develop an application that loads data from an IHS Web Services Domestic XML feed into the variety of data stores supported by the OpenSpirit framework,” said Steve Cooper, President of EnergyIQ. “The EIQ Loader is our flagship product, and ensures that commercial E&P data is loaded and updated in a consistent and timely fashion, providing broader and faster access to the available data, thereby ensuring consistency across diverse data stores.
OpenSpirit connectivity extends EIQ Loader beyond PPDM to include other industry databases such as KINGDOM, OpenWorks, Petra, GeoFrame, Finder, and Recall, enabling oil companies to more easily keep date vendor data current in their project database of choice.
With EIQ Loader 2.0 Enterprise, you can perform both base loads and scheduled updates of the IHS Domestic XML feeds to any OpenSpirit-enabled data store. This can be set up for a specific geographic area of interest or across your entire subscription of data. With EIQ Loader 2.0 Desktop, users can receive an area of interest from OpenSpirit-enabled applications (including ArcMap, ArcGIS Explorer, and Web maps) and interactively query the IHS Web service to pull across all relevant data directly into their project database. The data is immediately available for new analysis and project work in their OpenSpirit-enabled tool of choice.
“We are excited about the release of EIQ Loader 2.0. It is an entirely new style of OpenSpirit integration, enabling Internet-based Web services delivery of data immediately into the desktop environment via OpenSpirit services,” said Brian Boulmay, OpenSpirit Director of Business Partners. “This is an innovative example of leveraging internal and external services to streamline access to data and accelerate your projects.”
Schlumberger Acquires IGEOSS
Schlumberger announced the acquisition of IGEOSS, a developer of cutting-edge structural geology software headquartered in Montpellier, France. IGEOSS develops geomechanical solutions for subsurface modeling, 2D and 3D structural restoration and fracture characterization of complex geologic structures. The IGEOSS applications and expertise will be integrated with Schlumberger’s software to advance customers’ modeling capabilities, particularly in areas with complex geology.
“Recognizing that our clients are exploring and developing in increasingly complicated geologic settings, the IGEOSS software will – in combination with the industry-leading Petrel* and PetroMod* technologies – enable geoscientists to gain the best possible understanding of the complete petroleum system throughout their exploration, development and production workflows,” said Tony Bowman, president, Schlumberger Information Solutions (SIS).
Laurent Maerten, co-founder and president of IGEOSS, added: “Geomechanics and structural restoration have traditionally been in the hands of the specialist. By incorporating these technologies into the SIS offerings, a broader community of geoscientists will have access to these capabilities to help them solve the difficult challenges they’re encountering today.”
The IGEOSS capabilities will be embedded in the Petrel software to help geoscientists better understand fractured reservoirs and the impact of stress regimes over time, particularly in subsalt, compressional and shale gas plays.
ENGlobal Expands Upstream Services with CDI Acquisition
ENGlobal Corp. announced that ENGlobal’s Automation segment has acquired selected assets of Control Dynamics International LP (CDI), a privately held automation firm based in Houston. CDI designs and manufactures industrial automation control systems primarily for the upstream energy industry and has annual revenues of approximately $5 million.
Under terms of the agreement, ENGlobal will not assume any CDI debt, nor will it be required to issue any stock as consideration for the acquired assets. The transaction is expected to be immediately accretive. Certain key members of CDI’s management team have entered into employment agreements with ENGlobal. Further terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
The acquisition gives ENGlobal a strategic entry into the upstream energy sector. CDI offers certain proprietary products, such as the Dolphin™ Universal Master Control Station (MCS), which can be quickly configured to most subsea control projects. CDI also has expertise in blowout preventer control systems, supervisory control and data acquisition systems (SCADA), and Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) turret override protection systems. For efficiencies, ENGlobal plans to relocate its Automation personnel from its North Houston headquarters to CDI’s 24,000-sq-ft facility nearby.
“Much of our current project work is in the upstream sector, which makes CDI a natural fit with ENGlobal’s suite of services,” said Anthony George, CEO of CDI. “ENGlobal’s financial resources should provide us with larger projects and cross-selling opportunities, thus spurring our growth. We strongly believe that our clients will greatly benefit from our combined capabilities.”
Shelly Leedy, President of ENGlobal Automation Group, added: “This transaction presents tremendous synergies to both companies and expands ENGlobal’s market presence into the upstream vertical. Our combined operations offer a portfolio of high-value engineering and related project services to a very broad spectrum of the energy industry. I look forward to integrating CDI into our existing operations and, on behalf of TEAM ENGlobal, we welcome CDI’s dedicated employees to our family.”
PetroComputing 