Foster Wheeler AG,
Zug, Switzerland, named Michelle Davies as general counsel for the firm, effective as of Nov. 1. She had served as acting general counsel for the last 22 months. She also is corporate secretary, a position that she has filled since April. With more than 25 years' experience in complex corporate legal matters, Davies joined Foster Wheeler in 2008 as general counsel of the company's subsidiary in the UK. Prior to that, she was group legal director, company secretary, and an executive committee member of the English, Welsh, & Scottish Railway Ltd. She was previously head of legal and regulatory affairs and company secretary for NIREX Ltd. She holds an LLB with Honors from the University of Reading.
GTC Technology US LLC,
Houston, announced a worldwide agreement with Rameshni & Associates Technology and Engineering (RATE), a privately held company in Monrovia, Calif., for gas processing and sulfur recovery solutions. RATE has extensive experience in designing large world-scale gas processing plants, sulfur removal units, sour water strippers, and sulfur degassing units, as well as sulfur recovery technologies, tail gas treating technologies, and total sulfur management for meeting new environmental regulations.
The agreement expands GTC's platform of acid gas removal technology. GTC expects this agreement to expand its offering to greater than 2,500 tons/day of sulfur and 4 bscfd. The Houston firm is a global licensor of innovative process technologies, process equipment technology and mass transfer solutions.
Baker Hughes Inc.,
Houston, is marketing its trademarked Talon 3D high-efficiency vector-accurate PDC bit that drills faster and lasts longer in shale plays and handles curved and lateral sections in single run. Scott Schmidt, Baker Hughes' president of drilling and evaluation, said, "We have further refined the design of our bit to address all of customers' needs—enhanced directional control, improved run life, and reduced days on the well."
The bit has an efficient profile, application-specific cutting structures, and superior hard-facing material. Proprietary polished cutters also reduce balling to eliminate buildup on the cutting face and aid the evacuation of cuttings. Large-volume junk slots provide hydraulic efficiency in low horsepower per square inch situations, while patented torque management technology and a shorter bit length help operators drill directional wells quickly and accurately. All of these features work together to provide enhanced directional control, superior cutting through tough formations, and the ability to efficiently hit the pay zone, company officials said.
Baker Hughes also introduced a new version of its trademarked WellLink 3D Visualization service that converts wellbore data into real-time imagery for enhanced well planning and optimization, directional drilling, and reservoir navigation. Powered by the CoViz® platform from Dynamic Graphics Inc., the WellLink 3D visualization service provides a single, integrated 3D visualization and decision support solution that leverages the industry-standard protocol, wellsite information transfer standard markup language (WITSML). The ability to connect directly to other WITSML data sources enables operators to visualize both off-line and real-time datasets through a vendor-neutral, shared display.
"Our customers can now see a real-time synopsis of their drilling environment, including Earth models and tool diameters," Schmidt said. "Well data is now viewable within its geologic context allowing operators to make real-time corrections of well trajectory and drilling parameters, effectively optimizing wellbore placement and maximizing reservoir contact."
Smith Bits,
Houston, a Schlumberger Ltd. company, introduced its Kaldera advanced roller cone bits with an engineered sealing and lubrication system for drilling geothermal and high-temperature (HT) wells. "High-temperature downhole environments, particularly those occurring in geothermal wells, pose a unique set of challenges for the roller cone drillbit," said Guy Arrington, president of Bits & Advanced Technologies, Schlumberger. "A new range of advanced materials were developed, combined with an engineered design solution, to deliver improved bit performance in these applications. The Kaldera bits substantially increase on-bottom hours, thereby reducing drilling costs in geothermal and HT wells."
The seals are made from fabric reinforced fluoroelastomer composites providing thermal stability and wear resistance. An innovative grease compound was developed from synthetic-base oils and functional additives to increase load capacity at elevated temperatures to ensure adequate lubricity of the bearing sealing system.
Field trials of the Kaldera bits demonstrated improvements in reliability over conventional roller cone drillbits. In a recent geothermal well in Italy, where temperatures can exceed 277° Centigrade, bits with the new sealing system set a new field record, drilling 77 hr in a single run, marking a 37% increase of on-bottom drilling hours when compared with offset runs. At the end of the run, all seals and bearings were graded as still effective.
Neste Jacobs Oy,
Finland, has developed a ready-to-use device, the Ecoarm, for unloading viscous oil from railroad cars at terminals in cold regions. The Ecoarm system heats the oil from the top manhole of a tank car and from the inside out via a pump nozzle equipped with a heating coil with two extendable hot-oil spray nozzles on each side. The heated pump nozzle is inserted in the oil. As the oil begins to thin, it is pumped to a heat exchanger on the outside, from which hot oil is redirected back into the spray nozzles. As the heated oil thins in the midsection of the tank, the nozzles move sideways and gradually rise to the top of the tank, efficiently warming the oil for easier unloading. The system can be configured by combining top-unloading, bottom-unloading, or top-warming technologies to meet clients' needs. The key benefit, said company officials, is unloading can be done with high volume flows in cold weather. The equipment is hydraulically operated and steered remotely, which makes it safe to operate.
GASFRAC Energy Services Inc.,
Calgary, appointed senior oil field services executive Zeke Zeringue as president and chief executive officer, effective immediately. He succeeds founding CEO Dwight Loree, who is retiring but will remain on the GASFRAC board of directors.
Zeringue had a 28-year career with Halliburton, including serving as president of Halliburton Energy Services Group. Since leaving Halliburton in 1997, he has headed, founded, and expanded smaller oil field service companies, including Shamrock Abandonment Services, Phoenix Offshore Solutions, eNersection.com Inc. and its successor Wellogix Inc., Orbis Oil and Gas, and Input/Output, Inc. (now ION Geophysical). He has worked consistently with technology-driven companies, developing and implementing the growth strategies to commercialize and expand innovative processes across the energy industry. He also is active in industry and community organizations.
Coincident with Zeringue's appointment, GASFRAC President and Chief Operating Officer Reid MacDonald is leaving the company. Gerry Roe, chairman of the board of directors, said, "We are grateful to our founder, Dwight Loree, for everything he has done to build the company to this level. We are pleased that Dwight has agreed to remain on the board of directors to assist with the executive transition. We also thank Reid MacDonald for his contributions, which included leading GASFRAC through our initial public offering and establishing us as a public company."
Volant Solutions,
Houston, and Neuralog, another Houston firm, formed a strategic partnership to deliver a commercial integrated data management solution for the upstream oil and gas industry with Neuralog's NeuraDB™ E&P data management system integrated with Volant's ENVOY™ platform to efficiently transfer geoscience data from NeuraDB's database to IHS's PETRA interpretation application.
"With future plans to integrate additional geoscience applications into the NeuraDB platform, Neuralog and Volant can provide an even richer set of integration workflows to meet our client's E&P data management requirements," said Scott Schneider, president and CEO of Volant.
"Our goal is to develop a sophisticated, yet easy to use data management system that provides access to the best available data, directly within users' interpretation systems." said Tarun Chandrasekhar, head of development in data management.
RAK Petroleum Public Co. Ltd.,
Ras Al Khaimah, UAE, and DNO International ASA, Oslo, said their respective shareholders approved the merger of the two companies that is expected to be completed in January.
Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani, chairman and chief executive of RAK Petroleum as well as executive chairman of DNO International, said, "The enlarged DNO International will have a diversified Middle East and North Africa (MENA) portfolio with significant working interest reserves and production as well as regional roots and an experienced team of international management to help realize value."
The transaction values RAK Petroleum's MENA operating subsidiaries at $250 million and DNO International at $1.64 billion. RAK Petroleum already has a 30% stake in DNO, which will increase to 42.8% with the merger. However, RAK Petroleum agreed to reduce its holding to 30% in a manner of its choosing before the end of 2012.
The number of shares to be issued was determined through a relative valuation process based on an independent assessment of the two companies' oil and gas assets by international petroleum consultants DeGolyer & MacNaughton. Based on that assessment, DNO International´s net remaining proven and probable reserves consisted of 355 million bbl of oil equivalent in Kurdistan Region of Iraq and Yemen, while RAK Petroleum's net remaining proven and probable reserves consisted of 52 million bbl of oil equivalent in Oman and the UAE.
The combined entity will have approximately 630 employees and offices in Oslo, London, Erbil, Sana'a, Dubai, Ras Al Khaimah, Tunis, and Muscat. The transaction has been structured as the merger of two Norwegian companies in accordance with Chapter 13 of the Norwegian Public Companies Act. NORAK Holding AS, containing all RAK Petroleum's oil and gas assets, will merge into DNO MENA AS, a subsidiary of DNO International.
Hoover Materials Handling Group Inc.,
AKER SOLUTIONS ASA,
Oslo, signed an agreement to acquire the well intervention technology business from X3M (pronounced Extreme) International Ltd., London, in an $8 million deal to grow its well intervention technology and increase its presence in the Middle East market.
X3M has operations in Oman, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. Aker Solutions has well service operations in Saudi Arabia and Oman that will be merged with X3M. Also, X3M has a design engineering team based in Narvik, Norway, that not only will continue to support that company's activities but also strengthen Aker Solutions' existing research and development with wireline tractors and application tools.
X3M is an international niche provider of downhole intervention service tools and technology products. Its core products are innovative downhole tools like plugs, packers, hangers, valves, and a complete range of setting and recovery tools.
"Today we are buying plug products and hiring the plug-setting services from third parties. Through this acquisition we will expand our product portfolio and be able to offer our customers more complete—and thereby more competitive—service," said Wolfgang Puennel, head of Aker Solutions well intervention services.
Aker Solutions is a major provider of well intervention services in the British and Norwegian sectors of the North Sea. Primary owners of X3M include the Middle East-based Catalyst Private Equity Fund and X3M's original founders. The transaction is expected to be completed early this month.
Corpro Systems Ltd.,
Aberdeen-based member of the Reservoir Group, an international oil field services organization, was awarded a coring contract from Eni SPA, the largest Italian energy company. The contract is for coring and various on-site services related to coring for exploration wells offshore Norway and upcoming production wells in the Barents Sea. Work will also commence on the already spudded Marulk exploration well. The value of the contract will depend upon the volume of core extracted during the jobs.
This is the third commercial project to be carried out by Corpro since it opened its Scandinavian facility in late 2010, said company officials. Tor Magne Madsen, Corpro Norway's country manager, said, "This contract is acknowledgment our innovative coring technology." Corpro will run the jobs from Norway with the full support from its experienced Aberdeen team. A formation evaluation service company, Corpro has 36 bases on 5 continents.
Williams Partners LP
Tulsa, signed agreements with Hess Corp. and Chevron Corp. to provide production handling, oil and gas gathering, and pipeline transport services in the deepwater Tubular Bells field in the Gulf of Mexico through the much-anticipated Gulfstar project. The Gulfstar is expected to reduce cycle times for producers from discovery to actual production with its spar-based floating production system. Williams will design the facility with an initial crude capacity of 6,000 b/d of oil equivalent and 200 MMcfd of natural gas. It also will have the capability to provide seawater injection services for producers. The project is expected to be completed and ready for service in 30 months.
Dawson Geophysical Co.,
Midland, Tex., terminated its proposed $157 million stock-swap merger with TGC Industries Inc., based in Plano, Tex. "The two companies could not come to agreement on an adjusted exchange ratio, and TGC was unable to obtain the 80% shareholder approval needed to move forward," said analysts in the Houston office of Raymond James & Associates Inc. Only 76% of TGC stockholders approved the deal. "One of the conditions of the merger was for Dawson's 10-day volume weighted average stock price to be within a range, which was not reached before the merger was to be completed," Raymond James analysts reported. "As a result, management of each company held a special meeting regarding an adjustment to the exchange ratio for the all-stock transaction." That was followed by special meetings of shareholders of the respective companies, in which Dawson shareholders affirmed the transaction but TGC shareholders did not. "We expected TGC to try for more value for their shareholders, but ultimately expected the deal to go through," said Raymond James analysts. "While we believed the transaction would be accretive, this is not the end of the world."
Dril-Quip Inc.,
Houston, named John Lovoi as chairman of its board and Blake DeBerry as president and chief executive officer, immediately effective as Mike Walker abruptly retired as chairman and CEO in late October. DeBerry also replaced Walker as a member of the board. James Gariepy was named senior vice-president and chief operating officer, also effective immediately.
Barclays Capital Equity Research analysts said, "While the news of Mike Walker's retirement is sudden, we believe this was a personal decision and not one that reflects any internal issues with the company." Indeed, Walker "is leaving the company in a good position. Dril-Quip's backlog is at record levels, and we expect the company will benefit from the ongoing new deepwater rig delivery cycle and the growth in the subsea business that we expect to continue for at least the next decade," the analysts said. Walker was the last of Dril-Quip's three founders and spent almost 31 years with the company. DeBerry has been with Dril-Quip since 1988, working 13 years in the company's Houston headquarters and running various international businesses in Asia for the last 10 years. He moved back to Houston in July as senior vice-president of sales and engineering. Lovoi has been a board member since 2005. James Gariepy has been with Dril-Quip since 2004, most recently as senior vice-president for project management and service.
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