IMCA
Bruno Faure, Group Senior Vice President Subsea Projects and Operations at Technip, a world leader in project management, engineering and construction for the energy industry, has taken over the role of President of the International Marine Contractors Association (IMCA), the association representing the interests of over a thousand offshore, marine and underwater engineering companies in more than 60 countries.
In addition to becoming President of IMCA, having served as Vice President of IMCA since September 2014, he also becomes Chairman of the association's Overall Management Committee (OMC).
Bruno Faure joined Technip in July 2014 as Group Senior Vice President Subsea Projects and Operations. He is a Civil Engineer with a degree in Finance, and has had 30 years in the oil and gas industry. He joined Coflexip in 1985 as a structural engineer, then installation engineer, project engineer and then occupied various positions in projects for UK, Norway, Asia Pacific, USA and Africa, before moving on to General Management roles to become COO Africa in 2006.
In 2006 he joined Stolt Comex Seaway (now Subsea 7) as Projects and Operations Director for Africa Region and then became President for Region Africa, Gulf of Mexico and Mediterranean in Subsea 7 based in London.
Antelope Oil Tool
Antelope Oil Tool, an industry leading designer, manufacturer and seller of patented casing and cementation equipment, has developed the CentraMax® PI1, an addition to the CentraMax® Series.
The CentraMax® PI1 is used as an alternative solution to centralizer subs in close tolerance applications. The design allows for both reciprocation and rotation type applications, and is always pushed when installed between two external anchor devices. The CentraMax® PI1 is to be used when the annular clearance between the casing O.D. and restriction I.D. are sufficient, negating the requirement for a more expensive centralizer sub solution.
The one-piece centralizer design contributes proven and effective restoring force and standoff in under-reamed hole sections, while being able to compress and pass through narrow tolerance restriction sections, resulting in low starting and running forces.
The CentraMax® one-piece design presents superior mechanical integrity, high yield and tensile strengths, and eliminates the potential of failure of welds. The slip-on design can accommodate virtually any casing weight, grade and threaded connection types.
CGG
CGG announced that it has been awarded a contract by the Tanzanian Petroleum Development Corporation (TPDC) to acquire high-resolution gravity gradiometry and aeromagnetic data over two onshore areas along the South-Eastern Tanzanian Coastal Basin and the eastern arm of the East African Rift.
Acquisition over a total area of 30,000 sq km will commence in mid-August 2015 and is scheduled to last up to two months. Using the industry's lowest noise Gravity Gradiometry, FALCON®, CGG will deliver high-resolution data and interpretation to help evaluate the hydrocarbon potential of these basins ahead of future licensing rounds.
Tanzania has already established itself as a highly prospective hydrocarbon province in East Africa with a series of significant discoveries offshore and CGG is excited to be part of this next phase of TPDC's exploration of the onshore basins. This survey will benefit from the experience gained through the completion of many projects throughout Africa using the most advanced technologies available in the industry.
Earlier, the Parliament of the United Republic of Tanzania passed a new Petroleum Bill, which will be signed soon. Under the new Petroleum Bill, TPDC is now lawfully recognized as a National Oil Company (NOC). The NOC will participate fully in exploration and production of oil and gas and this campaign in particular signifies the commercial commencement of NOC in E&P activities in Tanzania.
Omnitek Engineering Corp
Omnitek Engineering Corp., a developer and seller of proprietary diesel-to-natural gas engine conversion systems and complementary products, including new natural gas engines that utilize the company's technology, announced the appointment of Richard L. Miller as chief financial officer, succeeding Alicia Rolfe who elected to retire from her position to honor personal commitments, as noted in a recent Form 8-K filing.
Richard Miller, 55, has more than 16 years of financial management and accounting experience. Prior to joining Omnitek, he served as controller for American Rim Supply, Inc., a privately held company based in Carlsbad, California. He previously served as assistant controller for Crestone Group, LLC, a Carlsbad-based commercial bakery with three facilities. Earlier in his career, Miller was a tax manager with J.H. Cohn, LLP, a regional full-service accounting firm headquartered in New Jersey. He is a certified public accountant (inactive) and double majored in communications and psychology, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree with honors from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Weatherford International
Weatherford International plc announced the commercial release of its Revolution® rotary-steerable system (RSS) at the Unconventional Resources Technology Conference (URTeC). The ability to minimize risks and reduce time while drilling is integral for operators seeking to arrive at the production stage quickly and avoid future intervention. The new generation suite of Revolution RSS provides capabilities for diverse directional drilling applications in complex wellbores. Its point-the-bit technology delivers clean, accurately placed and completion-ready wellbores. With advanced sensors and telemetry, the system gives operators a reliable method for drilling from vertical to horizontal in a single run.
Weatherford was one of the first service providers to offer a rotary-steerable system for HPHT environments. The system allows operators to drill in HPHT zones with temperatures exceeding 300 degrees F (149 degrees C), allowing operators to produce wells in the increasingly challenging environments with precise drilling control in long laterals, high-angle curves and parallel vertical sections in a single run. The point-the-bit design and real-time geological control of the Revolution RSS enable operators to drill in a variety of wellbore environments, including unconventional fields, HPHT environments, deepwater fields, damaged and underbalanced formation and brown fields.
The Revolution RSS has completed several successful drilling projects for major operators in the Eagle Ford Shale in Texas. Recently, in an onshore horizontal well, Revolution RSS was used to drill a well through a challenging, dense limestone and sandstone formation to a total depth of 16,559 feet (5,014 meters) and high temperatures up to 328 degrees F (164 degrees C). The average rate of penetration was 75 percent faster than conventional steerable motor assemblies. On a separate project with six wells in the Eagle Ford, Revolution RSS achieved an average of 180 ft/hr (55 m/hr) on all six wells and a record of 227 ft/hr (69 m/hr) on one well, reducing the drilling cycle by two weeks and saving the operator more than $1 million in operational costs.
The Revolution RSS is compatible with the full Weatherford suite of logging-while-drilling (LWD) formation evaluation services, including real-time feedback on tool settings and status, resulting in smooth wellbores, which can be cased with the extensive Weatherford casing portfolio.
PennTex Midstream Partners, LP
PennTex Midstream Partners, LP, a growth-oriented master limited partnership focused on owning, operating, acquiring and developing midstream energy infrastructure assets in North America, announced that Richard (Rick) S. Walker has been appointed to the board of directors of the Partnership's general partner (the "Board"), effective July 24, 2015.
Mr. Walker is an independent director and will serve as chairman of the audit committee of the Board and serves as the Managing Partner in the Houston office of DHR International, a leading global executive search firm.
Mr. Walker holds a BBA from Loyola University, New Orleans and a MBA from Bowling Green State University. Mr. Walker is a certified public accountant in the State of Texas.
Atlas Copco Rental
Atlas Copco Rental, a leading provider of sustainable productivity solutions, has acquired the operating assets of Mustang Services, a specialty dryer rental business that primarily serves the rental industry to supplement their existing fleets.
Mustang Services rents out its equipment, mainly adsorption type air dryers, after coolers and filters to the rental industry which service industrial, pipeline and other end-users that require dry compressed air in their processes. The products are often rented together with air compressors to provide customers with a total rental solution.
Dan Dorran is assuming the position of Vice-President of Operations for Mustang Services. Dan has an extensive and long career in the compressed air and accessories rental business.
Baker Hughes
Baker Hughes announced the commercial release of its Integrity eXplorer™ cement evaluation service: a radical change in the evaluation of the cement integrity of oil and gas wells. Existing evaluation techniques, which have been used for over thirty years, are acoustic-based and may not provide the accuracy needed when faced with some of today's challenges. This new electromagnetic-acoustic technology allows operators to directly assess the integrity of cement bonds in any current wellbore environment or cement mixture.
Operators in the upstream sector rely on the accuracy of cement-bond logs to make critical decisions that can affect long-term well integrity and the environment. While cement compressive strength has typically been used as a key indicator of cement quality, today's challenging environments require a more detailed assessment. The Integrity eXplorer service provides operators with accurate and comprehensive data about the properties of the respective cement - thereby enabling them to make critical decisions to help protect their assets, reduce non-productive time, and minimize unnecessary remediation. The Integrity eXplorer service is the latest example of Baker Hughes' strategy to improve well efficiency, optimize production and increase ultimate recovery.
Fairmount Santrol
Fairmount Santrol launched the Reducing Cost per BOE campaign at the opening of the three-day Unconventional Resources Technology Conference (URTeC).
During the conference, the company showcased field results verifying self-suspending proppant technology and a portfolio of resin-coated sand are enabling operators to produce more oil and gas at a lower cost per barrel of oil equivalent.
The technology's hydrogel polymer coating rapidly hydrates in water, which allows proppant to resist settling and to stack higher within the fracture. In this thin fluid, proppant transport improves to maximize the propped length and height without polymer damage to the formation and proppant pack, as with traditional hydraulic fracturing fluids.
The company also highlighted how curable resin-coated sand is lowering the cost per barrel of oil equivalent with comprehensive proppant flowback prevention. One south Texas operator increased the value of 23 wells by $115,000 per stage, or $2.6 million total, compared with the operator's 23 other wells treated only with frac sand in the same field. The difference was proppant flowback prevention that increased well uptime.
Fairmount Santrol's product portfolio also includes CoolSet® curable resin-coated sand that sets without activator to prevent proppant flowback; Super LC® curable resin-coated sand; Super DC® curable resin-coated sand, OptiProp G2® curable resin-coated sand; PowerProp® precured resin-coated sand; TLC® precured resin-coated sand; and THS® precured resin-coated sand.
Halliburton
Halliburton's Wireline & Perforating business has introduced the Reservoir Monitor Tool 3-Detector™ (RMT-3D™) pulsed-neutron tool that helps solve for water, oil, and gas saturations within reservoirs using three independent measurements (Sigma, CO, and SATG). Relying on only one or two independent measurements can reduce the accuracy of results depending on conditions in the formation and formation fluids. The RMT-3D tool allows operators to calculate saturations using different methods to acquire accurate results. The data is collected with one trip in the hole, reducing nonproductive time and the potential for costly additional trips.
Layne Christensen Company
Layne Christensen Company announced the appointment of J. Michael Anderson as Chief Financial Officer, effective July 20, 2015. Mr. Anderson will succeed Andrew Atchison, who has served as Layne's Chief Financial Officer, on an interim basis, since August 1, 2014. Mr. Atchison will continue to support Layne through the leadership transition and has agreed to serve as a consultant to support corporate initiatives.
Mr. Anderson brings more than 25 years of experience in senior management roles at publicly-traded companies in the water and energy industries, and in commercial and investment banking.
Mr. Anderson joins Layne from Southcross Energy Partners, L.P., a Master Limited Partnership engaged in the natural gas midstream business, where he served as Chief Financial Officer since 2012. Mr. Anderson previously served as Chief Financial Officer of Exterran Holdings, Inc. and Exterran Partners, L.P., a global market leader in natural gas compression and oil and gas services, from 2003 until 2012.
Mr. Anderson spent ten years in investment banking at J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. where he specialized in mergers and acquisitions. He earned an MBA in Finance from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and graduated with honors from Texas Tech University with a BBA degree in Finance.
Hyundai Construction Equipment Americas
Hyundai Construction Equipment Americas has launched the HX series of Tier 4 Final-compliant hydraulic excavators in the United States and Canada. The first models, which range from 22 to 52 metric tons and include the HX220L, HX260L, HX300L, HX330L, HX380L, HX480L and HX520L, are hitting the ground now. Smaller models and compact-radius models will follow in 2016.
Most notable is the all-new 8-inch (20.3 cm) interactive, adjustable, touchscreen cluster-monitor with haptic remote control for all major functions, easier operator accessibility and better ergonomics. The haptic remote control delivers reactive, tactile sensations using vibrations and pulses to guide the operator through menu selections.
The new cab also features a more powerful, climate-control system with improved air efficiency and temperature response, 15-percent more capacity, improved defrost capacity and more airflow mode selections for optimized operator comfort. Other innovations that make the new Hyundai HX cab exceptionally comfortable for the operator include 13-percent more leg and foot space from the seat to the pedals, reduced in-cab sound level, optional single-pedal straight travel, new heated operator's seat with standard air suspension and integrated console, Bluetooth audio system, Miracast wireless functionality for viewing a mobile device screen on the monitor, hot/cold storage box, sunglasses compartment and a large storage box with a retention net for personal items.
The new Hyundai HX series models HX220L, HX260L, HX300L, HX330L and HX380L are powered by Cummins engines, and the larger HX480L and HX520L models are powered by Scania engines. Cummins and Scania engine technologies both achieve Tier 4 Final emissions compliance through a combination of SCR (selective catalytic reduction) and DOC (diesel oxidation catalyst) systems using DEF (diesel exhaust fluid). New Tier 4 Final engine technologies, a more efficient vertically stacked cooling design, efficient electronic fan clutch, plus many hydraulic system innovations on the Hyundai HX series excavators contribute to an overall fuel efficiency improvement of up to 10 percent compared with 9A series models.
BMT Group
BMT Group, the leading international maritime design, engineering and risk management consultancy, has announced the appointment of Sir John Hood KNZM as Chairman of BMT Group Ltd with effect from 1 October 2015, following the retirement of Dr Neil Cross at the end of BMT's financial year on 30 September.
Sir John Hood is a non-executive Director of BG Group plc and WPP plc, Chairman of Urenco Ltd (from which he will retire later this year), Matakina Ltd, and Study Group Ltd; President and Chief Executive Officer of the Robertson Foundation; and Chair of the Rhodes Trust and Teach For All. For five years Sir John served as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford and, before that, as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Auckland after a successful career at Fletcher Challenge, New Zealand's largest industrial conglomerate.
With a Bachelor of Engineering and a PhD in Civil Engineering from the University of Auckland, Sir John was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to study at the University of Oxford where he read for an MPhil in Management Studies. He was appointed a Knight Companion to the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2014.