Services/Suppliers

Houston, has appointed Rear Admiral Craig E. Bone to the newly created position of vice-president, corporate programs. Upon his retirement from the US Coast Guard after more than 30 years of service, Bone will be based in ABS’s executive office in Paramus, NJ. He will assume responsibility for coordinating the wide range of environmental initiatives currently being undertaken by ABS to assist clients in dealing with significant new regulatory challenges and their need to identify operating efficiencies that also contribute to a reduced environmental footprint. He will assume overall responsibility for extending the growing portfolio of ABS training services and will work on specific operating initiatives and the development of client relations. Previously, Bone was commander of the 11th CG District on the Pacific Coast. He is the former assistant commandant for prevention, directing the agency’s policy and programs for port, vessel, and facility maritime safety and security management. He has led the US delegation to the IMO and spearheaded the development of the US Department of Homeland Security’s first all-hazards, risk-based decision-making model. Bone has masters’ degrees in information systems technology and in national resource strategy, in addition to a marine science and oceanography degree.

ABS is a leading international classification society devoted to promoting the security of life, property, and the marine environment through the development and verification of standards for the design, construction, and operational maintenance of marine-related facilities.

PAS Technologies Inc.,

Kansas City, Mo., has announced that its joint venture company Asian Surface Technologies Ltd. (AST) entered into a new, multiyear agreement with Valve Components Ltd. (VCL) to provide a turnkey onsite facility for industrial coating and finishing of oil field components. The agreement includes plans for AST to establish a facility within the VCL Malaysia facility located at Kuala Lumpur. The entity will be known as AST Malaysia Sdn. Bhd. The new plant will supply industrial coatings, maintenance, and fabrication services work and finishing for gate valve components manufactured, processed, or repaired in the VCL Malaysia operations. It further strengthens AST’s capability to provide highly reliable service in the Far East. AST will facilitate and operate the state-of-the-art coatings facility for start-up in 2009. AST is a Singapore-based JV of PAS, SIA Engineering Co., and Pratt & Whitney. The company provides high-performance surface coatings and finishing for oil field and aviation OEM components.

In addition, PAS Technologies and Lambda Technologies have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) focused on the marketing, R&D, and production of Lambda’s Low Plasticity Burnishing (LPB) proprietary process as an integral element of the maintenance, repair ,and overhaul operations within the PAS Technologies’ capabilities arena. The MOU includes Lambda’s agreement to license PAS Technologies for the proprietary technology to perform the LPB process for the component repair applications implemented into production by PAS Technologies and includes product and market development of the oil field, military, and industrial power generation markets.

Lambda Technologies incorporates a premier materials research laboratory with a world-class engineering and production enterprise dedicated to the development and optimization of surface treatments to improve component performance.

PAS provides repair and overhaul solutions for the oil field, aerospace, and industrial markets. It services a broad range of components, including gas turbine engines, critical airframe parts, and gates and seats used in oil fields.

PBV Valve,

Houston, a subsidiary of Stafford-based Global Flow Technologies (GFT), has received the University of Houston’s College of Technology Texas Manufacturing Assistance Center Gulf Coast (TMACGC) Excellence in Manufacturing Award. The award recognizes the company’s dedication to providing improved products and services to its clients in the petrochemical industry, power generation, refining, transportation, chemical distribution, and oil and gas production industries. Recent consultation by TMACGC about lean manufacturing and the 5S Kaizen method helped PBV Valve reduce its lead times and work-in-progress inventory. PBV estimated that TMACGC consultation services helped increase its sales by $3 million.

GFT provides valve, actuators, and related services to the global oil and gas, petrochemical, power, biofuels, and other industries.

TMACGC is one of the partner institutions in the Texas Manufacturing Assistance Center, an affiliate of the Manufacturing Extension Partnership program of the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Louis Capital Markets,

New York City, has appointed Edward L. Morse managing director and head of economic research. He joins the firm from Lehman Bros., where he was managing director and head of commodities research since 2006. Also at Lehman, he built a world-class research team as part of the No. 1-ranked fixed income research group and participated in the buildout of Lehman’s global commodities trading platform. Morse received widespread publicity this year for forecasting the rapid demand destruction caused by high commodities prices as well as for analyzing the bubble-like characteristics of the rise in oil prices toward $150/bbl. A leading analyst of the international oil and gas sector, Morse’s career in energy spans 3 decades and includes senior positions in business, government, academia, and publishing. Before joining Lehman, Morse spent 7 years at Hess Energy Trading Co. LLC, providing strategic advice to the firm and clients on oil and natural gas market trends. For a decade before then he served as publisher of Petroleum Intelligence Weekly and other industry newsletters published by the Energy Intelligence Group, where he had been CEO. Morse received his Ph.D. from Princeton University, where he taught for 6 years before joining the senior research staff at the Council on Foreign Relations. During the Carter and Reagan administrations, Morse held various positions in the Department of State, including deputy assistant secretary for international energy policy. He also held a management position with the former Phillips Petroleum and was cofounder of PFC Energy, a Washington, DC, energy consultancy.

LCM Group is a global independent broker-dealer providing execution, sales, trading, and research services in cash equities, equity derivatives, commodities, foreign exchange, and fixed income. The firm has offices in New York, London, Paris, and Hong Kong and will soon open in Houston. LCM focuses exclusively on commodity and commodity-related markets, with a special emphasis on swaps, options, and exotics in crude oil, petroleum products, and natural gas.

Petris Technology Inc.,

Houston, has formed a strategic partnership with Warrior Technology Services Inc. Petris will be an OEM reseller of Warrior’s risk management software solution, UnRiskIT. The reselling agreement allows for the embedding of UnRiskIT into Petris’s own solutions, as well as for Petris to sell UnRiskIT on a standalone basis. Integrating the software solutions is intended to help customers limit nonproductive time and its associated costs during drilling. It allows operators to update scenarios while drilling to evaluate changes to the risk profile and forecasted time/cost estimates. Petris offers software coupled with focused professional services to oil and gas and pipeline companies.

Duoline Technologies,

Odessa, Tex., has appointed Smittee Root marketing manager. Root will oversee marketing activities for Duoline products. She has a BBA from the University of Texas at Tyler and more than 7 years’ experience in manufacturing and more than 10 years in marketing.

Duoline is an industry leader in solving oil field corrosion problems through innovative products that entail inserting a liner through a process that secures a corrosion-resistant material such as glass-reinforced epoxy or PVC inside steel pipe, thereby protecting steel tubulars by isolating corrosive oil field fluids and gases.