Companies in the news

Danos has been awarded a contract by Shell Exploration and Production Company to provide coatings for Shell’s deepwater Appomattox platform in the Gulf of Mexico. The coatings project should last approximately six months. Previously, Danos fabricated three boarding valve skids and one service line skid out of its Amelia, La., facility for Appomattox, which required support from the company’s project management, fabrication, coatings and automation service lines. In the Gulf of Mexico, 80 mi off the coast of Louisiana, the Appomattox platform is one of Shell’s new deepwater investments in the Gulf and is set to begin production before the end of the decade. Photo: Shell.

Engineering consultancy Thornton Tomasetti has agreed to acquire technical consulting specialist MMI Engineering. Currently owned by international environmental consultancy, Geosyntec, the new company will be rebranded as MMI Thornton Tomasetti and will be in the UK and Australia. In the U.S., the business will operate under the Thornton Tomasetti name upon completion of the deal. The goal of the union is to offer clients a full suite of risk management and technical security services with an expanded European, Australasia and Far East presence.

Integrated marine service company C-Innovation, LLC, an affiliate of Edison Chouest Offshore, will be responsible for flushing and preparing 60 mi of pipeline for decommissioning in the Bass Lite Flowline decommissioning project for Apache Corporation. Situated in the Mississippi Canyon area of the Gulf of Mexico, the project was expected to last approximately two weeks, and it required two vessels with coiled tubing units. The project was slated to be gas-lifted using hot tap, while flushing operations were executed.

Start-up Wellpro Group is expected to create new jobs within its first year of trading, after announcing its move to premises in Aberdeen. The well-intervention company’s portfolio includes thru tubing, operational design, project management, and service rentals, focusing on the UK and European markets, with plans for global growth. The Aberdeen-based firm is housed in a 5,750 ft² office/workshop space, and is in the process of a significant investment in new equipment.

Shell Integrated Gas Thailand Pte Ltd and Thai Energy Company Ltd, have sold their 22.2222% interest in Bongkot field and adjoining acreage offshore Thailand to PTT Exploration & Production Public Company Limited (PTTEP) and PTTEP International Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary of PTTEP, for a transaction value of $750 million. This sale, consisting of Shell’s stake in Blocks 15, 16 and 17, and Block G12/48, was announced in first-quarter 2018. PTTEP operates Bongkot and, with completion of this transaction, has increased its stake to 66.6667%. The remaining 33.3333% belong to Total.

Chemstream has evolved from its beginnings in the coal industry to analyzing formation geology and frac water quality for oilfield applications. The in-house lab utilizes friction flow loop, rotational viscometer, gas chormatography-mass spectrometry with pyrolysis, and X-ray diffraction to perform post-frac sequential flowback studies. These studies confirm the efficacy of the scale control and microbiocides used during stimulations and other analyses.

TechnipFMC has been awarded a contract by Total for the Zinia Phase 2 field development, offshore Angola, at a water depth between 800 and 1,000 m. The contract covers the engineering, procurement and construction of subsea equipment, including nine subsea tree units, as well as wellheads, subsea control systems, connection systems and associated equipment. This contract also covers support services for assembly, test, mobilization and installation.

Element Materials Technology has opened a new laboratory in Singapore. The ISO 17025-accredited materials testing laboratory offers specialized metallurgical and fracture toughness testing for contractors and fabricators in the Asia Pacific region. The sour service corrosion testing facility includes multiple baths for ASTM G48 corrosion testing and the capacity to conduct coating testing, such as cathodic disbondment testing, at room temperature and elevated temperature, as well as indentation and impact testing. 

ConocoPhillips has entered into an agreement to sell a subsidiary to BP for an undisclosed price. The subsidiary will hold a 16.5% interest in the BP-operated Clair field, with ConocoPhillips retaining a 7.5% interest. Additionally, simultaneous agreements were reached to acquire BP’s 39.2% interest in the Greater Kuparuk Area in Alaska and BP’s 38% interest in the Kuparuk Transportation Company for an undisclosed price. The Greater Kuparuk Area acquisition is subject to co-owner pre-emption rights.

ExxonMobil subsidiary Esso Exploration and Production Guyana Limited has awarded SBM Offshore contracts to perform FEED for a second FPSO at the Liza development in the Stabroek Block of Guyana. The firm operates the Stabroek Block with partners Hess Guyana Exploration Ltd. and CNOOC Nexen Petroleum Guyana Limited. The FPSO is designed to produce 220,000 bopd, will have associated gas treatment capacity of 400 MMcfd, and water injection capacity of 250,000 bpd. The FPSO will be spread-moored in a water depth of about 1,600 m and will be able to store around 2 MMbbl of oil.

Oilfield technology firm, Airborne Oil & Gas, has commenced a qualification program for a thermoplastic composite pipe riser for a major operator in South America and Subsea 7 (a minority shareholder). The conditional process involves analysis of global riser behavior, as well as installation. The objective of this project, set to begin in second-quarter 2018, was to develop a material that would allow operators to use a free-hanging, catenary configuration, to be installed by pipe-lay vessels.

China National Offshore Oil Corporation has signed a production sharing contract with Roc Oil Company and Smart Oil Investment Ltd for Weizhou 10-3W oil field (18-km² total area, 40-m water depth,) and Block 22/04 (80-km² total area, 40-80-m water depth). The South China Sea areas are in the Beibu Gulf basin and are approximately 60 km from the southern coast of China and northwest of Hainan Island.

Al Yasat Company for Petroleum Operations, a subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) has awarded an engineering, procurement and construction contract, for full development of the offshore Bu Haseer field, to Abu Dhabi’s National Petroleum Construction Company. The agreement covers offshore facilities, which will see production capacity from Bu Haseer increase from today’s 8,000 bopd to 16,000 bopd
in 2020.