Andrew McBarnet offers this kaleidoscope of impressions from a major gathering of the geoscience community.At the end of any big industry event like last month's annual conference and exhibition of the European Association of Geoscientists & Engineers (EAGE) in Copenhagen…
Drilling and completing the Dutch North Sea's first intelligent auto-gas lift tri-lateral subsea oil and gas well helped transform the highly marginal Van Ghent discovery into an economically robust development. Dana Petroleum Netherlands's Michiel van der Most…
GE Oil & Gas introduced its next-generation technology for shearing and sealing wellbore tubulars at OTC 2012. The new Blind Shear Ram, designed for use in GE’s 183/4in ram BOPs, is claimed capable of both shearing and sealing after cutting 65/8in tool joints…
Despite competition from ultrasonic, Coriolis, and other new-technology flowmeters, turbine flowmeters remain a viable and popular choice for a variety of applications, according to a new report by Wakefield, Massachusetts based Flow Research…
Specialist downhole tool provider Peak Well Systems has launched the Power Cutter, a patented powercharged, non-explosive cutter that is dropped from surface to sever slicklines and cables in the event that a toolstring becomes stuck downhole…
Bergen companies know a thing or two about using intelligent sensors to optimize well productivity. One of the leaders in this field is ClampOn, which, as its name does more than suggest, specialises in sensors of the nonintrusive variety. Since it was founded in 1994…
Schlumberger last month announced the availability of two high-temperature additions to its reservoir characterization portfolio: the PressureXpress-HT reservoir pressure service and MDT Forte-HT qualified, rugged,high-temperature formation sampling and pressure system…
Point cloud collection speeds of up to 30,000 points per second and a range of 150m can be achieved with Topcon Positioning Systems’ new GLS-1500 laser scanner. When the unit’s built-in 2.0 megapixel digital camera is connected to a PC and used with Topcon’s ScanMaster software…
Clover Tool Company recently relocated its world headquarters to a new 10,000ft2 facility in Fulshear, Texas. President and CEO Don Clover said the new facility would ‘enable us to better serve both our specialty bolting and BOP test equipment customers and accommodate future growth’…
Raytheon Anschütz is expanding its presence in the US navigation systems market with the startup of operations in San Diego, California. Co-located at an existing Raytheon facility, the office will be headed by Frank Christophersen, newly appointed VP sales USA.
ITF last month outlined the specific challenges that its membership of operator and service companies want to see tackled as priorities in 2012. Up to 100% funding will be available for the right solutions to some of the industry's most pressing challenges…
Weatherford has taken delivery of the first ten of 14 Atlas Copco XAS 186 portable energy compressors ordered for Middle East cementing operations offshore and onshore. Eight of them feature special skid frames and additional ‘add ons’ specified…
The first of ClampOn’s groundbreaking corrosionerosion monitors (CEM) was due to become operational in the Gulf of Mexico at the end of last month. Destined for retrofitting in an unspecified BP brownfield application, it is one of ten ordered…
The Macondo incident pushed oil spill response to the top of the environmental agenda. A recent contest let some innovative companies demonstrate spill response equipment – and for one of the event's technical advisors, Shell, to reassure the public that it intends to operate safely in Alaska…
For all the talk of the intelligent oilfield and smart well-based operations, there are still areas of the reservoir where operators can obtain more knowledge about their subsea operations – in particular, activities further downhole and around the wellbore…