OGIC EXCEEDS TARGETS WITH AGREEMENT OF THREE NEW INDUSTRY PROJECTS
The Oil and Gas Innovation Centre (OGIC) has today announced the signing of three new industry projects with emerging technology companies, Resolute Energy Solutions, Oilfield Innovations Limited, and Trevelyan Trading Limited.
Upon signing the 50th project, OGIC has once again reached its project target ahead of schedule, and is now set to exceed this milestone with new projects currently in discussion.
OGIC’s total investment in collaborative work with oil and gas companies and academic expertise in Scottish universities now stands at £1.9m in funding. Additional private sector funding across these 50 projects brings the total projects value to £4.7m – almost doubling the total projects value of six months ago, when the total stood at £2.4m.
The latest projects, which involved working with academic expertise at three Scottish universities, include Resolute Energy Solutions, who are addressing current industry challenges with well plug and abandonment (P&A) by developing a new swellable sealing material for a more cost-effective method to better fill formation and annular void spaces; Oilfield Innovations Limited (OILtd), who are developing an innovative way to utilise low cost wireline to provide a more cost effective drilling rig equivalent P&A; and a project with Trevelyan Trading Limited (TTL), who are developing technology to improve the efficiency of gas transportation by lowering back pressure to the gas wells, enabling an increased range of subsea gas tiebacks to deliver increased recoverable reserves more economically.
The recent collaboration with OGIC and Resolute Energy Solutions, involved working with the Petroleum Engineering Research Group at Robert Gordon University to conduct essential research and development work. This included conducting physical tests to develop the most appropriate swellable sealing materials for downhole applications that meet specific industry standards.
Commenting on the project, Iain Lees, Director of Resolute Energy Solutions, said: “The Oil & Gas Innovation Centre has certainly lived up to their name with the support they have provided Resolute. We started the business by looking at a significant industry problem, and with the help of OGIC we are now taking it from Concept to Cure.”
OGIC’s collaborative project with OILtd, will involve OILtd partnering with academic expertise at the University of Glasgow. The ten-month project includes calibration of the numerical simulation with experimental data of a small-scale test rig and large real-scale demonstrations of the compaction of North Sea sized tubulars to validate OILtd’s hypothesis.
Bruce Tunget, Director of OILtd said: “Through our collaboration with OGIC and the University of Glasgow, we will be able to accelerate the development of our technology by gaining a more robust understanding of the mechanics of compacting tubulars to overcome industry P&A cost and liability challenges.”
The most recent project that took OGIC to its 50th milestone, was a project with the subsea processing technology solutions company, Trevelyan Trading Limited (TTL), and academics at the University of Strathclyde.
Trevelyan’s technology aims to address the challenge of efficient gas transportation by using the application of multiple integrated piggable liquid separators to remove liquids generated by the well and condensing from the gas during transportation. Larger pipeline diameters can then be used, lowering back pressure to the gas wells and allowing the range of subsea gas tiebacks to be increased to over 250km, while only using 5% of the power requirements of subsea compression.
Lee Thomas, Director of TTL said: “With the part-funding and support of OGIC, we have been able to work with the experienced team at University of Strathclyde to investigate the performance of our new gas separator concept to deliver increased recoverable reserves more economically, including simulations under a range of conditions. This has been valuable to develop the concept further and prove the viability of our combined technology approach.”
Ian Phillips, Chief Executive of OGIC, said: “From small scale developers to major contractors, OGIC is proud to have facilitated 50 collaborative projects with organisations in the oil and gas sector, connecting the energy industry with leading research and development expertise within Scottish universities. These latest projects demonstrate the real possibility to support the industry’s continued commitment to overcome industry challenges whilst maintaining cost control and operational efficiency.
As we look to 2018, we are inspired by the resilience of the industry and the continued innovation and determination of everyone that is engaged in these projects - from the companies themselves to our project team and the academic expertise at the universities. We very much look forward to signing more projects in the coming months and continuing our collaborative work with the industry.”
