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A Blank Canvas with Many Opportunities

Paul Armitage - SECC Oil & Gas
Managing Director

STORY INLINE POST

Tue, 02/28/2017 - 09:36

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ENI fired the first shot across the country’s oil bows when it successfully drilled and tested the Amoca well in July 2017. Now, the country must respond by bolstering its deepwater capabilities. The cutting-edge technologies being introduced by companies like SECC Oil & Gas could deliver significant operational savings over the lifetime of deepwater wells, according to Paul Armitage, SECC’s Managing Director. But the local market also has a role to play.

“It is important that Mexico fully understands the technologies across the entire spectrum of its value chain,” Armitage says. “The country needs to learn not only how to adapt them but also to develop and use them as a springboard for other innovations. By following this vision for example, IMP in partnership with SECC Oil & Gas could become a provider of technology not only for PEMEX but also for IOCs.” He says this will not only bring economic benefits, but will allow local companies to penetrate the market and improve the country’s competitiveness.

Armitage points to his company’s own technology as an example of how that can impact an operation. “Our plug-andplay connections for well intervention enable operators to carry out their intervention operations throughout the whole life of the field in a cost-effective way,” he says. Riserless USB-style plug-and-play technologies not only saves costs, he adds, but facilitate faster operations with easy access to subsea infrastructure and wells. “Globally, operators are stating a need for genuine innovation, particularly in relation to hydraulic subsea intervention. SECC Oil & Gas provides an enabling technology that goes to the core of that need, assisting clients in the provision of fit-for-purpose operations and reduction in unnecessary rates and equipment.

“If our technologies are not in place on a subsea system, the ability for an operator to flex the most efficient and cost-effective solution is more limited and an operator may have no choice but to go with a less optimized solution,” Armitage continues.

SECC already works in the US Gulf of Mexico, the North Sea and Asia. Armitage says three operators in the North Sea have saved US$150,000-US$300,000 per day on well-intervention operations through the use of SECC Oil & Gas’ technologies. They also have successfully sped up operations and saved time on a port-to-job-to-port basis of around two to four days. “Based on the total cost savings for one or two wells, this could easily be scaled up to millions of dollars per year,” he says. “The upfront spend and use of the technology is easily justified”

With clear benefits, Armitage says the introduction of the technology is best envisioned from the design stage to take full advantage of its benefits. “Modifying the infrastructure and retrofitting a SECC Oil & Gas connector at a later stage in a project is very possible and would still provide an ROI, but when the technology is placed in the subsea production infrastructure the rewards are greatest if done at the very beginning of the project. That is why it is so important for SECC Oil & Gas to be present at this stage of the market in Mexico, before all the developments start taking place.”

As SECC Oil & Gas enters the market, Armitage says PEMEX and IMP are creating encouraging environments where IOCs are being considered and included in many decision-making processes to improve the subsea market. He adds that SECC Oil & Gas’s operational participation with most of the IOCs entering the market is a great advantage. “We have worked all over the world with companies including Shell, Chevron, ExxonMobil, BP, Statoil, and BHP Billiton. They already know us and the benefits that our technology provide their operations over the long term.”

Armitage believes SECC Oil & Gas also can add technical value to the Mexican market in the form of a joint industrial project in Mexican deepwaters. “Our goal would be to include our technology in a successful Mexico-based project where several players such as IMP, PEMEX and possibly an IOC work together,” he says. “Achieving this would provide us with the necessary arguments to pitch our solution with greater ease and impact in the market, to ensure commercial operations later on.” 
 

 

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