News Items...
eRED Lands Prestigious Innovation Award
June 2008
We have also recently won the coveted Sir Ian Wood Award for Innovation at the Grampian Awards for Business Enterprise for our intelligent downhole flow control product, the eRED (Electronic Remote Equalisation Device).
After receiving the award on behalf of Red Spider Stuart Gordon, senior design engineer, said “This award win is particularly satisfying because the appreciation of our achievements has come from the business community as a whole, and not just our own industry peers.”
“The development and implementation of the eRED project has been ongoing for almost two years, and everyone at Red Spider has worked hard to ensure it has been a success. Winning the Sir Ian Wood Award is fantastic recognition for these efforts.”
The eRED is designed to maximise production and recovery rates by being the only downhole tool which can be repeatedly opened and closed after deployment remotely, allowing the operator to perform a host of applications without the need to resort to further interventions.
Click here for more details on the eRED.
Red Spider Delivers First Omani Order
April 2007
Red Spider Technology has delivered the first order for its Velocity String Packer (VSP) for a series of wells for PDO in Oman, which will be deployed in conjunction with PSL Energy Services Ltd.
The deal, worth in the region of US$2 million, covering multiple wells over a two year period, sees Red Spider provide equipment, installation and support for up to 25 wells in the initial phase of the project. Should this first phase of deployments prove successful, further wells have been identified to undergo similar installations.
The device provided by Red Spider has been specially developed to provide PDO with the means of retrofitting a secondary tubing string into the existing completed gas well to resolve liquid-loading problems. Installation of the equipment is scheduled to take place later this year, in June.
Gary Smith, Marketing Manager – New Technology at Red Spider said: “The VSP is distinctive because it has been designed to address several key requirements specific to the well geometry. It has the ability to suspend a large hanging weight – 120,000lbs and pass through a restriction in the well and set in larger ID tubing. It is also required to be deployed safely into the well bore under pressure, and the system must prevent the reservoir coming in contact with fluids during the deployment stage.”
The delivery of the order marks Red Spider’s first foray into the Omani sector, and underlines the company’s aspirations in the Middle East.
Managing Director of Red Spider, Chris Oliver, commented: “The delivery of this order underlines the success of our decision to establish a permanent presence in the Middle East. Last year we appointed a Regional Manager for the region, Willie Morrison, and opened an office in Dubai to show our commitment to the area.
“I believe that our reputation for reliability and quality, coupled with our expert understanding of client requirements will ensure that Red Spider Technology continues to achieve success in the Middle East,” added Chris.
more information on the Velocity String Packer >
Continued Success for Hydraulic RED in Norway
March 2007
With its ISO 14310 V1 accreditation in November 2006, Red Spider's Hydraulic RED (Remote Equalisation Device) has gone from strength to strength.
Since the V1 accreditation, there has been a noticeable upturn in the number of Hydraulic RED operations in the Norwegian section and the device is fast becoming the tool of choice for workover and tubing change-out operations.
Use of the Hydraulic RED is easily justified as the device provides a 'semi-intelligent' downhole tubing barrier that can be opened on command from surface. "I cannot see the down side by using the Hydraulic RED, when it opens I have saved a lot of time… If for some reason it is not possible to activate the tool, I will just be back to where I was without the Hydraulic RED".
More than ten successful installations have been achieved in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea with further successful operations carried out in the UK sector.
The most common applications for the Hydraulic RED are:
High Lift Injection Valve Becoming Recognised as the Valve of Choice in the North Sea
January 2007
2006 has seen a substantial increase in the deployment of the Red Spider Injection Valve helping it become established as the valve of choice in situations where maximum water injection flow rates are required and/ or debris is expected.
Recent high profile applications include:
- Nexen - Valves supplied for use in the new Buzzard field in the UK sector in the dual zone injection wells and assisted in establishing first oil in January this year.
- Talisman - 10 valves supplied for use in the new Water Injection wells currently being completed as part of the redevelopment of the 25 year old Beatrice field
- CNR Cote D’Ivoire - Having used the valves in their North Sea assets for the past 3 years building up a comprehensive track record, CNR have recently installed the device in one of their West Africa fields.
The valves are now installed in over 25 fields spread across the North Sea, Middle East and West Africa for clients including:
BP, CNR, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, DNO, Lundin, Nexen, Shell, Statoil, Talisman & Total.
They have been used in many differing applications, including;
- Water Injection
- Gas Injection
- WAG Wells
- Cross-flow isolation
- Drill Cuttings Re-Injection
- Scale removal using Acid Soak
- Pump through check valve for completion deployment
Successful Qualification of the Hydraulic RED
November 2006
Red Spider are delighted to announce that the Hydraulic RED (Remote Equalisation Device) recently passed all criteria set forth in the ISO 14310 standard, Validation Grade 1.
According to NORSOK Standard D-010 a Mechanical tubular plug shall, if used as a WBE (well barrier element) in production or injection application, comply with ISO 14310 as follows:
- Grade V1 for design validation
- Grade Q1 for quality control
The 3.250" Hydraulic RED was tested to 7,500 psi differential pressure and within a temperature interval of 75° C and 4° C.
How Innovation Proves an Enabler for Through Tubing Rotary Drilling (TTRD)
October 2006
Next Generation Oil & Gas Magazine, October 2006
As TTRD is considered for applications in the Gulf of Mexico, Hans Kristian Hegland, General Manager, Red Spider Technology AS explains how it was used in Norwegian subsea wells, where the world's first four TTRD operations from floaters were recently carried out.
TTRD is a technique where new/stranded pockets of oil are accessed by drilling through an existing well bore. The main benefit of this technique is that the functionality of existing wells remains undisturbed hence dramatically reducing the associated well construction costs in some cases by as much as 50 percent. In many cases, this technique is the only economical way of accessing these stranded reserves.
As the drilling is performed through the existing completion, great care must be taken to avoid damage to the downhole completion components, particularly the down-hole safety valve (DHSV). Damage to the DHSV can require the retrieval of the entire completion string, resulting in all the economical benefits of the original operation being lost.
Historically, specially designed sleeves were constructed to protect the DHSV during wireline/slickline interventions. These were then subsequently upgraded to facilitate coil-tubing operations. However, both systems were never intended to handle drilling operations and as a consequence were a lightweight solution to a 'heavyweight' problem.
Onshore testing subsequently revealed that the original protection systems were not fit for purpose and it was at this point that Red Spider Technology was contacted with a view to providing a solution.
As a consequence of this immediate need, Red Spider Technology designed and constructed a pioneering TTRD safety valve protection system that is purpose built for drilling operations. The sleeve is mounted on a running tool that forms part of the drill-string, and is deployed and retrieved in 'piggy-back' fashion each time the drill-string enters the well.
Extensive onshore testing demonstrated that the Red Spider Technology protection sleeve would not rotate during drilling operations. This is extremely important as even a small rotation of the protection sleeve during drilling operations may result in damage to the safety valve.
The protection system positively locks into place in the safety valve profile and approximately 10tons of force is needed to shear it out and leave it behind as the rest of the drill string runs into the well through the sleeve. Once drilling operations have been completed the string is retrieved and on the way out of the hole, a specially designed pick-up shoulder will engage the sleeve, releasing it with an over pull of about 12tons. All shear rings and shear studs are designed to be contained in such a way as to avoid dropping any pieces of these into the well. This again represents a major improvement over earlier systems.
A special pulling tool has also been designed to pick up the sleeve on a separate run should that be necessary, e.g. if the drill string has experienced a twist off leaving the running tool down hole. Special hard facing materials have been applied to the running tools to further reduce wear on the completion during these interventions. The wear on running tools is also reduced; in a recent operation a 1mm wear on the running tool was observed after 1.6 million rotations of the drill string.
Of the four well operations to date, all have had 7inch completions installed. However, based upon the recent successes in Norway, a UK customer has committed to a Red Spider Technology TTRD DHSV protection system for a five and a half inch completion. This will be a first in that particular size.
Meanwhile, an existing customer in Norway was so pleased with the results of its subsea wells operations that the company has now committed to similar systems for use on its platform wells, upgrading from the older traditionally deployed technology.
Feedback from the drill crews is also very encouraging. They find the system efficient and easy to use. The redress procedure carried out by Red Spider Technology personnel onsite between each run, ensures that shear out and pick up weights observed give the drillers absolute confidence that the system is actually locked in and retrieved correctly.
Close cooperation with operators has led to a number of ingenious design features on something that was considered dumb iron in the past, and the industry in Norway is now recognizing that the protection of safety valves during well operations had been lacking in the past. One example is the development of a Crown Plug Profile Protection Sleeve (CPPPS) that can be run in tandem with the DHSV Protection Sleeve, hence avoiding a separate run to install.
Red Spider Technology presented its success with the TTRD protection sleeve system at the ONS exhibition in Stavanger in August 2006, and anticipates great interest from customers around the world.