Tracerco, part of the FTSE 100 Johnson Matthey, has completed a US$5 million upgrade of their facilities in Houston.
The new facilities include an environmentally controlled subsea simulation tank to prepare their subsea diagnostic technologies prior to mobilization offshore. In addition, they have expanded and upgraded their reservoir tracer laboratory in order to process greater sample numbers that provide critical reservoir flow information for well testing, hydraulic frac, and secondary recovery applications.
The upgrade, expanding their footprint by 25,000sq ft, has been custom designed to meet present and future business needs. The subsea simulation facility allows for pre-job trials and qualification testing of their Discovery and recently developed Explorer technologies in replicated subsea conditions to verify their technologies can detect a specific defect or flow assurance issue. The expanded reservoir tracer laboratory has allowed the installation of more sensitive instrumentation to enhance data interpretation and provide a five-fold increase in sample analysis capability allowing more rapid turnaround of results. The information generated assists customers with critical reservoir management decisions to maximize reservoir extraction efficiencies.
Tracerco’s flagship subsea technology, Discovery, accurately identifies the extent and nature of restrictions or blockages so that the operator can plan proper remediation to be effective the first time or optimize a chemical injection program to prevent scale build. In addition, Discovery can measure wall thickness and pipe defects, such as corrosion, even through a pipe’s protective coatings. This has saved operators conducting asset integrity or life extension inspections around 35% on costs by eliminating the need to remove coatings.
Likewise, Tracerco’s reservoir technologies offer alternatives to well interventions. They are proven in all kinds of well designs the world over and to date around 7000 zones have been tagged with Tracerco’s Smart Tracer technology. Smart Tracers can provide flow data over several years at a fraction of the cost of production logs. Tracerco’s in-house team of reservoir engineers analyze data providing a comprehensive customer service from project design and field application to data interpretation.
“We are committed to providing our customers in the Gulf of Mexico and beyond with the best possible service, and so investment in appropriate facilities in the region is a crucial part of our strategy,” said Vince Atma Row, upstream commercial director for Tracerco. “Although the market conditions are challenging at this time, Tracerco’s innovative technologies create value for our customers, as they offer cost effective alternatives to traditional methods of gaining critical data, allowing overall lift costs to be reduced. Even in a depressed market, there are still exciting opportunities for us to grow our offering and services as we strive to solve our customers’ measurement challenges with innovative thinking, and service excellence.”
Image: Houston facility/Tracerco
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