GE Oil & Gas makes a splash at ‘Offshore Europe’

More than 40,000 visitors are expected to hit the 4-day Offshore Europe Oil & Gas Conference and Exhibition this week in Aberdeen, Scotland – and GE’s technologies and services are front and center. With approximately 800 employees in Scotland — and more than 1,400 drilling and production employees across the UK — GE Oil & Gas is a major player in the North Sea oil industry. The team used the key event to launch an advance in its subsea tree equipment and to announce a deal to provide subsea technologies to ExxonMobil for its new field off the coast of West Africa. They also turned the spotlight on an array of other technologies — from injecting “sour gas” into deep wells to make them more productive to pipe inspection scanners that use powerful magnets to spot leaks or corrosion.

I’d like to be, under the sea: GE’s new “subsea tree,” which was designed and manufactured in Aberdeen, Scotland, helps control the flow of oil and gas from wells in harsh, shallow areas like the southern North Sea. In general terms, a “tree” is essentially an assembly of valves and fittings that originally got its name from the bells and whistles that give it a rough resemblance to a decorated Christmas tree.

The VetcoGray S-Series SVXT subsea tree uses a new streamlined design to help oil companies save money and maintenance time. It reduces weight by 20 percent, reduces height and decreases installation costs as it can be installed with standard offshore equipment without any need for modifications. In the audio link below, Manuel Terranova, senior vice president of GE’s Subsea Product Platform, Drilling & Production business, describes the technology and GE’s plans to take it global.

Calling Scotland an “engine-room” that powers the growth of GE’s global drilling and production business, GE has its Subsea Tree Assembly and Test facility located there and will soon open its European Global Services Hub – which will employ 130 people and become the lynchpin of GE’s services in the North Sea and Northern Europe.

As The Herald of Scotland described in its story from the event, GE’s acquisition of the Vetco Gray production equipment business in 2007 and the Hydril pressure control operation in 2008, gives the company “expertise in the kind of production optimization technology which is in demand off the UK, as operators try to maximize returns” in the maturing North Sea oil fields. GE, the paper notes, “has been boosted by the emergence of a new generation of independents that have invested in developing fields that may be too small for majors.” The paper added that “the company exports expertise in areas like subsea systems developed in Scotland around the world.”

Others took note of technologies on display such as GE’s MagneScan in-line inspection system, which allows mapping of pipelines as small as 6-inches in diameter in order to find leaks. As The Newcastle Business Journal notes in its story, “Magnet pipeline scanner proves a real attraction,” the technology “has won global acclaim after being used on over 30 international projects in just nine months since its launch… The technology uses powerful magnets to create magnetic fields within the steel pipelines and, in areas where there is corrosion or missing metal, the magnetic field leaks from the steel.”

Well done: GE also displayed a scale model of the compressor that’s used for sour gas reinjection. Certified as one of GE’s ecomagination line of more energy efficient products, the technology is used to compress CO2 and other greenhouse gases that usually arise from deep sea wells and then re-injects them back into the well to help push more oil out. The technology increases the oil yield by up to 20 percent while minimizing the ultimate release of greenhouse gases.

* Read about GE’s technologies on display at the conference
* Learn about GE’s deal with Exxon Mobil’s Kizomba Satellites development
* Read GE’s release about the launch of an enhanced gas turbine package
* Read the BBC’s blog from the conference
* Read “GE Oil & Gas: Riding a Pacific wave of deals” on GE Reports
* Read “GE wins $250 million offshore drilling contract in Brazil” on GE Reports
* Read GE Reports’ story about our pipeline inspection technology
* Watch a video about how GE inspects “unpiggable” pipes