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Schlumberger Acquires Extreme Engineering

Schlumberger announced today that it has acquired the business of Extreme Engineering Limited, a Calgary-based supplier of unmanned measurement-while-drilling (MWD) systems from its founders and investors that include the Shell Technology Ventures Fund 1 BV managed by Kenda Capital BV.

“The combination of Extreme XPulse and XEM technologies with Schlumberger PowerDrive* rotary-steerable drilling systems will provide operators in North America and Canada with advanced technologies that can bring heightened efficiency to land operations where improved well performance must be enabled by cost-effective services,” said Jean-Francois Poupeau, president of Schlumberger Drilling & Measurements. Poupeau added, “During 2009 the geographical focus will widen to expand deployment of Extreme technologies to regions outside North America.”

Extreme Engineering, which will continue to operate under its own brand, maintains major operational bases in Calgary, Alberta, Denver, Colorado and Fort Worth, Texas, backed by engineering and manufacturing facilities in Calgary. The company employs 68 people.

Schlumberger Announces New Contract with Hess Corporation

Schlumberger announced today that it has signed an agreement with Hess Corporation to provide geological, geophysical, reservoir engineering, economics, drilling, and production software. The agreement also includes data management services and enhanced application and workflow support for Hess worldwide.

Under the agreement, Hess will deploy GeoFrame* reservoir characterization, Petrel* seismic to simulation, ECLIPSE* reservoir simulation, Merak* project economics, as well as OFM* and Drilling Office* softwares.

"As a global player in the upstream petroleum industry, we need a comprehensive suite of software tools for our geoscientists and engineers to optimize their decision making ability in a wide variety of conditions," said Scott Heck, senior vice president, exploration and production technology, Hess Corporation.

"We are delighted to have this opportunity to partner with Hess in a long term agreement as they define and deploy their next generation interpretation platform," said Tony Bowman, president, Schlumberger Information Solutions. "Schlumberger has developed comprehensive experience in applying software, workflow processes, and data integration strategies that accelerate the return on technology investment throughout the organization."

Keppel FELS to build 6th ENSCO semisubmersible rig worth US$537 million

Keppel FELS Limited (Keppel FELS) has won a contract to build a US$537 million ultra-deepwater semisubmersible (semi) drilling rig from a subsidiary of ENSCO International Incorporated (ENSCO).

This contract follows shortly after of the award of the fifth semi, ENSCO 8504, that was announced on 6 May 2008. This latest rig, ENSCO 8505, is the sixth consecutive semi of the ENSCO 8500 Series® that Keppel FELS is constructing, and is scheduled for delivery in the first half of 2012.

Mr Daniel W. Rabun, Chairman, President and CEO of ENSCO said, “Deepwater has become a very important part of our business. We estimate that our deepwater fleet, including the 8500 Series® semis, will contribute approximately 30% of our total revenue when in operation. “We are pleased that Keppel FELS is constructing all six of our new 8500 Series® semis. We are benefiting from synergies associated with building all these rigs at one yard, and with a partner whom we have a strong working relationship, and who is familiar with our needs.”

Mr Choo Chiau Beng, Chairman and CEO of Keppel O&M said, “We are pleased that ENSCO has entrusted us with the construction of two of their latest deepwater rigs this year. We will continue to give full support to our valued customer and partner, and contribute to the growth of a high quality deepwater fleet.”

Keppel FELS has delivered nine new jackup rigs to ENSCO, and is constructing six semis based on ENSCO’s proprietary design. The first semi of ENSCO 8500 Series® is on track for delivery in the third quarter of this year, and has been contracted in Gulf of Mexico to Anadarko and Eni. The ENSCO 8505 is capable of drilling in up to 8,500 feet of water. Her features include a two million pound quad derrick, offline pipe handling capability, 35,000 ft drilling capacity, and station keeping capabilities meeting DP2 requirements. With these features, the 8500 Series rigs will be especially well-suited for deepwater development drilling.

ENSCO, headquartered in Dallas, Texas, owns and operates a modern fleet of offshore drilling rigs servicing the petroleum industry on a global basis.

Kongsberg Maritime to supply operator training simulators for Statfjord

StatoilHydro has awarded Kongsberg Maritime a contract for the delivery of Operator Training Simulators for the Statfjord field in Norway. The simulators are due for delivery in April 2009.

The dynamic simulator will be used by StatoilHydro for providing operator training for the Statfjord A, B and C installations. In addition, all changes in the process and the safety and automation system will be tested on the ASSETT dynamic simulator prior to installation offshore.

The simulator will consist of a comprehensive customised dynamic process model based on ASSETT. The ASSETT model will be fully integrated with the KONGSBERG AIM Safety and Automation System as an extension to the existing engineering and control system check-out simulator. In this way, the simulator will be used for all 4 elements of the ASSETT Life-cycle simulation concept: Engineering studies - Control System Check-out - Operator Training - Operation Support.

"We see the award of the Statfjord contract as a confirmation of the success of the Statfjord Control System Check-out and engineering simulator," comments Sales Manager for Simulation and Optimization, Chris Ruigrok of Kongsberg Maritime. "We will now supply StatoilHydro with a state of the art dynamic simulation platform that will support Statfjord operations during the lifetime of the installation. The dynamic simulation platform is ready for future online simulator applications"

Harald Rønneberg at StatoilHydro commented that: "StatoilHydro intends to use the Life-Cycle simulator for Operator Training, Operations support and engineering support. The simulator includes a full operator training setup in Stavanger which will be a very realistic operator training environment."

The Statfjord field has been developed with the Statfjord A (1979), B(1982) and C (1985) production platforms, which all have concrete gravity base structures incorporating storage cells. The field is likely to remain in production until 2020. Statfjord is one of the oldest producing fields on the Norwegian continental shelf, and the largest oil discovery in the North Sea.

Keppel clinches S$210 million specialised shipbuilding contracts

Keppel Offshore & Marine Limited (Keppel O&M), through its wholly-owned subsidiary Keppel Singmarine Pte Ltd (Keppel Singmarine), has secured two contracts worth S$210 million.

The first contract was awarded by a repeat customer, Global Offshore International Ltd (Global Offshore), for a derrick pipelay vessel. This is a multi-purpose construction vessel suitable for worldwide operations.

With accommodation up to 264 persons onboard, the derrick pipelay vessel will be equipped with two units of propulsion thrusters, six units of positioning thrusters, four units of power generators, Dynamic Positioning System 2 and integration pipelay equipment. The derrick pipelay and major ship equipment will be furnished by the owner. The vessel is expected to be delivered in second quarter of year 2011.

The second contract, for a 100-metre Rolls-Royce designed UT 788 CDL ultra-deepwater Multi-Functional Support Vessel (MFSV), was awarded by a valued customer, Lewek Shipping Pte Ltd (Lewek Shipping). The owner will furnish the ship equipment.

When completed in the fourth quarter of 2010, this MFSV, with its hybrid propulsion system of both diesel and electric drives, will have a bollard pull in excess of 300 tonnes. It will also have Dynamic Positioning System 3 capability, which enhances propulsion machinery redundancy of the vessel. This is such that overall operations will not be affected in the event of fire or flooding in one part of the vessel. In addition to deepwater anchor handling, towing and supply operations, the vessel will be able to carry highly hazardous liquid, perform deepwater well-installation and well intervention services.

Mr Hoe Eng Hock, Executive Director of Keppel Singmarine, said, “Demand for offshore support vessels remains strong, with customers now making enquiries for larger and more powerful ships. With our track record of providing high-quality and reliable services, we are in a good position to support our global clientele in their fleet expansion plans. “Keppel is pleased that our customers continue to entrust us with the construction of sophisticated specialised vessels.”

Kongsberg Intellifield to license global infrastructure software to Baker Hughes for gathering, distributing and managing real-time well-site data

Kongsberg Intellifield is pleased to announce that it has entered into a non-exclusive long-term contract with Baker Hughes to provide unrestricted use of the SiteCom®, Discovery WellsT and Real-Time IntelligenceT software modules from Kongsberg Intellifield.

Baker Hughes intends to implement these scalable software solutions to improve the response time for web-based delivery of advanced real-time visualization and analyses, regardless of the data density acquired.

The contract is significant because of the global scale of the deployment.SiteCom® is a real-time data management platform that is built upon Web 2.0 technologies and will allow Baker Hughes to create a globally integrated and secure environment for gathering, distributing, and managing data associated with the drilling, formation evaluation, completion and production processes. This single infrastructure is intended to be deployed across the enterprise allowing collaboration, real-time decision making, and support of operations from professionals regardless of their location.

This infrastructure also is planned to be a model deployment that will be of interest to both international and national oil and gas companies interested in deploying their own secure enterprise wide infrastructure. In addition to gathering, distributing, and managing data in real-time, it will allow the additional benefits of standardizing real-time and automated global processes including QC of data, seamless flow of data into interpretation packages, and performance of analytical calculations using real-time data. The platform allows oil and gas companies to integrate real-time and static data from diverse vendors and service companies including LWD, mud logging, drilling instrumentation, equipment surveillance, daily reports, and many others.

INTEQ, a division of Baker Hughes, is a provider of advanced Answers While Drilling technologies and services. Major capabilities include directional drilling, measurement-while-drilling (MWD), logging-while-drilling (LWD) and well-site information management services. INTEQ has been actively involved in the development of real time software supporting their RigLinkSM service since 1998 and are a founding member and active participant developing the WITSML standard.

Baker Hughes provides reservoir consulting, drilling, formation evaluation, completion and production products and services to the worldwide oil and gas industry.

Kongsberg Intellifield is recognized as the industry leader in providing vendor-neutral real-time integration and collaboration solutions that improve the safety and efficiency of operations in the oil and gas industry.