Tech Talk - ITF Technology Showcase

Tech Talk
A match made
in Aberdeen
46 UPSTREAM TECHNOLOGY 01 | 2014
Changes in the dynamic of the Industry Technology
Facilitator (ITF) are high on the forward agenda of
Dr Patrick O’Brien, the genial Irishman parachuted into
the Aberdeen-headquartered matchmaker’s chief executive
role last year. He talks to David Morgan.
T
WORKSHOP WAYS:
ITF chief executive Patrick
O’Brien addresses the
organisation’s annual members
meeting, now run in more
workshop-like fashion. “We
wanted to provide space at the
meeting for members to help sell
ITF to each other,” he says.
Photo: Karen Murray
he 22 operator and 10
service companies
that own industry
matchmaker ITF knew
their man when they invited
Paddy O’Brien to take up the
vacant post of chief executive.
The joint industry project (JIP)
ethos has been in his DNA since
he helped put together his first
such project to target one of
Brazil’s deepwater challenges
in the early 1990s. ITF also
knows a thing or two about
JIPs, having recently chalked
up the 200th project launch
(see panel on page 49) in its
mission to facilitate collaborative
technology developments among
like-minded member companies
and tap into the innovative
spirit of small and medium-sized
enterprises (SMEs).
O’Brien was serving as group
director, strategic business and
marketing, at Wood Group Kenny
when headhunted to fill the
void left by Neil Poxon in April
last year. In a way, both were
changing sides. Poxon, having
nurtured ITF successfully for
many years, had decided to grasp
the industry nettle and join
Houston-based start-up Produced
Water Absorbents as chief
executive. O’Brien, looking for a
fresh challenge after 30 years in
the industry, saw exciting new
possibilities opening up both
at home and abroad with the
not-for-profit organisation.
O’Brien was a member of the
pioneering riser analysis team
behind subsea engineering
consultant and software
developer MCS, acquired by the
Wood Group in 2008.
He left his native Galway 22
years ago, tasked with growing
the MCS footprint in the North
Sea and internationally, and
among his early successes was
the launch — in conjunction
with Noble Denton — of a
milestone JIP on integrated
“There’s a great
opportunity...
to provide
value-added
support to our
members in
Brazil.”
Patrick O’Brien,
ITF
riser mooring design for an
international group of operators
including Petrobras. Aside from
a brief spell in London, Aberdeen
has been his home ever since.
Although quick to admit
he is “still getting my arms
around this thing”, O’Brien is
exploring a number of initiatives
he believes may better serve
ITF members and the industry
at large going forward. In
particular, he wants to “change
the dynamic” of an organisation
once seen as an operators’ club
but which now embraces some
very serious service sector
players. Reconciling the needs
and interests of these factions
may at times require a tricky
balancing act, not to mention
diplomatic skills, but O’Brien
sees no sense in dodging
sensitive issues.
“Up to now, I think we’ve
treated them the same, but
they are not the same,” he says.
“While I still see that ITF has
a role in bringing innovation
to our members, chasing SMEs
and the guys with the good
ideas and getting them funded,
there needs to be a lot more
inter-working and service-side,
operator-side dialogue amongst
the membership. That way they
can agree what the challenging
technology issues are, what kind
of collaborative work needs to
be done and how things can be
moved forward.
“They need to talk a bit more,
and I think both sides want
that. The head of technology
at one service company told
me recently: ‘We’ve got our
own sales people all over these
operators, but they’re selling
product. Rarely do we get a
chance to have a dialogue around
technology and technology
investment.’ There’s been very
little of that going on, literally
nothing, so I’m experimenting
with ways ITF can provide the
framework for that to happen.”
Steps in that direction were
evident at last November’s
annual ITF members’ meeting,
which had more of a workshop
feel and featured interactive
sessions on the technology
needs in areas such as subsea
power, advanced materials and
well reliability. “I didn’t want
it to be just a talking shop,”
explains O’Brien. “We wanted
to provide space at the meeting
for members to help sell ITF
to each other, for some of the
operators and service companies
to get up and talk about the
particular programmes they
would like to see going forward
and collectively identify the
initiatives that ITF can take off
the table and then go and chase.
“Ultimately, I want to see us
strengthening our membership
engagement through the
creation of networks of subject
experts within the companies
»
UPSTREAM TECHNOLOGY 01 | 2014
47
tech talk
» and identifying where the
energy exists to push technology
forward on a collaborative basis,”
he adds.
ITF derives the bulk of its
income from membership
fees, facilitating fees when
projects are launched and ad
hoc technology landscaping
and peer review services for
members. However, given the
membership’s diversity, with
traditionally conservative
supermajors inclined to take
the longer view cheek by jowl
with much leaner, fleet of foot
players looking for quick results,
O’Brien says he can envisage
ITF operating more on a “what
you pay is what you get” basis in
future.
“You can’t satisfy all of the
people all of the time. You need
to be a bit more flexible,” he
says. “There are many members
who would prefer to pay to get
things done, so I can see more
JIPs with smaller numbers in
them — three to five, maybe
just two in some cases. That’s
more likely to have success
because the companies are more
aligned and they want to have
something delivered. When you
are looking to improve a design
methodology, for example,
it’s probably good to have 10
members involved because
you will get to the industry
consensus. But if you are trying
to develop a bit of technology, it
can actually be very ineffective
to have too many people on
board.”
In parallel, he is looking at
ITF’s processes to see what can
be done to speed up project
initiation. He would be “very
happy”, he notes, to see the time
lapse from the start of an idea to
the launch of a project cut to six
months or less on a regular basis.
He also sees a need to be
more proactive in addressing
intellectual property concerns,
for example an occasional
reluctance among SMEs to bring
their proposals to ITF. “We need
to change that dynamic too,”
he says. “My advice to SMEs is:
‘Tell us where you want to direct
your proposal. Everybody doesn’t
need to see everything.’ I’m quite
happy if they want operators
only to see their proposal. I’ve
started doing this now and am
platforms could accommodate or
access the heavy, large-footprint
equipment required by enhanced
oil recovery processes or how
such kit could be scaled down for
retrofitting.
O’Brien is working closely
with Oil & Gas UK to ensure
his organisation’s forward
strategy — to be unveiled at
the ITF annual technology
showcase event in Aberdeen on
5 March — is in line with today’s
overarching governmental
objectives. “We want to be right
in the middle of that,” he says.
STRATEGIC THINKING: Patrick O’Brien, pictured with UK Energy
Minister Michael Fallon (left), expects ITF’s forward technology strategy
— due for unveiling at the organisation’s Aberdeen showcase event in
March — to fit well with the latest government thinking on UKCS Oil &
Gas Sector Strategy.
getting a lot of good feedback
both from operators and service
companies that see the benefit
from doing this. I’m excited by
the direction things are taking.”
O’Brien adds: “At the end of
the day, this is about getting
the proper engagement of our
members. ITF doesn’t have any
money, we don’t give out grants
and we don’t award projects.
Our job is to get our members to
invest.”
Given its provenance and
48 UPSTREAM TECHNOLOGY 01 | 2014
historic links with industry
association Oil & Gas UK, a good
deal of ITF attention inevitably
focusses on North Sea issues
and in particular the question
of how to enhance oil recovery
from ageing infrastructure.
The inherent ITF emphasis on
collaborative work chimes well
with one of the main planks of
the new UK Continental Shelf
Oil & Gas Sector Strategy, as does
ITF’s recent call for proposals on
ways in which existing North Sea
Global reach
Further afield, ITF also has
a robust project portfolio
developing, with technology
initiatives and projects ongoing
through its established Middle
East cluster of five national oil
company members in the
region, and a number of
initiatives now getting under
way in Brazil and Australia.
“When it comes to dealing with
technology and technology
issues you must be talking
internationally,” says O’Brien.
“So we talk with our members
on an international basis and we
deal with technology the same
way.”
He sees more opportunities to
focus ITF resources regionally
these days, with local members
funding specific projects and
recruiting local people to handle
them. A case in point is Brazil,
where ITF, working closely with
its members in the region and
having an open dialogue with
regulator ANP, recently put out
its first call for project proposals
focussing primarily on produced
water management issues
identified during last June’s flow
assurance workshop in Rio de
Janeiro.
ITF membership companies
based in Brazil, or with interests
there, include BG Group, BP,
Chevron, FMC Technologies, GE
Oil & Gas, Maersk Oil, Petronas,
Premier Oil, Schlumberger, Shell,
Siemens, Statoil, Technip, Total,
Weatherford, Wintershall and
Wood Group.
“The issue here is that there
are a number of our operator
members in Brazil who are
required by the government to
put 1% of their gross revenue
tech talk
our members in Brazil,” says
O’Brien.
Meanwhile, in Perth,
Woodside and other operator
members active off Western
Australia have helped prepare
the way for an upcoming
cyclone prediction JIP. This is
not ITF’s first launch in Perth —
that honour fell late last year to a
project involving local company
Subsea Engineering Associates
and aiming to improve the
prediction of operational
pipeline free spans on mobile
seabeds — but at A$4 million
(US$3.55 million) it represents
a sizeable step up in project
funding terms.
Headed up by the Australian
Bureau of Metrology in Perth,
the new JIP is scheduled for
launch in the first quarter of
2014 and is expected to deliver
algorithms for more accurate
cyclone prediction. “Operators in
the area all have to put up with
the local weather and its effects
on downtime. Why wouldn’t
that be a collaborative thing,”
remarks O’Brien.
Project milestones
I
n its role as an honest
broker, the Industry
Technology Facilitator
(ITF) has invested
approaching £60 million
($100 million) into joint
industry projects since
its formation in 1999, writes
David Morgan.
The organisation’s first
JIP, in 2000, focused on
the innovative Continuous
Circulation Coupler
developed by UK company
Maris International and now
being integrated by licensee
NOV with its managed
pressure drilling global
offering.
The 100th project, in
2008, tested the feasibility
of employing magnetic
levitation — courtesy of the
MagLev pump developed by
Norwegian company Ziebel
— in the design of a simple
high-power artificial lift
system.
The 200th project,
completed at the end of 2013,
involved a small footprint
annulus intervention
system under development
by Norwegian SME Quality
Intervention. The Casing
Integrity System applies
known techniques and
equipment in an innovative
way to enable circulation
in oil-well casing annuli,
allowing placement of heavy
fluid and sealing materials in
wells with leaking annuli.
Quality Intervention chief
executive Rune Bratseth said
of the project: “Our main
motivation is to develop an
innovative, low risk, less
time consuming and lower
cost alternative to a major
workover for the repair of
failing casing integrity.”
Re
gi
s
NO ter O
W nli
! ne
from high-profitability plays
into local universities and
R&D institutions, with ANP
determining what is and isn’t
allowable,” O’Brien explains.
“Since the members involved are
obligated to spend this money,
they clearly want to do so in a
sensible way and have asked ITF
about the possibility of setting
up down there and establishing
a mechanism whereby
collaborative industry projects
might satisfy the regulatory
terms.”
An ITF call for water
production proposals, with a
closing date of 25 November
2013, was the starting point
for this process. It now has to
demonstrate not only that such
projects meet ANP requirements,
but also its effectiveness in
embracing the local industry,
getting proposals in, vetting
them and so forth. “If we can
demonstrate that we can run
some projects that could be
considered compliant, there’s
a great opportunity for ITF to
provide value-added support to
SPE INTELLIGENT ENERGY INTERNATIONAL
CONFERENCE AND EXHIBITION 2014
1-3 April 2014 Jaarbeurs, Utrecht, The Netherlands
ASPIRATIONS &
ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Join us at the world’s leading Intelligent Energy event, where over 2,400 senior IE
professionals will gather to discover, discuss and debate what’s next in Integrated
Operations, Smart Field Solutions and the Digital Oilfield.
The event combines an SPE-produced conference which covers the latest technology, best practices in
Leadership and Integrated Operations, Real-Time Decision-Making, Cyber-Security, Big Data, plus more,
with an exhibition where 60+ industry suppliers will be showcasing the latest developments in Oilfield
technologies and services.
Organised by
2014 Sponsors
Register online at
www.intelligentenergyevent.com/technology
SPE PRODUCED
CONFERENCE AND
INDUSTRY-LEADING
COMMITTEE
NETWORK WITH
2,500+
INDUSTRY
PROFESSIONALS
100+
TECHNICAL
PRESENTATIONS
MORE THAN 60
INNOVATIVE
SUPPLIERS

Download Report