Norway: GE to Showcase at ONS 2012

GE Oil & Gas, a key equipment and services supplier for the global offshore drilling and subsea sectors including the North Sea, continues to develop and deploy new technology to help customers meet their most difficult challenges. GE is showcasing its latest offerings at the Offshore Northern Seas (ONS) 2012 Conference and Exhibition being held August 28-31 in Stavanger.

“Our diverse and expanding technology portfolio enables us to provide integrated solutions to every sector of the industry, from wellhead to consumer,” said Corinne de Bilbao, West Europe general manager, GE Oil & Gas. “We continue to invest in leading technologies and have added nearly $7 billion worth of acquisitions over the last year.”

In addition to technology innovation, GE Oil & Gas is committed to developing local partnerships in the key areas where it operates. “We partner with our customers to foster the technology, innovation and talent that will be critical to overcoming our industry’s toughest challenges,” said de Bilbao.

Through its acquisitions and investments, GE has become an established player in the offshore sector. Today, the company has 5,000 subsea employees operating in more than 50 countries with an installed base of more than 1,200 trees and 1,000 control systems. GE supports some of the industry’s largest and most challenging projects, including Gorgon, Julimar, Cheviot and Ichthys and has invested millions in local manufacturing and services capabilities in such key locations as the North Sea, West Africa, Brazil and Western Australia.

GE Oil & Gas, with more than 800 employees in Norway, continues to expand its presence in the North Sea oil and gas industry, booking more than $250 million in orders for projects in the region during 2012. Among those projects are Nexen Golden Eagle and ATP Cheviot.

To support its offshore capabilities, GE Oil & Gas has opened a Hyperbaric Testing Hall in Nailsea, United Kingdom that can simulate extreme deepwater conditions, enabling significant advances in oil and gas industry safety, reliability and performance. In addition, GE operates a Subsea Monitoring and Remote Technology Center (or SmartCenter) in Nailsea. The SmartCenter is a remote-access data hub connected to subsea field control and instrumentation facilities around the world.

GE offers a full range of integrated subsea solutions including trees, controls, manifolds, connection systems, subsea power and processing. The company recently added electric submersible pumps (ESPs) to its portfolio through the acquisition of Wood Group’s Well Support division. ESPs are among the most effective methods of enhancing production and one of the fastest growing segments in the oil and gas industry.

GE also is well positioned in compression technology, with more than 100 gas turbine-driven compression systems operating on the Norwegian Shelf, primarily with StatoilHydro. GE has successfully tested its Blue-C subsea compressor—the world’s first subsea compressor built in a fully marinized version. Co-developed with Aker Solutions for deployment in the Ormen Laange natural gas field on the Norwegian continental shelf, it is designed for unattended operation at more than 2,950 feet below sea level with horsepower up to 15 megawatts.

In addition to the Blue-C subsea compressor, other key products being displayed by GE Oil & Gas at ONS include:

The DHXT deepwater horizontal tree and integral control system for the deepwater drilling and production sector, which operates in water depths up to 10,000 feet and pressures up to 15,000 psi.

The SemStar5 subsea control module, designed to meet industry demands for standardization and expandability while providing the infrastructure to support the higher bandwidth requirements of modern instrumentation and simultaneously offering high reliability.

Also featured in the GE booth are PII Pipeline Solutions and Power Conversion. PII Pipeline Solutions, a leading provider of pipeline inspection and integrity management solutions for operators worldwide, is a 50/50 joint venture between GE Oil & Gas and Al Shaheen Energy Services, a wholly owned subsidiary of Qatar Petroleum.

GE’s Power Conversion business, the newly named business coming from the Converteam acquisition in 2011, is at the heart of a global industrial trend to replace aging and inefficient industrial motors with advanced electrical systems.

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Source: GE, August 27, 2012; Image: GE