Energy services firm Proserv has said North Sea operators could make substantial gains by reclaiming the “lost art” of production chemistry.
Richard Barr is business development manager for the firm’s production chemistry arm, and believes “marginal gains” of tens of thousands of pounds could be made.
Production chemists analyse and monitor the entire production process. However Mr Barr, who has worked for operators as well as large energy services firms like Wood, believes more could be done in that area.
He said:“I’ve seen offshore chemists positions being removed and the operators doing the work.
“Ninety percent of the time everything is fine.
“It’s that other 10% when something goes wrong when the impact can run into tens of millions, if not potentially hundreds of millons of pounds of production deferment or equipment replacement.
“A simple analogy is if water cut on a 500k barrel, offload is 0.5% and you reduce this to 0.4%, this would reduce the water volume shipped by 500 barrels. The benefits being an increased oil parcel generating thousands more per offload – $40,000 at $80 oil price, and a reduction in waste as the operator doesn’t make money shipping water.
“You remove the water, you can replace that with oil and you get more money for what you’re shipping. The oil companies may soon realise they need to consult more with production chemists.”