NORTH-EAST firm Paradigm Flow Solutions said yesterday it had used new technology to increase production for an oil major in a North Sea field by more than 3,000 barrels per day.
The Kintore company will tell this week how it cleared subsea pipelines blocked for over a decade when managing director Rob Bain describes the project at the Deepwater Intervention Forum in Houston.
He said: “The operator had tried various other conventional methods to tackle the issue but, due to the remote location of the blockages from the host platform, access to the pipelines and the subsea infrastructure proved very difficult.
“There were several issues topsides and subsea which were previously unable to be remediated.
“Using Pipe-Pulse, our engineers unblocked flowlines and a subsea wax inhibitor chemical umbilical in less than a week.”
Pipe-Pulse is a non-intrusive method of locating and removing blockages in pipework over long distances by using high energy and volume pressure pulses.
Paradigm said that, prior to Pipe-Pulse, these problems were usually tackled by expensive methods such as deploying a coiled-tubing system from a rig into the pipeline, or subsea interventions using a remotely operated vehicle or saturation divers.
Mr Bain added: “Having previously worked for operators in the UK and Gulf of Mexico, I believe there is a significant market opportunity for Pipe-Pulse in deepwater operations as it delivers dramatic cost savings.”
Paradigm is a subsidiary of Netherlands-based Paradigm Group.