A TECHNOLOGY start-up is aiming for a chunk of a possible $600million annual market in stopping sand flowing into wells.
Darcy Technologies is on the verge of conducting the first infield test of a sand control system it is developing.
The firm has produced a screen that uses a fine mesh around a solid base pipe to stop sand entering the well. Its system uses pressure to expand chambers around the base pipe so the mesh fits the hole.
Chief executive Steve Bruce said he thought there was a $1.4billion annual market for sand control and a $400-600million target for Darcy’s system.
“Screens at the moment do not fit in the well,” he said.
“When you start to produce the oil the well collapses in, reducing permeability. So it is not an ideal completion.”
There are systems which run with screens, he added, one involving gravel packed in around the screen and another which uses a mechanical tool to push the screen out to the edges of the hole. But both are time-consuming. “We are not going to say our system is going to be cheap but it will be high value and competitive equipment,” said Mr Bruce.
The north-east company is at final commercialisation and is in talks with operators to test it in the field, possibly off west Africa. Once testing is complete the firm will need to gear up to commercial production.
“We are already looking at future premises for expansion,” said Mr Bruce.
“We are looking to rapidly expand once the technology has been proven and adopted.”
The company, which started off with two staff in late 2009, has had multimillion-pound investment from private equity firm Epi-V.
The idea for the technology was bought from an inventor in Wales.
The firm moved to Kintore last year and shifted to larger premises in February, as it started to develop 12m (40ft) sections of the system.
The firm is not looking at being a one-trick pony.
It is also considering flow control systems to smooth out the flow of fluids into the well, especially along horizontal sections.
It is looking, with Edinburgh University, at how screens interact with the first 30cm of a metre (1ft) of the reservoir, if they damage the reservoir and how this affects flow.
The company, which now has 12 and hopes to have 20 by the end of the year, was named after Henry Darcy, a water engineer whose equations are used to this day for flow tests.