The Case for 3D Printing Downhole Tools
in the oil and gas industryAdditive manufacturing (AM, aka 3D printing) is beginning to impact product-development strategies in the oil and gas industry just as it already has in many other industries—by shifting the production paradigm in unexpected ways.Particularly in the case of downhole tools, overall tool size is compatible with the range of part dimensions that today’s AM systems are capable of manufacturing. Consider a common piece of equipment on any oil and gas rig: the tricone drill bit. Required to function within relatively narrow spaces, together with mechanical components
Higher Learning & SINTEF’s Existential Rise
recovery; plug and abandonment; refining; safety and the environment; subsea systems and pipeline transport.The modern Norwegian oil and gas industry is likely most in debt to SINTEF for the multiphase flow laboratory, and all its offshoots, where R&D tested new ways to handle well stream and get downhole tools, subsea and topside equipment into service. Some say it was here that Norway’s decades old pump makers “scaled up” to produce space-age, valve-dense tools to get the most oil and gas out of offshore reservoirs.Flow assurance has been key. SINTEF expertise helped engineer the
Severn Glocon Acquires Calidus Engineering
Control valve engineering specialist, Severn Glocon Group has strengthened its presence in the subsea oil and gas market with the acquisition of HPHT downhole tools company Calidus Engineering. Now renamed Severn Subsea Technologies Ltd, the company will provide research, development and test facilities to enhance Severn Glocon’s subsea valves capability. A former subsidiary of Badger Explorer (Norway), Calidus is a multi-discipline engineering firm developing innovative subsea and downhole technologies for harsh HPHT environments. Severn Glocon Group is taking this strategic move in a bid
February 2024
