Oil finds made easier

Stockholm -- Swedish technology company Permascand has won a NOK14 million (EUR1.7m) order from SeaBed Geophysical AS of Norway to manufacture special containers and tubular frames for devices used to monitor oil-finds.

Permascand will produce 500 units for SeaBed, which uses the monitors to locate oil finds in the North Sea and seas in other parts of the world. The first are to be delivered during the summer.

A major problem in oil prospecting is determining whether deposits found consist of oil, gas or possibly only water. Test bores can cost up to EUR10m, so operators need to know the nature and size of a deposit before drilling starts.

SeaBed’s monitoring unit consists of two batteries and an electronic data acquisition unit. These are enclosed in tubular containers surrounded by a plastic shell and secured to a tubular frame. The unit measures 1m x 1m and weighs about 150 kilos.

“In fact it’s not really a container, but a totally new concept, which we’ve been developing for several years together with SeaBed,” explains Thor Valsø-Jørgensen at Permascand in Norway. “It’s all about packaging the technology content provided by the customer in the best possible way. To achieve this, we’ve worked out a completely new solution together.”

Permascand specialises in titanium alloys, but for this customer it chose to use a high-strength aluminium alloy instead.

“Apart from the fact that we jointly developed the entire concept, it is of course our long experience of fabricating containers and complex units in long runs that has brought us this order,” said Valsø-Jørgensen.

Another feature of the design is that it can withstand pressures down to a depth of 3000 metres, as against the 500 metres of earlier designs. This makes it possible to scan entirely new and old oilfields in the hunt for more oil and gas deposits.