Displaying items by tag: oil well cement

Kazakhstan: China Gezhouba Group has inaugurated a 0.9Mt/yr clinker production plant in the Kyzylorda region. Central Asia News has reported that the plant will produce nine types of cement, with oil well cement its major product. This is aimed at diminishing the Kazakh oil industry’s dependence on cement imports. China Gezhouba Group chairman Li Ming said: “the alignment of China’s Belt and Road Initiative and Kazakhstan’s Bright Path economic policy brings great prospects for the China-Kazakhstan cement production capacity.”

The new cement plant is the first in the region and will employ 260 people.

Brazil: Repsol Sinopec Brazil, Ouro Negro and the Mechanical Engineering Department of the Centre of Science and Technology at Rio de Janiero’s Pontifical Catholic University (PUC-Rio) are working together on a through tubing logging profile tool to assess cement quality in lined wells. Arbolas has reported that, where current technologies allow only for observation of anomalies located directly around the tool, the sought-after solution will facilitate detailed recording of the integrity of the adjacent layer. Ouro Negro Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Eduardo Costa has described the proposal to incorporate its TTilt technology into the Wellrobot, yielding continuous data feedback and thus reducing well interventions. The companies say that the prospect of reliable seal integrity testing for plugging and abandonment operations on fluid-bearing formations is of enormous economic and environmental import to numerous industries.

Algeria: Groupe des Ciments d’Algérie’s (GICA) Aïn el Kebira cement plant in Setif has been certified by the American Petroleum Institute (API) to produce oil well cement products. It has been award two certificates following a one-year audit, according to the El Moudjahid newspaper. Djamila Tamazirt, Minister of Industry and Mining, who was on a tour of the unit, said that the development would help the country to stop importing oil well cements. The country imports an estimated 0.2Mt/yr of oil well cement at a cost of nearly US$30m.

Mexico: GCC’s results for the first half of 2019 have been negatively affected by poor weather in the US. Its net sales grew slightly by 1.3% to US$404m from US$399 in the same period in 2018. Sales fell in the US but they rose in Mexico. Its earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) fell by 5% to US$109m from US$115m.

“While GCC’s US operations continued to be adversely impacted during the second quarter by an above average precipitation, below-average temperatures and construction labour shortages, the substantial backlog at our US operations underscores strong demand for our products. We’ve begun to reap the benefits early in the third quarter, as the US weather has finally cleared,” said Enrique Escalante, GCC’s chief executive officer (CEO). He added that the group had ‘successfully leveraged’ its new Trident plant in Montana and improved production levels at its Rapid City plant in South Dakota following a stabilisation process. Oil well cement shipments from its Chihuahua Plant to new terminal at Fort Stockton in Texas have also started.

US: Trabits Group and Brookhaven National Laboratory have been selected to present joint research papers at two scientific geothermal forums on the self-repair ability of the FlexCem Lightweight Variable Density well cement product. The first presentation will be at the September 2019 meeting of the Geothermal Resources Council (GRC), which will be held in Palm Springs, California, US. The second presentation will be at the World Geothermal Congress (WGC), which will be held in Reykjavik, Iceland in April 2020.

FlexCem well cement was developed by Trabits Group following completion of a research grant from the Department of Energy Geothermal Technologies Office (GTO). It is a composite cement using Type I/II cement clinker and Ferrierite zeolite, interground in proprietary ratios.

Kuwait: Kuwait Cement has made its first delivery of oil well cement to National Petroleum Services. It is producing the product at its Shuaiba plant, according to the Arab Times newspaper. It holds API Monogram licencing from American Petroleum Institute (API) to produce this type of cement.