Picture: Interventek's team of new staff pictured with directors John Sangster and Gavin Cowie. L-R: Will Evans, workshop manager; Stephen Christie, workshop technician; John Sangster, technical director; Chris Mutch, project engineer; Gavin Cowie, managing director; Euan Mitchell, design engineer; Fraser Gray, design engineer; Steven Burnett, design engineer.
Interventek has committed investment
in the region of £750,000 to support business growth in 2019 and beyond, with
the addition of six staff and a new technology development and test centre.
The investment
follows recent business wins for the supply of Interventek’s Revolution shear
and seal safety valve to support well intervention projects in the US and
Caspian for a range of customers including an international oil operator.
“Established five
years ago, Interventek has now emerged from a focused phase of R&D into an
exciting period of commercial growth. Our core technology has achieved industry
qualification and is already well proven in the field as part of a surface
intervention and subsea in-riser landing string application and we are seeing
increasing customer interest with a number of potential projects in the
pipeline” explained Gavin Cowie, managing director at Interventek.
“With the global
market for our subsea technology worth in the region of half a billion pounds
and the need for safer and more cost effective well intervention rising, this
is a prime time for our business to be positioned to work with all types of
partners from global IOCs to dynamic independents and forward-thinking service
providers. Our new team members, with their incredibly strong design and
engineering skillset, are a valuable asset to the company. They will help to
ensure we are fully prepared for the future as we look to roll-out our
portfolio of shear-seal valve designs as well as pursue our ambition for the
delivery of complete subsea intervention safety systems. These include a
landing string system, an open water riserless intervention system and well
abandonment tree saver system.”
Interventek’s
workshop has been expanded to create a technology development and test centre
with a 5,000 square foot space kitted out with an overhead crane and the latest
pressure and temperature test equipment including two pressure test bays, HPHT
pressure test pumps, a hyperbaric test cell, a purpose built flow loop, a
thermal cell for elevated temperature testing, an advanced data acquisition
system with calibrated pressure transducers and metrological instruments for
development diagnostics.
Interventek’s
patented and award-winning Revolution valve technology is fundamentally
different to other shear and seal safety valves because it maintains distinct
separation between its cutting and sealing elements. This means that any
intervention media, such as coiled tubing or braided cable, can be cut without
compromise to the seal. Only one device is required to provide secure well
containment unlike traditional ball valve arrangements. The valve uses
resilient primary sealing rather than elastomer components, which enables safe
well intervention under more challenging conditions such as HPHT scenarios. Its
ultra-compact nature with external rotary actuators allows the valve to be
installed below the shear rams on small BOPs, meaning operators do not need to
rely on the shear rams as a principle line of defence, which are more difficult
and costly to remediate after activation.
The company's
original 15,000 psi working pressure in-riser landing string Revolution valve
is currently in operation in the Gulf of Mexico. Interventek has also developed
the world’s first 20k rated in-riser shear and seal safety valve and more
recently added another industry first to its portfolio with the addition of the
Revolution PowerPlus. This has a fast-acting gas accumulator power source
integral to the valve itself, close to the cutting and sealing mechanism. It
increases the power and speed of the valve’s functionality and provides a
failsafe close mechanism, triggered in the event of an emergency.
Due to the ground up
design engineering employed in its development, Interventek can deliver its
Revolution valves for around 50% of the cost of competitor solutions.