Bill, Mel et al-
Well, I got an answer from Pennwell Pub. and they thought the
idea was not so hot...I gave them some response choices and the
one that fit the bill for them was "Absolutely Not."
So I'll try to paraphrase my way around the kopiright laws of our
fair nation...
The article, from Offshore Magazine, dtd 12/1/97, was titled
"Subsea Technology, Global subsea well production will double by
year 2002."
'lead time for a tree has incr'd from 8/10 mo.s to 10/12 in ~2 yrs.'
'Petrobras, with perhaps the most active well completion sched.
in the world (planned), would require more than 200 subsea trees
in the next 5 years' (Not necessarily supplied by DRQ, but I'll
bet they get some.)
'DRQ has developed a horizontal subsea tree, as has ABB Vetco Gray.'
I've NO experience in the Oil Patch, but hazarding a guess, I'd
bet that a tree laid out horizontally would be easier to tie
together (manifold) with a flock of other wells, making the
production of pay from all of them accessible at one point on
the surface, which seems like a $$$saver to me, especially in
deep water, where the $$$ add up quickly.
In addition to a bunch of other related tidbits, all of which
sound damn rosy for DRQ to me, I learned of two other competitors
of D.'s---FMC-a name which I've been hearing for decades, but
I have little idea what else they may do. And ABB Vetco Gray--
A large diversified outfit from Switzerland (Sweden?) which
makes all kinds of mechanical doo-dads, some of which I get
to play with occasionally. (Turbochargers of the large type,
upwards of 1000 pounds or so.)
Wish I could have E'd the article to those interested, but I
don't think I'd like being a kopiright test case Poster Boy!
Lee
(and yes, I can spell better than that!) |
