Plexus Holdings PLC, the AIM quoted oil and gas engineering services business and owner of the proprietary POS-GRIP® friction-grip method of wellhead engineering, known for its time and cost saving capabilities, is pleased to announce that it has successfully completed a customer sponsored R&D project to develop a bespoke lifetime leak-proof replacement tubing hanger neck seal assembly ('HG-R'), to upgrade and extend the field life of existing surface production wellheads.
Plexus' HG-R technology has been designed to address a key challenge facing oil and gas production operators, namely, the systemic failure of conventional annular seals, as a result of pressure and temperature induced interface movement, known as fretting.
Particularly on natural gas applications, it can be statistically shown that most conventional wellhead annular and neck seals will at some point fail, causing integrity and safety concerns, which may result in environmental consequences, costly repairs, and lost production.
In the case of tubing hanger neck seals, maintenance intervention involves externally applied temporary injection procedures, or the substitution of leaking seal components and perhaps even the replacement of worn out tubing hangers and tubing heads.
It should be recognised that external seal injection services are generally provided by several international specialists and a host of local maintenance providers, who work with unregulated proprietary injection materials for which positive results are claimed, although the service invariably comes with warnings that integrity is temporary because injected seals are subject to the same dynamics that caused the original seals to fail.
Plexus' bespoke HG-R maintenance intervention solutions are exclusively available from Plexus Ocean Systems Ltd and its licensees and are scientifically based on Hertzian Stress Theory, and which in respect of interface stress management features match what we believe to be the unrivalled capabilities of Plexus' "HG" lifetime guaranteed annular seals.
Commenting on this new Plexus Product, Plexus' CEO Ben Van Bilderbeek said: "The HG-R R&D design project is in line with our long-standing ambition to supply the oil and gas industry with a portfolio of NetZero compliant sealing solutions, which, in addition to our lifetime guaranteed wellheads, can in certain instances be used to upgrade and make secure decade-old production systems. Importantly, this new bespoke solution allows permanent upgrades to be carried out as part of planned "workover" activities for existing wells, without having to remove tubing hangers. This means ageing wellheads can be safely and affordably repaired, to address future neck seal failures, which in turn lengthens their economic life, reduces the periodic cost of maintenance, and helps hydrocarbons maintain the role as a responsible transition fuel, until the world can rely on alternative energy sources. We will be actively marketing this new product and look forward to reporting further progress"