£1.5m West African Well Testing Services Won

Sand Monitoring Services Ltd (SMS) (UK) has been awarded two new contracts totalling over £1.5 million by the two leading global providers of well testing services.

The first contract is valued at £1.4 million over two years and involves the deployment of sand and solids monitoring services to several multibillion dollar deepwater developments, including Total’s Akpo field in Nigeria.

The Akpo installation, located 200kms off the coast of the Niger Delta, pumped its first oil in March this year. Under the terms of the new contract, SMS will utilise its unique I-ART™ combined intrusive and acoustic real time sand monitoring system on thirty wells within the Akpo development, once every month.

Commenting on the new win, SMS Director Andrew Kinsler said, “Akpo is one of the leading projects in Sub-Saharan West Africa. We are delighted to have won this contract as it gives us the opportunity to demonstrate our capability in a region where we have significant focus and growth potential. “We look forward to further strengthening our client relationships by working closely with the testing team in Nigeria and delivering the highest standards of service throughout the contract term.”

As part of the second contract win worth around £100,000 over six months, SMS will be utilising a special high temperature acoustic solids monitoring system for the high rate HPHT (High Pressure High Temperature) development. This HT acoustic system has been specifically developed by SMS for challenging test environment and well conditions. According to Andrew, “We won this HPHT testing contract due to our clear position as the technical leader in sand and solids monitoring. Our clients recognise the added value we bring by combining our integrated project engineering department’s leading position in sand and erosive solids management, along with our highly skilled field service force.”

Last month, SMS became one of the smallest companies in the UK to receive the OHSAS 18001:2007 certification for its Occupational Health and Safety Management System by the British Standards Institute (BSI). “We believe our investment in such high levels of compliance certification is crucial to growth as it lends great credibility and puts us ahead of our competitors. The past few months have been very exciting for us. With these two new contract wins and more potential work, we are going to be well ahead of our 2010 growth forecast.

“Our key aim is to grow operations internationally. We are expanding our range of work and pitching for more work in parts of Africa, especially West Africa. We are sending some staff to Cameroon in February to gain a firsthand knowledge of the region as well as showcase our range of skills and specialist equipments.”