A prosperous oil and gas industry is one of the factors that has contributed to the sustainable development of the world economy. It includes objects where the geophysical research is performed and operational and extension wells are drilled.
In recent years, the extraction of oil and gas has had a potential to grow which requires the exploration and development of new deposits of mineral resources since the old ones have been depleted.
It should be mentioned that drilling operations are considered to be a basis for oil and gas production since about 70% of the world investments in this field will potentially accrue to them.
The table 1 shows the major sectors and its percentage in the oilfield services market.
Table 1
The percentage of major sectors in the world market for oil services
| No. |
Name of a sector |
% |
| 1 | Offshore drilling |
13 |
| 2 | Capital projects |
10 |
| 3 | Enhanced Oil Recovery |
10 |
| 4 | On-land drilling |
8 |
| 5 | Oilfield casing and tubular goods |
6 |
| 6 | Geophysical works |
5 |
| 7 | Oil and gas equipment |
4 |
| 8 | Others |
44 |
The table shows that one of the major sectors of the oil industry is marine offshore drilling. This is due to the fact that onshore oil and gas deposits are becoming depleted and the development of the sea shelf will render it possible to provide the world economy with hydrocarbon crude for many years.
The first records of offshore drilling date back to 1869 when the first patent for an offshore drilling rig was granted to T. F. Rowland. This invention was designed to perform shallow water drilling operations in approximately 50 feet of water.
The first offshore drilling of any consequence was carried out in the USA as early as 1891. Since then, offshore drilling rigs have evolved from fixed shallow water unit to the mobile units that can simultaneously serve several dozen wells and store thousands of tons of fuel on board.
In general, marine offshore platforms consist of machines for well drilling, oil and gas extraction, worker accommodations, and power supply systems. Besides daily needs, electric power is required for drilling rig drive systems.
The voltage distribution and supply lines are regulated by transformers. An uninterrupted supply of electricity to an offshore drilling platform greatly depends on the operational reliability of the electric power transformers.
Research performed by The International Association of Engineering Insurers (IAEI) has shown that the majority of electric power transformer breakdowns are caused by liquid and solid insulation failures.
Transformer oil is used to insulate conducting parts of the transformer and to transfer heat from the heated parts of the transformer.
During the operational service life of the transformer, the insulating oil has the potential to degrade badly by being exposed to moisture, temperature extremes, and mechanical impurities. All of these factors can cause transformer failures and adversely affect the whole drilling platform.
In some cases, they may lead to the failure of the expensive equipment and/or unscheduled downtimes of the whole drilling platform and will involve considerable cost for the drilling rig operators.
The above mentioned consequences however, may be prevented if the operator performs regularly scheduled transformer oil purification and regeneration in the marine environment.
GlobeCore has developed and is still producing equipment for transformer oil reclamation in the marine environment that has the following characteristics:
(1) compact in size; (2) explosion-proof design; (3) protection from moisture; (4) vibration dampening; and (5) protection from salt-water corrosion issues.
GlobeCore’s Clean Marine Offshore Oil Processing Systems provide vacuumizing of transformers as well as the purification of transformer oils by removing mechanical impurities, water, gasses, and unwanted contaminants.
The following is a list of benefits of the GlobeCore Clean Marine Oil Processing Equipment:
(1) oil is restored to new like condition (the breakdown voltage is increased and the acidity is reduced);
(2) reduced need to buy and transport oil;
(3) oil’s service life is extended and the transformer’s service life is extended; and
(4) no hazardous waste and and risk of damage to the environment.
GlobeCore Clean Marine Oil Processing equipment may be operated in the following modes:
- transformer heat up (oil is heated and filtered);
- oil degassing (oil is filtered, dried and degassed); and
- transformer vacuumizing.
GlobeCore is the best solution to the problems of transformer oil processing in the marine environment.