American Oil and Gas Reporter - April 2016 - 107

paraffin than hot-oiling. "You aren't just
taking care of the immediate problem in
the wellbore and tubing, you are injecting
it into the pore space," he declared.
The Nitro-Dyne process also can function as a gas lift to remove sand, scale
and debris, and to steam clean and re-energize formation pore spaces, he added.
"By repressuring the pore spaces and
removing skin damage, treated wells can
experience significant increases in both
flow rates and recovery factors," McColpin
stated.
He said the inventor of Nitro-Dyne
claimed that in more than 1,000 applications, 70 percent of wells treated had production increases of 100-700 percent, and
that 15 percent experienced greater than
700 percent increases.
MBJD, he continued, can be deployed
using a workover rig on either coiled
tubing or jointed pipe, and will turn from
vertical to horizontal in a foot and a half.
It is capable of creating laterals up to
300 feet long.
In Pennsylvania, he said, SurgiTech is
using the process to create multiple sets of
laterals in test wells. "We are trying to work
with what we have rather than doing whole
new drilling programs," McColpin affirmed.
Low-Cost EOR
Talib Syed, who is based in Centennial,
Co., presented a daylong Petroleum Technology Transfer Council workshop the
day before IOGA's formal convention.
At the IOGA meeting, he discussed lowcost technologies that included polymer

Consulting petroleum engineer Talib
Syed reviews low-cost approaches to
improving production rates, ranging
from polymer and microbial treatments
to well intervention and logging, and rigless casing repair, during an IOGA annual meeting technical session.

and microbial treatments, well intervention
and logging, and rigless casing repair.
Two polymer technologies he mentioned were LoSal and Bright Water. He
said LoSal was a low-salinity waterflood
injectant that relaxed divalent ions that
bound oil molecules to clay particles. He
said British Petroleum experienced 5-7
percent incremental recovery from the
technology in Alaska, and it had shown
promise in the North Sea.
"It doesn't require changing much of
your infrastructure or large capital expenditures," he added.
Other polymer treatments, such as Bright
Water, improve mobility control, Syed said.
New in the microbial arena, Syed went
on, is AERO (activated environment for
the recovery of oil), which consists of continuously injecting inorganic nutrients to
stimulate indigenous microbes in order to
disrupt the interfacial surface tension between injection water and oil. He estimated
treatment costs at about $10 a barrel.
In the area of remedial work, he said
sealants were being used to repair downhole leaks. "These are formulated on a
case-by-case basis," Syed said. "You just
pump, detect the depth of the leak based
on differential pressure, and fill it up."
Expandable patches also may be used
to plug leaks. Syed said the MetalPatchTM
could be deployed with jointed drill pipe
or coiled tubing, and provided a metal-tometal seal at depths of 30 to 5,000 feet.
Safety Regulation
Rick Ingram, who helped found STEPS
in 2003, brought five OSHA initiatives
to IOGA's attention.
He reported that the U.S. Office of
Management and Budget had cleared an
OSHA regulation cutting the permissible
exposure limits for silica dust to 50 micrograms per cubic meter of air. (Editor's
Note: OSHA released a final silica rule on
March 24. See story page 16.)
"This is a big deal" for hydraulic fracturing operations, Ingram insisted. "We
will not be able to meet the new standard
without some engineering controls."
Ingram said the Bipartisan Budget Act
of 2015, which was approved by Congress
in October, authorized OSHA to increase
its maximum fine up to 82 percent. "There
is a final rule making coming in August,"
he told IOGA. "The maximum serious
penalty will go from $7,000 to $12,600.
Willful and repeat violations will go from
$70,000 to $126,000."
Under OSHA's new severe injury reporting rule, Ingram continued, all workrelated fatalities must be reported within
eight hours and all in-patient hospitalizations within 24 hours. The rule also

Glenn McColpin, chief executive officer
of Houston-based SurgiTech Inc., outlines three technologies for increasing
recovery from old fields during the Illinois Oil & Gas Association's annual
meeting, March 3-4 in Evansville, In.

requires companies to report amputations
and loss of an eye. "An amputation means
it won't grow back. It doesn't have to get
into the bone," he emphasized.
Under OSHA's multiemployer work
site citation policy, Ingram mentioned,
an owner/operator may be held liable for
a subcontractor's performance. "If there
is an incident on one of these big, complicated projects, the operating company
could be classified as an exposing or
controlling employer," he warned. "Companies need to perform safety and health
due diligence appropriate for the level of
work and potential hazards."
One of the most significant changes, Ingram warned, is OSHA's inclusion last
spring of the upstream industry in its Severe
Violator Enforcement Program. "Our industry's fatality rate is five-eight times higher
than the national average," he observed.
Severe violators are subject to mandatory follow-up inspections, and a press
release is issued. "Essentially, if OSHA
finds serious or willful violations at one
of your work sites, by law it has to look
for the same thing at every one of your
sites," Ingram explained. "It could mean
as much as $70,000 an incident.
"If it is wrong in one place, it probably
is wrong everywhere, so you really have
to know what you are doing," Ingram
surmised.
Saudi Turmoil
Luncheon keynoter William O'Grady,
executive vice president and chief market
strategist for Confluence Investment Management, traced the modern Saudi Arabia
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