By Mohammad Ehteshami
Vice President
Engineering

2007 has been an incredible year for our industry and our company – a barrel of oil hit $100, demand for technology to reach oil and gas in non-conventional places grew and the resources to meet these demands have become more scarce as environmental health and safety have become more focused. There is an old saying that ‘you get out what you put in,’ meaning simply that you must invest adequate time, money, effort and resources in order to build real value added technology. But of course, the reward must outweigh the risk. So we take a systematic approach to investment and development in engineering. We have almost doubled our investment and resources – and it has been the key to our business growth as well as to our ability to help customers achieve increasing success in their operations.

Our product differentiation efforts have been so fruitful because of the continuous, cooperative relationships and processes that we have. Continuous in that we literally never stop looking forward to the next solution, breakthrough or idea, and cooperative in that we never stop asking our customers for their advice and feedback. Virtually every product and service we design is inspired by a customer need or challenge.

Focused Technology Sessions with our customers allow us to take a deep dive into the development process with our customers. We incubate ideas jointly, sharing knowledge and reducing risk in the process. These sessions have directly contributed to many successful engineering initiatives over the past year. Here are just a few examples:

• Hermetically sealed compression for sour and acid gas and subsea applications
• First fully NACE-compliant magnetic bearing compressor
• Zero-leakage sealing system for sour and acid gas compression
• Light drilling riser systems for TLP and SPAR
• Production control system for 3,000 m water depth
• Manufacturing advances for harsh environments, including super alloy machining, ceramics and twin-clad coating

First and foremost, we have an unwavering commitment to Environmental Health & Safety – because a product is only better if it is better for everyone involved. We design and procure products with the health and safety of our employees, our customer’s employees and the environment in mind. And we are very proud to say that our EHS efforts have been officially recognized by a number of outstanding organizations, including: ISO, OSHA, Azienda USL di Massa Carrra, the Government of Alberta, VPP Star, BP, Petrobras, MASE, Chevron… just to name a few. More great outcomes that justify the inputs.

This coming March in Niskayuna, New York, we will conduct our largest ever Technology Session with participants from numerous high-tech GE businesses, the Global Research Center and many of our customers. The meetings will involve parallel sessions for turbo-machinery and drilling and production, plus a combined subsea processing session in order to build on the synergistic strengths that no other supplier can offer. I am certain the outcomes will be extraordinary, and I look forward to sharing them with you this time next year.

We have combined the Scientist and Technologist teams of VetcoGray and GE Oil & Gas and have established an Advanced Technology Operation (ATO) headed by Dr. Mohamed Ali who comes to us from the GE Global Research Center (GRC) to stay focused on meeting the ever increasing demands of our customers. The ATO is a global organization with engineers in more than 10 sites and countries.

In the following articles, Mohamed Ali and Gary Shaw (VetcoGray Technology Leader) highlight some of our newest products from 2007 as well as hinting at what’s in play for 2008.