Pragma Well Technology Ltd, a FrontRow Energy Technology Group company focused on advanced production technologies, has secured a contract with Saudi Aramco worth over $700,000.

Saudi Aramco Exploration and Petroleum Engineering Centre - Advanced Research Centre (EXPEC ARC) will sponsor a three-year contract to develop an Extreme Expandable Packer for its Thru-tubing Water Shut-off challenge.

Dan Purkis, Pragma Technical Director

“Pragma shall develop a Thru-tubing Expandable Patch (TEP), employing additive manufacturing,” said Dan Purkis, Technical Director and inventor. “These printing machines can manufacture parts that would be impossible using traditional reductive techniques, making extreme expansion solutions possible. We are getting very exciting results and see a wide range of future applications.”

Jonathan Brown, Senior Petroleum Engineer at Saudi Aramco said: “This collaboration is part of our Fourth Industrial Revolution initiative in the area of Advanced Materials. We strive to sponsor new methods to solve old problems and Pragma has discovered a way to develop designs that were not possible even ten years ago.”

The TEP will be deployed via traditional well intervention to further extend the life of wells prior to recompletion or side-tracking.