the need for improved supporting technologies. Horizontal wells magnified sand-control
problems, which has led to the evolution of
both seamed and slotted liners and wire-wrap screens.
Perry Parker, president and chief executive officer of Leduc-based G&L Slotco says
there is so much variability in reservoirs that
no company in the business can guarantee
spectacular results.
“This is a young industry,” says Parker.
“We have bottom-water issues and gas
issues. Have we solved the sand-control
issue? No, because we have situations in
which it is still problematic.”
He notes that G&L Slotco has produced
slotted liners for more than two million
metres of pipe and that is increasing by thou-
sands of metres a year. His firm and its af-
filiate, Reservoir Management International,
which licenses its technologies worldwide,
have spent “tens of millions of dollars” de-
veloping its slotted liner technologies for ap-
plications like heavy oil and oilsands projects.
Privately owned G&L Slotco has a presence in California and Louisiana, where it
purchased companies with complementary
product lines in 1996 and 1999.
Including those offices, its Leduc (Nisku)
and Calgary offices, and the staff that works
for Reservoir Management, it employs more
than 300 people.
“The first patent for slotted liners was
granted in 1892,” says Parker. “The big-
gest utilization of them was in Venezuela’s
heavy oil and bitumen reservoirs in the
1930s and 1940s.”
Parker, a former rig hand who went on to
earn a petroleum-technology diploma from
the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology,
says that, despite the amount of work that
has gone into advancing the technology,
“there’s no silver bullet,” and there are res-
ervoirs where wire-wrap screens, somewhat
less sophisticated devices, will perform
adequately.
“Our product doesn’t work in every reservoir. We don’t have a magic solution. Our
focus is on solving the customer’s problem.”
In fact, Parker says his company will
often recommend that operators try the
wire-wrapped liners and other sand-control products manufactured by Calgary-based Variperm Canada, with whom he
formerly worked.
James Nurcombe, president and general manager of Calgary-based Variperm
Canada, which manufactures and deploys
sand-control products for oil and gas wells,
water wells, and industrial uses, says that
wire-wrap screen products can cope with
most sand-control problems in reservoirs.
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