A Qatari-owned well stimulation vessel will be developed as part of a recent agreement between leading Middle East maritime and logistics company Milaha and US-based oilfield services firm Schlumberger Ltd
The memorandum of understanding (MoU) between Milaha and Schlumberger will support value-building projects while jointly driving ‘Tawteen’ initiatives for Qatar, creating local content and knowledge-building. Led by Qatar Petroleum (QP), the Tawteen programme aims to localise the energy sector’s supply chain and create new investment opportunities to retain ‘economic value’ in Qatar.
One of the centrepieces of the five-year joint development project is a Qatar-owned, Qatar-flagged and Qatar-operated oilwell stimulation vessel. Milaha said the first of these vessels would be designed and outfitted in Qatar, creating the inaugural FlexSTIM platform, which will be modified, owned and operated locally.
Schlumberger’s FlexSTIM platform is an offshore modular stimulation system that has been deployed on vessels operating in the Arabian Gulf, Caspian Sea, Mediterranean Sea, Indian Ocean, South China Sea and South Atlantic Ocean. According to Schlumberger, the FlexSTIM system can be designed and implemented in less than four weeks from the order date. Its capacity can be tailored to meet specific operator needs – a standard 900-m2 deck area supply vessel can be moulded for capacities up to 10,000 kW, 350 m3 of proppant storage, and 605,000 litres of concentrated acid capacity. This combination of flexibility, capacity, and rapid turnaround time is unparalleled, even for dedicated stimulation execution.
Pre-engineering for the project has begun.
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