FloaTEC President, Eric Namtvedt –
Presents at Pre-Salt Brail Congress

On June 7-9, 2010, Eric Namtvedt, President of FloaTEC, LLC participated in the 1st Pre-Salt Brazil Congress in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The Pre-Salt Brazil Congress is a new industry event that was formed to address the regulatory and technical challenges of exploring vast new oil reserves deepwater Brazil.

FloaTEC is currently working with Petrobras on a deepwater development for the construction of the P-61, TLWP platform that will be set up in the Papa Terra field in the Campos Basin.

Mr. Namtvedt describes the offshore pre-salt discoveries in Brazil as “the new frontier for the industry” and says the P-61, TLWP platform will give Petrobras to develop a subsea field with direct vertical access into the well bore, and thus an avenue to test out this development tool in consideration for future developments in the Pre-Salt.  Mr. Namtvedt says that “Wells with direct vertical access have greater reservoir recovery potential than traditional subsea wells due to the lower costs associated with well intervention and the opportunity to employ secondary recovery techniques.”

To that end, Mr. Namtvedt presented “Pre-Salt Field Developments: A Case for Dry Tree Solutions” to the Congress. The conclusions of Mr. Namtvedt’s presentation are as follows:

•          Reservoir characteristics are key in field development selection
•          Several viable development options for large fields in deepwater
•          DTU drilling expense and efficiency is superior to MODU drilling
•          Production facility configurations for DTUs are proven and do not require new “frontier” technology
•          DTUs offer substantially more well intervention options at a much lower operating expense.
•          DTUs allow for maximizing reservoir recovery
•          Papa Terra will be Brazil’s first experience with a DTU
•          Brazil execution for DTU projects will be proven on P-61
•          Case Conclusion: Dry tree solutions offer a potentially superior option for Pre-Salt field developments

Mr. Namtvedt also participated in a panel session at the Congress titled: “Q&A Session with Top Senior Executives on Worldwide Trends for Deepwater Technologies and Global Achievements: Your opportunity to find the answers to the issues that directly affect your business”.  The topical discussions were based on the following questions:

What advances are possible in the next 10 years?
How will global challenges of operating in deepwater and pre-salt environments be overcome?
Where do the opportunities lie in the future?
How are technology suppliers preparing themselves to face these challenges?