SHADOW SECRETARY FOR BUSINESS AND ENERGY VISITS OPEX

We were delighted to welcome Rebecca Long-Bailey, Shadow Secretary for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to OPEX today (Friday 18th May 2018).

Along with North East MSP Lewis Macdonald, the Shadow Secretary met with Deirdre Michie, CEO of Oil & Gas UK, and a number of business leaders to learn more about the current and future focus for the oil & gas sector.  During the visit our data scientists demonstrated how the X-PAS™ service is supporting operators to avoid production losses and reduce maintenance costs.

Deirdre Michie, CEO of Oil & Gas UK, commented; “The UK offshore oil and gas sector is an industrial success story founded on technological pioneers such as OPEX Group.

“It is important that we continue to support our highly-skilled supply chain, which serves a critical role in maximising recovery from the basin and boosting our global reputation.”

Chris Ayres, Chief Operating Officer at OPEX Group, said; “It was a pleasure to welcome Rebecca Long-Bailey and the team from Oil & Gas UK.  By showcasing our X-PAS™ predictive analysis service we highlighted the vital role that new technologies play in helping to reduce costs, improve efficiencies and maximise recovery from the basin.

“It’s crucial that we create an environment where technology companies can thrive and continue to develop solutions to the challenges facing our industry.”

WORK STARTS WITH 4 NEW X-PAS™ CUSTOMERS

During April we started work with 4 new oil and gas operators to support them with a variety of operational challenges through our X-PAS™ Predictive Analysis Service.  

Euan Macalister, VP Business Development at OPEX, commented; “As the focus on digitally enabled operations and maintenance continues to gain momentum within the industry, we have seen a significant increase in the number of X-PAS™ projects kicking off.

“As our customer portfolio continues to grow, so does our team.  We’ve welcomed several new faces to the company to help us further strengthen our data science and multi-discipline engineering support teams.

“The X-PAS™ service is well positioned as an industry standard service offering, supporting the industry in its drive to maximise economic recovery and help operators to reduce their lifting costs, eliminate production losses and cut maintenance costs.”

NEW FACES AT OPEX

As OPEX continues to grow, we have welcomed a number of new employees to the business in recent months.

We are delighted to welcome Euan Bathgate as VP Engineering Support.  In addition to his significant experience of rotating equipment, Euan will be responsible for ensuring that the X-PAS™ Service is supported by the highest standards of engineering expertise.

The X-PAS™ data science team continues to grow with the addition of Matej Svoboda and Omer Panni, who together bring a wealth of experience in the application of data science and machine learning.  Our multi-discipline engineering team has been further strengthened by Praveen Manocha in the role of Principal Engineer and Raj Misra as Process Technical Authority.

Euan Macalister joined OPEX at the start of the year as VP Business Development and is focused on ensuring we continue to meet the needs of our existing customers whilst growing our customer portfolio in the UKCS and globally.  

And finally, in support of our finance and HR functions we also welcome Ria Paterson to the team as Business Support Administrator.

As OPEX continues to grow we are always on the lookout for talented individuals who strive to be the best in their field.  If you share our passion for transforming the oil and gas industry through digitally-enabled operations and maintenance, get in touch.

A DATA-DRIVEN APPROACH TO ASSET DILIGENCE

OPEX is working with the Oil and Gas Technology Centre (OGTC) on a second directed project to develop a new data-driven assurance service for operators acquiring legacy assets. 

By applying advanced data science techniques, the new service will provide operators with a clear picture of the health, condition and level of operational risk within the topside facilities of newly acquired assets, helping to improve due diligence and create an operational performance baseline.

Jamie Bennett, CEO of OPEX commented; “A challenge for any operator acquiring legacy assets is developing an understanding of what they are buying in terms of the health, condition and level of operational risk within the topside facilities.  

“Existing due diligence exercises typically only evaluate inventory levels and often require the new owners to conduct complete overhauls of their new facilities at considerable expense.  This can lead to extensive periods of production downtime and environmental, business and regulatory risk.

“We look forward to working with the OGTC Digital Solutions Centre on this project.”

IMPROVING OFFSHORE SAFETY WITH THE X-PAS™ SERVICE

We are delighted to be working alongside the Oil & Gas Technology Centre (OGTC) on a ground-breaking new project to address a key challenge facing our industry; how to identify, measure and manage the risks posed by human behaviours to impact safe and predictable offshore operations.

The project, which is one of the first to be awarded by the OGTC’s Digital Solutions Centre, will focus on combining predictive technology and data science with psychology to map an organisation’s ‘behavioural DNA’. 

Chris Ayres, COO at OPEX explains; “The potential to significantly reduce offshore incidents lies in our ability to manage human risk. Current approaches to address this and understand safety behaviours rely on surveys that give us an insight into what employees think and how they feel.   By working with leading behavioural psychologists, we have devised diagnostic tools that provide key insights into how these individuals are likely to act and behave.”

“Understanding where an organisation’s behavioural risk lies across its operations and workforce is one piece of the puzzle, but, we can apply data science to take this a step further.  Using the X-PAS™ service, huge volumes of historic incident data can be analysed so that areas of human risk can be understood in relation to all relevant environmental factors that may impact offshore incidents.

“Our aim is to work alongside companies to use their existing data to greatly strengthen the safety and predictability of their offshore operations. By providing meaningful and actionable insights we hope to address the most significant, yet difficult to quantify risk factor in the oil and gas industry.”

OPEX SECURES 3-YEAR CONTRACT ACROSS MULTIPLE ASSETS WITH NEW CUSTOMER

It’s been a busy start to the year for OPEX and we are delighted to announce we will be working in close collaboration with another new customer to maximise production and improve operational performance across 4 of their offshore assets.

Following the recent 3-year contract award, the X-PAS™ service will be applied to multiple critical systems.  Using data science and predictive technologies, our X-PAS™ team will analyse tens of thousands of data relationships daily to provide a unique view of how these critical systems are performing. 

Any emerging threats and vulnerabilities will be escalated to our customer, so they can make data-driven decisions to avoid outages and maximise production uptime.

Find out more about what makes the X-PAS™ service different here.

OPEX SIGNS 5-YEAR AGREEMENT IN GULF OF MEXICO

We are delighted to announce the signing of a 5-year Master Service Agreement (MSA) with Cantium LLC who operate a number of oilfields in the Gulf of Mexico.  The collaborative charter will see OPEX and Cantium work together to drive operational efficiency and streamlined maintenance and production gains through the smart application of digital and predictive technologies.

The strategic relationship has been formed following Cantium’s recent acquisition of the Gulf of Mexico Bay Marchand and Main Pass assets from Chevron Corporation. 

Jamie Bennett, CEO of OPEX, commented; “This is the first international agreement OPEX has entered into and comes at a very exciting time for the business, with a number of recent contract wins and extensions.  We look forward to supporting Cantium in their drive to reinvigorate the Gulf of Mexico Outer Continental Shelf by unlocking the value in their operational data.”

Richard Kirkland, CEO of Cantium, commented; “Leveraging digital technologies is a core element of Cantium’s strategy to optimise the management, maintenance and performance of these late life fields.  Working alongside OPEX will ensure we have the depth of information required to make data-driven decisions to improve our operations and identify new, more effective ways of working.”

X-PAS™ SERVICE 2-YEAR EXTENSION AND EXPANSION ACROSS UKCS ASSETS

Following a significant two-year contract extension with a leading UKCS operator, the X-PAS™ service has been expanded to cover all of the major critical systems on two offshore assets, including gas compression, water injection and power generation.

Millions of data points will be analysed daily by OPEX’S data scientists who will work in close collaboration with the customer’s operations teams to monitor and accurately predict the future performance of these critical systems. 

Commenting on the contract extension, Danny Farquhar, VP of Data Science, said; “We are delighted that our customer has chosen to further expand the X-PAS™ service upon their assets.  This renewal is testament to the results we have achieved and ensures we can continue to work together to support their drive to maximise production uptime and enhance business performance.”

OPEX WINS THE OIL & GAS UK AWARD FOR BUSINESS INNOVATION

We are delighted to announce that OPEX won the award for Business Innovation (SME) at this year's Oil & Gas UK awards.

Our X-PAS™ service was recognised for its potential to help improve efficiency in the oil and gas industry at the awards ceremony which took place last night (Thursday 2nd November) at the Aberdeen Exhibition and Conference Centre.

The Business Innovation award recognises a company which has enabled improved performance through innovation and efficiency initiatives, while using sustainable methods developed to safely maximise recovery from the UK Continental Shelf. 

OPEX picked up the Business Innovation award in the SME category and Shell UK Limited collected the award for a large enterprise for the Brent Decommissioning Project.

Chris Ayres, Chief Operating Officer, accepted the award on behalf of OPEX and said; "This accolade is a celebration of the efforts of the entire team at OPEX.  This award really raises the profile of predictive technologies and shows the opportunity that is available to the UKCS, and the rest of the world.  The value can be realised right now and that's really exciting for us."

To find out more about the X-PAS™ service click here.

SUPPORTING ADVENTURES ABOVE AND BELOW THE SEA

Following on from our sponsorship of two young brothers’ adventure to sail a Playmobil ship across the Atlantic, Ollie (8) and Harry (5) asked if we could help them send two Lego Men (who had previously been into space) down to the murky depths of the North Sea.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t something we could facilitate ourselves, but Premier Oil were more than happy to step in and made two seats available for the well-travelled Lego Men on their recent dive campaign with SubSea7. 

We’re already thinking about where else we could help the boys send their Lego Men.  If you would like to follow their adventures check out their Facebook page - www.facebook.com/tdajp/ - and if you’d like to track the Atlantic Adventure visit www.track-adventure.co.uk (The little boat is currently making its way through the Cape Verde Islands!)