The company’s growth in the region, particularly Saudi Arabia, has been exceptional and it is supporting these activities with local investment by developing talent and infrastructure in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Dubai, and other areas

Packers Plus Energy Services, an innovator of multi-stage completion systems that provides solutions for challenging applications in horizontal, vertical, multi-lateral and high pressure/high temperature (HPHT) wells, sees good prospects ahead as the company continues to work on new completion solutions and optimisation of existing technologies to support operators in making better wells.

"Innovation, support and cost are what the industry is seeking and Packers Plus has stayed true to its roots by delivering these core needs. As we are all coming out of the downturn, Packers Plus is focused on the delivery of our diversified product lines, operational excellence and the continued support to our customers in overcoming the increasing challenges being seen in many fields as they are drilled deeper and longer or as they become depleted," says Kurt Keam, Saudi Arabia country manager with the company.

With strategically placed teams and technical support, Packers Plus provides expertise for every stage of completions, starting at the initial system design through to stimulation and workover operations. "Our infrastructure in UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain, enables us to remain agile, provide personal interaction and operational support at every stage of the completion," he says.

Despite the fall in oil prices slowing activity in the oil and gas industry, the past year has been one of the busiest years for Packers Plus in the Mena region.

The growth in the region, and in particular Saudi Arabia, has been exceptional and the company is supporting these activities with local investment by developing talent and infrastructure in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Dubai, and other areas of the region.

The fall in oil prices has naturally had an impact right across the industry, says Keam. Operators are in search of cost effective solutions that work the first time and demand operational excellence in a cost driven environment.

Packers Plus is focused on the delivery of its diversified product lines

With continued customer collaboration and identifying needs, Packers Plus, which received a Canadian wellness award for safety in 2018, is continuing to deliver the right completion system technology for operators to optimise their stimulation programmes and maximise their returns.

Referring to the safety award, Keam says the award signifies a collaborative company focus to ensure that the foundation of Packers Plus’s safety culture is extended not just to its employees, but also to its customers and industry colleagues.

Packers Plus as a leader in innovation and operational excellence. The company retained that focus on producing bespoke, cost-effective solutions during the downturn and developed several new technologies that were specifically designed to solve operator challenges, lowering drilling and production costs while maintaining high levels of service quality, he says.

"This customer focus is one of the reasons we’ve been able to maintain market share in Saudi Arabia and other parts of the region," says Keam.

In Saudi Arabia, for example, Packers Plus has recently acted on strategic changes required to meet customer requirements. With these changes made, the team has identified key areas of focus, set targets for the coming year(s) allowing the path to be groomed for continual alignment with the customer for optimisation and integration of new technology to the current market, he continues.

Packers Plus delivers a diversified completions portfolio globally and introduces new completion technology to key markets based on customers’ challenges and industry demand. When introducing these new technologies to a region or an area, such as Saudi Arabia, the company’s team takes a collaborative approach, he explains.

"We work closely with our customers from a conceptual idea, leading up to final completion designs, ensuring the technology matches the wellbore parameters and solves the customer’s challenges."

In Saudi Arabia, for example, Packers Plus recently introduced its Titanium XV HPHT completion technology, which provides a working pressure up to 15,000 psi, and the QuickFRAC multi-stage multi-entry completion system providing working pressures up to 12,500 psi. Both technologies were introduced successfully in test trials because of the measured approach, planning and the collaboration with the customer to deliver innovations that work the first time.

The scope for introducing these new technologies was to provide an alternative completion solution to meet the customers’ ongoing challenges and limited options to gain efficiency and optimise recovery.

With the focus of an agile team consisting of stakeholders from the technical, engineering, and manufacturing teams, and experienced on-site specialists during the installation and stimulation operations, Packers Plus was able to overcome the challenges of the HPHT environment.

By having a companywide culture of treating every customer and every well as a unique case, Packers Plus enters every project knowing that every job is going to have its own individual challenges and considerations. "This is where the collaboration of our customer and the focused team played a key role in engineering a solution to overcome those challenges and showcase the successful implementation," he says.

The Packers Plus team has worked hard to diversify its completion solutions portfolio and has had several successes with the TREX Cemented Product Line. New versions of the PrimeSET Liner Hanger, for example, offer increased functionality; the Diffusor sleeves for single point entry and QuickPORT IV sleeves for limited entry stimulation; and multiple hydraulic toe sleeve options for intervention-less stimulation of the first stage. Multi-lateral completions are starting to get more of a look as operators maximise their capital expenditures and target multiple producing reservoirs from the same mother-bore.

Keam says Packers Plus’ TREX Cemented Completions product line is gaining traction in the Middle East region. Packers Plus is excited for the release of PrimeSET HPHT Liner Hanger which is V0 qualified and has a 15,000 psi working pressure capability.

The PrimeSET HPHT liner hanger complements the cemented sliding sleeves of the TREX Cemented Completions. The sliding sleeves combine targeted stimulation treatments with the operational efficiency derived from a proven sliding sleeve completions technology provider that holds over 15 years of experience.

The ePLUS Retina monitoring system has also been run on several wells and provides the company’s customers with a cost-effective way to visualise their multi-stage completions, enabling real-time operational adjustments to ensure a successful stimulation. ePLUS Retina is a self-contained, standalone unit that verifies surface and downhole events with an array of acoustic and pressure sensors.

The Packers Plus Rapid Tool Development Centre (RTDC) have also put a lot of engineering power into its Sand Management and Flow Control product line, which will have some exciting developments in the near future, he says.

Among the company’s interesting projects in the region and beyond are the HPHT completions in challenging environments with its Titanium XV in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait; a multi-lateral, multi-stage completion in the offshore continental Europe; the world’s first proppant stimulated carbonate reservoir multi-lateral, multi-stage completion in the North Sea, offshore from the United Kingdom; a high-end HPHT stage tool off-bottom cementing in Iraq; StackFRAC with closeable sleeves in Egypt and specially designed HPHT systems (up to 18,000 psi working pressures) in Oman.

Packers Plus today has approximately 500 employees and service centres in key locations around the world, including Canada, the US, South America and the Middle East; and a state-of-the-art manufacturing and QAQC facility in Canada. Packers Plus established a presence in the Middle East in 2006 and has offices in the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait with a future of scalable options.

The coming year is going to be exciting for both our customers and Packers Plus, he says. "The clear direction and continued support from our leaders and management is enabling the talent growth of our teams in the region, and aligns with the core value of operational excellence. This makes the coming year promising for all levels of the company."