With recent breakthroughs, the company has established a focus area, greatly expanding R&D activities to create new nano systems for oil and gas, Dr Abdulllah Al Dhafeeri, Senior Consultant for Saudi Multichem tells OGN

 

Saudi Multichem, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Saudi Al Saidi Group, is developing innovative green nanotechnology that is set to change how traditional chemicals perform by making them more efficient and cost effective.

The company offers specialised and cutting edge technologies that help resolve critical issues in oil and gas.

In an interview with Abdulaziz Khattak of OGN, Dr Abdullah Al Dhafeeri, Senior Consultant for Saudi Multichem, says the company’s R&D team has developed two environment-friendly nano chemicals — NanoStim and NanoLube — for use in upstream operations.

• NanoStim: This unique and powerful technology can be used in oil and gas wells — both mature and marginal — as a long-term solution for stimulation and productivity enhancement.

The bio-derived and biodegradable product is manufactured using a new balanced formula of 20 bio-derived nanoparticles.

NanoStim can effectively dissolve oil well obstructions, such as paraffin (solidified), asphaltene and carbonate (salt, scales) formed in well casing pipes and oil reservoirs.

'Due to a permanent removal of condensate banking, the treated oil wells became highly productive wells with a tremendous increase in productivity index and sustainability,' Dr Al Dhafeeri explains.

NanoStim offers several advantages over conventional acid chemical treatment including:

• It is a non-corrosive chemical product

• It is derived from natural materials that are biodegradable with no negative impact on the environment.

• It helps achieve sustainability goals and health, safety and environment-(HSE) objectives unlike conventional products, which cause emissions of carbon dioxide and volatile organic compounds.

• NanoStim products can sustainably increase the production rate by more than 100 per cent.

• The annual downtime of NanoStim treatment is 60 per cent lesser than the conventional treatment methods.

• NanoStim is a patented unconventional solution based on nanotechnology particles.

Saudi Multichem offers a whole service package with NanoStim that includes:

• Pre-stimulation analysis and diagnoses for subject wells.

• Use of NanoStim regenerating products for stimulation treatments process.

• Training the client’s technical team.

• Providing technical supervision for each stimulation process and phases.

'Currently, the Alsaidi Trading and Industry Company (a member group company) is in the process of proposing NanoStim for low-productivity and dead oil and gas at Saudi Aramco and Kuwait Oil Company (KOC),' says Dr Al Dhafeeri.

He says NanoStim has been successfully implemented at low-productivity and dead oil and gas wells resulting in a tremendous increase in well productivity. The company offered its solution to an anonymous client to improve well productivity to the latter’s satisfaction.

It’s worth mentioning that Saudi Multichem has its nanotechnology manufacturing facilities located in the Eastern Province in order to localise production at the hands of skilled Saudi cadre.

Alsaidi Trading and Industry Company also offers other best-in-class nano chemicals solutions for upstream operations especially related to drilling and workover operation activities. These include

• Nano Drill-Zyme Chemical S & X: A bio-derived, biodegradable product for wellbore cleanup after drilling and workover operation. This is designed to restore well productivity and prevent formation damage in oil and gas wells. This group of chemicals includes Nanolube for stuck pipe prevention; Nanolube for freeing stuck pipe; Nanolube for formation damage prevention (as an additive in drilling fluid); Nanolube filter cake removal (as a wellbore placement); Nanolube sand production prevention (used after drilling operation and during well production).

In addition to these products, Saudi Multichem is working on new nano chemical systems to address issues related to upstream and downstream operations.

Dr Al Dhafeeri says all these products are custom designed as per the region and site location based on several aspects, such as fluid and rock properties; temperature and pressure; water geochemistry; and field location (onshore/offshore).

Saudi Multichem is targeting major oil, gas and petrochemical companies from the region and beyond to demonstrate and prove the uniqueness of its nanotechnology, which Dr Al Dhafeeri says can make a huge and positive economic impact by increasing oil and gas production.

To support its clients, Saudi Multichem offers technical support through its engineering service company, Medra Arabia, which in addition to engineering requirements also participates in pipeline purging with nitrogen, cleaning and pigging activities.

With these breakthroughs Saudi Multichem has established a new focus area in nanotechnology. Naturally, it has greatly expanded its R&D activities in this regard to create new systems.

Additionally, it has established several joint ventures to expand and open new business lines to meet the demand in drilling and production operations.

The Alsaidi Group strongly aligns its goals and objectives with the Kingdom’s vision 2030 through several initiatives, including:

• Localising most in demand chemical products used in oil and gas.

• Maximising the use of biochemical products in oil and gas applications.

• Manufacturing environment-friendly chemical products.

• Transferring of advanced technologies related to hydrogen generation, carbon capture and emissions control.

• Partaking in Saudi Aramco’s in-kingdom total value add (iktva) programme.

• Hiring Saudi candidates and training them as part of its Saudisation programme.

• Building a manufacturing facility for shaker screens for rig and drilling operations. This will be the first in the Middle East.

• Creating partnership with companies and universities worldwide in search of opportunities to serve oil and gas industrials.

• Conducting research and development.

• Expanding the export of specialty chemicals worldwide. Late last year, Saudi Multichem become the first Saudi company to export MEA Triazine to the US designed to remove hydrogen sulfide from drilling fluids and pipelines.

Business this year has improved for Saudi Multichem as the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic start to wither off. Although last year, similar to other companies, the pandemic did have an impact; factories were shut down and disrupted supply chains affected operations, increasing the prices of specialty chemicals products.

However, the company showed resilience and didn’t downsize employees during the period.

'This is because we at Saudi Multichem value our employees as the most important assets for the company,' says Dr Al Dhafeeri.

To avoid disruption to its operations like it saw during the pandemic, Saudi Multichem established a logistics company. 'This will cut down lead times for material supplies,' Dr Al Dhafeeri concludes.