The Permian Basin International Oil Show is truly worldwide.
Outdoors on the second day of the humongous display of new technology that ends Thursday at the Ector County Coliseum, Engines Inc. of Jonesboro, Ark., showed power plants of varying sizes that run equipment like fracking pumps and water transfer generators and perform other essential tasks.
Engines Inc. Sales Manager Gabe Tatum said the company primarily makes engines for John Deere products varying from 10 to 800 horsepower. “We mainly power hydraulic pumps in the Basin,” Tatum said.
“We have a lot of customers here. We just sold a four-cylinder, 173-hp engine to Reliable Pump Co. in Houston. It’ll be used with a power unit on a trailer.”
SeAH Global Sales Manager Justin Mick of Houston was at the show with three men from his company’s manufacturing plant in Pusan, South Korea, which makes the SBQ (special barred quality) steel required for the high-pressure, high-heat operations common in the oilfield. “A lot of oilfield tools are made from our material,” Mick said, adding that the company also has an office in Queretaro, Mexico.
“Different grades make up the drilling tools and annular blowout preventers. We start with steel scraps and mix in different elements in an electric arc furnace to make stainless steel, nickel alloy and other exotic metals according to the customers’ specifications. It’s like baking a cake, but with steel. The oil and gas industry is very demanding for steel.”
Brandon Porter, president of Western Plant & Pipeline Products in Goodyear, Ariz., and a representative of the Industrial Degauss Co. of Bridgewater, N.J., was selling welding demagnetizers, which Porter said remove magnetism from pipelines and help welders run their beads without having to wrestle with polarity or the positive-negative balance in the metal.
“They don’t have to fight the weld or worry about passing the test,” Porter said, explaining that a pipeline may become magnetized at the far end from having a “smart pig” device run through it to record information about the line’s internal conditions. “We’re looking for a way into the production market.”
Amtech Drives Technical Support Manager Isaac Wade of Atlanta, Ga., said his company’s “soft starter” and variable frequency drives were on 300 pumpjacks in Texas, Louisiana and Oklahoma to keep the pumpjacks’ motors running smoothly and reduce wear. “We have been to the Oil Show four or five times,” Wade said.
“That’s how we got Mikky.”
He introduced Mikky Navarrete, president of Odessa Electro-Mechanical, who said Amtech’s products are being used to control the heating and air conditioning at Medical Center Hospital and Midland Memorial Hospital and avert problems with bacteria.
Omni Air & Nitrogen Operations Manager Dee Moorhouse of Midland had brought a truck with a big red 53-foot trailer housing equipment to make nitrogen from air and push pigs through pipelines to move oil or gas and to clean the lines. “Our main business is midstream,” Moorhouse said.
“Nitrogen is inert gas, so there is no chance for fires. We take one of our trucks to a job site, hook up to the line, run the air through a series of scrubbers, filters and membranes and generate up to 5,000 standard cubic feet of nitrogen per minute.”
