Lone Star State Welcomes Surgutneftegaz

In early December, Oil&Gas Eurasia launched its first Technical Excellence Tour to the United States. OGE led petroleum engineers representing Russia's third-largest oil producer, Surgutneftegaz, on a two-week tour across Texas, visiting equipment manufacturing plants, shale fields, and meeting field operators and service companies. Bystrinskneft chief engineer Rostislav Kuza headed the 10-man Russian delegation that included production department chiefs from seven Surgutneftegaz production subsidiaries. Their U.S. hosts included international heavyweights such as Lufkin Industries, GE Oil & Gas, Baker Hughes and Schlumberger as well as independent producers operating on shale plays in the Permian Basin, the largest oil-producing region in the United States, and at Eagle Ford shale field. The training program offered visitors a firsthand opportunity to tour technology centers, engage in training roundtables, as well as visit well sites to inspect equipment and view field management processes. Given Surgutneftegaz's leading role in developing tight oil in West Siberia, the Russian visitors were especially interested in U.S. experience in field management, multi-stage hydraulic fracturing, production optimization and geophysical evaluation of tight oil. OGE partners with the Moscow-based East-West International Institute for Cooperation (MIVZ) and other Russia-based training groups in providing business meetings and trainings in the United States. Future programs are planned during the upcoming OTC in Houston, as well as trips to study the U.S. downstream sector and offshore operations. To learn more, contact OGE publisher Pat Davis Szymczak at or call +7 925 518 4441.

Тhe trip kicked off in Houston, with a visit to GE Oil & Gas. In recent years, GE has been acquiring artificial lift, well automation and production optimization companies, most recently Lufkin Industries, which adds beam pumping, hydraulic lift, gaslift, well automation and downhole sensoring tools to GE's ESP portfolio. Lee Hallock, region leader for Russia and CIS, Artificial Lift, briefed Surgutneftegaz engineers on GE's global strategy in developing its artificial lift business. Hallock's colleague, Cameron Wallace, communications leader – Drilling, delivered a presentation on GE's drilling business. Later, visitors toured GE's blowout preventer manufacturing facility before heading across town to Lufkin Automation in Missouri City, TX.

At Lufkin Automation, the group saw pump controllers, VSDs and other production optimization systems in production. A representative of Zenith Oilfield Technology Ltd. lectured on downhole sensoring devices. The group then traveled to Lufkin International Lift Systems in West Houston.

 A surprise ice storm greeted the visitors as they arrived in the twin cities, Midland-Odessa, the heart of the Permian Basin, 450 miles west of Houston near Texas' border with New Mexico. At 1.3 mbl/d, the Permian is the United States’ most prolific domestic oil basin. Today, nearly all of that crude is from shale. Lufkin Industries played host for two days. Sessions included a Q&A with Paul Treadwell, vice president of Parsley Energy, a leader among the hundreds of independent companies producing in West Texas. Parsley invited the group to inspect one of their well sites. The group also toured a rod pump repair plant of Quinn Oilfield Supply (a Canadian company