Aberdeenshire-based ThinJack has just made an investment of nearly $500,000 in new equipment and inventory for its revolutionary ThinJack systems to meet rapidly growing demand for its specialist flange separation service.

ThinJack is a millimetric thin steel envelope which can be inflated with 2,500 bar of hydraulic pressure to exert hundreds of tonnes of force, making it the ideal separating and jacking solution in hazardous, difficult or restricted areas.

The bespoke service is primarily used for the rigless separation of seized well flanges and it can also be used to remove concrete weight coat from pipelines.

The company is headed by Guy Bromby and Alastair MacDonald and is based at Arnhall Business Park, Westhill. ThinJack employs five people at Westhill with additional trained field technicians at its overseas bases at Melbourne in Australia, Al Khobar in Saudi Arabia, Houston in Texas and Luling in Louisiana, USA.

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The new inventory includes short sets of ThinJacks in generic sizes to meet the most common specifications of seized API6A flanges on offshore well and Christmas tree flanges. Where a flange is seized and time does not allow for a ThinJack pre-workover engineering survey, the new off-the-shelf service will ensure that seized flanges can still be separated in a matter of hours.

The new service is available on a rental basis and products are charged only when used. The most cost effective procurement process for ThinJack service remains a pre-workover engineering survey to determine and manufacture in advance ThinJacks of the optimum configuration for specific flanges and to dovetail with workover schedules.

The short set rental facility addresses the operator’s need to minimise risk and uncertain capex spend but still ensures fast access to the necessary ThinJack solution if it is needed. The short set ThinJack service is also available from the company’s US Gulf of Mexico bases.

ThinJack director Alastair MacDonald said: "This is a major investment for a company of our size but we have received a tremendous response internationally to our unique cost-saving ThinJack service, and we are excited about the further growth that this investment will bring.

"The industry is always under pressure to increase productivity whether from enhanced oil recovery programmes or by workovers on the older producing wells and drilling through limited existing platform well slots, where flanges need removal and are often seized. ThinJack plays a significant role in reducing time and cost by the fast and safe separation of seized flanges compared with traditional methods."

Alastair added: "With this investment in new systems we can reduce the time delay caused by seized flanges even further, and assist operators’ in getting their wells producing much earlier."

(GK)