History was repeated at the Oil & Gas Middle East and Refining & Petrochemicals Middle East Awards 2017 on September 12th in Dubai, as Saudi Aramco won the ‘Technical Innovation of the Year’ award for the second consecutive year.
The Saudi energy giant was bestowed the coveted award for its ‘Date Seed-based Sized Particulate LCM and Formation Strengthening Materials’ nomination, which was described by one of the Awards judges as “a clear novel solution to an identified problem. Technical innovations are more impressive when they serve a clear need and impact can be measured, and I felt that was the case on this occasion.”
As per the nomination document, the date seed-based sized particulate product ‘ARC Plug’ was successfully field tested by Aramco. It is the first locally-developed product derived from a local raw material to replace some costly, imported LCM products. Due to its high technical and economic significance, it has been catalogued with a strong recommendation for routine use in oil and gas field drilling operations. The research goal is to promote localisation of product development using local resources to replace some of the oil and gas field products imported from overseas.
Mohammad A. Al-Abdrabbuh, Network/Application Engineer from the Ras Tanura Refinery Engineering Support team, who collecting the award for Aramco, said he was “very proud of the team” that was behind the development of the product.
“I’m pretty sure that the contributions that were put into this work is tremendous. I’m very proud of the team that deserved to win this award. The judges’ comments reflect how clear and innovative the solution is. I congratulate them on winning the award and am very proud of them,” Al-Abdrabbuh said backstage after collecting the trophy on stage.
When asked if he felt confident about Aramco winning the Technical Innovation award this year, he said, “I did feel that yes. There’s been a lot of contribution from Saudi Aramco, and it only shows the dedication that the company has not just for its own industry, but also towards identifying and solving other problems.”
Much like the 2016 Awards, ‘Technical Innovation of the Year’ emerged as the most popular category, receiving about two dozen nominations – mostly from Saudi Aramco. The campaign team therefore had to carefully consider the merits of each entry before finalising a shortlist consisting of seven nominations.
“Any company would want as much technology as possible to make the work of its people more efficient. The goal and vision of Aramco is to remain a leading energy company, and part of that is to have and develop as many technologies as possible. I’m very glad that some of these technologies are being represented at the Awards this year,” Al-Abdrabbuh commented.
Also in the running for the Technical Innovation award this year was AlMansoori Inspection Services/iRobotics for its ‘Unique Coil Tubing Inspection Technology for Enhancing Safety and Operational Performance’. This nomination was chosen as the ‘Highly Commended’ entry.
