A brace of Brazilian successes

Following the signing in 2000 of a Memorandum of Understanding between Aberdeen City Council's Economic Development Service and its counterparts in the State of Rio de Janeiro to facilitate co-operation between businesses in the two areas and open up local government links, North East oil and gas service businesses are continuing to break into the Brazilian energy market.

One recent success is Aberdeen-based technology company Pisys, which has won a £1.2 million contract to supply an offshore training simulator to be used by the Brazilian oil giant Petrobras.

The simulator will allow the Brazilian company to recreate emergency management situations, including hurricanes, tidal waves and fires, allowing control room staff on its 96 platforms to be trained to deal with a variety of potentially hazardous scenarios.

Co-director of Pisys, Ray Allen said "A simulator like this can provide many different training scenarios, from preparing a rig to face a tropical storm to the prompt response to an explosion."

The flexibility of the Pisys simulator is the result of a unique 'logic engine', developed by the company, which allows the training team to input a variety of scenarios.

"In theory, this simulator could replicate more disasters than you would see in a Hollywood blockbuster," noted Mr Allen.

As well as emergency management training, Petrobras will also use the simulator to recreate scenarios including marine operations, ballast control and mooring handling.

Further details are available at www.pisys.co.uk

Well control instrumentation

Another Aberdeen-based business to have profited from BGI-supported attendance at Brazil Offshore in June 2005 is Electro-Flow Controls Ltd (EFC), which won orders at the show worth $350k for its well control instrumentation products.

The EFC rig upgrade contract awards were also for Petrobras installations, and encompassed hazardous area CCTV systems, bulk tank monitoring and control, choke control panels, manifold pressure monitoring equipment and drilling instrumentation.

Ted Littlechild, EFC Director, commented "It's essential in Brazil that all Petrobras requirements are fully complied with. EFC adds value to client operations by taking an informed and interested involvement with project teams."

Further details are available at www.electroflowcontrols.com