American Oil and Gas Reporter - August 2016 - 117

IndustryFocus: Companies, People and Products
New Gradiometry Sensors
Enhance Airborne Surveys
SAN FRANCISCO-Neos Inc. and
Lockheed Martin are building a unique
sensor they say is so advanced it could
find a 33-foot hill buried 3,280 feet below
the earth's surface. Put another way, the
companies say the technology could find
an armored truck full of gold 65 feet below
the surface, solely by sensing the bullion's
impact on the local gravity field.
The new technology, Full Tensor Gradiometry Plus, has 20 times the sensitivity
and 10 times greater bandwidth than current
gravity gradiometers, the partners calculate.
"FTG Plus transforms what we can do
and what we can see from the air," enthuses
Neos Chairman Jonathan Faiman, "Remote
sensing is going to dominate the exploration
market and with this sensor, Neos will
have the most advanced in the world. It
will enable us to image resources cleaner,
quicker and at a lower cost to our customers."
Lockheed Martin reports it is building
the prototype specifically to detect natural
resources from aircraft owned and operated
by Neos, which acquired the FTG Plus
program as part of its acquisition of assets
from CGG SA announced in April. Neos
says the technology has the potential to
change the way governments, energy ministries and exploration teams find resources,
and ultimately lead to faster, more informed
decisions about where to explore, lease
and drill.
For information, visit www.neosgeo.com.
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Caterpillar Oil & Gas says its next-generation operator interface displays for Cat® gas
compression engines use an intuitive color touch screen to show important engine parameters and conditions. The company indicates the displays enable complete engine
setup and tuning, eliminating the need for a computer-based service tool for typical
startups and maintenance. The displays connect to Caterpillar and customer control
systems or SCADA systems through a Modbus interface to enable convenient system interfacing, Caterpillar continues. The company says the ﬁrst display, a 15-inch model for
G3600 A4 engines, will be available in 2016, with others to follow in 2017. For information,
visit www.cat.com/oilandgas.

Ulterra Forms Partnership With American Securities
FORT WORTH-Ulterra Drilling Technologies LP's management team has partnered with American Securities LLC, a
U.S. private equity firm, to acquire the
company from ESCO Corporation.
Ulterra designs and manufactures PDC
drill bits, and says it has succeeded in
growing market share during the downturn.
In fact, it says it has been among the

Service Speeds Action On Offshore Blowouts
HOUSTON-Boots & Coots Services,
a Halliburton business, announces it has
developed the Global Rapid Intervention
Package (GRIP), a suite of services to help
reduce costs and deployment time in response to subsea well control events.
GRIP provides well planning and well
kill capabilities facilitated by the company's
global logistics infrastructure and product
service lines, including an inventory of well
test packages, coiled tubing units and relief
well ranging tools, Boots & Coots says.
In addition, the company continues,
GRIP features the new high temperature,
15,000 psi RapidCap™ air-mobile capping
stack. Sourced from Trendsetter Engineering

Inc., Boots & Coots says RapidCap incorporates a specially designed gate valvebased system, making it significantly lighter,
less expensive, and more mobile than other
options.
RapidCap aims to reduce deployment
time as much as 40 percent compared with
competing systems, Boots & Coots details.
Rather than requiring specialized infrastructure, RapidCap can be air transported
on a Boeing 747-400F and lifted by a 110
ton crane, the company says.
Boots & Coots indicates GRIP and the
RapidCap air-mobile capping stack are expected to be ready for deployment by the
end of 2016.
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fastest growing drill bit companies, and is
now the second-largest PDC company in
the United States. "We have built our
success on empowering great people dedicated to customer satisfaction," states Ulterra President and Chief Executive Officer
John Clunan.
Clunan says the transition to American
Securities is occurring at an attractive time.
"The market is starting to show signs that
the worst is behind us, and we finally are
seeing some stable increases in rig count.
We are focused on delivering continued
growth, and this transition will provide us
the financial support and resources to aggressively accelerate our growth into a
strengthening market."
"Ulterra is another example of our backing talented and hardworking management
teams that have developed differentiated
products," comments Kevin Penn, a managing director of American Securities. "We
have been impressed with the strong corporate culture at Ulterra and look forward
to partnering with Clunan and his colleagues
to leverage their market-leading technology
to further expand the business."
For information, visit www.ulterra.com
or www.american-securities.com.
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AUGUST 2016 117

American Oil and Gas Reporter - August 2016

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