The organisation has been given The Queens Award for Enterprise which recognises innovation coupled with commercial success
Silixa Ltd., a driving force in fibre-powered data solutions, has won the Queen’s Award for Enterprise: Innovation 2021 for the commercialisation of its ground-breaking Carina Sensing System. The system takes the high-density coverage of distributed sensors beyond that which can be achieved by point sensors, redefining the possibility for such systems across the energy, infrastructure, mining, and environmental sectors. This allows actionable insight for the refinement of existing processes and the development of new applications to improve sustainability, reduce costs, and enhance operational safety.
In 2018-20, Silixa reported record compound annual growth of over 40% giving sales of £22.42m in 2020.
Glynn Williams, CEO, Silixa, said, “With the launch of the Carina Sensing System in 2016, we doubled down on our diversification strategy, entering underserved sectors that required accurate monitoring solutions. The remarkable growth resulting from this strategy reflects the benefits that the technology delivers in onshore conventional and unconventional operations and sub-sea oil & gas wells.”
The oil and gas sector is in the midst of a disruptive transition with digitalisation and reduction of environment impact key drivers in oilfield and energy operations. The system is crucial to assist operators in obtaining better data to make more informed decisions. The unmatched performance of the system enables us to deliver significant cost savings by offering seismic applications with significantly reduced costly seismic source effort and operating time without compromising the data quality.
The cost reduction is most prominent in permanent seismic applications. In marine seismic applications, the reduction in costs can exceed $10’s of millions over the life of a field. In in-well applications, a permanently installed fibre optic monitoring system will give access to actionable information throughout the life of an asset. This insight translates as reduced operational costs (OPEX) and the elimination of downtime. For intervention operations, the Carina® 100xLog and Carina® XwellXpress services also bring significant efficiency improvements that amount to $ millions across the hundreds of wells in onshore fields.
Carina® 100xLog is a highly efficient retrievable system that provides real-time displays of data acquired instantaneously along the entire well depth, thereby reducing downtime on typical intervention operations and saves on production deferrals.
Carina XwellXpress, the crosswell low frequency strain and microseismic monitoring service, has been utilised in multiple unconventional plays and has demonstrated clear value leading to improved productivity and reduced completion costs.
The Carina Sensing System, Silixa’s precision engineered distributed fibre optic acoustic sensor (DAS) utilising the family of engineered Constellation™ fibres, provides sensitivity one hundred times greater than that of standard fibres. The higher sensitivity addresses rapidly emerging critical measurement challenges and paves the way for affordable continuous monitoring in Silixa’s markets.
Mahmoud Farhadiroushan, Founder and Executive Director Silixa added, “This is an exciting time for our company, and we are delighted to have received this internationally recognised prestigious award which is a reflection of a great Silixa team effort across all our international operating centres. The Carina Sensing System was developed with support from our investors Chevron Technology Ventures, Lime Rock Partners and Equinor Ventures and has been used by many of the major oil companies. Going forward, we believe that the system’s passive monitoring capabilities will create huge potential across a multitude of emerging sectors and applications.”
The Carina Sensing System is enabling the development of new digital solutions that were previously impossible, helping resolve some of the world’s most significant measurement challenges in the upstream oil & gas sector.
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