About the webinar: A Step Change in Downhole Safety Valve Technology
Across the industry, thousands of wells were shut in due to non-functioning downhole safety valves (DHSVs), while many others operated without a functioning safety barrier. Traditional interventions to restore DHSV functionality carried high costs—averaging £400k per intervention in the North Sea—and delivered limited success, leaving operators with minimal viable alternatives.
TAQA Well Completions introduced the “secure” Intelligent Safety Valve, an autonomous, self-powered, retrofittable solution designed to redefine well-integrity management. Fully API-14A qualified, this advanced safety valve leveraged pre-programmed intelligence to distinguish normal flow conditions from emergency shut-in scenarios, ensuring a reliable safety response. Wireless surface communication enabled daily functional verification, eliminating the risk of undetected DHSV failures.
During the webinar, participants explored how this next-generation technology transformed well-safety operations, reduced intervention costs, and delivered a robust, real-time alternative to traditional safety-valve solutions.
At the end, attendees had the opportunity to ask their questions.
About the speaker
James Boyle is a highly experienced professional with over two decades in advanced downhole completion technology. As the Western Hemisphere Product Champion for TAQA Well Completions’ PulseEight Wireless Intelligent Completion portfolio, he has been instrumental in developing the “secure” Intelligent Safety Valve, a groundbreaking downhole safety technology.
His career includes leadership roles such as Sub-Saharan Africa Product Line Manager at Expro, overseeing wireless well solutions, and extensive global field engineering experience. James holds a BEng in Mechanical Engineering from Heriot-Watt University.
About TAQA (Industrialization & Energy Services Company)
Founded in 2003, TAQA is an international company headquartered in Dhahran and Abu Dhabi that offers leading well solutions for the energy industry and creates value and opportunity for all its stakeholders. With more than 5,500 employees in more than 20 countries, the company serves multiple markets. TAQA offers a complete well solutions portfolio that includes Coiled Tubing and Stimulation, Cementing, Wireline, Fracturing, Directional Drilling, Downhole Tools, Completions, Well Testing, Slickline, Inspection and Safety Services.
TAQA has a heritage of more than 55 years, dating back to the establishment of its first subsidiaries, Arabian Drilling and the Arabian Geophysical and Surveying Company. We operate three centres of excellence for drilling, well completions, and well intervention. TAQA’s business is powered by its employees, products and technology portfolio that is driving R&D and product development for continuous improvements to address our customers’ needs and challenges.
PulseEight
"Our Wireless Intelligent Completion platform is called PulseEight; within this, we have three distinct tools. All three tools have a similar design and appearance and all tools are retrofitted into your existing completion, typically deployed via slickline but E-Line, Coil Tubing could also be used. All of the tools use batteries as their source of power; the longevity of the batteries depends on how often the tool is used and the setting depth temperature. Each tool can be evaluated on its longevity after the enquiry form is completed."
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