Silverwell awarded Middle East contract for DIAL gas lift technology

Silverwell has been awarded a multi-million-dollar, multi-well contract with a leading Middle East operator for the deployment of its Digital Intelligent Artificial Lift (DIAL) technology

The programme covers high-production offshore assets, including premium high-rate extended reach drilling (ERD) wells, dual-string completions and auto-gas lift applications.

Optimising gas-lift wells normally requires costly interventions to change valves and collect downhole data. Changing valve settings can mean taking a well offline, replacing the valves and unloading the well, resulting in lost production and high operating costs.

With DIAL, operators can avoid this disruption by adjusting valve settings remotely from the surface, including effective orifice size, in response to changing well conditions. Permanent downhole sensors provide real-time injection rate and temperature data, enabling continuous optimisation without intervention.

The system enables deeper gas injection, higher production rates and lower operating costs, and has proven reliable in high-pressure, acidic environments. DIAL also incorporates Silverwell's Auto-Unloading capability, which automates well start-up and unloading to accelerate production.

"The industry has long treated well intervention as an unavoidable cost of gas lift. It is not," said Darrell Johnson, Chief Executive Officer of Silverwell. "DIAL enables operators to monitor and optimise gas lift performance remotely in real time, boosting production, lowering costs and improving the value of a well over its lifetime."

The award is a strong signal of the growing adoption of all-electric intelligent completions among Middle East operators managing high-rate offshore assets, with offshore exploration and development on the rise in the region, as illustrated by ADNOC's recent US$6.2bn (AED22.6bn) final investment decision (FID) to develop the Umm Shaif Gas Cap in the Umm Shaif and Nasr offshore concession, Kuwait's push to develop three offshore oil and gas fields discovered in 2025 and Aramco' s focus on expanding and maintaining offshore fields with projects such as the Zuluf crude oil increment.