Mar 19, 2013AXON Energy Products has acquired Houston oil and gas production services company Merrick Systems Inc.'s RFID product portfolio of rugged passive low-frequency (LF) tags and related intellectual property, which will now be marketed by the company's subsidiary, AXON Tubular Products. The acquisition includes all of Merrick Systems' RFID-based technology and assets, and enables AXON to provide solutions supporting both LF and ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) RFID technology to RFID end users within the oil and gas industry.
Prior to the acquisition, AXON Tubular Products provided passive EPC Gen 2 UHF RFID tags, readers and software, while Merrick marketed ruggedized 125 kHz passive LF RFID tags for the same market. With the acquisition, AXON Tubular Products intends to offer both LF and UHF passive tags (including Merrick's Diamond LF RFID tag suite), while read data culled from any of the tags can be managed by AXON's A-360 Suite software. AXON is also developing a handheld reader that will enable users to interrogate both UHF and LF tags employed during drilling and well operations.
AXON's parent is HitecVision, an investment firm specializing in businesses serving the oil and gas industry. HitecVision, which is based in Norway and maintains an office in Houston, acquired Merrick Systems last year, and Merrick and AXON are thus under the same ownership. The goal for HitecVision, according to Daniel Pacheco, AXON Tubular Products' president, is to "provide the industry with the best industry-leading RFID technology systems and support by combining the capabilities of both firms." Pacheco declines to describe the terms of the deal.
AXON, also headquartered in Houston, is a global oilfield equipment company specializing in well operation, drilling and pressure products, rig concept and design, and downhole and tubular products, as well as RFID tag products and software management. The company was founded in 2009 to serve the oil and gas industry, and launched its AXON Tubular Products division in 2011, in order to provide drill pipe connectors and RFID product solutions that its customers (operators, drilling contractors and service companies) could utilize to track assets, including those sold by AXON. The firm sells ruggedized RFID tags intended for use on surface, subsea and downhole assets, including drills and pipes. AXON Tubular Products also sells other third-party RFID offerings, including active RFID and sensing tags from Identec Solutions, and a variety of handheld devices, such as Juniper Systems' Mesa Rugged Notepad, used in conjunction with IDBlue's Bluetooth-based wireless high-frequency (HF) or UHF RFID readers.
Merrick Systems also produced ruggedized RFID tags for managing assets in oil and gas operations, but its tags operated in the LF band (see Tough RFID Tag Strikes Oil). LF tags generally are smaller than the UHF versions, but also have a shorter read range. Merrick's Diamond RFID tag suite, designed to survive sustained pressures of up to 30,000 pounds per square inch (PSI) and temperatures of up to 204 degrees Celsius (400 degrees Fahrenheit), can be read through drilling mud, diesel fuels, oils, sea water and cement without degradation to scanning distance and reliability, the company reports. The tags range in size from that of a small button to the approximate size of a bottle cap. Merrick Systems no longer offers RFID products or services, and will instead focus on field operations and production accounting software for the oil and gas industries.
Most drill sites have a need for both LF and UHF tags, Pacheco explains, and AXON thus intends to offer technology to end users using both frequencies in a single asset-tracking system. LF tags are small enough that they can be fitted on small downhole pipes and tools as small as about 2 inches in diameter. On the other hand, UHF tags such as those made by AXON are suited for larger-diameter drill-string components. As a result of the company's Merrick acquisition, AXON's customers will be able to utilize a single handheld or fixed reader to capture data from both types of tags, and then forward that information to the A-360 Suite software via a Wi-Fi connection.
AXON is also designing a fixed reader that can be mounted to drill rigs in order to store and access electronic records of when and how each drill pipe was used, for how long and under what conditions. According to Pacheco, the company is now taking orders for the fixed reader, which is still under development.
At present, Pacheco says, 11 customers are already applying and reading AXON's new product lineup of tags and readers on oilfield equipment, and are using the company's software to manage data from both LF and UHF reads at their drilling sites in the North Sea, South America, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, West Africa and the United States. Of those 11 customers—all of which, he says, are major oil and gas operators—two are proceeding with a permanent installation at their drilling sites, while nine are still testing the solution.
The companies are using handheld readers loaded with AXON's A-360 Suite Microsoft Windows-based Mobile application to read unique tag data. Currently, however, they must use a handheld reader dedicated either to LF or UHF frequencies.
RFID technology is becoming more prominent in asset management for the oil and gas industry, Pacheco reports, in response to new regulations issued by the U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement related to improving the traceability of assets in the oil and gas industry in order to prevent equipment failures. Companies in the oil and gas sector are also more willing to adopt RFID, he notes, due to some of the successful implementations of RFID tags in sustaining the temperatures and pressure of the drilling environment. "I think, a few years ago, there was a fear that RFID was not ready," Pacheco says, adding that the ruggedized tags the company offers are proving otherwise. Because AXON also sells drilling equipment and provides drill site services, its own engineers have enabled the firm to manufacture a tag specifically designed to sustain the conditions unique to oil and gas drilling operations.
Currently, all 11 customers trialing the combination LF-UHF RFID solution are using the A-360 Suite software suite on their own databases. However, AXON also provides the technology on a hosted server, if requested.
In tandem with AXON's acquisition of Merrick Systems' RFID product line, the company has hired Ian Binmore, Merrick's director of drilling operations, to serve as AXON Tubular's VP of RFID products. Binmore has been responsible for all product development at Merrick since 2005. AXON Tubular will continue to sell other RFID products as well, including Identec Solutions' active RFID and sensing tags, Mesa Rugged Notepad and ID Blue readers.
