Nov 8, 2017   SOURCE: BusinessWire

Terves’ Continued Dissolvable Material Technology Development Receives U.S. Patent Protection

Terves Inc. (“Terves”), continues to aggressively invest in and advance dissolvable (or disintegrating) and other Engineered Response materials technologies supporting improved efficiencies and enhanced recovery in the oil and gas industry. Through licensing and further developing over 30 years of aerospace and defense materials technology from parent company Powdermet Inc, Terves has developed a range of cost- and performance-leading engineered reactive and dissolvable metals and dissolvable polymers (rubber). In addition to expanding manufacturing capacity in the United States and continually investing in new production technologies to reduce costs, Terves has continued to develop new alloys, materials, and supporting technologies that enable revolutionary new tools, completion, and drilling technologies to support subsurface resource development.

In validation of its development efforts Terves received initial allowance for all claims related to its core technology, lower-cost cast and wrought dissolvable or disintegrating magnesium materials (Patent No. US9757796 B2). With this initial validation, Terves is confident that its remaining developments, including advanced processing, higher strength and lower-cost dissolvable metals, dissolvable elastomer (rubber), trigger coatings, erosion and wear resistant dissolvable metal matrix composites, and expandable materials will allow it to further its leadership in this space.

This recently allowed US patent for manufacturing controlled rate dissolving materials grants Terves the sole right to develop, manufacture and sell cast, molded, forged, and extruded dissolvable magnesium materials containing galvanically active insoluble phases. Pending applications and product development efforts also cover heat treatable and eutectic forming alloys, triggerable, time-delay, wear, and acid-resistant coatings, dissolving metal-based tracer and triggered release monitoring and chemical release technology, alloy chemistries for specialized applications such as sealing, and extended temperature and operating ranges among other capabilities.

“We were the first to conceptualize, develop and commercialize this lower-cost cast and wrought dissolvable magnesium technology. Its origins were in extreme performance, nano-engineered magnesium composites developed in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s for missile and defense applications. To allow rapid adoption, new fast machining alloys compatible with much lower-cost cast and wrought metal production processes were developed, leading to rapid adoption and cost reduction of Dissolvable Materials to improve completion efficiencies in the oil and gas industry. The availability of high volume, lower cost ingot metallurgy products beginning 4 years ago has resulted in an order of magnitude reduction in the cost of the technology, and the development of fully dissolving frac plugs and other tools, such that today a majority of service providers in the industry offer and support dissolvable technologies," said Andrew Sherman, CEO, Terves. As a Technology leader, Terves continues to partner with, provide technical support, and supply operators, service companies, and tool designers with the most advanced and cost-effective dissolvable and multifunctional materials available in the industry.

Dissolvable Frac Plugs manufactured with TervAlloy™ dissolvable magnesium alloys can enable longer laterals, accelerate completion times, and simplify completion operations. Multiple studies have shown that dissolvable frac plugs and other tools made using TervAlloy™ can save $100,000’s/well in remote locations by eliminating the need for coiled tubing drill-outs, snubber rigs, and workover rigs. Sherman added, “In today's extended lateral drilling environment, dissolvable plugs and interventionless tools developed using dissolvable and reactive technologies can go beyond coiled tubing reach to increase production, potentially eliminating the need for intermediate casing and liner, reducing water usage, and simplifying operations. Unlike competing dissolvable materials that are manufactured using powder metallurgy and other complex production processes; TervAlloy™ materials are manufactured in the United States using traditional casting and extrusion process leading to the lowest-cost and highest-reliability dissolvable materials in the industry.”

About Terves

Terves is the technology and cost leader in the development, manufacturing and sale of Engineered Response materials for the oil and gas industry. Terves’ Engineered Response materials respond to their environment to “do something specific”, such as dissolve, change dimensions, generate force or heat, destroy chemicals or bacteria, and/or other specific actions based on change in time, temperature, pressure and/or other triggering agents.

Terves is the leading manufacturer of dissolvable metals and dissolvable polymers that are used for making frac balls, plugs, slips, seals and several other components used in oil and gas well completion and production; and have been used for completing tens of thousands of stages in North America, Europe, South America Asia and MENA regions. Terves’ product portfolio also includes highly-engineered specialty proppants, expandable materials, acoustic imaging tools, thermites and structural reactive materials, net-shaped ceramic-metallic (cermet) nanocomposites, and high energy density supercapacitors. Terves is a strong research-based and product-focused organization that works with oil and gas majors, operators, EPC’s and OEM’s to commercialize existing products and develop new compelling products for some of the most critical challenges in oil and gas exploration, production and completion.

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