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In this introductory chapter, MacKenzie makes his case for the alignment of Badiou’s thinking on art to that of the canonical modernists Eliot, Stevens, and Pound. For Badiou, that thinking has traditionally been anchored in the concept of the void, both the foreclosure and guarantee of coherent thought. Badiou’s more recent writing, however, exhibits a willingness to open and explore the void within his own discourse, a gesture away from his previously strict regime of metaphysics that echoes the aspirations of the modernist writers examined herein. Indeed MacKenzie argues that where Badiou hopes to go, the modernists have already been.

This chapter examines Eliot’s “Tradition and the Individual Talent,” demonstrating how Eliot formulated the role and behavior of what Badiou would term “mastery” in relation to the void. Concretizing Badiou’s notions as presented in “A Poetic Dialectic,” Eliot’s classic essay demonstrates the principles at play in Badiou’s thought, positing and dialectically emptying the notion of the masterful critic. In doing so, Eliot exposes the void of critical discourse, and then incorporates that void back into the discourse itself in order to sustain and further it. “Tradition and the Individual Talent” not only predicts Badiou, but offers a daring example of the key tenets that occupy his thought.

This chapter considers Derrida’s writing on “The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry” alongside Badiou’s invocation of “femininity” from “Drawing: On Wallace Stevens,” suggesting that Badiou’s thought is moving towards more evocative modes of expression in an attempt to escape the constrictions imposed by the void, and the patriarchal patterns of thought that would necessitate it.

Beginning with Badiou’s enigmatic essay, “Drawing: On Wallace Stevens,” MacKenzie argues that Badiou uses Stevens’s poetry as an explanatory device to affect a leap forward in his thinking. Emphasizing an obscure artistic practice referred to throughout that essay as “drawing,” Badiou uses a series of dialectics to push away from traditionally metaphysical aesthetics, seeking to collapse the void into an ineffable act. Identifying the similarities Badiou identifies between “drawing” and Chinese brushwork, MacKenzie suggests that the new direction Badiou seeks for his thought is one that has already been explored by Ezra Pound.

Examining Badiou’s essay “A Poetic Dialectic: Labid ben Rabi’a and Mallarme,” MacKenzie demonstrates the principles of Badiou’s thought and the stakes of modernity in relationship to the void using the triplet of “master,” “place,” and “truth.” For Badiou, the master provides truth for a community that would place itself as subservient to him. Modernity then arises with the recognition of the absence or failure of the master and the eruption of a void of contingency that undermines truth and annihilates determinate place. In order to escape a resultant nihilism, Badiou suggests that the void itself be taken as truth, and folded back into thought as the place upon which all action may occur.

MacKenzie believes that Badiou’s relegation of the void to an ineffable act of drawing ignores the attempts of Ezra Pound and Ernest Fenollosa in “The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry” to posit a radical interpretation of the word as a drawing with their conception of the ideogram. And yet the implications of such a graphic language work to collapse the metaphysics that would require a void in the first place. In effect realizing Badiou’s obscure proscription of a description-without-place, the ideogram is a fantastical hallucination that takes Badiou’s thought past the breaking point, weaving art and language into a living figure that comes into being through the act of its own inscription.

The real is perhaps the most ambiguous term in critical discourse, and has come to represent a host of investigations into the limit of language as an expressive vehicle in the face of an immaculate silence. As presented in McCarthy's novel, the real in fact works beyond such theological understandings to move through and past Lacanian models and into aesthetic theories of truth and the nature of the artwork. The writings of Alain Badiou allow us to grasp more concretely the deployment of the real in The Crossing, specifically Badiou's understanding of the dialectic in the manufacture of meaning and the role of the poetic enunciation in relationship to the revelation of truth. A close reading of the key structuring element of The Crossing, the Mexican folksong of the corrido, reveals how an artistic act can create the world in which it is performed, and how the resulting work of art may be the only thing, in the end, that can be called real.

Summary This paper discusses the principle and proof of concept of a novel corrosion-management tool based on maintaining optimum corrosion-inhibitor dose in an inhibited environment. Film-forming corrosion inhibitors typically contain active ionic surfactant molecules, which adsorb on surfaces and form a protective barrier against corrosion. Upon saturation of surfaces by the inhibitor, the molecules are found in the aqueous phase as micelles or in the oil phase as reverse micelles. The proposed technique is based on the hypothesis that the presence of these micelles in the water phase could be used to indicate the total surface coverage and, therefore, the optimum dose. The technique has been applied in the laboratory simulating an actual inhibited multiphase production system. Fluorescent markers, which are extremely sensitive to micelle presence, have been developed and used during the laboratory testing. Results were compared with those from standard laboratory techniques, including interfacial tension (IFT) and particle-size analyses (diffraction), in order to determine the efficacy for micelle detection. Corrosion bubble tests were also used to determine any link to inhibitor efficiency. IFT results showed complex events occurring with increasing inhibitor concentration. The IFT vs. inhibitor concentration curve was nonclassical, probably because of the multicomponent nature of inhibitor formulations, but suggested micelle formation at approximately 150 ppm. Fluorescence analysis suggested that micelles formed starting at a 150-ppm dose. Particle-size analysis was consistent with micelle presence beyond this concentration. Separate experiments comparing fluorescence with corrosion rates demonstrated an apparent nonlinear variance with inhibitor concentration, supporting the hypothesis. The analytical comparisons supported the underlying principles of this micelle-detection technology. Development of a portable device is under way and will provide an important new tool for proactive corrosion management in the oil field as well as a useful laboratory qualification method.

This paper builds on the evidence for the optimum dose of organic film-forming corrosion inhibitor (FCCI) being at the critical micelle concentration (CMC) of the surfactant components, and the concept of micelle detection as a tool for understanding the effectiveness of the inhibitor dose in the field, which has been presented previously. It extends the underlying principles from laboratory testing, to the rapid analysis of field fluids and explores the different results available from alternative instrumentation. An inhibitor optimisation trial was undertaken on an offshore oil production platform for protection of a subsea pipeline used to tie back wells 10 miles from the platform. Two micelle detection devices were used, both primarily using fluorescence detection – a simple handheld device for offshore testing and a more complex device used for testing shipped samples in an onshore lab. Electrochemical corrosion monitoring was also used to analyse the produced fluids as the inhibitor dose was varied from zero to 200% of the estimated optimum dose. Results were clouded by a number of operational issues outside the control of the experiment but interpretation of the whole suggested that the offshore portable micelle analysis was overcome by large quantities of dispersed oil which masked the optical process. However the onshore testing gave some promising results, demonstrating a correlation between increased micelle levels and high inhibitor dose and suggesting that the original dose was sub-optimal. These experiments supported the need to use the more complex instrument to be able to detect micelles in very impure systems. Making and testing such a device suitable for field operations is now a priority.

On first consideration it may not be immediately apparent that biological detection methods could be applied to oilfield fluid analysis; however there are strong analogies between the two. Like produced fluids, biological fluids such as blood are also complex multiphase liquids with solid components. Decades of research in healthcare has provided technologies which provide fast and accurate detection to ppm concentrations or below of a wealth of species present in bodily fluids. Many such techniques have been made simple and portable for home care formats. This paper will describe a range of detection techniques inspired by the life sciences being applied to the analysis of chemical additives in oilfield fluids, with particular focus on thermodynamic hydrate inhibitors and polymeric treatment chemicals.Colourimetric detection reagents have been developed for the analysis of methanol and monoethylene glycol (MEG) in produced fluids and the method has been qualified with real fluids using inexpensive equipment that is simple to operate. Also, novel chemical tags have been tested for use with polymeric treatment chemicals, with highly selective detection being provided by complementary detection reagents. The results show precise and robust detection of methanol and MEG (down to 1 part per million (ppm)) in produced fluids and comparison with gas chromatography (GC) is discussed. Results of a chemical tagging study are also presented and discussed in terms of tagging strategies, simplicity of detection method (using inexpensive handheld equipment) and the detection sensitivity (down to parts per billion (ppb)) of the tags in the presence of oilfield fluids.These methodologies demonstrate the promise of applying life science inspired technologies to the accurate, on-site measurement of chemicals which are difficult to detect using other, less simple methods. These technologies offer significant benefits to the production chemist due to the knowledge gleaned and the reduction in time to result.

This paper discusses the principle and proof of concept of a novel corrosion management tool based on maintaining optimum corrosion inhibitor dose in an inhibited environment. Film-forming corrosion inhibitors typically contain active ionic surfactant molecules which adsorb on surfaces and form a protective barrier against corrosion. Upon saturation of surfaces by the inhibitor, the molecules are found in the aqueous phase as micelles or in the oil phase as reverse micelles. The proposed technique is based on the hypothesis that the presence of these micelles in the water phase could be used to indicate the total surface coverage and therefore the optimum dose. The technique has been applied in the laboratory simulating an actual inhibited multiphase production system. Fluorescent markers, that are extremely sensitive to micelle presence, have been developed and used during the lab testing. Results were compared to standard laboratory techniques, including interfacial tension (IFT) and particle size analyses (diffraction) in order to determine the efficacy for micelle detection. Corrosion bubble tests were also used to determine any link to inhibitor efficiency. IFT results showed complex events occurring with increasing inhibitor concentration. The IFT vs. inhibitor concentration curve was non-classical, but suggested micelle formation at around 150ppm. Fluorescence analysis suggested that micelles formed starting at 150ppm dose. Particle size analysis was consistent with micelle presence beyond this concentration. The analytical comparisons supported the underlying principles of this micelle detection technology. Further development is required to demonstrate the real-time link with corrosion protection, but other studies have already confirmed such correlation. Development of a portable device is underway and will provide an important new tool for proactive corrosion management in the oilfield, as well as a useful laboratory qualification method.

Oilfield produced fluids are complex mixtures with hydrophobic, hydrophilic and solid entities: as such, sensitive and specific analysis is a challenge, particularly in the field. Biological systems are also complex and can be difficult to analyse. Inspiration can be taken from biological systems to solve detection problems for oilfield produced fluids. For example, by exploiting nature's highly specific chemical recognition systems, analysis of these mixtures can be simplified. We have conducted a study to investigate whether biochemical concepts such as the use of lipophilic and hydrophilic markers, bioassays and small biomolecular tags can be applied to the analysis of oilfield additives. Currently pursued applications of these concepts include oil in water or water in oil monitoring; analysis of methanol in crude oil and produced water; non-radioactive tracers for characterization and monitoring of oilfield fluids; tagging difficult to detect polymers such as sulfonated scale inhibitors and monitoring treatment chemicals (e.g. minimum inhibitor concentrations). Our study tested these concepts and found that a marker could be used to detect the presence of dispersed oil in produced water at concentrations less than 5 (parts per million) ppm. We also found that a bioassay could be used to analyse crude oil for the presence of methanol, with a limit of detection (LOD) of 1 ppm. A biomolecule was also investigated for its suitability as a "tag" for scale inhibitors. The tagged inhibitor could be detected to 1 ppm and detection was resilient to various field conditions such as in produced water and the presence of crude oil. This study shows that biochemistry concepts and techniques can be used to analyse oilfield chemicals. Advantages of biochemistry-based techniques include the use of simple spectrophotometric measurements, often using inexpensive equipment, and the absence of complicated separation procedures. Furthermore, since the analysis methods involve addition of reagent to samples, background readings can be taken beforehand to remove potential interferences. The assays therefore involve ‘latent detection’. These attributes lend themselves to the development of simple, highly sensitive, quick detection assays that can be used on-site; providing near real-time information to Operators and allowing them to make timely, informed decisions, especially where time is critical and delays in instigating treatment regimes risk well closure and loss of revenue. Monitoring of oil, produced water and chemical additives is essential for flow assurance and maintaining regulatory compliance. The ability to analyse these fluids on-site, quickly and frequently, enables Operators to detect flow assurance, asset integrity and process problems early enabling them to take preventative action to minimize the risks of production loss. Operators also need to ensure that they are meeting environmental regulations and crude quality standards set out by refineries, otherwise they risk fines or discounts. However, the inherently multifarious nature of crude, with its hydrophilic, hydrophobic and solid components, complicates and poses significant challenges to the detection and monitoring of the diverse range of chemical species present, often resulting in Operators waiting days or weeks for results.