CRITICAL ISSUES IN DRILLING & COMPLETIONS
Every sales pitch says, “plug and play
and walk away.” That’s great, but we then
have to be able to ensure we can quickly
develop competency among our drillers
to use that equipment. You can’t expect
the drillers to run everybody’s equipment,
and that seems to be the expectation right
now. We’re putting the driller into sensory
overload. The goal with automation is to create
a more consistent outcome, but if we are
creating task saturation, then we’ll actu-
ally create the opposite outcome.
Citadel offers fully automated man-
aged pressure drilling (MPD) systems
through your subsidiary, Opla Energy.
What value do you think MPD will pro-
vide for the industry in the near-term
future? I look at MPD in two specific categories,
and they’re opposite of each other. One
is kick control and one is performance-
based. On the kick control side, this is a
cautionary equipment measure to just take
on flow when we don’t want it to happen.
This is a very large slice of the business
out there today. The future of MPD, to me,
is performance-based, and I don’t even
know if you call it managed pressure any-
more. It’s a performance-based business
that leverages managed pressure drilling
techniques. I see these as two completely sepa-
rate business segments. One is merely a
flow control device that is utilized when
problems are encountered. The other is a
sophisticated combination of equipment,
software and behind-the-scenes engineer-
ing that has a primary focus on well
optimization and performance. With per-
formance-based MPD, the goal is increased
ROP, decreased fluid losses, decreased fluid
costs, improved hole stability, and repeat-
ability from well to well.
We’re moving toward a greater adoption
rate of this equipment and, as the opera-
tors learn more about it, they’re going to
see the need for this to evolve their well-
bore delivery programs in a more efficient
manner, as well.
The industry has seen a lot more focus
on reducing rigs’ carbon emissions in
recent years. What is your view on this,
and has the energy transition had any
impact on Citadel’s business?
It’s had a very big impact. Being a pri-
vate company, we have private sharehold-
ers. Private equity sponsorship is depen-
dent on competing for capital, and that
capital comes from global sources, which
demand you invest in an aligned sustain-
ability approach. If you don’t do that, you’re
not going to have access to that capital.
Access to capital, combined with it being
the right thing to do, is why sustainability
is a big part of our business.
The trend of operator consolidation is
also going to impact us. One example is
Oxy’s acquisition of CrownQuest (a sub-
sidiary of CrownRock) in December. While
both companies have been focused on
environmental performance and sustain-
ability efforts, you now have two compa-
nies coming together under one entity and
an even higher expectation on sustain-
ability due to the public lens and nature of
such a large deal.
As a drilling contractor, we have to
take these types of consolidations into
account and create that focus on sustain-
ability. This goes back to what I said about
maintaining the super-spec rig, including
investing in dual-fuel engines. If you don’t
have them, you’re out, or you’re going to
have to buy them. That’s going to be a
price tag to entry. By our calculation, we
saw a 54% reduction in CO 2 generated per
foot drilled by utilizing dual fuel compared
with diesel engines from 2019 to 2022.
While we have had all engines with dual-
fuel capabilities on all of our rigs from day
one, we are now reaping the benefits of
this decision.
Speed is another tool we have. For a
drilling contractor, continuous improve-
ment on ROP is going to be important.
That goes back to my point about having
the best equipment that’s going to drill the
fastest, and having the best people who are
going to drill the fastest.
By reducing the time to drill per well,
we may be generating the same emissions
over the course of a fully utilized year, but
we create more wells. If we increase the
level of performance, we also increase our
sustainability. The end result is a higher
well production count per emissions out-
put year over year.
The young workers coming up have
placed an increased value on sus-
tainability. How do you reach out to
people who have serious concerns
about the industry’s role in climate
change? I have those concerns. I had those 30
years ago. Honestly, I think the best con-
duit to change is not to fight that system,
but to join that system and become a part
of the improvement from within. We need
this energy, and this energy is going to be
produced regardless of who does it.
My pitch to the young people is, if you
have a moral connection to this and you
want to improve it, the best place to do it is
inside these companies. Become a drilling
engineer that has the focus on creating the
lowest carbon footprint per well possible.
Become a superintendent in a drilling con-
tractor company and ensure the moral
performance of that company. That can
only happen from the inside.
What are your main concerns around
rig safety right now?
To me, it’s the level of care. I’ll go back
30 years to the early parts of my career.
Where did we get our roughnecks from
then? Well, they were brothers and cous-
ins, they were from the family two farms
over, they were a best friend of somebody
that they knew. We didn’t have formalized
HR departments. A lot of times, the drill-
ers and rig managers were responsible
for staffing their own rigs. You invested
your time in this person to keep them safe
because you had a moral obligation to
them, their family and your family.
To me, that’s still the primary way for
us to impact safety around a rig. It is a per-
sonal target. It is a personal goal. It is about
people. We can add on all the wearable
technology, and we can have the comput-
er-generated training programs, but those
are all just tools to assist. Creating safety
is just a deep amount of caring for people,
and that has to be a cultural achievement
of your company. To me, that’s where the
industry has failed the most, and that’s
where the industry could increase our per-
formance to the greatest degree. We’ve got
to continue to care for each other at a level
like we’re related. DC
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