News Cuttings

Hendricks named 2021 IADC Contractor of the Year

William Andrew “Andy” Hendricks, President and CEO of Patterson-UTI, was named IADC 2021 Contractor of the Year in November. The annual award, which was established in 1988 to recognize an individual drilling contractor’s outstanding lifetime achievement in technical innovation, safety and economic efficiency within the drilling industry, is the only industry award reserved exclusively for drilling contractors.

Mr Hendricks, who served as IADC Chairman in 2017, was appointed to his current position at Patterson-UTI in October 2012 after a five-month stint as the company’s COO.

Prior to that, he worked for Schlumberger in a variety of leadership positions, including as President of Schlumberger Drilling and Measurements from May 2010 to March 2012. He joined Schlumberger in 1988 after working for Ocean Drilling and Exploration Company (now Diamond Offshore). He graduated with a Bachelor of Science in petroleum engineering from Texas A&M University in 1987.

In his acceptance speech at the 2021 IADC Annual General Meeting in Dallas on 5 November, Mr Hendricks sounded an optimistic note about the drilling industry’s immediate future.

“There were a lot of predictions when we went through the COVID downturn that the demand wouldn’t recover to where it was before, but it certainly has,” Mr Hendricks said. “My prediction is, over the near term, we’re all going to be very busy. The fundamentals are set up that way.”

Smith, Ibrahim receive IADC Exemplary Service Awards at Annual General Meeting

Randy Smith and Linda Ibrahim each received IADC Exemplary Service Awards on 4 November at the 2021 IADC Annual General Meeting, held in Dallas, Texas. The award recognizes an individual’s outstanding contributions to the drilling industry and to IADC. Mr Smith is Founder of Smith Mason & Co., and Ms Ibrahim serves as Chief Accounting Officer and VP Tax at Vantage Drilling.

Mr Smith began his career on workover rigs in Natchez, Miss., and on pipeline jobs for both land and offshore Gulf of Mexico (GOM). He then worked for four years in Iran with SEDCO on land rigs as a roughneck, derrick hand, assistant driller and driller.

Mr Smith then moved on to a role as Personnel Coordinator for West Africa with SEDCO for two years, then to a role teaching well control for the company on North Sea offshore rigs. In 1986, he started Randy Smith Training Solutions, teaching well control, stuck pipe prevention, drilling technology and safety leadership in more than 40 countries until 2008. He founded Smith Mason & Co in 2014. Mr Smith has participated in countless IADC conferences as a speaker and as a member of program committees.

Ms Ibrahim has more than 24 years of experience. She joined Vantage Drilling in 2010, having previously worked at Pride International and PricewaterhouseCoopers. As part of her responsibilities at Vantage Drilling, she manages a team of professionals, ensures timely, accurate financial statement preparation and develops the company’s tax strategy around the world.

Ms Ibrahim has been active with IADC for most of her career. She chaired the IADC Tax Committee for three years before stepping down in June 2021. She is also a member of the Board of Directors for two nonprofit organizations, Lean In Energy and Ovarcome.

IADC subsea competency assessment program certifies first applicant

IADC recently certified the first applicant to attempt the new Subsea Competency Assessment Program (SCA). The first person to mark the achievement is Maersk Drilling’s Cameron Walker. Based in Australia, Mr Walker has been in subsea operations for the past 15 years.

The SCA program was designed to assess and verify knowledge and skills for subsea technicians. The industry-defined requirements, guidelines and recommendations provide a clear pathway for credentialing subsea technicians.

The goal of the program is to credential qualified personnel who have a position-specific comprehension of concepts and who have demonstrated effective skills on the job site.

Working together with operators, drilling contractors and professional trainers, IADC members developed quality benchmarks to ensure that individuals in the position of Subsea Technician adhere to a core standard of knowledge and skills developed by industry.

The program’s objectives are:

To develop a job-specific knowledge and skill competency profile applicable worldwide for credentialing subsea technicians;

To provide guidelines and criteria for achieving the credential to ensure individual assessment criteria are consistent; and

To provide a formal system of industry credentialing that demonstrates the methodology for measuring individual proficiency to a prescribed minimum standard in the job skills identified.

IADC launches Energy Efficiency Subcommittee

With energy efficiency recognized as a key component of the industry’s low-carbon efforts, the IADC Advanced Rig Technology (ART) Committee has established an Energy Efficiency Subcommittee. The group aims to foster alignment among industry stakeholders on the technologies and behaviors that can help shepherd the industry into a low-carbon future. Click here to watch DC’s video interview with Konstantin Puskarskij, Head of Technical, International Division at Maersk Drilling and Co-Chair of the ART Energy Efficiency Subcommittee, to learn more.

Unconventional well control concepts added to IADC’s WellSharp

IADC announced the inclusion of unconventional well control concepts into WellSharp Driller and Supervisor level courses and assessments on 3 January. It remains a focus of IADC to continuously monitor industry need and ensure industry’s training meets that need in a changing environment.

The new supplementary material to the WellSharp Driller and Supervisor courses focuses on implementation and mastery of well control practices and how they relate to now mainstream modern-day drilling techniques (e.g., pill placements and RCD functionality). It also includes additional awareness training of those drilling concepts in general (e.g., MPD).

A work group of subject matter experts made up of drilling contractors and operators worked to revise the WellSharp curriculum and assessments.

UL-Lafayette students complete IADC WellSharp certification

In December, University of Louisiana-Lafayette (UL-Lafayette) petroleum engineering students completed their IADC WellSharp certification for the 2021 fall semester. The class averaged 86% on the certification exam, well above IADC’s minimum passing requirement of 75%.

The WellSharp accreditation program provides well control training standards for the global drilling industry, emphasizing rigorous training for every person with well control responsibilities. WellSharp provides trainees with in-depth knowledge and well-honed, role-specific skills.