Patterson-UTI agrees to acquire drill bit provider Ulterra
Patterson-UTI Energy has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Ulterra Drilling Technologies, a global provider of specialized drill bit solutions, for consideration of $370 million of cash and 34.9 million shares of Patterson-UTI common stock. The transaction is expected to close in Q3 2023, and the Ulterra business will continue to operate under the name Ulterra.
Founded in 2005, Ulterra designs, manufactures, sells and rents PDC drill bits. The company operates in the most active basins in the US and Canada.
“Both Patterson-UTI and Ulterra share a culture of innovation and a focus on superior service quality, building deep and highly collaborative relationships with customers. Ulterra’s industry leading position in the North American PDC drill bit market will expand our operational and technology portfolio and strengthen our position as a leading drilling and completions company. The addition of Ulterra to our drilling offering and our recent announcement to merge with NexTier Oilfield Solutions advances our strategy to enhance our positions in both drilling and completions, areas where Patterson-UTI has a strong 45-year history of operations and innovation,” said Andy Hendricks, Patterson-UTI CEO.
“Ulterra’s growing Middle East presence will broaden our geographic footprint and provide strong relationships with key customers in this international market. Additionally, Ulterra’s data-centric approach to manufacturing, operations, and marketing has been key to their success in the PDC drill bit business. Their proprietary BitHub data platform is complementary to our PTEN+ data platform and will further expand our comprehensive data analytics capabilities from the drill bit to the well completion. When you consider the combination of data systems from Patterson-UTI, NexTier and Ulterra, we believe we will have the most comprehensive set of data for drilling and completions across the United States, which through our analytics capabilities can allow us to better support our customers’ objectives to improve well productivity,” said Mike Holcomb, Patterson-UTI COO.
“Along with our team at Ulterra, I am excited to join the team at Patterson-UTI and look forward to all of the technical collaboration possibilities we will have going forward together. Our data-driven approach to industry-leading drill bit engineering and innovation, along with strong customer relationships, aligns well with Patterson-UTI’s engineering and operational success. We are excited about the potential to add our leading drill bit technologies to Patterson-UTI’s portfolio of drilling rigs, directional drilling services, controls automation and well placement technologies to better support our customers’ efforts to drill better wells,” said John Clunan, President and CEO of Ulterra.
