CRITICAL ISSUES IN DRILLING & COMPLETIONS
Top H&P believes the industry must do
more to excite the next generation of
workers and show them that oil and
gas is a part of the solution for the
future . The industry also must play
up its achievements in sustainability
– for example, how increased drilling
effi ciency has led to reduced well cycles
and less emissions across the board.

Bottom Digital systems will remain a key
focus for H&P , but they will not diminish
the importance of rig crews . This means
upskilling drillers will be important, so
they can spend less time on repetitive
tasks and more time leading on the rig.

spective, and it ultimately provides them
with lower total well costs. If you drill
one well way ahead of the curve but the
next one is a mess, it is hard to plan and
more than likely your overall costs will be
higher in the long run.

Automation and technology also allows
our customers to scale up and down as
they need to. It allows them to combine our
capabilities, our technologies, our remote
operation centers, and so forth, with their
capabilities and other third-party capabili-
ties. They end up having smoother and the
most precise wellbore, and they get fewer
bit trips. You can’t do all these things in
unison without technology.

Technology also plays a big role in
safety, because it allows leaders on the
rig to have more time to lead. In the old
days when you had a driller on the brake
handle, he had to just keep doing that.

Nowadays, they’re in a driller’s cabin with
joysticks, but how do we allow them to
focus on the crews and have time to pre-
job plan, stop and adapt when something
doesn’t look right or the job changes?
It sounds like the driller is still going to
play a significant role even as you
continue to adopt automated sys-
tems onto your rigs.

That’s exactly right. It’s about upskill-
ing them and enhancing their impact. We
want them to have the time to lead. We
want them to develop personnel. The more
we can help them spend less time on the
detailed, repetitive work, the better.

How are personnel challenges differ-
ent in your international markets ver-
sus in North America? What is H&P
doing to ensure that its overseas rig
crews are as competent and as a part
of H&P’s culture as their counterparts
in the US?
We pride ourselves on having a con-
sistent culture and consistent process-
es around the globe, not just in the US.

Whether you’re in Vaca Muerta, Bahrain,
or in West Texas or North Dakota, it looks
and feels the same and the people are
using the same systems and same pro-
cesses to the best of our abilities.

Obviously, there are some variations
depending on certain countries and lan-
guages, but we want those tools to be
applied across the fleet. We want to share
learnings, and we work hard on that.

On your first question, the pandemic is
an example of the personnel challenges
we face in the international space. The
personnel who rotated internationally on
our rigs oftentimes came from different
countries. They couldn’t just hop in their
car and get to the rig from their home. That
forced us to think about, one, how can we
leverage technology and two, how do we
manage our businesses differently when
we have those logistical challenges.

The pandemic was a transformational
event, and it really illustrated the chal-
lenges of operating internationally. We
improved many of our processes.

Can you give some examples of things
that you’re doing now that you hadn’t
before? D R I LLI N G CO N T R ACTO R • JAN UARY/FEB RUARY 2023
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