DEPARTMENTS • PERSPECTIVES
Robert van
Kuilenburg, Noble: Innovative
thinking can
push drilling
into new frontiers
BY STEPHEN WHITFIELD,
ASSOCIATE EDITOR
Robert van Kuilenburg is always thinking
about the next frontier, building a career
that has taken him to multiple companies
that prioritize innovative thinking. These
days, as Offshore Improvement Manager
at Noble, he’s thinking not only about
the future of rig designs and equipment,
but also about the future of the industry
itself. He stresses the value of mentorship
for young employees, as well as how the
industry can help to attract and retain
next-generation talent by promoting its
digitalization and automation efforts.
“We’re seeing a lower influx of people
coming into the industry at the same time
experienced people are leaving the indus-
try, and we should be doing something
about it,” he said. “When I was growing
up in The Netherlands, everybody thought
Shell was a good company to work for.
They had many programs for elementary
schools covering a variety of subjects in
a cool way. We lost that somewhere, and
we need to rebuild that positive presence.”
Although Mr van Kuilenburg learned
about the oil and gas industry from an
early age, through an uncle who worked as
a superintendent for Shell, he did not have
an interest in an oil and gas career at first.
He loved the sea, and had developed a love
of building things from his grandfathers,
an art woodworking teacher and an auto
mechanic. In 1990, when he joined the
Delft University of Technology, he decided
to major in mechanical engineering and
minor in naval architecture, a combina-
tion that provided a broad range of career
options. 50
“When people go to university, I really
think they should try to focus on special-
izing in something, get really good at it, but
also keeping your eyes open for something
outside of your field because, sometimes,
it can lead you to something interesting.
I graduated on the topic of AI in condition
monitoring systems, something that was
outside of our industry at the time, and I
never suspected it would grow into what
it is today.”
After graduating in 1996, Mr van
Kuilenburg joined Innas, a Dutch engineer-
ing firm whose clients were often willing
to spend money developing interesting
ideas. This created an ideal job for young
engineers as there were often opportu-
nities to work with some of the latest
technologies available at the time, like 3D
printing and machine learning systems.
In 2001, Mr van Kuilenburg took another
step closer to the oil and gas industry
when he joined Huisman Equipment, first
as a Concept Engineer, helping to concep-
tualize equipment designs, and later as a
Project Engineer, helping to oversee the
manufacturing of the equipment.
Part of his time at the company was
spent in China, working with shipyards to
execute designs for drilling rigs. He was
promoted to VP of Projects in 2012. “To me,
working in foreign countries with teams
comprising of many nationalities is really
a rewarding part of working in our indus-
try. At one time we counted more than 30
nationalities on one of the rigs. Everyone
was treated with respect.”
While at Huisman, Mr van Kuilenburg
came into contact with Hans Deul, then-
Director of Research and Development at
Noble. Mr Deul offered to bring him into
the offshore drilling company in a Senior
Mechanical Engineer role where he would
develop new vessel concepts, review rig
designs and oversee parts of the integra-
tion testing for the rigs that Noble was
building at the Hyundai Heavy Industries
fabrication yard in South Korea. But he
didn’t just hire Mr van Kuilenburg – he
also served as a mentor for him.
“I think it’s important for young people
to find someone in the company who will
be there for you, someone who can guide
you through all the details of being in this
industry. For the older generation, mentor-
ing younger people is one of the best ways
Robert van Kuilenburg, Noble Offshore
Improvement Manager, recently co-led
an ART workgroup to upgrade the long-
standing IADC bit dull grading system.
to keep them in this industry,” he said.
In 2017, Mr van Kuilenburg was pro-
moted to the position of Mechanical
Engineering Manager, where he man-
aged a team of engineers focused on R&D.
Examples of projects his team has under-
taken over the years include the develop-
ment of electrically driven BOPs and the
design/manufacturing of integrated man-
aged pressure drilling equipment. In his
current position as Offshore Improvement
Manager, he “brings together all the differ-
ent aspects of drilling, from mechanical
systems to highly automated processes,
looking at it from a very practical angle.”
Mr van Kuilenburg has also been an
active contributor to IADC, primarily
through the Advanced Rig Technology
(ART) Committee. During his time serving
as ART Chairman in 2019-2020, he helped
to spearhead IADC’s DDR Plus, expand-
ing the daily drilling report’s legacy main
codes and adding subcodes to improve
granularity in rig activity reporting.
More recently, he co-led an ART work-
group to upgrade IADC’s long-standing
bit dull grading system. Among other
things, the project focused on expanding
the categories of bit wear within the grad-
ing system and developing a guideline
to store codes, digital images and other
metadata about drill bits that can be used
for machine learning tools and real-time
data exchange. The new IADC guidelines
are anticipated to be launched later this
year. DC
J U LY/AU G U ST 2023 • D R I L L I N G C O N T R AC T O R