Roustabout Energy International – 18.09.08
Caledus the oil and gas service sector business that embarked upon the development of new slender well construction technology in 2004 has appointed Carl Hills as SlimWELL® Commercial Manager to head up the global commercialisation of the now ready SlimWELL® systems.
Carl Hills is an experienced business manager with 23 years operational, commercial and project management experience in the upstream oil and gas business. He spent 8 years in the service sector as General Manager of PCE (NOV) a down-hole tool manufacturing division with full sales, engineering and P&L responsibility. Prior to his service sector experience Carl spent 12 years in drilling operations as Drilling Engineer, Drilling Installation Supervisor, and Drilling Operations Engineer, with Shell International. It is the combination of operator and service sector experience that makes Carl an ideal candidate for the commercialisation of a well construction technology.
SlimWELL® is an evolutionary well construction technique developed to reduce the telescoping effect during well construction through the use of flush-jointed close-clearance cased liners. The system is available for use today as SlimWELL® SideTRACK™ to maximise the size of pipe at TD from a planned casing exit that requires 2-3 casing seats to access stranded reserves or small accumulations during in-fill drilling. The system has the potential to increase the recovery of recoverable reserves in mature fields prior to decommissioning. This is clearly a significant issue in the North Sea for 2008 and beyond.
SlimWELL® FullWELL™ implementation will lead to significant well construction cost savings as well as safety and environmental benefits due to the significant reductions in materials consumed and produced during well drilling. It is likely that smaller rigs will be able to drill wells that still maintain an optimum size of tubular at the producing zone but were able to start with a smaller foot-print and smaller diameter surface casings. The oil and gas industry has been calling for slender lean well profiles for some years but can only adopt these techniques once a suitable set of practical solutions are made available for use. Caledus has invested more than Ł4m in development and testing since 2004 to make commercial systems available today. The company has grown from 2 to 40+ staff during period.
