EXPLORATION • DRILLING • FIELD SERVICES
Knowing the drill
W hen Tristam Horn
encounters an engineering problem, he goes further than most to solve it. In fact, he’s gone as far as
giving up his day job to create a company that manufactures products to solve said engineering problem. Aberdeen-based Deepwater Oil
Tools was set up as a direct result of Horn observing age-old technology- related problems in the drilling sector and not being content with the dubious workarounds commonly used to solve them. Its first product, the SeaCure Cementing system, was launched in 2016 and Horn has several other products in the pipeline. He details the scenario that led to the
birth of this first product by recalling that, “It was a major frustration as a drilling engineer and as an offshore drilling supervisor when on drilling rigs, having to perform additional cemented shoe-track clean-out runs, having to pressure test casing strings after having allowed cement to cure when using inner strings, and most
Louise Smyth meets a former drilling engineer who is encouraging the sector to embrace innovative – and far more efficient – new technology
frustratingly, when trying to cut out these inefficiencies without SeaCure Cementing technology, ending up in dangerous stuck pipe situations. “What I set out to do was develop a simple technique for cementing casings, that made use of existing proven technologies, but in a novel way that allowed for a relatively short product development journey, and to provide a solution to the market in the most efficient time frame possible.”
MAN ON A MISSION With the idea in place, Horn commercialised it at a staggering pace – from idea to final product in just 12 months. But how does the technology actually work? “SeaCure Cementing uses standard ‘off-the-shelf’ cementing float equipment with the appropriate latch-in adaptors, to temporarily connect the float equipment to an inner string,” explains Horn. “We source this equipment from any number of world-class providers to our customer’s request. Te float equipment is all qualified to the highest
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