EXPLORATION • DRILLING • FIELD SERVICES
conservative when it comes to technology, preferring to stick with established solutions – whose downsides are at least a known quantity – than invest in newer, less proven ideas. Horn is therefore becoming quite the expert in presenting at conferences and conducting online marketing to carefully introduce his new concept. However, as with most new products that do exactly what they claim, once people can actually see them in the field, any initial scepticism soon fades. Horn reveals that his company has recently worked with a major oil & gas operator in the Gulf of Guinea in over 2,800m of water, cementing West Africa’s deepest surface casing string below mudline. “Trough the use of Deepwater Oil Tools’ service, a new ‘best in basin’ drilling record was set for the region for that well,” he says, proudly.
WHAT’S NEXT? As well as more work on the SeaCure front, Horn is also focusing on his next launch, a product that he says is well ahead of the expected timeline of its development. “Te ArticuLock product opens up weather windows for installing subsea equipment in harsh environments such as the North Sea, Canada or South Africa. ArticuLock is a joint industry project between Scottish Enterprise, the newly formed Oil & Gas Technology Centre and Deepwater Oil Tools. Te prototype that will be used to qualify the design to rigorous industry standards has been manufactured and is currently undergoing extensive testing,” Horn reveals. “We are in discussions with major oil & gas operators that have applications throughout the rest of 2017 and into
SeaCure reduces the risk of developing micro-annuli in the cement
“We need to avoid the blinkered view that new technology is a race of the operators to become the second users”
FUNDING INNOVATION P
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2018 where we hope to help them install subsea equipment more efficiently.” Deepwater Oil Tools’ tagline is
roof that others regard Horn’s ideas as sound can be found in the fact his company was awarded £40,000 of funding at a live business pitching event held by ScottishEDGE, a £1.27 million fund that aims to support and encourage
entrepreneurial activity within Scotland. Deepwater Oil Tools was one of 15 start-ups that were chosen to receive funding from an original list of 239. Horn applied for the ScottishEDGE funding to help build a business development team to assist with client engagement and support the numerous service enquiries he is receiving from drilling operators. l
“Optimising drilling rig efficiency through intelligent well design”. As well as adopting solutions such as SeaCure and ArticuLock, what else does Horn believe the drilling industry should be doing to create truly intelligent well designs? “We are seeing more and more operators opening up to new technology, and there is so much amazing development going on in our industry that will contribute to intelligent well design,” he states. “What we now need is to maintain a broad and open mind toward new technology, perform conscientious risk assessment of new applications, and try to avoid the blinkered view that new technology is a race of the operators to become the second users.” l
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