DRILLBITS
Monthly eNewsletter from the IADC

In the most recent edition of eNews, Drilling Contractor magazine published an article and a series of video interviews from the 2022 Annual General Meeting held in New Orleans, Louisiana in early November.

Flexibility needed for drillers to build, maintain relationships with young workers

Building and maintaining the workforce of the future is one of the key challenges for the drilling industry moving forward. In order to retain young workers in the oilfield, companies must better understand the things that motivate them and build that into their approach to training. Speaking at the 2022 IADC Annual General Meeting in New Orleans, La., on 3 November, Kenny Baker, Drilling Superintendent at Cactus Drilling, said that this is not a one-size-fits-all approach. In this interview with DC, Baker speaks about the importance of flexibility in building relationships with young oilfield workers, as well as the critical skillsets that can help young workers succeed on the rig.

ConocoPhillips’ David Forbes: Technology, collaborative culture critical to driving performance improvement at wellsite

While the oil and gas industry is getting better at leveraging automated systems to reach faster drilling speeds and longer well depths, step changes in performance will not be possible without effective collaboration, according to David Forbes, General Manager, Global Wells at ConocoPhillips. Companies must do more to foster collaborative cultures, both among their own personnel and with other stakeholders, in order to drive the improvements needed to keep the industry growing into the future.

Wicklund: Oil and gas expected to maintain dominant share of global energy mix despite renewables push

Even as governments push for greater renewable energy production on the road to a low-emissions future, oil and gas remains as the primary force in the global energy mix, and oil and gas demand should increase over the next few years, said Jim Wicklund of Wickland & Associates. Among other things, European energy security concerns in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have countries looking to boost imports from other parts of the world.

Wicklund said the U.S., in particular, is well suited to make up the post-Ukraine global supply shortfall through LNG exports, but a few hurdles remain to help producers realize that potential. In this interview with DC from the 2022 IADC Annual General Meeting in New Orleans, La. on 4 November, Wicklund speaks about how oil and gas fits into the future energy mix, as well as the reasons why natural gas pipeline approvals will be a critical issue for U.S.-based producers in the immediate future.

Energy insurance market defined by uncertainty, geopolitical risks

Geopolitical events, regulatory pressures and net-zero ambitions have created a challenging insurance market for the oil and gas sector. With rising insurance premiums and a generally lower risk appetite from carriers, it will become harder for companies to obtain cost-efficient insurance coverage, said Matthew Begnaud, U.S. Upstream Energy Leader at Marsh Specialty. In this video with DC from the 2022 IADC Annual General Meeting in New Orleans, La., on 3 November, Begnaud looks at the state of the energy insurance market, including an examination of how the market has responded to sanctions against Russia. Begnaud also discusses why cybersecurity risk could pose a particular challenge to the energy insurance market in the near-term future.