DELTATEK GLOBAL: Pioneering Advances in Drilling Technology

Cost pressure is one of the major issues facing offshore drilling companies today. Simply, fallout from the pandemic combined with global economic conditions, oil price volatility, and diminishing demand alongside excess supply has created a situation where drillers are now forced to squeeze more value from every activity to ensure margins and profitability.

Of course, the devil is in the detail. Efficiency is not about complete overhaul of drilling rigs or total abandonment of hydrocarbons. It is about seemingly small adjustments that result in big improvements and savings – but with safety and productivity as primary concerns.

Tristam Horn, Founder and CEO of DeltaTek Global – a former drilling engineer and wellsite leader – knows only too well of the challenges faced in harsh offshore conditions, and he turned his understanding of the small things into a big entrepreneurial idea when he set up his company in 2015.

Innovators in the ultimate cement solutions, DeltaTek Global has a deep understanding of the inner workings of below-the-seabed mechanics, specifically around well casing, drill strings, and placement of cement that supports the whole system.

Fuelled by negativity of previous downturns, Horn has always been frustrated by lacking efficiencies in the drilling process. His idea was to set up a company that could deliver new ideas for lining well casings with cement, optimising developments to be stronger, faster, and safer but with cost efficiency.

“In 2015” he begins, “we had a significant downturn in the oil and gas industry and everyone was talking about cost efficiency, optimisation and new ways of working. I felt compelled to get out there and try and solve some of those challenges. DeltaTek was born and I started the journey, trying to address challenges of drilling out previously cemented casing strings and other issues in that part of the well construction process. Trying to get cement set up in cold environments was a massive challenge. Pressure testing reliability of casing strings was a major challenge. I wanted to solve problems, deliver wells cheaper, more reliably, and ultimately make the well construction process more efficient so that we have a more sustainable future.”

The company’s first three years were about innovation, invention, and ambition – heavily testing products and ideas to ensure quality. DeltaTek raised funds, developed IP and built a brand. Confident in its initial offering, the company went to market commercially in 2018 and has never looked back.

50 DEPLOYMENTS

Today, a large and proven product portfolio is distributed to customers around the globe. Key in the range is SeaCure, a revolutionary subsea system that delivers stabbed-in, inner string cementing for subsea wells, providing ultimate cement placement.

“Our technology is now very well adopted across the well construction industry globally,” Horn highlights. “In the first few months of 2022, we catered to 85% of all new riserless subsea well casing cement jobs on the UK Continental Shelf with our proprietary technology.”

Based in Dyce, Aberdeen, DeltaTek is a UK business and has made the most of vast opportunities in the European oil capital. The company is active across the North Sea and its success at home has seen it pulled further afield.

“We have performed operations extensively across the Norwegian sector and we have also accessed the Gulf of Mexico, West Africa, East Mediterranean, and Southeast Asia with our technology,” says Horn of the company’s global operations.

SeaCure has been a key driver of this growth. Not only does the technology allow for optimisation in well construction, it also addresses challenges when unlocking new, difficult reservoirs. By eliminating challenges around cost over-runs, poor life of well integrity, and ultimate failure of well objectives – as well as removing the need for remedial cementing – SeaCure has become a technology of choice in the well construction industry.

“It is our proprietary stabbed in, inner string cementing technology. It offers operators a number of cost benefits across the spectrum of well construction, from time to tangibles to risk. It has been very successful in its first four years of commercial use,” says Horn.

“Basically, it makes for optimised cement placement whilst constructing wells – always for oil and gas, but it can be used in any form of well construction be it for carbon capture, geothermal, or similar.”

90% of DeltaTek operations involve cement placement optimisation, and the company’s ethos has always been around provision of ‘ultimate cement placement’.

“We are approaching 50 deployments of our proprietary well construction cementing technology,” smiles Horn, highlighting the success of SeaCure and the demand that now exists for this important technology.

DERIVATIVE TECHNOLOGIES

Ever the innovator, DeltaTek was tasked by clients – some of the world’s major operators – to solve additional problems, often extreme engineering difficulties requiring pioneering thought leadership from industry experts.

Next in the product range came QuikCure, a temperature control system which helps cement set quicker. This was followed by more technology advancements including FloatCure, BondCure, ControlCure, CureCatcher, SurgeCure, ArticuLock, and CoreCure.

“We developed QuikCure which is a SeaCure service plus a controlled heat placement which rapid-cures cement placed during the well construction process. In cold, deep North Sea environments, getting cement to set in near-freezing conditions can be a significant challenge,” details Horn. “QuikCure offers an industry-first capability of using temperature to influence how the cement sets. It is now the most commonly applied technology for subsea UK well construction in structural strings and is broadly being used in more geographies around the world.”

QuikCure is bolstering DeltaTek’s global reputation and its success on projects in the Gulf of Mexico for global operators has resulted in the company receiving an invitation to present at the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) 2022 Annual Technical Conference & Exhibition (ATCE) in Houston, demonstrating the technical capabilities of QuikCure.

“We completed a deep-water QuikCure deployment in the Gulf of Mexico last year and we are really proud of that. When the technology is peer-reviewed by the SPE it comes with a lot of kudos and that makes us proud,” beams Horn.

CoreCure is another product receiving major attention after successful deployments with TotalEnergies and Shell. “It is the world’s first recovery system for downhole cement samples from the bottom of the oil well that you’re drilling and cementing. This is used for verifying the quality of the primary cement job,” says Horn of this enviable innovation.

Previously, quality of cement was measured before it goes downhole. It is essential to measure quality post mix and pump, and CoreCure makes this possible, building a new concept of well construction cementing validation. Using an adaptor that latches into the SeaCure system, this process is smooth and streamlined for DeltaTek clients. Currently, CoreCure is the only technology that enables recovery of cement samples from a casing shoe.

GULF OF MEXICO

In 2021, DeltaTek realised that a big opportunity lay waiting to be exploited in the Gulf of Mexico – North America’s oil and gas centre, producing 20% of the country’s output. Differing slightly from well construction in the North Sea, DeltaTek’s product range has clear advantages here and the company is experienced operating to international standards.

“We were cognisant that the Gulf of Mexico was likely to become the biggest market for the business so we recruited a full time position to be based in Houston,” says Horn, remembering the first project in the region using QuikCure.

“The Gulf of Mexico market has a traditional well construction approach which involves a lot of additional casing strings and that makes for a number of additional use opportunities for our technology. Generally, it is a more active drilling market with more than 20 rigs constantly active with nearly 100% utilisation. As well as there being more drilling rigs working, there are also more opportunities for technology use on each of those wells so it is a much bigger market opportunity compared with other markets that we are in.”

While offshore drilling faces an uncertain future globally, in the Gulf of Mexico major producers continue to invest heavily in new facilities to ensure production is smooth.

As reservoirs in the Gulf become deeper and more demanding, DeltaTek comes into its own with proprietary technology, developed in the UK for harsh conditions. SeaCureRS, an expansion of the initial SeaCure concept, sees the elimination of liner shoetracks gain improving efficiencies in the well construction process.

“We have moved into the deeper parts of well construction,” explains Horn. “Normally when you build a well, the process is iterated and you start with a big hole and a large piece of casing which gets smaller and smaller as drilling continues and you reach the reservoir. In the deeper strings, we have started using SeaCureRS, the very final string used in the well, where we saved an operator multiple days in their well construction programme.”

Recently, the SeaCureRS was used in the UK North Sea while delivering a 7” liner cement job for a client working at 285 ft water depth. The cement job was high quality, no clean out trips were required, the shoetrack solution was optimised, and the client was delighted.

In the future, DeltaTek plans to work closely with its supply chain to continue innovating while solving problems for users. Already achieving its mission of saving rig time through ultimate cement placement, this young and exciting business is becoming the necessary partner as optimisation requirements grow.

“We have been investing heavily in our asset fleet, procuring a number of new technology assets from across our supply chain,” says Horn.

“We are achieving multi-hundred per cent year-on-year growth and the team is growing pretty rapidly – that is something we are very proud of,” he concludes.

With drilling vessel owners and operators planning for an increasingly uncertain and unpredictable future, running rigs as efficiently as possible will quickly become more important as a means of competing in a market characterised by intense competition and regulation. Keeping the operational costs of rigs and the people operating safe and efficient will be essential in navigation of this cloudy future, not only in the oil and gas industry, but also the global economy as a whole. Innovators like DeltaTek will grow in importance, and making the use of pioneering technology will be a necessity. DeltaTek’s brand is now well established, and it is clear that this is a company that can be relied on.