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PETROLEUM DIRECTORY: Good people make good Nabors — the changing face of North Slope drilling Safety and innovation are the by-words for the leader of an industry more often associated with machismo Mara Severin PNA Contributing Writer
Call it the end of the Carhartt era. The macho image, whether real or apocryphal, of the North Slope rig worker with more bravado than sense, is a thing of the past. Influential companies like Nabors Alaska can take credit for changing the image and the reality of life on the slope. A new culture has taken root — one where safety and efficiency trumps all other cards. And while sweat is still the fuel behind many of the operations on a rig, a typical worker might find himself working not just on drilling equipment, but on computer equipment. Regardless of what he’s working on, he’ll be doing it while wearing head-to-toe protective gear.
Clyde Treybig, quality manager at Nabors, uses the phrase “continual improvement” with frequency. “We’re not drilling wells the way we did 20 years ago,” he says. “And five years from now, we’ll be drilling wells differently from the way we do today. We want to be a leader in the pursuit of safer, cleaner, more productive drilling operations,” he says. “We want to be a part of the advancement in process oriented operations, engineering, materials and maintenance. We’re moving ahead and going to get to a better place.”
Advancement, change, innovation, improvement. These are words that don’t always get a lot of play in an industry as conservative as oil. Industry insiders are often reluctant to embrace systemic changes in the drilling process, “especially when the benefits are not immediate,” says Treybig. Changes that involve systems, processes and the culture of the industry are sometimes met with resistance. Changes that involve equipment, on the other hand, are more easily embraced. “Cutting edge equipment is easily understood by all aspects of the industry,” he says, “because the results are tangible and immediate.” However, Nabors is undaunted in its commitment to improve the human element of the drilling equation. According to Treybig, when an innovation is a good one, it will eventually take hold. “It’s like seatbelts,” he says. “At first, when the law required people to wear them, people felt uncomfortable. Now, most people feel uncomfortable without them.”
It’s the same, he says, with safety improvements on the North Slope. There was a time when the use of certain safety gear was erratic and looked upon by some as optional. “Now,” he says, “you can’t even go onto a rig without a complete set of safety gear. You would be stopped immediately.”
A picture is worth a thousand words Safety is a constant by-word at Nabors and safety policies are constantly under a microscope and subject to change. Recently, says CEO Jim Denney, management made a significant change in the way operational procedures are followed. The operating instructions for each piece of equipment are now augmented by pictures. “Each rig has over 200 procedures,” he says, “and we’re taking each one, breaking each task down, and attaching it to a visual.” This, he says, will create a “more meaningful training document.” Treybig agrees, pointing out that many people learn best through visuals and that reading dense manuals is often an intimidating, not to mention tedious, way to learn a job and review specific procedures.
Recently, Nabors modified its employee safety bonus program to encourage employees to report any unsafe conditions or practices on the rig and work toward improving safety skills and processes. The program no longer rewards workers for working accident-free, but rather for showing that they consistently use safe work practices. “We don’t want to punish workers who are involved in accidents,” says Treybig. “We learn from every accident. We simply want to reward our workers for being safety conscious and proactively working to improve the safety on every rig.”
To Nabors management, safety policies and training methodology are just as important as equipment technology and maintenance. “It’s all a part of the whole,” says Treybig. “Safety is directly tied to efficiency which is directly tied to productivity,” he says.
Trying to prioritize customer satisfaction and employee safety is academic, he says. “One cannot exist without the other.”
Treading lightly on the environment Safety for people is the top priority, says Denney, but safety for the environment is not far behind. He notes that the rigs themselves are always being modified to improve on environmental performance. “We put a lot of money into our rigs to improve the environmental aspect of the drilling,” he says. “We want our rigs working as new rigs.”
Nabors environmental manager, Randy, agrees. “We have one main goal,” he says, “No spills.” After that is waste management. “In our business, we’re always going to have some waste,” he say, “We want to eliminate it or manage it according to our contracts and the law.”
Treybig sees Nabors effective system of waste management as an example of the diverse services offered by the company. “We’re able to build grind and inject facilities that we attach to our rigs. We can offer that kind of capability to reduce overall well costs and environmental impacts.”
Size does count — growth leads to diversity Diversity is at the heart of Nabors’ history of success, says Treybig. “I think that diversity is one of our strengths,” he says. “As the market changes we’re able to adapt and apply our strengths to whatever is demanded of us. If that means we have to build rigs that are highly mobile, then that’s what we’ll do. If that means we have to build or modify rigs that can work on land, offshore, or remote sites, we have that capability.”
Treybig points out that offering a wide range of services is the result of operating a wide range of equipment. “We have something that the other guys really don’t — we have the kind of diversity of equipment and experience that allows us to run anything from coil tubing to workover rigs to exploration rigs.”
Denney agrees that Nabors boasts strength through diversity and points to the diversity of its employees. In 1999, for example, Nabors purchased Pool Drilling Services. Now, he says, “at least half of our employees are ex-Pool employees. We picked up a lot of good people along with the rigs.”
A rig is a rig is a rig? Not anymore… It’s that ability to grow, and more importantly to change, that has built Nabors’ track record and, says Treybig, will hold the company in good stead in a volatile oil market. “It used to be, ‘a rig is a rig — you tell us where to be and we’ll drill a hole for you.’” It’s not that way anymore, he says. “Now we’re looking at better equipment, better technology, better systems, and most importantly, more professional rig hands. We’re looking at ways to do things safer and cleaner and more efficient. Now, we’re a much more integrated part of how the whole process works.”
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