With experience in the U.S. and North Sea in a variety of operational, technical, and managerial roles, Hampton Fowler has been with Halliburton for 25 years. His industry experience is related to Halliburton’s Coiled Tubing and Hydraulic Workover Product Service Lines and he currently holds the position of Technology Team Leader in the Global Business and Technical Solutions group. Hampton received a Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering from Texas A&M University and has since published numerous technical papers and magazine articles, in addition to procuring several international and U.S. patents, all related to coiled tubing operations.  Hampton has been an active member of the Intervention and Coiled Tubing Association since its inception and has recently been appointed Sr. Co-Chairman of the organization.

 

 

Hampton Fowler: I’m very passionate about ICoTA and I want to see that it is successful. With any new job or major responsibility, I find myself very excited – as well as nervous – and with lots of questions. You always want to do a good job, whatever your endeavor. Taking on the leadership role in the organization, my goal is to increase our membership and have a more global presence for our organization. The best way to do this is to deliver value to the members through our conferences and website, and continue to raise the awareness of ICoTA within our industry. Through all of this, we must remember that ICoTA is not just about coiled tubing and its related technologies, it is about the well intervention industry–we must make sure we are growing and serving the other market segments such as slickline, electric line, and hydraulic workover, as well. And since we are an all-volunteer organization, we must find members that are just as passionate about our organizational goals – with the time to devote to achieving these goals – to continue to make our organization successful.

 

 

H.F.: Forming a Russian chapter is very exciting. Russia has a large and growing market for coiled tubing and well intervention technologies, and there is a strong desire to increase technical awareness of the products and services available for improving well performance and efficiencies. A Russian ICoTA Chapter will be a great way for the local oil companies, service companies, and equipment manufacturers to communicate and stay in touch with the global technology developments within our well intervention industry. ICoTA will benefit, as well, with more participation in our international events from the Russian members.

 

There are so many questions about how to form the chapter, and so far it has not been fast or easy. Not only do we have the language challenge, but the Russian laws are very different for setting up a not-for-profit organization, and we must understand the rules to create the chapter correctly. So it is challenging, but I believe it will be well worth the effort. 

 

There are also geographic growth opportunities for ICoTA in the Middle and Far East regions. I would like for us to establish regional chapters in these areas soon, as well.

 

As mentioned before, we must also focus on organizational growth through embracing the total well intervention industry, not just coiled tubing. I believe that if we do this well, we will see more oil company representatives participating, which has been a weak area for us in the past. This would in turn strengthen our major service company participation and support even further.

 

 

The current global economy has created additional challenges for us. Many of the members are seeing their companies implement travel restrictions and budget cutbacks, making it harder for them to attend our regional and international conferences. I was very pleased to see that in our current economy we had only a small drop in attendance to our International Conference this year, with over 1200 participants attending. We want to be positioned for continuous growth of our membership and conference participation when the economy improves.

 

 

H.F.: I am very positive about the well intervention industry in today’s marketplace, even as we have seen the drilling activity experience a major slowdown since its peak last year, especially in the United States, where a majority of the drilling is targeted at natural gas production. The downturn has led to some significant budget cutbacks and personnel reductions. Although the market demand is down and the economy is struggling, we still need oil and gas, and the challenge is to find ways to maintain or even increase production on existing wells, while doing it very economically. This plays to the strength of coiled tubing services—we often see an increase in coiled tubing services being performed during drilling downturns as operators seek to maintain their cash flows from existing wells. Hopefully, our industry is at, or near, the bottom of the downturn and we must remember that we need to be well-prepared for the inevitable growth cycle that follows.

 

H.F.: One of my major areas of interest is downhole tools. One, in particular, is the new tools being introduced to improve stimulation job efficiencies and well production. Coiled tubing fracturing techniques have replaced conventional multi-stage fracturing jobs in many areas, by reducing job times from weeks to a few days or less, while doing it with both improvement gains in production, as well as doing it at a much reduced cost over the prior methods. These coiled tubing fracturing tools provide accurate depth control, ability to perforate, and improved proppant placement, and have been very effective fracturing horizontal wellbore sections. There are also some interesting new tools that provide information about downhole conditions prior to, and during, treatments, allowing the job to be optimized in real time. 

 

Another area I am impressed with is the improvements in surface equipment and controls, which has greatly reduced the risk associated with performing many of our well intervention services. We are seeing these improvements allow us to work on deeper and higher pressure wells than in the past. If you asked me five or ten years ago about our ability to work on the types of high pressure, high temperature, and deep wells we are today, I would have said, “You’re crazy if you think we can do that”.  But now it’s almost routine.

 

We are also seeing coiled tubing being used as a key tool in the future deepwater development. These market drivers have led to the development of much larger coiled tubing injectors, reels, and surface pressure control equipment. We are also seeing much larger and longer strings of coiled tubing being designed and built for these applications. The current developments in new equipment, new tools, improved pipe metallurgy, new techniques, and improved reliability, is very exciting for me. 

 

I know I will be amazed when we look back ten years from now and see where we have evolved. This has been a dynamic and growing market segment for many years and will continue for many more.

 

H.F.: Two areas that I continue to watch very closely are Coiled Tubing Drilling and Subsea Well Intervention. Coiled Tubing Drilling has been around for many years now and it continues to evolve. In the near term, it will not be a replacement for conventional rotary drilling rigs drilling medium-to-deep wells. It has found a niche in shallow well construction in some areas, as well as re-entry drilling in mature fields, to increase the wellbore connectivity with the reservoir. We have seen this onshore, as well as offshore, on platforms. We are seeing more purpose-built coiled tubing drilling rigs being constructed, and the market for these services continues to grow. When the oil and natural gas prices improve, the applications targeted at mature field re-development should really kick off.

 

Subsea well intervention has also been around in various forms, mainly slickline and electric line, for several years. With the increased number of deepwater wells being drilled and completed subsea, an efficient and effective means of well intervention will be even further desired by the operators. Coiled tubing is a logical choice in the development of subsea well intervention systems and there are several programs currently ongoing with vessel operators, service companies, and equipment manufacturers to design and build fit-for-purpose systems to address this growing market need. This should be one of the hottest growth areas for well intervention in the near future.

 

On the questions regarding activity of the Russian Chapter of the Intervention and Coiled Tubing Association (ICoTA) please contact: Vladimir Shurinov, Victoria Dronova, tel. + 7 499 788-91-24, + 7 916 179-88-83, tel./ fax + 7 499 788-91-19.