Businesses thrive on continual improvement, but current low oil prices mean drilling rig and well performance improvement is hard. The price crash in 2014 changed the game for everyone – expertise has been laid off, and now new tech is being laid on.

New rigs (or refurbished old rigs) are coming back into service, with new crews that have limited, same rig experience.

Variable experience and quality in new crews, challenges with organisational and institutional knowledge-sharing, new projects with high expectations, and operator-contractor partnerships will all impact excellence in delivery, cost and timelines. Downtime, lost time, and non-productive time will be significant.

Brad Farrow is president and CEO for RLG International. His company is directly addressing these challenges – attacking non-productive time, safety and performance – through a process they call Theoretical Maximum Performance.