Instrumentation Adapts of Oilfield

More than a year after the Gulf drilling moratorium began, privately-owned Oilfield Instrumentation (OI) is experiencing noteworthy growth when others in the industry have been struggling.

OI attributes its success to shifting its focus from offshore to land-based and international operations, and positioning itself for increasing adaptation of mobile technologies for real-time drilling instrumentation.

The growth demonstrates Oilfield Instrumentation's ability to change and adapt at a time when many companies in Texas and Louisiana have been struggling due to the moratorium. OI's real-time instrumentation software, multiple service centers and custom oilfield building solutions are in high demand from companies like Apache, Baker Hughes, Chevron, Hess, Marathon, Pioneer Natural Resources, and Schlumberger. 

"Since our inception in 1988, we've prided ourselves on delivering the most current technology to the oil and gas industry and now also offering turnkey transportation and rig-up/rig-down services for all our customized buildings," said Allen Stuart, the founder of Oilfield Instrumentation. "We are finely tuned to our customers' new operational challenges within the growing unconventional resource plays."

OI recently announced the promotion of 14-year Operations Vice President Peyton Reddick to president, allowing Stuart to focus on leading OI's strategic vision.

The company also is retiring its former logo and replacing it with a new one that reflects its technological and communication advancements. New signs are going up at all the OI locations and onto all its new red 18-wheelers and company vehicles. Its new website, at www.oiusa.com , provides much more information about its buildings, instrumentation software and services.

Harsh Environment Labs and Building Service Centers

A portion of OI's success is coming from its specialized building offerings and turnkey field services to oil and gas exploration and production companies.

As an example, in 2011, OI opened two new service centers in California and Oklahoma at the request of its customers, bringing its total number of locations to 10. The facilities are located so as to deliver both transportation and daily maintenance services for its customized buildings and real-time software for working rigs in the field.

In addition to its turnkey servicing, OI builds a variety of certified buildings to its clients' specifications, both in size and interior configuration, to withstand harsh environments while providing safety and comfort to occupants. OI's goal is to help oilfield companies increase and improve their production objectives by ensuring comfortable, functional, and safe workplace structures for oilfield crews.

"There's no greater vote of confidence than receiving special requests from customers, whether it's for a new style of building to withstand extreme temperatures or building a new services facility," Reddick said. "We know we're doing something right when clients request our personnel and services in several new basins in a short period of time."

Adapting to Needs for Mobility

Oil and gas E&P companies are constantly changing, adapting new technologies to the tasks at hand.

OI is keeping pace, enabling its popular web-based Rig Vision real-time drilling software to deliver monitoring information directly to mobile workforce smart phones with Rig Vision Mobile. With this new application, users can see their drilling data remotely in real-time on their smart phone or mobile device.

Rig Vision Mobile enhances Rig Vision's ability to show hole depth, bit depth, gas, slips status, footage on bit, string speed, stand time, pump pressures and numerous other important measures of drilling performance. The software is very flexible, allowing users to monitor numerous surface parameters, accept other service provider data, compare one or more previous wells while customizing parameter colors, order of displays, and final outputs, to spreadsheets or other data collection warehouses.

"We first adopted Rig Vision for delivery across the Web, which has been particularly useful to operators with numerous sites," Stuart said. "Now with the advent of smart phones, we've empowered our mobile users with Rig Vision Mobile so that strip charts, text screens and maps are available 24/7/365 using iPhones, Android or Blackberry Touch mobile devices. The industry can continue to expect this type of foresight and technological adaptation from us. OI welcomes input and ideas from its office and field engineer client base in order to improve the functionality and flexibility of our operating system."

New President

Successful companies with long-term prospects for growth are those that are able to transition from a founder's vision to the next generation of leadership. As such, Stuart is empowering Reddick, a 14-year veteran of the company, with new responsibilities as president. "Peyton has demonstrated his dedication to Oilfield Instrumentation as a very effective vice president of operations for both OI and its sister company, Advanced Building Services," Stuart said. "I have every confidence that Peyton has the type of business acumen and leadership skills to position OI for even greater growth."

About Oilfield Instrumentation

Oilfield Instrumentation provides real-time drilling instrumentation, gas detection, and customizable harsh environment labs and buildings to the oil and gas industry. Launched in 1988, the company services offshore and land-based drilling ventures. OI now operates service centers in 10 cities across Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Arkansas, North Dakota and California, as well as ongoing projects in Australia and Africa. OI technicians are Petroleum Education Council-certified and offer superior service response time. Oilfield Instrumentation and its sister company, Advanced Building Services, are enrolled in ISNetworld safety management program and are privately owned and managed.