CONTACT INFORMATION:
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OVERVIEW (as of May 2009)
I have been involved in the oil drilling industry since close to it's inception in the North Sea, in a Drilling Fluid Engineering capacity, for 38 years (apart from a 2 year "sabbatical"), working and sometimes also living, in the UK, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, North and South America, New Zealand, and Australia. My industry experience combines 19 years in various technical and management positions, and 17 years of both onshore and offshore work on exploration rigs and production platforms. I have been involved in the planning and commissioning of two dry bulk and liquid mud plants. There has also been considerable involvement with mineral, water-well, and some geothermal drilling activities.
Since 1994 I have operated continuously as an independent Drilling Fluids Consultant, contracting both to established drilling fluids suppliers, but also directly to some oil companies. I was contracted as Woodside's first field engineer to work offshore in Australia in 1994 (on the GWA Platform). I have for the last 3 years been working offshore Cabinda, Angola, as a Chevron consultant.
DATE OF BIRTH: 8 December 1949
NATIONALITY: British Citizen, Australian Permanent Resident, born Zimbabwe
EDUCATION: St. Georges College, Harare, Zimbabwe (GCE "A Levels")
Diploma Plastics Engineering, Wits Technical College, Johannesburg, SA
OILFIELD INDUSTRY / TRAINING EXPERIENCE
1971 Roughneck/Derrickman, Sante Fe Drilling, offshore Gt. Yarmouth, N. Sea.
1972 IMCO Drilling Fluids School, Houston, USA.
SEDCO BOP School, Aberdeen, Scotland
1976 BAROID ADT (Applied Drilling Technology School), London, UK
1977 BAROID Phase 3 Training course, Stavanger, Norway.
1983 RGIT Firefighting & Survival Course, UK Sector N.Sea
1987 NPD (Norwegian Petroleum Directorate) Survival Course. RGIT, Aberdeen
1994 Well Productivity Awareness School (WASP) – BP course sponsored by Woodside and held in Perth.
1994/6/8 SOLAS and HUET Certification, Fremantle WA.
2002/4 Careflight HUET (Qld), SOLAS and HUET Certification (OPITO), Fremantle WA
2006/7/8 H2S Safety Awareness Certified training
GEOGRAPHICAL EXPERIENCE (in approx chronological sequence):
Gulf of Mexico, Texas, Abu Dhabi / Sharjah / Dubai (resident engineer), Qatar, Egypt, Tunisia, Greece, Scotland, Norway, Ireland, England, Germany, Denmark, Holland, South Africa, Gabon, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Congo, Cameroon, Angola, Peru, New Zealand, Australia (Qld, SA, WA), Mauritania, Cabinda Province of Angola.
OIL COMPANY EXPERIENCE:
Overseas: Chevron, Mobil, Texaco, British Gas, BP, ADMA, Marathon, Conoco, Placid, Arco, Amoco, Gupco, Shell, Statoil, Soekor, Phillips, Tenneco, Peruvian NOC, NZOG, Petrocorp, TCPL.
Australia: Minora, Hartogen, Crusader, Delhi, BP, Socdet, WAPET, Bridge Oil, Discovery Petroleum, Consolidated Gas, OCA, Woodside (Platforms and MODU), Santos, Chevron.
(cont'd)
MUD SYSTEMS EXPERIENCE:
OIL MUDS
Enviromul, EZ Oil, Invermul, Clean-Oil (IDF), Petrofree, XP-07, Nova-Drill, Syn-Teq, Paradril-B. (i.e. Baroid's, BHI's, & M-I's SBF systems).
WATER-BASE MUDS
KCL/New-Drill (phpa), Lime/Surfactant, Lime/Drispac (Phillips), Saturated Salt/HEC, KCL/EZ Mud, Zechstein Brine/Starch, Dextrid, KCL/Polymers (PACs, Low-Solids XC Polymer, Gel/Polymer, Gyp/Lignosulphonate, Low-Solids Flocculated Bentonite, Aquadrill (KCL/Polymer/Glycol)
COMPLETION and WORKOVER FLUIDS
Low Density Brines, NaCL, CaCl2, KCL, MgCl2, Calcium and Potassium Carbonate, OSR (Oil Soluble Resin). Also extensive experience with gained with well clean-up fluids (eg. Super Pickle, Hogwash, Surfactants, etc.) including the planning required to do it properly.
SPECIAL DRILLING PROBLEMS EXPERIENCED
Gulf of Mexico and North Sea gumbo. Highly dispersive and caving/pressured shales. Severe Lost Circulation (esp. in Middle East) in limestone and sandstone formations. Application of stuck-pipe spotting pills after Differential Sticking and/or bit-balling (eg. fresh water in evaporates, EZ Spot, Free-pipe, Glycols, Surfactants, SAPP and Citric Acid). High-density high-solids muds (from < 1.0 to 2.0+ g/cc). BHT's of above 400 deg F. Geothermal drilling in New Zealand and Cooper Basin, Australia. Blowout control and well-kill. Massive salt and mixed evaporate sequences. Underground blow-out (N.Sea). Deep-water drilling in Atlantic off Ireland. Gas-hydrate suppression. Extended-reach horizontal drilling (to 8,500m) off NW Shelf of Australia (Goodwyn A Platform), also involving complex logistics and pit-management planning. 1st successful well drilled under the Congo River Trench.
BRIEF WORK HISTORY
1970 - 1972 Sante-Fe Drilling Company – Roughneck/Derrickman, Southern North Sea.
1972-1977 NL Baroid
Drilling Fluids Engineer. North Sea, Europe, Africa, Middle East.
1977-1979 NL Baroid
District Technical Supervisor – Norwegian Sector, North Sea, based in Stavanger. Pilot-tested and developed Lime/Surfactant (Aktaflo S) mud systems for drilling gumbo in the southern sector of the Norwegian North Sea (Statoil, Amoco).
1979 NL Baroid
Senior Engineer – Athens, supervising 45 engineers assigned to Middle East
1980-1982 Drilchem Pty Ltd
Manager – Oilfield and Mining Operations, Cape Town; also worked in South America on a consultancy basis during this time. Introduced inhibitive Polymer muds to Soekor's offshore operations. Devised and ran mud school, training 6 local drilling fluid engineers, and held training courses for client's drilling engineers.
1982-1985 Drilling Fluids Consultant
Worked offshore North Sea (Texaco, British Gas – Rough Field); Aberdeen based. Experience gained included 2 years working in the Rough Field on directional holes drilled through the difficult Zechstein evaporates. Mud systems used were Clean-Oil and Saturated Salt / HEC.
1985-1987 Baroid (EHO) Tech Services Group
Manager Gabon (W.Africa). Also worked offshore Norway and Ireland in the Atlantic in very deep water (both BP), using KCL/PHPA systems. Commuted also to Tunisia and Egypt.
1987-1989 Milpark (later BHI) Drilling Fluids. (emigrated to Australia)
Operations Manager, Qld & NSW, Brisbane based. Duties included client-liaison, programming, engineering supervision, distribution, and on-site technical support. Successfully introduced KCL/New-Drill (phpa) mud system into Queensland's Surat Basin area, with Bridge Oil and several other operators. Technical article on PHPA systems introduced to Surat Basin was published in World Oil magazine, July 1989 issue. I was Chairman for the Continuing Education Committee for the Queensland branch of the Society of Petroleum Engineering.
1989-1992 Baroid-Mintech
District Manager – New Zealand. Financial and Technical Management of the NZ District office. Introduced KCL/EZ Mud (phpa) both onshore (NZOG, Petrocorp) and offshore (Shell Todd exploration and production wells). Won major Maui B Platform contract for Baroid. Introduced use of OSR's (oil soluble resins) for workovers in McKee Field (Petrocorp).
1992-1994 Baroid Australia
District Manager for WA and NT, based in Perth head office. Responsibility for, and supervision of all WA & NT operations, including sales, technical, warehousing, KBSB (Karatha) bulk and mud / brine plant, Office management and Safety Co-Ordination. Baroid-Woodside onshore Co-ordinator for NW Shelf drilling activities.
1994-1998 Chris Lowe & Associates Pty Ltd.
Established Drilling Fluid Engineering Consultancy, providing on-site and onshore drilling fluid engineering services and planning. Some initial work with Consolidated Gas and Anzoil, then contracted directly to Woodside at start-up of Goodwyn Alpha.
1998-Dec 1999 PetroFluids Division of Petrodrill Engineering
Senior Drilling Fluids Consultant with Petrofluids. Continued to work with the Woodside Offshore Petroleum (WOP) Group, mainly long-reach development wells on Goodwyn Alpha Platform (to 8,500 m) using synthetic and ester-based muds, but also some exploration work during shut-downs. Also involving planning and liaison work with the Goodwyn and Modu exploration Groups in Woodside's Perth Office (including vacation relief work for WOP's Drilling Fluids Specialist and BHI's Woodside Co-ordinator). Was associated with the GWA project for 5 years.
Jan 2000-Aug 2002
Left industry for personal reasons on completion of Phase 1 drilling programme on GWA. Moved from WA to Qld and established small retail business.
Aug & Sept 2002, Self-employed Drilling Fluids Consultant
Worked on Deepwater Discovery for Woodside Mauritania (Chinguetti wells), using SYN-TEQ synthetic oil-based drilling fluid. Also Dec 2002, workover intervention program on Goodwyn Alpha for Woodside (via BHI).
2003-2005 Chris Lowe & Associates Pty Ltd.
On-site Drilling Fluids consultancy work for RHEOCHEM Drilling Fluids in the Cooper Basin of SA and Qld; oil and gas fields operated by SANTOS. Also worked on Geodynamics Geothermal drilling project at Innaminka, and for OCA in Surat Basin in Qld.
2005-2006 Chris Lowe & Associates Pty Ltd. (Via Baker Hughes Incorporated)
Contracted to BHDF and worked on Woodside MODU Group's Browse Basin (Brecknock & Calliance) and Pluto Field wells offshore WA, with the Atwood Eagle semi. and AQUADRILL mud systems. Also worked offshore WA on a 3 well program for Chevron with SBM mud on the Jack Bates semi-submersible, with suppression of gas hydrates a priority.
2006-2009 Chevron Fluids Consultant (via Kemtech). Angola.
Worked on semi-sub rigs offshore, including the Transocean Richardson with 5200 ft of Riser. Mainly used M-I's Synthetic Base Fluid (Paradril B with Mosspar H), and also Completion Brines. Managed Logistics planning and support for bulk and palletised materials, and other required offshore equipment. Established rig-specific procedures for preparing well-bore, drilling, and circulating equipment for changeover from drilling to production mode.
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