“The desire for safety stands against every great and noble enterprise.” Publius Cornelius Tacitus (circa 56 – 120 A.D.), Italian citizen, British governor, Roman senator, and noted historian of the Roman Empire.
Tacitus had safety figured out. He believed that Roman ingenuity worked hard to keep and protect its inhabitants from natural disasters – floods, fires, and famines – as well as marauding invaders and foreign armies. The empire survived, he wrote, because it looked after the well-being of its citizens. He was right. The European section of the empire crumbled after nearly 500 years as the world’s greatest super-power, while the Eastern portion, renamed the Byzantine Empire, continued for another millennium.
Most oil and gas producers and service and supply companies work hard to keep their employees safe, preserve the communities where they operate, and ensure the environment is protected and maintained. Countless firms boast about their almost-stellar records. Yet one humble, modest-sized engineering firm, Noyes Engineering & Supervision Ltd., is quietly commemorating its 50th birthday and celebrating its excellent record of no incidents and zero lost-time accidents (LTAs).
Noyes has drilled more than 3,500 vertical and directional wells (many sour) and another 30 to 40 horizontals in Western Canada. It’s introduced advanced cementing technology including centralizer spacing, pre-flushes, displacement velocities, and technology for cement squeezes. It’s also initiated practical drilling fluids technology to overcome hole stability problems. Many of the pacesetter wells drilled in Western Canada were designed and managed by this organization.
In 1967, when Canada was celebrating its 100th birthday, an entrepreneurial engineer named Don Noyes, launched Noyes Engineering. His goal was to help small oil and gas producers — who didn’t have the luxury of an in-house team of technical experts — safely drill and produce their resources. By 1974, he had hired a staff of 70 professionals and field operators to handle the client workload.
According to Ron Hutzal, current president and owner having bought the company in 1998, Noyes Engineering has never viewed safety as an intellectual exercise. “Our safety management system prevents injuries and deaths. Hindsight is amazing when someone conducts a post-incident assessment and writes up recommendations. Our clients want precaution and prevention. We prefer foresight.”
Noyes Engineering has grown into a company that specializes in “looking after other people’s assets,” adds Hutzal. “We fill in the paperwork for the AER (Alberta Energy Regulator) and handle the ERPs (emergency response plans). Once a well is licensed, we manage the drilling contractor and work with the service rig people through production. Then our field operators handle the on-going production for the producer.”
Laser Focus on Safety
Because of Noyes’ laser focus on safety, years of experience, and commitment to efficiency, it also acts as an early-warning system to advise its clients about potential issues or technical difficulties any operation may present. Hutzal says, “We assist small producers to achieve their budgets and timelines. This helps them with cashflow and tends to also keep their shareholders happy.”
Will the recent addition of William Sattlegger, Noyes “has focused on applying its liability management system and safety protocol across the western provinces and is viewed favourably by the regulators,” adds Hutzal.
An experienced engineer, Hutzal grew up in Athabasca, hired on the rigs as a roughneck to fund his University of Alberta education. He strategically worked for several multi-national service companies (Schlumberger and Peter Bawden Drilling) and large producers (Gulf Canada and Numac Energy) to gain training from some of the best in the industry.
Today, Hutzal is held in high regard by his peers and is known as a “problem-solver” because of his strong analytical and systematic approach to handling challenges. He laughs. “Our clients want the cheapest operations handled by the most experienced specialists. We take a morning report from each wellsite, and, about 70 to 80 per cent of problems on a rig stem from mud issues while the other 20 to 30 per cent usually are mechanical. Because we’re pro-active and pre-emptive, we save our clients time and money.”
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