Halliburton sees success in digitalisation

Kuwait

Osama Abdel Halim, area vice-president for the Northern Gulf at Halliburton, talks to The Energy Year about the company’s recent growth in Kuwait, its role in digitalisation locally and successes on the digitalisation front. Halliburton is one of the world’s leading providers of products and services to the energy industry.

What growth has Halliburton seen in Kuwait in the past two years?
Covid-19 had a huge impact on all companies, including Halliburton. Companies in Kuwait faced travel restrictions, lockdowns and other issues, including Covid-19-driven project delays. I am pleased to say that despite all these challenges, Halliburton continued to expand its business in Kuwait.
For example, in the past two years, we introduced a new product line to the Kuwaiti oil and gas sector, Artificial Lift. Kuwait was the first country in the Middle East where Halliburton secured a large contract to provide Artificial Lift systems. Halliburton received the contract in 2021 and commenced Artificial Lift operations in-country in January 2022.

How significant are digitalisation processes for Halliburton’s work in Kuwait?
I believe Halliburton is reliable choice for KOC when it comes to digitalisation. We work with various contractors and in many areas to introduce and use digitalisation to add value. A very good example of digital value creation is the Kuwait Integrated Digital Field (KwIDF) project in north Kuwait. We are currently expanding KwIDF from north Kuwait to southeast Kuwait, performing all required modelling for expansion.
Part of our work with the KwIDF project today is to monitor the data. We want to take monitoring to the next level on the KOC digitalisation journey and analyse this data to increase oil and gas production. I believe we will be successful with these analytics. Automation implementation will be the next critical step on the journey. Monitoring, analysing and automation: this is the right path for digitalisation.

What are the key successes of KOC and Halliburton on the digitalisation front so far?
Development of the Bahrah field is a great example of how digitalisation can help. The Bahrah field was the first field KOC explored and drilled in Kuwait, but it was not very successful. It barely produced 2,000 bopd, so KOC moved to the Burgan field. A few years ago, KOC asked Halliburton to help develop Bahrah. Today, we have achieved substantial production from Bahrah, which exceeded many expectations. Due to this success, we have re-evaluated our model, and we expect to increase our production targets from Bahrah. It’s now a big and very successful project.
In addition to digitalisation, we use Halliburton services and equipment for drilling and completion and utilise Halliburton’s latest technologies and solutions to maximise production. This model is good across the life cycle of the well. We replicate this proven and successful model at KOC, from subsurface to production, to support KOC’s efforts to reduce cost and increase production.

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