did a very comprehensive look back at our M&A programs over the years and found that the smaller companies as a sort of portfolio of investments in the aggregate, drive better returns and lower risk and so it’s been a way for us to continue to improve our competitive positioning through the downturn while not exposing the broader company to the risk of an overleveraged balance sheet.” Much of that M&A has focused around acquiring new technologies, which has been the driving force behind the record production increase in unconventional shales over the last 10 years. As someone who has spent his entire career in the U.S., Williams is amazed that America produced the highest oil production growth numbers ever put up by any country in 150 years. He attributes this success to new technologies that led to the advancement in production capabilities. NOV has been a part of the industry’s technological revolution and has deployed several innovations. “We saw the opportunity in the downturn to invest in new technologies that help facilitate those sorts of advancements,” Williams said. One area NOV has pioneered through the downturn is wired drill pipe, which offers high speed bandwidth connection to the bottom of the hole. This pipe works in conjunction with devices near the bit that measure vibration and mechanical energy losses and with artificial intelligence on the rig. This helps optimize the way rigs can drill through different stratigraphic columns. “We’re getting good traction with it,” Williams said. “We launched our new operating system for NOV rigs that we call NOVOS, and we put that on
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more than 100 rigs, and it’s continuing to drive better efficiencies and better safety in regard to operations.” According to Williams, NOV will introduce new automation and digital products later this year that will improve safety and performance on drilling rigs. He sees digital technologies as the leader in the energy transition evolution.
“Perseverance counts for a lot so stay in the fight, don’t give up, keep moving ahead. And when better days come, and they will, you will look back at this period and realize, you know, that’s really what made me who I am. ”
“It will play a big role in helping the industry get better,” he said. “We have a lot of customers very focused on the energy transition. I think it is an enormous business opportunity for all of us. If you think about energy broadly, it is about infrastructure. It takes enormous amounts of capital and typically decades, if not a century, to pivot from one energy source to another, so I do think mankind will pivot to new sources of energy in the 21st century. And the prize of the 21st century is figuring this out and participating in it.” Williams believes the oil and gas industry is well-suited to lead the pivot in energy sources because servicing
companies are great at deploying sophisticated technologies at scale and executing large complex projects globally. However, innovation is not restricted to just the service and manufacturing sectors. As producers develop their own technologies, companies such as NOV have the challenge of adapting to their customer’s needs. “NOVOS incorporates the ability for our customers to write and deploy apps,” Williams explained. “We have a software developer kit that allows anybody who wants to write an app to work within the NOVOS operating environment to do it. We understand that our customers want to deploy their ideas perhaps in a proprietary way so they can write an app that’s proprietary to them or if it’s a service company, that’s proprietary to their customers, so we’re trying to work within the constraints that our customers really want.” Purposeful innovation and service for all are touchstones at NOV. Investment in research and development, new products and technologies are a primary focus of the company. “Our innovation needs to help our customers continue to improve, but also we’re a service company, and our customers have critical operations or expensive operations, and so we need to be ‘Johnny on the Spot’ when they need us to be. NOV aspires to be a technical leader while maintaining a culture that’s really committed to taking not just good care, but great care of our customers.” Williams believes there are great untold stories about the oil and gas industry’s technological innovations, and he shares information about oil and gas extraction technologies whenever possible.
