With its arsenal of unique tools, United Diamond helps operators set drilling benchmarks
Written by Alexandra Stadnyk & Produced by Ian Ross
In June of 2000, a handful of innovators came together to build a company like no other. They would engineer a revolutionary PDC bit and prove to the industry that it was possible to achieve benchmark-setting performance without having to destroy expensive rollercone after rollercone. The UD513 drilled its first hole in October of that same year, and became an instant icon to drillers who wanted to maximize their program.
“We sell on performance,” says Tim Armitage, Director Canadian Operations of United Diamond. “We take products where other products have failed before.” United Diamond produces an arsenal of tools that bring together innovation and technology to create steel body polycrystalline diamond compact (PDC) drill bits that help companies solve their ‘hole’ challenges while helping operators improve their drilling performance.
The Leduc, Alberta-based company began life as a small PDC drill bit manufacturer with a sales office in Calgary. To get an idea of how fast the company has grown in just 9 years, United Diamond now maintains 35 percent of the Canadian PDC market.
United Diamond offers an expanded suite of drilling products including the TorkBuster® Torsional Impact Generator, TruGauge™ At-Bit Stabilizer, Navigator, RoadRunner, Edge series PDC bits, and Kaos core bits.
With technologically enhanced tools that allow operators to drill with accuracy, consistency and through hard formations using a patented formula, United Diamond’s continues to chip away at the Canadian PDC market by introducing quality drilling products that are used in the oil sands of Alberta, the Middle East, Mexico, China, and Egypt. Armitage says the company now has a decent “international footprint”.
That “international footprint” grew when in December 2007 Texas-headquartered Ulterra Drilling Technologies acquired United Diamond which resulted in an expanded product and sales base that opened the Canadian company up to the U.S. market.
Performance Primary
“Through the performance of our product and the service we provided we have really been able to gain a lot of market share away from the major bit companies in the world,” says Armitage. The tools manufactured by United Diamond are unique within the industry.
Take the TorkBuster®, for instance, which features a high frequency impact to the bit that, when combined with steady state drill string torque, results in a dramatic increase in horsepower. The result? The reduced stick-slip improves rates of penetration (ROP) and bit life. You just need to look at the evidence to see why the company speaks so highly of their tools. When an operator in New Mexico offset a well to complete an interval that had a slow ROP he turned to United Diamond UD513 steel body PDC bit and the Torkbuster which drilled the interval in four runs and more than doubled the ROP. The operator saved 15 days and $500,000.
Technology
The company relies heavily on technology and has invested a great deal in robotics—the only drill bit manufacturer to use robotics. Using Computer Numerical Control (CNC) milling machines the complete profile of the bit is milled using VeriCut, a specialty program which optimizes for speed. What starts as a simple round bar of steel, high-precision 5-axis CNC mills transform the raw material into a recognizable PDC skeleton, ready for final assembly. The translation process for a single PDC bit typically involves more than 150,000 lines of code, up to 100 precision coordinate systems, and the integration of 40 or more specialized cutting tools. The result is an almost zero percent scrap rate, and drastically reduced milling times, says Armitage, who has worked to introduce Lean and “just in time manufacturing” principles in United Diamond’s manufacturing facility.
The company has also invested in arobotic arc welder which has paid dividends by decreasing their production times, costs, while increasing the consistency and quality of their products, and cutting waste. “The initial results are extraordinary,” says Armitage, who adds that the company sees great future potential in the arc welders in terms of cutting costs and increasing the quality and production speed.
The company also utilizes a custom-built software called Piranha which centralizes all company and bit performance data; featuring a real time dashboard Piranha collects purchasing, sales orders, book values and depreciation, quality assurance, and competitor data. The software has played an integral role in helping United Diamond collect information on their products.
Keeping up with market growth was a real challenge when drilling was high, says Armitage. Despite the tough environment in Alberta with the collapse of drilling activity, the company maintains its market share by looking to foreign markets. As the company continues to expand its customer base internationally drilling operators will surely be impressed with United Diamond’s unique products.
View Digital Corporate Profile of United Diamond in Energy Digital July 2009