THEWAYAHEADInterview
Stuart Ferguson, CTO, Weatherford International
I Have No Regrets About my Choice of Career
Stuart Ferguson is chief technology officer for Weatherford and has been a senior vice president of the company
since September 2002. Previously, he held a number of positions within Weatherford’s completions business,
eventually becoming division president. Before joining Weatherford, Ferguson served as Marketing director for
UK-based Expro International and as Technical Services director for Petroline Wellsystems, which Weatherford
acquired in 1999. Ferguson spent 6 years as a petroleum engineer with BP, the company with which began his
industry career in 1987.
What were your impressions of the oil and gas
industry when you started, and what was your
first job?
At university, I had been captivated by the oil industry because of its
scale, the impact that it seemed to have on world politics, and some
ill-defined, romantic notions of a wild frontier. I wish I could say
it was better thought out. Consequently, I only applied for jobs in
upstream oil and gas. I had my interviews at the depth of the crash
in 1986, when there were hardly any jobs available. It was a risky,
even foolish, strategy; there was so little recruitment that there was
a real chance of not getting a job.
The romance paid off. I joined BP in 1987 as a process engineer,
and my first posting was to Sullom Voe oil terminal on Shetland, to
the north of Scotland. Despite my preconceptions of the industry,
the scale of the operation at Sullom Voe was still amazing to me.
You are taught how a control valve works at university, but then to
see a valve operating on a 36-in. header was fantastic. Sullom Voe
provided an opportunity to learn about process plants in an environment that was so much more accessible that the convoluted pipe
runs of an offshore platform.
When I joined BP, I’m also ashamed to say that I still thought oil
reservoirs were underground lakes—further indication of my alarmingly sketchy research into the industry.
How do you think this industry stacks up
against alternatives, and why should a young
professional (YP) pursue it?
This is very difficult for me to answer, as it is the only industry I
have ever worked in. My experience of other jobs is either secondhand, or is based on working with professionals associated with the
industry, such as lawyers, accountants, and bankers.
Having said that, I do know why a young person should join the
industry. It presents an opportunity for intellectual fulfilment with
great diversity—the chance to live and work among different cultures around the world. I have no regrets about my choice of career,
and I would, and do, encourage YPs to join.
What are the most memorable experiences in
your career?
There are too many good memories to single out anything specific. I
suspect some of the escapades, although they seemed truly excellent
at the time, would make me cringe if I were to be reminded of them
publicly today—all part of life’s rich tapestry! This being said, my
best memories are very much associated with travelling around the
world through my work, especially once I had left the operator community and joined the oilfield-service sector. I’ve met some fantastic
people along the way.
Who has helped you the most in your career,
and what lessons did you learn from your
mentors? Would you name those who have
been most influential for you?
When I started out with BP, I didn’t realize there was a difference
between a manager and a mentor. In the early part of my career,
everything I learned was in a mentoring environment. My bosses
showed me how to do things and then stretched me to explore further. I only realized later what a fortunate set of circumstances that
was. Nevertheless, I can think of four people who stand out for me
as making a real difference to my career:
The first person is Joe Allan, recently retired from Helix. When I
worked for Joe, in the early 1990s, as a production engineer in BP’s
Northern North Sea Fields group, he showed me what it was like
to be really technically good at something. He very much raised the
bar and stretched me greatly, compared with anyone before that. The
way that Joe taught me to understand what was fundamentally going
on when solving technical problems stays with me to this day.
Immediately afterward, I worked for Brock Williams, in the newly
merged Production Technology Group for Central and Northern
North Sea. Brock is still with BP but now in Houston. Although Joe
taught me a lot, I had become very opinionated on the way things
should be done. Brock not only put up with my initial spiky attitude, he managed to turn me into a much more capable engineer.
Also, being the first American I had worked for in BP, he also made
The Way Ahead Interview invites senior figures who shape our E&P industry to share their wisdom, experience, and deep knowledge with the young E&P professional
community. Please join us for an inspiring conversation with Stuart Ferguson, chief technology officer, Weatherford—an interview that reveals the joys of a technical career in
our industry.
John Donachie, Editor, TWA Interview
SOCIETY OF PETROLEUM ENGINEERS
me realize that there was a big world outside of the North Sea, with
very different ways of doing things.
I left BP and joined the service sector. In the late 1990s, I
worked with Fraser Innes at Petroline, a company later purchased
by Weatherford. Fraser is now an independent consultant. He was
the person who turned an engineer into a salesman, and let me be
clear that there are no negative connotations with the word “salesman” at all. Fraser was obsessive about technical excellence—if
we were going to do something, we were going to do it right. But,
more importantly, he made me much more aware of what people
were thinking and feeling, and of the crucial part that plays in
commercial negotiations.
The fourth person is my current boss, Bernard Duroc-Danner,
chief executive officer of Weatherford International and a truly
remarkable person. I have worked for him for 6 years, and I would
need a long time to tell you all the things he has taught me. Bernard’s
lessons are less about being specifically good at my job and far more
about a bigger picture. Nevertheless, he has taught me some important lessons about leadership which we will cover later.
This issue of The Way Ahead is focused on
the competencies that energy professionals
will require in the future, covering the broad
range of disciplines of professional activities
within our industry and also emerging energy
technology. What advice can you give YPs in
our industry today that will accommodate our
industry’s changing dynamics?
I always tell YPs the same thing whenever I talk to them: Make sure
that you develop and keep up some core technical skills. Do not fall
into the dangerous middle-management trap where you become a
jack of all trades and master of none. Hone some fundamental technical skills and keep them up to date. Irrespective of what happens,
those skills are highly marketable today and will become even more
so in the future. You can be more self-determined as a person if you
know you have strong core skills.
If you are a petroleum engineer and you can’t remember how to
derive the steady-state radial flow equation, then go back and look
it up. I’m serious! When I interview petroleum engineers, I often ask
them to do the derivation. I don’t really care if they can or they can’t,
but it provides a lot of insight watching them try.
To find your strengths, don’t stay in an environment that does
not expose you to a broad range of experiences. You may become
too much a product of that environment. Seek out new experiences to be all you can be. Nevertheless, you should probably specialize to some degree eventually. In my experience, people enjoy
what they are good at and will continue to deepen and broaden
their abilities.
Weatherford has grown into one of the world’s
largest diversified upstream oilfield service
companies as a result of internal growth and
innovation, as well as the consolidation of
more than 200 strategic acquisitions. How
does Weatherford develop its YPs to handle the
challenges of the dynamic present as well as
the future?
Weatherford as a company has changed hugely, even in the 7 years
that I have been there. Nevertheless, beyond our formal training
programs for YPs, Weatherford still fosters a strong entrepreneurial
culture. People in Weatherford are given opportunities for a lot of
THEWAYAHEAD
freedom of thought and self-determination. This is the best thing
we do for our people.
What do you enjoy most about your job?
The best thing by far is the people I work with. I’m saying that
not because it is a politically right-on thing to say, but because it
is absolutely true. Despite the cynicism that often creeps in as one
gets older, I never cease to be amazed, and often am delighted,
by the people that I work with. It truly takes all sorts. Having the
opportunity to spend time with people with such a broad spectrum
of backgrounds and outlooks is a fantastic privilege.
You haven’t asked the question, but what do I enjoy least?
Somewhat ironically, I find the travel schedule difficult, even though
some of my best experiences have been associated with travelling.
It can be wearing going somewhere, knowing it will be followed
immediately with the need to go somewhere else, then somewhere
else thereafter. This conveyor belt aspect of business travel is a
grind, but there is still not a realistic alternative. Videoconferencing
is great if you are working in a project environment, but there is
still no substitute for pressing the flesh of people you work with, or
people you are trying to do deals with.
You have a very busy professional life, but what
is your ideal escape?
The honest answer is that I’m a pretty obsessive person, so I struggle
to escape. It is very difficult for me: I rely on others to drag me away
but, fortunately, my family is really good at that. I travel a lot, so I try
to guard my weekends preciously to spend time at home. There is
no greater way not to think about work than having young children,
especially when I hear the sound of something being broken.
How does your company maintain a competitive
position in today’s market?
For me, it boils down to three things. The first is being entrepreneurial, which is a difficult achievement in such a large company
and means that we rely strongly upon our people. The second is our
commitment to technology. Over the past 7 years, we have invested
relatively heavily in research and engineering, especially in some
displacing technologies. It has been a hard battle at times, but, looking back, we’ve radically changed the profile of the company. The
third is perseverance, sheer doggedness. Once we decide on a path,
we are resolute in following it. Things never go as smoothly as you
may like, and often the only way to get through to the end is just
to keep plowing on.
What are the key technology challenges you
see for the E&P industry now and in the next
10 years?
In the shorter term, the overriding issue facing the industry is maximizing barrels per day per dollar.
There are some interrelated themes associated with that. We
must efficiently exploit our resources and bring fields on stream
rapidly. We need technologies that drive down well costs such that
we can drill enough wells to develop less prolific fields and satisfy
production demand. On the other hand, we need to focus on making wells more productive, so that we can realize their maximum
potential. For mature fields, we need to find cost-effective ways to
avoid bypassed oil and maximize recovery. Barrels per day per dollar—productivity up and costs down.
The use of “barrels” highlights our dependence on liquid fuels.
How will we develop our huge gas resources and deliver them as a
Continued on page 23
form of energy that is most useful to us? For me, this issue is very
broad—from large liquefied-natural-gas and gas-to-liquids projects
right down to microplants, locally producing diesel for communities
close to small, stranded gas fields.
What involvement have you had with
professional organizations such as SPE, and
what benefits do you see from such professional
organizations?
I’ve been a member of the SPE ever since I became a petroleum
engineer in the early 1990s. In my various jobs, I was always actively
encouraged to write SPE papers. The drive for writing papers is a
good, and important, thing—a distillation moment. If you are writing a report, then why not turn it into a paper if you want people to
learn from what you have done?
Today, I’m pretty much on the ragged edge of the amount of time I
can devote to SPE and still do my job. But I think that SPE plays an
important role, so I try to participate in conferences, usually in plenary sessions, and with occasional journal articles. I was part of the
Program Committee for ATCE 2007 in Anaheim, and I am Program
Committee chairperson for ATCE 2008 in Denver.
If you had asked me a few years ago what was important about
SPE conferences, I would have said simply “access to SPE papers.”
But now, with the advent of the eLibrary and other online sources
of technical information, the role of conferences has become clearer
in my mind. The opportunity to network with other professionals
and discuss the work presented in papers provides a much richer
experience than just reading about it.
What changes would you make to the way our
industry attracts people?
The question sort of implies that we have a problem attracting
people. In emerging markets, I don’t think we have a problem
attracting people at all. In the last year, Weatherford recruited more
than 5,000 people. I won’t say it was easy, but it wasn’t terribly difficult either. Our industry offers a great opportunity. What is more
important is that we ensure there are enough graduates available to
recruit. I must say, I’m a lot less worried about the “big crew change”
than some others seem to be. I find it a rather western-centric view
of the world.
However, in some OECD countries, the industry seems tainted
with a tabloid-journalistic reputation of greed, power, and corruption. Annoying as it is, we have to overcome this tarnished image.
With an oil demand of 1,000 barrels per second, we need to get
people to recognize that this industry is not only a worthy cause, but
absolutely vital—and certainly not something that the world would
be better off without.
Finally, what lessons can you share about
leadership that might help a young professional
achieve a successful career?
I have learned two important things about leadership.
The first is the need for the bravery to set a course of action when
nobody else can. There are times when no one around you can be
expected to take a stance that you know needs to be taken. Only
you can say, “This is what we are going to do,” absolving others and
taking full responsibility, even to the point of putting your career on
the line. This usually happens in the difficult moments, in adversity.
But people around you recognize the significance of these moments.
It’s very palpable.
Second, leadership is about asking people to do things that you
not only couldn’t do yourself, but are not even sure can be done. I
remember a few years ago walking out of a meeting with Bernard
when he had committed Weatherford to do something that I didn’t
think was possible. When I asked him for his cunning plan, which
he must have had up his sleeve, his response was something like,
“I don’t know how to do this, but I know it needs to be done, and
I’m sure you will work it out.” I was speechless—a rare occurrence.
It was a difficult moment, and I felt a huge sense of responsibility.
No one was going to give me marks out of 10 for trying—I either
delivered or I didn’t; we either succeeded or failed. As it transpired,
a combination of perspiration, inspiration, and a touch of good
fortune led to a successful outcome. I realized afterward that I had
learned a valuable lesson on leadership. If you are really going to
achieve great results, then you have got to ask people to do really
hard things.
TWA
SOCIETY OF PETROLEUM ENGINEERS