ARUGHA WILKIE

15-year cumulative experienced, detail oriented, results focused Completions and Well Interventions Engineer adept in completing parallel project objectives with multiple stakeholder interests, creating over $4 million in restored revenue and $ 4 million (10% below planned spend) in cost savings for employers. Led multi-functional teams to operational excellence; standardized practices with no recorded safety incidents.

• A Project Manager for a ground-breaking collaboration between Innotech Alberta, Petroleum Technology Alliance Canada (PTAC), Frontier Project Solutions and Net Zero Technology Centre (NZTC) based in Aberdeen, Scotland to develop new products and processes to reduce or eliminate methane emissions from active and closed wells.

• Planned work schedule, aligned internal and external stakeholders, identified and managed technical and non-technical risks for a 32 (no.) deep sour gas well abandonment campaign. Mentored junior, new graduate and intern Engineers in the preparation and execution of well abandonment programs, including reviews of well histories, reservoir characteristics, petrophysics, geology, cost estimates, relevant regulations, and handling daily operational issues. Completed operations 20% ($4 million) below planned expenditure and increased shut-off rate on well annular gas flow by 20% in two years.

• Effectively contributed to asset value creation in multi-disciplinary and ethnically diverse teams as the project completions engineer working directly with the drilling and production engineering teams for a thermal and cold Oil Sands asset. Successfully completed 48 completions under budget, multitudes of well abandonments, workovers, acid stimulations and well integrity restorations with no HSSE incidents recorded. Maximized production and minimized non-productive time by constantly aligning service providers with the asset’s safety and operational objectives.

• Well-site supervisor leading multi-disciplinary teams with diverse experience levels, ages and ethnic backgrounds for perforating, cementing, abandonments, workovers, interventions and horizontal multi-stage completions and successfully accomplished operational objectives. Understood and verified personal and process safety measures, well control practices and emergency response preparation daily and attained a zero HSSE incident record.

• Authored and presented a paper (SPE 170758-MS) to the Society of Petroleum Engineers on Deep Sour Gas Well Abandonments at the 2014 Annual Technical Conference Exhibition (ATCE). This paper sets out procedures for Canadian and global assets on how to conduct effective low-cost well abandonments by providing the technical background on best practices learned.

• Successfully sealed the most challenging well annular gas flow in employer’s Canadian assets by conducting in depth reviews of previous abandonment attempts, working closely with subsurface teams and applying new technologies. Changed how employer monitors, diagnoses and repairs migrating annular gas in wells. Presented learnings at the 2015 Royal Dutch Shell Unconventionals Resources and the SPE/Well Integrity and Abandonment Society (WIA) Conferences.

• Organized frequent well abandonment operations improvement workshops for field and office staff and prime contractors. Tracked progress on project deliverables, developed and implemented new business improvement plans, and captured 15% in cost savings.

• Identified the location of a production tubing leak, conducted leak tests, and verified the presence of a serious well integrity risk. Convinced the asset to replace the entire production string by summarizing HSSE concerns, affordability, and likelihood of success on alternative temporary solutions after collaborating with employers’ staff internationally and external service providers. Re-instated $1.8 million quarterly revenue after completing workover.

• Assisted contracts and procurement team in selecting cost competitive coiled tubing providers in a multi-round tender by reviewing bids, operating track records, HSSE performance and technical capabilities based on asset’s requirements. Contract negotiations reduced average daily rates by 18%.

• Member of the Well Integrity and Abandonment Society (https://wiasociety.org/)
• Member of the Board of Directors for the Ark of Christ Victory Church (http://www.arkofchrist.ca/)