Category: Executive Presentation

Andrew started in 2019 in the Houston, TX facility as a thermite technician. Being a key member of the thermite team, he performs qualification, R&D and troubleshooting tests to ensure the quality of thermite that we manufacture. He sees a new project as an exciting endeavor to be able to assemble instrumentation and perform new tests.

BiSN is a small-medium sized business which is one of the many reasons Andrew enjoys working here. He stated that his “hard work has a bigger impact” on the overall success because of the size of the company. Andrew is also a proud veteran of the US Army Artillery. We thank you for your service to our country and dedication to BiSN.

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April has been a busy month for production and testing. We would like to celebrate our Production Engineer, Baldemar Elizondo, as the ‘Employee of the Month’.

Baldemar has consistently provided a clear scope and status of projects in the pipeline. Being under pressure at times, does not change the professional, tranquil demeanor that he exudes. With Baldemar’s sense of calmness, the team’s confidence never faulters and tasks are completed in a timely and efficient manner. Thank you for all that you do!

image: Baldemar Elizondo – Production Engineer on left, with Paul Carragher CEO of BiSN

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The month of March is almost gone, but BiSN would like to honor our “Employee of the Month”, @Jim Spurr.

Jim’s attitude towards getting the job done cannot be beat. Not only has he been offshore (in various locations) for more than 24 months, Jim takes on any task in front of him and performs it with the utmost professionalism. Thank you, Jim. We appreciate your devotion and go-getter attitude today and every day!

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HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!

I would like to extend a big congratulations to our employees who celebrated their anniversary in the first quarter.

Thank you for your hard work, dedication and positive attitude to push BiSN to new heights.

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Our employees are the core of BiSN, and it is their passion and drive that makes our mission possible. Because the people are what make our company what it is, we wanted to introduce our employees through a ‘Meet the BiSN Team’ series which will profile many of our talented workforce and give a bit of an insight to what they do for us on a day-to-day basis.

Help us welcome one of BiSN’S newest members of the team, Mike Moody, Head of Engineering.

With emergence into new markets and global demands increasing, he is ready to lead the charge and steer our engineering team towards new horizons. Mike has over 25 years of experience in engineering and project management within the oil and gas industry, and specifically the development of downhole tools.

Born and educated in the UK, Mike has always been fascinated with engineering. This fascination has lead Mike across the globe in various positions and ultimately landing in the US in the early 90’s. Mike lives in Magnolia Texas, and spends his free time riding motorcycles, walking his Weimaraner dog and designing pyrotechnics displays.

Join me in welcoming Mike to the BiSN family!

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Our employees are the core of BiSN, and it is their passion and drive that makes our mission possible. Because the people are what make our company what it is, we wanted to introduce our employees through a ‘Meet the BiSN Team’ series which will profile many of our talented workforce and give a bit of an insight to what they do for us on a day-to-day basis.

We recently spoke to Jim Spurr, Field Operations for the Eastern Hemisphere

1. How long have you worked at BiSN?
I have worked with BiSN since November 2018.

2. What does your role entail?
I operate out of the UK BiSN office where I manage and perform field operations, predominantly in the Eastern Hemisphere.

3. What is the best thing about working at BiSN?
I like the fact that I am able to see a tool built through the entire manufacturing process, from machined piece parts and loading the heater with a thermite mix, to the finished product. Often, I’ll see the tools again at the client’s wellsite and run the tool for its intended application like I did for many of the 54 tools we ran as part of a P&A campaign in Australia for a major operator.

4. What is the most exciting part about your job?
I really enjoy travelling and executing our field operations. It’s great to liaise with the clients, offer technical support and discuss our operations. I also like to hear about the positive results first-hand, whether it be a pressure test after setting our plug downhole, or a significant reduction in water cut and increase in oil production following the successful deployment of our WSO tool, like we’ve done multiple times in Angola.

5. Are there any key lessons that you’ve learned from your time with BiSN?
There’s a large emphasis on attention to detail across our engineering, testing and manufacturing departments. It’s not “just a plug”, everything is finely tuned and proved to the client’s well parameters and specifications to ensure success in the field. This attention to detail has kept me busy successfully running our field proven tools around the world.

6. What challenges have you faced within your role?
Working with a product line that ranges from a 1 3/8” OD, 10kg Wel-lok M2M TS tool to a 50ft and 18” OD Wel-lok M2M STC tool weighing over 15 tonne has brought many challenges across the board, but nothing we haven’t risen to and overcome.

I’m particularly proud of being involved in bringing new product innovation to market and into the field, like our Wel-Lok Maximum Drift (MXD) tool. In some through tubing applications, a challenge often found is the need to pass through a restriction and to further seal in a large diameter casing. I ran the first commercial operations of this MXD tool for clients in Norway & Australia, where both runs were successful and objectives achieved.

7. What does your working day look like?
When in the UK, I commute into Manchester where we assist with the manufacturing of the tooling. The typical working week will include a conference call with a client ahead of any upcoming campaigns, where we can touch base with all parties, update on the schedule & delivery etc.

Away from the UK, work will be really busy offshore, and we will do everything we can to prepare to run our tool on time and without any unplanned event. This will include reporting to the client, to our BiSN team in the UK and Houston, organising logistics and managing the field personnel assigned to operations.

8. Outside of work, how do you like to spend your time?
As I work away for the majority of the year, I really value quality time at home with the family. I am married and a father of three sons, so there’s never a quiet time in the Spurr household!

I’ve always had a love for flying and I’m qualified in aeronautical engineering, so I’ve just started working towards obtaining my Private Pilot License (PPL). I enjoy fishing and I’m learning how to golf again.

Alongside all of that, I have found a passion in property, so I keep busy sourcing investment opportunities in Wakefield, West Yorkshire for local, national and international investors.

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Our employees are the core of BiSN, and it is their passion and drive that makes our mission possible. Because the people are what make our company what it is, we wanted to introduce our employees through a ‘Meet the BiSN Team’ series which will profile many of our talented workforce and give a bit of an insight to what they do for us on a day-to-day basis.

We recently spoke to David Ford, our Asset Manager.

1. How long have you worked at BiSN?
2 years and 6 months

2. What does your role entail?
Staying engaged in asset and inventory management, order procurement, and logistics. I work hard to keep things in motion, striving for accuracy and meeting our internal and external customer’s needs.

3. What is the best thing about working at BiSN?
Being part of an innovative company that is growing and working with incredible employees who are dedicated in making our company succeed.

4. What is the most exciting part about your job?
I love working with intelligent engineers, skilled technicians, awesome machinist and my team of materials handlers who collaborate to meet and exceed our customers’ expectations. I enjoy doing business with our vendors who supply the materials necessary for our projects. I like meeting the customers who visit our facility to witness testing and product evaluation.

5. Are there any key lessons that you’ve learned from your time with BiSN?
I would have to say that purchasing has been a key lesson due to the everchanging customer needs and wants. Adapting to a facility that where tools are tested and manufactured to adapt to customer requirements vs a standard production facility has had its fair share of lessons learned. Or keeping enough material on hand to meet tight deadlines without purchasing too much and swelling the inventory value. There’s been many lessons within the purchasing area of my role.

6. What challenges have you faced within your role?
Every day brings a new challenge when working at a company developing innovative technology – it keeps me involved with learning the materials used in our tools and working with our engineers and technicians to accomplish project completion.

7. What does your working day look like?
I prioritize my responsibilities as necessary in order to accomplish many tasks daily. This can involve; following up on overdue purchase orders, checking the status of saw works to the machine shop, allocating materials to project work orders, purchasing project related needs and shop consumables and preparing commercial documentation to accompany international shipments around the world. My role involves an element of reporting, including reporting inventory levels by implementing monthly and quarterly cycle counts. I’m responsible for keeping track of company assets including office equipment, plant and machinery. I’m always on hand to over help to anyone in need.

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Our employees are the core of BiSN, and it is their passion and drive that makes our mission possible. Because the people are what make our company what it is, we wanted to introduce our employees through a ‘Meet the BiSN Team’ series which will profile many of our talented workforce and give a bit of an insight to what they do for us on a day-to-day basis.

We recently spoke to Billy Clark, our Thermite Manager.

1. How long have you worked at BiSN?
2 years

2. What does your role entail?
I’m responsible for the qualification and production of all of the thermite we use in our test tools that we fire in the shop and the commercial tools that we send down hole. In addition to that, we are responsible for running the development and qualification of any new or prototype thermite mixes that we are going to be using to enhance tool capability.

3. What is the best thing about working at BiSN?
The people that we work with and the challenges we get to solve on a day to day basis.

4. What is the most exciting part about your job?
I get to fire literally tonnes of thermite.

5. Are there any key lessons that you’ve learned from your time with BiSN?
You must be open to any possibility – we have had several projects come in where we have thought there was going to be no way they would work, but we found a way. We found a solution and got a commercial tool out, got it downhole and it worked. I’ve definitely learned to never dismiss anything right away and to always have a look at a problem a second time, or maybe even a third time.

6. What challenges have you faced within your role?
Of course, there are always challenges or something that comes up. We are constantly learning and there are always new things and unexpected outcomes that you have to work from. We are often having to modify our approach if things don’t work the first time and learning how to keep moving forward with different projects.

7. What does your working day look like?
I do a little bit of office work and a lot of work in the shop, whether it’s chasing how tests are going or making sure we have all the things we need for testing. I also check on those manufacturing the thermite, so I spend a lot of time in the shop seeing how things are going and helping them out.

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Our employees are the core of BiSN, and it is their passion and drive that makes our mission possible. Because the people are what make our company what it is, we wanted to introduce our employees through a ‘Meet the BiSN Team’ series which will profile many of our talented workforce and give a bit of an insight to what they do for us on a day-to-day basis.

We recently spoke to Ben Camarata, our Alloy Team Lead.

1. How long have you worked at BiSN?
15 months

2. What does your role entail?
I work in our Alloy department as the Alloy Team Lead, so my role involves supervising the alloy department by managing the work flow to meet the expected completion dates and making improvements to the casting processes. Bismuth alloy is a huge part of our business, so it’s important that our department is turning out high quality work.

3. What is the best thing about working at BiSN?
At BiSN your thoughts are always heard, and the company is forward thinking. They are always open to new suggestions and we are afforded the resources to experiment with making improvements.

4. What is the most exciting part about your job?
I love working in a research and development (R&D) environment; there’s no monotony, every single day is different.

5. Are there any key lessons that you’ve learned from your time with BiSN?
I’ve learned the value in taking a step back and brainstorming improvements with the alloy technicians. They all have wonderful ideas.

6. What challenges have you faced within your role?
Learning how polish and analyse soft alloys, like bismuth, and learning how to improve the casting process while still maintaining its tolerances, have been big challenge for me. I also faced the task of producing shot made from our “hi-temp” alloy, which was a definite learning curve for me.

7. What does your working day look like?
My day involves a lot of planning, reviewing work orders and ensuring that we have all of the components required. I’m constantly looking at and thinking about new ways to improve efficiency of the alloy department operations. On occasion, I’ll suit up and help the technicians complete work orders, which is a nice change of pace. I often spend time analysing microstructures and to help provide the principal engineers with data.

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Huge congratulations from downhole technology experts, BiSN, to our latest employees of the month, Junior Technician Joseph Hernandez and Workshop Coordinator Vikki Lee. They can both always be trusted to give their absolute best. Well done!

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