The most expensive decision in oil and gas isn't choosing the wrong rig. It's deciding that one more check isn't worth the time.
I've spent the past 12 years on the operations side of oilfield services, most of it at Schlumberger—sorry, SLB; the old name still sticks with me. My job is the part of the business that gets called when a program is about to miss a deadline, or already has. I've handled more than 200 urgent callouts for E&P operators who needed answers in hours, not weeks. And almost every one of those calls was avoidable.
I'm not a reservoir engineer, so I can't tell you how to model a complicated formation. What I can tell you from an operations perspective is this: bad outcomes are rarely a surprise. They almost always trace back to a skipped check that felt reasonable at the time.
I've Never Seen an Emergency That Wasn't Announced
In March 2024, I got a call at 9:47 p.m. A client needed a revised flare analysis for a well test that was already rigging up. Normal turnaround for that engineering package is five business days. We had 36 hours.
We used Schlumberger FlareSim to rerun the scenario before sunrise. FlareSim lets the team model flare loads, thermal radiation, and vent rates before a single valve opens (source: slb.com, accessed January 2025). It's a good tool. But the tool wasn't the bottleneck—the workflow was. The data had been sitting in the client's folder for a week.
Nobody calls at 9:47 p.m. to say we're ahead of schedule. They call when a check got skipped and the consequences caught up.
Why 'We'll Fix It Later' Is a Budget, Not a Strategy
There's a familiar trap in our industry: save a small amount of time or money on the front end, pay for it on the back end. I've seen it with a skipped wireline pass, a delayed pressure test, a formation-evaluation program cut to the minimum. The savings look good on a morning report. The consequences show up on a final invoice.
Early in my career, I watched an operator try to save $30,000 by skipping a formation pressure test. The well was drilled, completed, and produced—at about half the expected rate. The remediation cost, including intervention and lost production, was several times that $30,000. I don't remember the exact number, so don't quote me on it. But I remember the feeling in the room when the well test came back.
This is why I tell young engineers to think about programs like the Schlumberger Fellowship the same way. The fellowship isn't a reward for knowing everything. It's a way to build relationships and research capability before you need them. The same logic applies in the field: build the technical muscle before the emergency, not after.
The Wrong Questions: Bentley, Chauvin, and Fumbles
Sometimes the best way to make a point is to get out of the oil field.
I've never owned a 2024 Bentley GT, and I'm not a mechanic, so I can't walk you through its service schedule. But I understand the logic of preventive maintenance: the owner doesn't wait for a dashboard warning to decide whether the next inspection is worth it. They follow the schedule because the cost of a failed component is far higher than the cost of checking it.
There's also a quiet technical chauvinism in this industry—the idea that real operators don't need checklists because they can feel when something's wrong. I call it chauvin because it's based on pride rather than evidence. It's the reason experienced crews sometimes skip the last verification. And it's exactly when the problem happens.
People ask, 'how many fumbles does Henry have?'—meaning Derrick Henry, the running back—as if the number on its own tells you whether to hand him the ball. I'm not a football analyst, so I can't give you the stat line. But the better question is what the team does after the fumble. In drilling, it's the same: the mistake is less important than the recovery plan.
Does Prevention Cost More? Not in the Long Run
I can already hear the pushback: 'We don't have time to check everything.' Fair. But you don't have to check everything—you have to check the things that take minutes and affect days.
After a mistake that cost us a $50,000 penalty in 2023—I'd rather not relive it—I put together a 12-point verification checklist for rush wellsite jobs. It sounds boring. It's saved us an estimated $80,000 in potential rework since then. That number is from our internal job tracker, so treat it as an approximation. But the pattern is real.
Here's something vendors won't tell you: published lead times often include buffer. That buffer is for managing the production queue, not for your specific job. The sooner you engage, the more of that buffer you get to use. The same is true for a technical review, a flare simulation, or a fellowship application—the work done early is the work that compounds.
I do not mean you can eliminate all risk. Equipment fails. Weather changes. People make mistakes. But most of those risks are not random. Equipment fails when maintenance is deferred. Weather changes when you didn't build a contingency window. People make mistakes when the process depends on memory instead of a checklist.
This is not a universal law. At least, that's been my experience with 200+ wellsite operations.
The Check Is the Strategy
The next time someone says, 'We don't have time for this check,' that's the signal to do it anyway. Not because every check will find a problem, but because the ones that do will save you a hundred times more time than checking cost.
Schlumberger didn't become a global leader in oilfield services by being the flashiest company in the room. It built its reputation on doing the hard, unglamorous work of testing, measuring, and verifying. That's the same mindset behind tools like FlareSim and programs like the Schlumberger Fellowship: build the capability early, use it before the deadline, and avoid the fire drill.
Prevention isn't the opposite of performance. It's what makes performance possible.