What The Funk?

0:00 Okay, we are back on what the funk bit of a bit of a break from podcasting over the last month, lots of travel, you know, summers over, kids are back in school, leaves are starting to change,

0:16 we're actually hitting fall over here. But you guys will be hearing a lot more of me as we go forward, just based on the amount of podcasts I have scheduled. And I'm excited today to have some of

0:27 my new friends, a couple guys that I met just a month ago, sitting over in Aberdeen, Scotland. I think this is our first guest that's actually recording from Scotland. And we've got team KCI,

0:43 Kinetic Controls Inc. I think I said that right.

0:48 Innovation, Jeremy, innovation It's early innovation.

0:56 Let's start that over. Can you listen to me if I if I hadn't if we had our time again, it certainly wouldn't be that long a name. That's for sure

1:04 Well, you don't have to type all of that out to get to the website. So at least there's that all right. Absolutely. Yeah

1:11 But yeah, we've got Kevin and Graham checking in from across the pond. I'm excited to actually meet Graham in person. He's doing a whirlwind tour of the US landing first, I think in beautiful

1:23 beautiful Cleveland, Ohio That's correct, yes

1:30 Yeah, looking forward to it The popular non-stop flight from Aberdeen to Cleveland. That's well much they go in via Chicago as well It's for another highlight and see Chicago airport. Wow, Chicago

1:42 is awesome And this time of year is amazing, too But I'm gonna hit you guys with a question that is the most relevant and and we'll start there. So who are you guys? who

1:56 Graham Steele, who are you, Kevin Watt? And I'll let you guys pick whatever order you want to go. Well, I'll go first, then, Kevin. Yeah, yeah, I'm Graham Steele. So a little bit about me.

2:07 I was born and brought up in a small town in the county of Angus in Scotland called Kirimure. So it's the same place as the original ACDC lead singer Bond Scott was brought up in. All right And also

2:25 another claim to fame is Sir Jay and Barry, the author of Peter Pan, was born there, too. So something for everyone in my little town.

2:35 So yeah, a little bit more, I guess, I've always been interested in mechanical things - car, tractors, Lego, all that kind of thing, mechanical. And it not led me to mess around on a farm at

2:50 weekends, getting my hand dirty on tractors and machinery That led me to. a career in agricultural engineering,

3:01 where I repaired machinery, blacksmithing shop as well, so a mechanic, diesel mechanic, where I was a top student in my here at college, which was great.

3:12 But I guess from there, you know, I guess that the world is quite big and being from a small town, I didn't actually know that at the time. And then I can talk about later stages of my life and

3:25 going forward about let Kevin chat about his background, I guess.

3:32 I don't have anything as exciting as Graham has in terms of the very cool people that have come from his little town. But yeah, so I'm Kevin Wharton, the managing director of KCI, upbringing. So

3:44 I was a city boy. I was brought up in Aberdeen, in Scotland. And yeah, Yeah, just typical city boy, I mean.

3:55 My parents split up when I was quite young, which thankfully didn't have a massive impact on me personally.

4:02 I had a very good upbringing through school, played football all the time, football all day, football all evening, soccer, obviously to you guys. So, yeah, just kind of, yeah, great fun when

4:15 I was young, out with friends all the time. And then, yeah, educational, no, I was quite, I was quite happy to get out of school as quickly as possible As soon as you're kind of like around

4:25 about sort of 16 years old, you can leave school in the UK. And I decided to take that route of school and started working. First job was an office junior in a wholesale distributors

4:39 business. And that was good fun. Just got me an exposure to business at the very sort of grassroots level. That was it, I enjoyed that. And then just kind of worked my way up. So I started as

4:51 office junior. and then worked my way off, and up, and up. And I think when I left that company in 2012, I was basically running the business on a day-to-day basis. So I was there for about 19

5:04 years, and now I've been with KCI for, yeah, I've been coming up for 13 years now with KCI. So yeah, solid upbringing, very, very enlightened and early career. And yeah, this is me now So you

5:19 know, Kevin, we call that, you know, the American dream, right? You start at the bottom, you work your way to the top. What's the Scottish dream? Is that, is it the same thing?

5:30 I don't think so, I guess. You know, if you think about the opportunity that exists for young people nowadays, it's maybe a little bit different from when I started out all those years ago. And I

5:41 still consider myself a youngster, but you know, the truth is that, you know, I'm probably not, not really anymore

5:49 No, I just, yeah. I was lucky. I got to work with people who showed me the value of hard work and dedication and commitment and loyalty and all those sorts of things. So yeah, I was super lucky

6:01 to get access to people like that. And I'm still in touch with them to these days. So people I started working with 30 years ago, 35 years ago,

6:09 I'm still in touch with them just today and consider them to be like a mentor to me. So yeah, no, I was lucky. I was one of the lucky ones

6:18 Yeah,

6:22 I mean, you said you're a city boy, right? I have no idea what Aberdeen's like. I'll probably get there at some point, just based on the fact that ever since we started working with Sarah

6:30 McCauley, one of our partners and advisors out of Houston is from there, right? And all of a sudden, my eyes are getting open to all of these really cool companies, technologically innovative

6:43 companies, I would say for the most part, in Aberdeen, you know, I would probably consider it a small city. but your purview is your purview. So maybe in some ways it's not all that small and I

6:58 don't want to make any assumptions.

7:01 But Graham, over to you real quick.

7:08 What is it like growing up in Scotland? And I know that's an awkward question because what do you have to compare it to? That's where you grew up, right? Yeah, yeah. But is it like, the

7:18 perception I think over here is it rains all the time and they've got these sort of funny accents and people are probably into sports like footballs, soccer and rugby. And certainly there's water

7:33 nearby. Maybe there's a lot of fishing type jobs. Oil and gas is definitely a thing. Yeah. But like, what was it like? What was your life like as a youngster? Ah, well, for me, growing up in

7:46 a small rural town, it was quite dull, I guess I'm in the small towns everywhere in the world, so I guess a small town in the US will be much the same as Scotland. The town probably had 12, 000

7:58 people, something like that.

8:01 The closest city was Dundee, which maybe some people have heard about, so that was maybe 20 minutes away in a bus. A weekend trip to the city was about an eye opener. You just start to watch, you

8:16 didn't get mugged or murdered, but

8:21 that never happened. When

8:24 a teenager in Kirimure, it's a bit of a thought. The things we did as kids was, just as you say, it rained quite a lot, snows quite a lot and won't have time, so we went skiing about an hour's

8:40 drive as a ski resort called Gwenchi, which is really bad, but there's sometimes modern rocks, but

8:50 You get the bug anyway, a lot of golf courses around where I live as well. So I've played golf since I was, you know, kind of 12,

8:60 still do now. So it's a fantastic pursuit, especially through COVID that you were talking about earlier. That was one of the things that you could keep doing during the pandemic, was get out with

9:11 at least one of your friends and keep a distance. But you're outside, you know, have a chat, that was fantastic That was good for mental health for everyone. You get out of the house, you walk

9:20 around, you get a bit of exercise. Yeah, so not much to get excited about, I guess,

9:29 from my upbringing. But I guess it was a bit dull, so I went to help out at a farm at weekends. That kind of filled my time as well. I loved the environment of being outside and driving tractors

9:41 when I shouldn't have been when I was probably 11 or 12 I

9:46 wasn't too interested in animals, but it was mainly just the mechanics, things of it.

9:51 Yeah, there's similarities here to, you know, I grew up in Northern New England. And, you know, our teachers and people that had at least traveled the world a little bit would say, you know,

10:01 it's actually really similar here to the UK, right? It's lush, it's green. You know, I grew up in a country town, small town about 1500, maybe 1600 people. Still probably 15, 1600 people, so

10:17 it hasn't seen any sort of growth, you know If there's a new baby in town, everybody seems to know about it. Time to think. Yeah, there's farms and a short, you know, nice weather season, but

10:29 people make the most of it. You know, the farms have, you know, tremendous produce during that time and just the crispness and cleanness in the air is kind of awesome. And then, you know, if

10:39 you need to get to skiing, they're skiing nearby. So, you know, before whatever happened, I'm not a scientist, but, you know, before the world split off, you know, we probably grew up Not

10:50 that far from each other. but

10:53 now there's a big pond in between, so. Yeah, yeah, exactly. But yeah, I'm going over to Ohio soon as well. So that feels similar in a culture to where I'm from as well. So yeah, I'm looking

11:09 forward to that. It's different from Houston for sure, yeah. I was gonna say, I mean, more so than Houston, right? Have you guys been to the States before, both of you? Have you spent time

11:19 over here? I've been probably 18, 19 times, something like that. Mainly Florida, to be honest. Holidays down to Disney and all that. Fantastic things when the kids were growing up. Had a few

11:34 trips to Houston, business-wise. I was there last year, actually, for a week. 'Cause one of my friends lives in Houston. So I went to the Formula One out at Austin as well. Oh, yeah. Which

11:45 was a great passion of mine as well So yeah, I'm familiar with. with the town and all of its things, but a lot of other things that it's got to offer. So yeah, I really like coming across, to be

12:00 honest, it's something to look forward to and embrace. It's the American dream almost, it's like the land of plenty, it's things that you've only seen on TV that you can go and sample for yourself.

12:12 So yeah, I'm blessed to be able to have the opportunity to come over to Houston and Ohio and meet people and hopefully do a little bit of business as well. Yes, sir. Keep it coming back. Yeah,

12:24 and I guess from my point of view, my only experience of the USA is Disney World Florida as well.

12:34 It's

12:36 not quite real, is it? No, not quite real life in the US, no. So yeah, I think we've been over it about five times, I think, in the past 15 years, that sort of thing. But I guess going

12:47 forward, Graham coming out on this trip.

12:52 all about market research, business development, all that sort of good stuff. But I think, so my vision for that is that this will be just the first trip of many. And I would imagine I would

13:01 accompany Graham on many trips to come because the US is a market that is top priority for KCI. Brilliant opportunity for us as a company. Lots of cultural similarities in terms of the way that we

13:14 operate and do business and we think about safety and productivity and all that sort of stuff as well So yeah, I can imagine Graham and I and yeah, on a fairly frequent basis, traveling to and from

13:26 the US, I've been imagining in the coming years. Well, yeah, I mean, I hope so and you bring up a good point, right? Like the, even just the term, the terms and terminology that you just used,

13:38 this is one of the things that I love about island gas is that it is an international business and in some ways there are probably, you know, basins or assets and other parts of the world that are

13:48 more similar to some basins in the US. versus other basins in the US, right? Like if you look in California out here, for example, oil just kind of bubbles up to the surface and you don't drill

13:59 these, you know, large, you know, deep, brag, horizontal, you know, you turn types of wells to get to your oil, you go a few hundred feet, thousand feet below the surface and find oil, very

14:13 heavy oil, it produces seven barrels a day forever. And then you go to the Marcellus, right, the Northeast kind of where Graham is going to be heading and it's heavy natural gas, right? Which

14:26 they almost stumbled upon by accident because they basically drilled natural gas wells to release methane from all of the coal that they were drilling. And they realized, oh my God, we're sitting

14:38 on this massive asset here, but completely different, right? So if you have experience working in California or working in West Texas and then you go out to Ohio or West Virginia,

14:49 Right, but I think offshore in a lot of ways is similar everywhere. There's major challenges in terms of safety, in terms of communication, in terms of keeping your wells flowing and producing.

15:03 And if you've sort of mastered that, then there's no reason you can't come over here and do kind of the same thing. And before we talk too much about kind of oil and gas and KCI, we're gonna talk a

15:15 little bit about Aberdeen Is the primary business there, is the driver of business, oil and gas, and talk to me a little bit about that.

15:25 Yeah, so I guess, Graham, you can come in and talk a little bit in your experience. You've obviously worked in the oil and gas industry a lot longer than I have as well. So you'll have a good

15:32 insight in that respect, so. Yeah, I mean, as far as I know, it used to be fishing back in the day. Sure. Before oil. So yeah, oil is still the number one driver, but right now it's, It's,

15:45 it's, it's, uh. It's an industry and decline, to be honest, right here, right now, so there's still oil and gas out there, and so we've got guys offshore right now, in a couple of locations,

15:56 making sure things are the pressure is being kept in the right place and the wells are flowing safely. So yeah, it's still a huge market for us. And I guess from where I was brought up,

16:08 50 miles south of Aberdeen, right now it's about a 50-minute journey every morning, I drive up and drive back again But when I was growing up, it seemed like the other side of the world, you know,

16:19 we used to go on holiday to Aberdeen when I was a young kid in a caravan, you know. So it was

16:25 an epic journey to get here. And I loved it, you know, going down the beach. It was a big, colorful place with, there was a lot of American people came over in the early days of oil and gas, so

16:38 there wasn't an American influence from an early stage as well Um, yeah, I mean, it's, it's the There was bigger and better things in Aberdeen than I'd ever seen before, you know, a big pleasure

16:49 beach roller coasters and big cinemas and, you know, all the tourist attractions. So, yeah, it came the 70s and 80s was boom time, I guess, for Aberdeen, but now it's stabilized and it seems

17:02 to be, you know, on a decline. But hopefully we keep it going for, you know, a good number of years yet And I think just to kind of compliment what Graham was saying about that, it's

17:15 a challenge just now because of the way that we're handling things. So the government energy policy in the UK is not kind of built to sort of properly balance the requirement for legacy energy with

17:32 the new energy and the sort of renewable side of things as well So what I kind of hope that we'll see over the coming weeks and months is an address and addressing of that balance is to basically for

17:46 the government to, you know, listen to the industry in terms of what they're trying to tell them is that, you know, everybody's completely focused on the fact that, you know, we need to make

17:58 changes for the future benefit of our children and grandchildren in terms of the planet that they're going to inherit from us. But ultimately, you know, the current legacy side of the industry has

18:10 a huge part to play in our ambition to get to that point as well. So we can't throw the babies out with a bath war. We'd literally have to try and find the balance that supports because

18:25 the problem we're causing just now is that we're losing too much skills, too much experience in the industry that we're going to need for the next phase in our evolution as a species and how we

18:37 produce energy as well. So I'm hopeful that I'm through a lot of lobbying. and through a lot of research and analysis and all those sorts of things that in the coming weeks and months we'll see the

18:50 government

18:53 eventually get to the point where they kind of recognize the need to balance those requirements. It's not just one thing or the other, it's

19:01 everything, all at the same time pushing in the same direction. That's right, and I don't know, this is not a political podcast, it never will be My view of energy as

19:15 a whole is it's a fundamental need, it's a basic necessity, and it's a right. So that to me, it should not be a political issue, and I think where we've gotten a little bit caught up in making

19:26 this a partisan issue is people look at energy transition, okay? There needs to be an energy transition, energy transition. I actually view it as an energy addition. I think all forms of energy

19:36 are good. If you can make -

19:39 energy evolution, energy addition, if you can make geothermal work, if you can make solar work, if you can make wind work, if you can make oil and gas production as clean as humanly possible,

19:48 great, like that's that we're all here for that, right? And there's, and that's a net positive. But if we're starting to put oil and gas in this vilified place,

19:59 that's going to be a problem, because then young people are going to say, I don't want to get into that industry, I'd rather get into AI, or whatever else that whatever universe that younger

20:09 people are going to want to get into, but I could promise you, even when a recruiter called me and I had no insight into oil and gas whatsoever in 2007, I thought that oil and gas was kind of a

20:20 dying industry. And was I, you know, this late 20s guy about to get married and start a family, you know, getting into an industry that was going to be dead in 10 to 15 years. Well, here I am

20:29 almost 20 years later, and we're still having the same conversations. You know, I have to imagine in 2050, it's going to be the same, it's going to be the same thing. Right? And all for energy

20:41 development, oil and gas development being as clean and sustainable and renewable as possible. And I'm all for exploring new forms. Of course, it has to be economically viable. But we're seeing

20:51 some interesting, I think, evolutions and carbon capture sequestration, you know, geothermal drilling, less so probably on wind and solar. And you know, some of that is due to the subsidies

21:04 that are given to those companies. And if they can operate profitably, what's the point? But for you guys, talk to me a little bit about KCI. Give me the history, give me the roots, and sort of

21:17 where you're at today. Obviously, the push into the US and North America is a logical one. But you also have other avenues and other countries that you get into. Give me the history of KCI and

21:28 sort of where the business is at today and the very quick pitch and value problem Yeah, so I guess if you think about where the companies came from, so in 2002.

21:38 So we're a very long, well-established business. 2002, the owner who has now exited the business, he retired last year.

21:49 Basically, he saw a need for someone with the ability to sort of

21:56 cross over in different disciplines and offer different solutions to operators. So it was all about, it's

22:04 more about hydraulic and mechanical engineering back in the early days. But part of the initial team, there was a chemical engineering part of it as well. And just as the business evolved over the

22:15 years, what it turned out to be was that the demand was more in line with this sort of chemical engineering side of the business, which has ended up being the way the business is kind of focused

22:25 today is on that. Using chemical engineering as a way of delivering quality solutions to operators all around the world. Um, and there's been, you know what, like, I mean, with any businesses,

22:38 there's lumps and bumps in the road. So there was back in the early days, there was three or four partners who kind of established the business and over the years, it kind of dwindled down to one

22:47 because there was misalignment and, and their sort of, um, hopes and dreams for the company in the future and all that. So, um, you know, these guys went off and, and had successful careers by

22:58 themselves. And in case the eyes, a company is obviously, um, done really well for itself I mean, 23 years old, you know, decent turnover, decent culture, decent reputation, um, and, you

23:11 know, big plans for the future in terms of, you know, what we want to do and, and what we aspire for the business to achieve as well. Um, but Graham can talk a little bit about, you know, kind

23:20 of what we've been working on over the past, sort of like, you know, a few years, we've kind of really been looking to kind of, um, take our legacy range of products and services and really kind

23:29 of evolve them into something that's a bit more involved Yeah, I mean, going back a little bit further. I was involved with KCI as a customer. I worked for an island gas operator in the UK. So I

23:42 was looking for solutions. Looked up, KCI went, Oh, I'll give them a go. So I talked to them and I started using the products. So

23:52 I was, I had the reputation of being like a shareholder of KCI for a while in the company. I was in, even though obviously I wasn't, but I just liked the way they operated. I liked the service,

24:03 I liked the engineering behind it So, you know, when it came for me to move, there was a bit of a shift, 2015, it was a big downturn, so I was a contractor. There was a lot of us, like, go at

24:16 the same time. So I reached out to KCI, and thankfully, and luckily for me, they were looking for someone with my skillset, I guess, to take a part of the business on. So I've been here for,

24:28 you know, this is 11th year, I've been here, so I've loved it since I've come in So obviously - I came in with a different kind of approach. So we've tried to kind of modernize a company, drive

24:41 more products forward as the industry is needing them because there's no point in having a product that nobody wants. You've got to listen to your customers, ask what the problems are, what are you

24:53 having problems with? Do you want a solution of the do then? Yeah, we start going in and delving into it a little bit more So we've now

25:03 got our own in-house chemist who can come up with products. We've got the ideas, but no idea how to actually convert that into a product. Well, clean up, we've got a chemist who knows how to do

25:14 that. And then we do lots of research and development testing within our works here, our base here. Even external testing of it needs to be tested with H2S and all sorts of nasty things. We send

25:27 that out to labs around the country So yeah, we built up a huge.

25:33 portfolio of sealants that started off as a one-off, but after you've used it 10 times, it becomes a product line almost, so we try to align it, different sectors for different issues, I guess.

25:48 But the main thing is just listening to your client. There's no point in going into trying to sell a client some sealant for a packer. If he doesn't have any packers, you know, if you've got a

25:58 wellhead, maybe if you've got a safety valve, I don't know, you know, you've got to know your customer. So there's a lot of background research goes in before we start even talking to customers.

26:08 You know, you're a customer. You don't want to be

26:12 showing the door for just constantly talking. So yeah, that's why I think I brought to the company is looking it through the eyes of an operator. Yes. Being a customer, I can see from this side

26:25 what a customer's looking for, what they're prepared to do to get the,

26:32 repair them. Some things that don't need repair, sometimes they just need managed but sometimes there goes over that line and if it gets out of control then you know obviously that's horrendous you

26:44 know because when I started offshore just two years after the Piper Alpha disaster which was you know still and in oil and gas terms it is absolutely horrific. So when I went offshore I had a

26:58 complete focus on safety and I've continued

27:14 that through my career. I was a safety rep back in my old job and you know still here it's like we're still supporting safety image where everybody comes home every night no problem no scrapes,

27:17 scratches, everything's done right so that's the focus we've got now it's really trying to just to bring everything together.

27:21 Like even said we've got a good company, we've got a good team you know we're surviving in this tough market but we're always trying to try you know get better.

27:32 and what we do and work products for the market. So yeah, it's all good right now, you know? You know, Graham, you bring up a point that that's incredibly valuable and it's something that I've

27:46 tried to preach to people that have been through the reductions in force from the operator side is

27:53 the skill set of the person that comes from the operator and can see things from that side of the table is incredibly valuable to the vendor, right? 'Cause the question I always ask when we get into

28:05 an engagement with a client is who asked for this, right? Like who said that your company and your product was a good idea and it's probably not the nicest question to ask somebody when I'm trying

28:15 to pitch them to give us money to do business with them, but it's an important one. 'Cause somebody who hasn't sat much on the operator side might think they've created the greatest bread slicer

28:24 ever but somebody who works for the oil and gas company might be saying, Oh, we have no need for that. Yeah, yeah. So what's the point of your company?

28:35 Yeah, you've got to seek out the issues and understand the market and talk to the customers. But even now, I look at some things that's happening in the industry and I'm wondering why they don't

28:49 get repaired, but some people just are happy to go along with the oil and gas leaking out into the atmosphere I was like, well, not in this country generally, it's usually, I don't want to see

29:03 where it is really. It's China, it's China, it's okay.

29:07 Maybe not quite as far as China, but land-based things, oil-rich states that don't really have much of a safety culture or if something's broken then we'll just buy another one or we'll dig another

29:19 hole over there So it's a kind of throwaway society some places, but you know, our philosophy is trying to repair extend the field life so you don't have to abandon your wealth prematurely, you

29:33 don't have to strip it down and spend millions of pounds redeveloping your wealth when a bit of ceiling and a bit of engineering goes into it and I'll bring it back to service life safe, operational,

29:47 and it'll push the plug and abandon or end the field life back over the rise in a way so if people can still make a bit of money without spending a fortune trying to do it, you know? Yeah, so tell

29:59 me a little bit and Kevin, I'll get to you in a second, but you've mentioned sealants a few times and extending, you know, well life before you get to the plug and abandonment stage. When do you

30:10 guys typically come into an engagement? Is it oftentimes, you know, immediately post-production, post-drill? Is it when the well starts to decline or starts to see a lot of issues? Is the answer

30:23 yes to all of it? I mean, where do you guys see yourself the life cycle of the asset. It's very seldom it's the drilling phase because everything's generally new and shiny and they've got lots of

30:37 spares and everything like that. So it's not normally during completion phase, it's normally after it's been, the world's been in production for a few years. So it's talking more like brown fields,

30:51 older, well stock.

30:53 But I mean, we have been involved with brand new wells where someone's got something slightly wrong, started a water injection phase, and it's just sheared all the control lines that we're going

31:04 past it. So we've had to go out nicely all these as well. So it can happen, but not, it's not normal. So yeah, mainly 10 years in, 20, 30, 40, 50 years in, then we're kind of getting more

31:18 and more involved, up until, and including abandonment now. But yeah, it's just generally for wells that are chugging along, But as elastomers in the original wellhead, 40, 50 years ago were

31:33 maybe one of the best of material at the time, but there were maybe just the rubber that they had. They start perishing and start to leak. And of course, the pressure then takes a step out towards

31:44 the environment. If it takes another step out, it could be in the environment. So we're trying to keep that pressure back to where it should be. Keep it in the tubing or under control at least So

31:55 there's no communication and it starts to break out further and further out. So it's getting the customers to A, test their wells. Some people still don't test their wells, so they don't know if

32:08 they've got a problem or not. So if someone says they don't have any problems, that's about a red flag as well, because every well I've ever seen has usually got a problem somewhere and it's

32:18 portfolio. So if they say they don't have any problems, that's about a red flag but, then they usually ask you know how to test them. and sometimes it's a shrug of the shoulders as well. We don't

32:27 test them. Like, okay, we run it to destruction. You know, some countries do that. They only react when things go bang, you know. So we're trying to intervene much, much earlier than that.

32:40 So things don't get to that stage. I'm looking off, most of the customers have got a good positive attitude about repairing

32:49 wellheads and

32:52 gate valves and packers and things like that It keeps the pressure in the right place. If you want to break containment, it's nice and safe. So yeah, that's what we're basically an industry of

33:01 doing.

33:03 Yeah, I mean, I think that oil and gas as a whole is a reactive industry. I think that's just sort of been the culture and the nature of it. And what you guys are trying to do is get people to

33:15 think a little bit proactively, right? Yeah, of course you can come in and put on your Superman cape and help out. when it is time to be reactive or solve a problem, but you'd like to get to them

33:27 before they get to that problem, right? Start to sort of see where some of these maintenance issues and these well-integrity issues can come up and, you know, add your special sauce and put them

33:38 in the spot. Yeah, catch them early. And, you know, it's a much easier job then for everyone. We don't need to pump so much. The customer doesn't have to spend so much, you know, et cetera.

33:47 So if you're waiting, wait, then, you know, we were just talking to someone, one of our agents in Africa at the moment, and he's working on a well. It was on fire for five months. Okay. And

34:01 now they're wanting the well to go back into production, but all the internal seals have been melted, you know, so. So we are gonna be going and looking at that, see what we can help out with.

34:10 But maybe that's an extreme, but, you know,

34:14 you just want all the seals to be in the original condition So, you know, I was built. And if we have to be a little bit silly in here and they're just to support these original seals, then you

34:25 know, that's, that's fine. That's, that's what we'll do.

34:29 Yeah. And, you know, Kevin, I'm kind of curious from, from your perspective as well, when you think strategically a little bit about the, the growth for, for KCI, do you view not just

34:41 geographically, but certain types of assets? Like do you think that it's, it's offshore? Do you think it's onshore natural gas? Do you think maybe you guys will start to go into other forms of

34:51 drilling, like geothermal, as we talked about previously? Are all these things on the table, or strategically, are you thinking, all right, we're going to stick with sort of the heavy produced

35:00 oil wells, and that's where we'll go, or is it kind of across the board? Do you feel like you guys can help with all different types of wells and production profiles? Yeah. So if you think about

35:10 the company becoming employee owned in March 2024, we've, we've We've taken a bit of a startup mindset to the business now.

35:20 I think it's everything for us. We don't want to set any limitations of what we might be able to achieve. Now, I know that we need to manage our way to that point so that there's going to be lots

35:28 of pain points between now and ultimately where we want to be as a company, a bigger, better version of ourselves at the moment. But yeah,

35:39 we need to be pushing in all directions and we need to be reactive enough to recognize that maybe some of those directions will need a little bit of a harder push than others. So yeah, and we have

35:48 to be, you know, a way to the fact that we're just a small company. There's only 10 of us, you know, so we need to, we need to not, you know, push the team so hard that, you know, it becomes,

36:02 it becomes a challenge or it becomes difficult or it becomes too stressful or stuff like that. So we've got to kind of balance our ambitions for the company with sort of, you know, taking the

36:15 journey as reasonably and this practically as we possibly can as well. I'm trying to create a

36:23 very busy top of funnel, if you like, Jeremy, so we can have all the options. I think as Casey is a company, we've had quite a lumpy revenue stream for many years now, so very, very busy months

36:37 and very, very quiet months and very, very busy months and very, very quiet months. The strategy is to double down on the legacy side of the business, so the legacy side of the business is

36:47 focused on the producing wells. As Graham says, Brownfield, slightly older assets who need support to help maintain those assets and prolong the life of them, and at

36:60 the same time, we'll be looking at diversifying the business. We've talked about how KCI has been fixing problems on equipment and oil and gas industry for 23 years now, so let's have a look and

37:12 see what we can do to help the new energy industry fix their problems from now and into the future as well, and that way we can hopefully a sustainable business into the future as well. And at the

37:24 same time, we're open-minded about what sort of partnerships we can put together. So like, we've got a very sort of open-minded approach to

37:35 businesses and organizations that we want to be working with to help us reach our goal of creating that bigger, better version of KCI. And how do you guys get your business today? Is it a lot of

37:48 people that, you've been around for 23 years. So you've probably got a decent roster of companies that like you trust you come back to you.

37:57 But do you get people reaching out to you or are you guys proactively reaching out to others? And certainly, yeah, you're working with groups like ours and with Kindred, and you mentioned Agent

38:06 Africa, and I think you guys mentioned Malaysia previously as well, but how do you get your business? So in-bind and out-bind is highly active So, um. We've got a decent website, we've got a

38:20 decent LinkedIn game, we've got a marketing agency that helps support any of the sort of advertising and PR and com side of things. We've got a decent reputation, we've got people like Graham who

38:32 work for us that are known in the industry, so he's got personal connections with people as well.

38:38 And yeah, so like some of our biggest inquiries have come via those channels, so someone's been looking for a solution and they've used a browser, a search engine browser to try and find something,

38:53 and then they work their way to us. And then obviously that's where Graham and his team come in to look at the technical and engineering requirements of jobs and be able to show potential customers

39:05 how credible we are in terms of being a supplier and a solutions provider. So yeah, it comes in many ways, shapes and forms, Jeremy, It's every day is different.

39:16 Yeah, every day is different. And that just, you know, we spent a long time being very sort of cautious and conservative about how we were going to take on the business and what we're going to do.

39:26 But, you know, taking this startup mindset that we've focused on since March 24 now, this is an exciting opportunity and a exciting period for Casey out your baby and go on and really sort of get

39:39 after the business now as well. Yeah, I love that because, you know, you generally don't have that in companies that are 23 years old, right? You sort of are what you are at that point and maybe

39:52 you've kicked the tires on getting acquired or acquiring other companies and, you know, it's a steady paycheck, but if you can incorporate a startup, you know, kind of hustle mindset

40:04 with already existing clients and revenue, you've got a major leg up, right? So I mean, it's a fun and exciting time I can sort of sense that from you guys because you can dabble in different

40:16 things. right? And maybe take some more risks than somebody who's constrained by, you know, we don't have any proven history, you guys do. Graham, why don't you walk me through a little bit of

40:28 what does it look like when you bring on a new client, right? Like say you go to Houston and you have a conversation with five companies, 10 companies and two of them, three of them are like,

40:39 yeah, this is great. All right, let's do some business together. Where do we start? What does that look like? And maybe it's different every single time, but I'm sure you have somewhat of a

40:47 formula. Yeah, it is different everywhere, especially different places around the world. I mean, the approach in the UK is different from Australia, where we go in Middle East India and America

41:01 has got its own personality as well. So we've got to understand how everything works there. So it's over the last 10 years or so. I mean, I've worked for for American companies as well. So I've

41:12 got this, this. the inside knowledge, and even offshore, where I worked offshore, it was always an American company man who would come across, you know, and it was interesting to see how they

41:26 worked. So you understand how the local business works. So I guess the first thing, my first approach is just ask questions, I guess, you know, but listen as well, you know, not just asking

41:38 questions all the time and talking, talking, talking, talking, you've got to listen No, that's part of your job, I guess, as well. You're making us talk, too. So that's part of the, it's

41:50 not a trick of sales, I guess. I mean, our sales technique is very, a strategy is very, very soft. It's, there's no hard sales, because nobody wants to buy ceiling, right? They only want a

41:60 solution to a problem they've got. So talking to customers is like, okay, what kind of assets have you got? What kind of, what's your top three or four, well integrity issues that you might have.

42:11 Are you interested in repairing them? Have you? have you heard of us before, what kind of things which your budget look like, when do you

42:20 do maintenance, which are results, just a chat really. And then when we're talking, there's usually a few light bulbs come on with the people that I'm doing a presentation, for example, just

42:32 whirl wind 30 minute presentation of what we can do, it's not everything, but it's talking about wellheads, it's gate valves, it's packers, it's control lines, it's safety valves, it's

42:44 everything that's in a well normally. And, but you've got to understand again, if there's something of interest, we'll stop and talk about that, but if you're not interested, I'll just skip past

42:53 that, you know, thoroughly. So, usually a light bulb goes on, and oh, how many have you done, how many repairs have you done on safety valve control lines, for example, and you know, we can

43:04 say, yeah, it's 50, whatever it may be, 633, yeah, it's almost 98, you know, and I can explain why it wasn't a success. It wasn't a failure, but maybe, you know, the operation was

43:16 successful, but the patient still died sometimes. You know, that's just how old wells work, because we are in the unfortunate position of only working with damaged and broken equipment. You know,

43:26 that's the starting point is broken before we start. So if we can repair it and get it back online, then, you know, where the hero is, not really, but, you know, we like to think of ourselves

43:38 as being proactive and we've helped someone out and actually satisfying, but if something hasn't worked out, at least we can tell the customer why it's not worked out, you know, I'm not going to

43:49 go into technical reasons right now, but, yeah, it's about listening, it's about understanding the customer and if the customer's not interested, you can tell pretty quickly. So, you know,

43:60 we'll just, you know, we'll say hello, we'll say goodbye and off the, off we can pop to the next one, you know, but, if I talk to, if I come across to Houston and I talk to, you know, eight

44:11 operators, that would be fantastic. And just one of them has a job, that would be brilliant. So my expectations are fairly low, I suppose. I'm not coming across thinking this is going to be a

44:24 massive turning point for the company, but we've already got a job lined up in the Gulf of America already. So I'm going across and pushing on an open door right now because we've got a job lined up.

44:36 So another part of the trip is to talk about how we're going to actually carry out the jobs. We need partners and agents and boots on the ground around Texas and the other place. Anywhere there's,

44:53 you know, oil and gas, then yeah, we need someone basically helping out the local service companies. We can service it from the UK, but it's not practical to keep sending people and tools and

45:04 equipment over the back and forth. So, you know, that's part of my strategy is to come over talk to customers, we also talk to service companies as well, who are like-minded, who want to add KCI

45:14 to their portfolio, get an additional income stream of something they've never done before. So we supply tooling, we supply training, we supply the engineering, we supply the sealant, which we

45:25 make all ourselves here. So that's the model. We do that everywhere, not everywhere. Lots of places around the world already.

45:35 And when we come to America, it is really that interested about what we've done elsewhere. It's about what we can do for America. And that's absolutely right. What can you do for me? Right? I

45:47 mean, that's the same thing in sales, right? What have you done for me lately? I get it. So Kevin, I want to pivot away. I appreciate all the oil and gas talk. We're going to have plenty more

45:59 of that, certainly as you guys come over here and continue to expand your footprint into the US. But I want to pivot to back to Scotland, right? So I want each of you to give me, like, what is

46:11 the perfect ideal Scottish meal, right? You guys, just, you just close a big deal with a, with a major company. Graham comes over here to Houston. You've got a massive tender that's, that's

46:23 approved and everything's going forward. What is, what is the, uh, what is the quintessential, nice Scottish dinner? So it's a bit, it's

46:35 not possible for me to, so I, I, it's difficult for me now, because I, I went vegetarian about four years ago now. I

46:43 went

46:48 vegetarian and, um, have never looped back. So yeah, what, yeah, it's difficult for me to say now, you know, what would be, because I'm not fussy with food. So I'm the sort of person that

47:01 enjoys almost every meal, right? So there's nothing since I moved to vegetarian, I've had a focus on, you know, food for fuel, basically, you know, so. And I'm not fussy, so I enjoy stuff.

47:15 It doesn't have to be fancy or, I mean, I love, like a Greek salad with feta and all that, just amazing sort of, you know, high-quality sort of, like olives and tomatoes and, yeah, just, so

47:29 I'm, yeah, I'm the wrong person to ask about that sort of thing. Graham's maybe much better suited to give you a sort of, you know, a million dollar contract winning sort of dinner and stuff like

47:43 that. So, yeah, Graham, I'll hand over you, yeah. Yeah, well, okay. I guess growing up in rural Angus, the name is Aberdeen Angus, I guess you're talking. So, you know, prime beef, so

47:58 covered e-rears, Kevin. Yeah, I'm out, I'm clocking, I get this conversation. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's hard to beat a big fat juicy steak, know, um, I like, you know,

48:10 easy things like like prawns and chili, chili prawns and things like that. But I mean, Scottish, if you're talking like pre or pure Scottish, then you're talking basic things like mince and

48:22 potatoes and you know, things like that mince beef potatoes. It's a it's a it's an easy thing to look at Scottish historical meal and think I don't know how how they can eat this, you know, that

48:36 you're talking haggis, you're talking, you know, back in the day it was everything. It was used everything, you know, apart from the squeak, which was pretty much processed. So that's the

48:47 history of Scottish food. So, you know, you talk about Barnes and I, you're talking about potatoes, turnips and haggis, you know, yeah, I'm not, I'm not a huge fan, to be honest, but, you

48:58 know, I can eat it. And usually I have a malt whiskey on the side. And again, I'm not a big whiskey drinker, but I can appreciate the, you know, the history and the culture. And if I could

49:10 just jump in, I guess, if you think about the UK and Scotland as a country in terms of where we are in the world and the access to all those seas and oceans and things like that as well. So fishing

49:22 is obviously a huge part, so yeah, more often than not, I think one of the things that people love to have when they come to Scotland is to try our fish and chips, you know? Yeah, fish, I think

49:34 they call it a fish supper, which is basically just fish and chips So yeah, so we've got some seriously good fish and chipshops that are award-winning quality and so yeah, so that's a bit of a

49:50 heritage thing for Scotland as well, a bit of a legacy thing, so talks about the industry. So yeah, fish and chips, the

49:58 modern chaos that comes when actually the fish and chipshop start selling deep-fried marsh bars and that's still going to take part really.

50:09 That's a thing, apparently. I don't know if I had it, but yeah. It's a Mars bottom bottle and then fry it and the fry anything, wouldn't it? Yeah, I mean, now you're talking. I mean, this is

50:19 like, that's America types.

50:22 We'll just be fry anything. Yeah. I mean, when I went to London for the first time, I don't know, maybe 18 months ago, yeah, the first meal I had was fish and chips. Like, you know, you have

50:33 this idea of that's what you're supposed to have. And it was great. But as the week went on, what I really started to enjoy was the bangers and mash. Like, I felt like the sausages were cleaner

50:44 over there in some ways, and they were here. I'm like, oh, this is good stuff. I don't know what they're putting in our stall, the nitrates and the shit. But well, we're going to wrap here. A

50:54 quick, you know, last question for either of you, where can people find you guys? You know, you mentioned your website and it's Kinetic controls and innovation Bye. Yes, sir. Limited. That's

51:07 the

51:09 LTD. But what's your website, you know, do people find you on link there? How did I get a hold of you guys? Give me that. Give the audience somewhere to find you. Absolutely. So the website,

51:18 kciltdcouk. So

51:21 as I said, our website game is pretty decent just now, but it's time for a refresh. So we've got big plans and exciting plans to do a bit of a brand refresh next year as well So there's excitement

51:32 and there's trepidation about that as well because we know how much of a big job it is. So

51:39 yeah, kciltdcouk. And as I said, you'll find us on LinkedIn, you know, me personally, Kevin Watt, you'll find me on LinkedIn. I do try and do a post a week. Don't try not to make it all about

51:50 KCI, try and make it about the sort of experiences that I'm going through just now because I'm involved in loads of different things with loads of different organizations So a little bit of chat at

52:00 your stuff a little bit of organizational stuff little bit of training and competence and all that sort of stuff. So, you know, trying to expose myself to as many things as possible to give me a

52:11 really good way of leading the business as well. So, Kevin Watt on LinkedIn, Graham Steele, he's active on LinkedIn as well. And the company, so you can look for a KCIL TD anywhere because that

52:23 seems to be the way the algorithm kind of finds us. But as you said, kinetics controls and innovation is our Sunday name, if you like. So, yeah. Yeah, I mean, I'm probably, I don't talk about

52:35 myself too much because I'm probably not going much to say. But yeah, I talk about KCIL more, I guess. And especially right now, because I'm about two weeks away from coming over to Ohio for a

52:48 start for a week and then down to Houston to meet customers and I'm also attending the Orphan and Idol World's Conference in Houston. So we've got a stand there. So it's a true two prong attack, I

53:01 guess. It's the, it's the orphan and idol wells and offshore production primarily is what we're looking for. But you know, if anyone's got unsure wells too, you know, that drill nothing out. Oh,

53:16 you'll come across a lot of those in Ohio, for sure. They're not drilling in Lake Michigan or whatever. Yeah. Well, Kevin and Graham, appreciate you guys. I know it's probably getting close to

53:28 four o'clock on a Friday afternoon, which means I'll let you guys get on with your weekend. But Graham, looking forward to meeting you over here. Kevin, it's been nice to get to know you to this

53:35 point. And thank you guys for coming on. What the fun? Yeah, great. Thank you for your time. Brilliant. Let's look forward to meeting you soon. Great.