Jordan Blum, editorial director, Hart Energy: I'm Jordan Blum here at OTC, and I'm joined by Eric Junkers, the president of HYTORC for this Hart Energy Live exclusive interview. Just wanted to get your thoughts, just how important it is now in this day and age to get real time digital data from our tools out in the field?

Eric Junkers, president, HYTORC: Yeah, it's a pleasure to be with you and it's extremely important. It's becoming ever more important as time passes, and it's something that, when we look at our history—55 years—we’re always looking to develop tools that were safer, faster, more efficient, helping our customers just get some productivity gains. And really in these last five to 10 years, the digitalization aspect has really become front and center, giving our customers a way to really have a paper trail associated with the work, helping them with quality control processes and that sort of thing, and just enhancing the work in a variety of ways. So it's absolutely a big part of our offering at this point.

JB: And you're getting like exact torque pressure readings in real time, making sure you're getting exact specifications on what you're doing, essentially?

EJ: There's no one size fits all model. We have a basic app that works with our battery operated tool, the LST. We also have it working with our vector pump on the hydraulic side, and that's a free app. There's no subscription charges, no annual usage charges, and it's very basic. It'll extract the data very simply, but give you a good paper trail. Now, if you want to get a little more sophisticated, a little more advanced, we can do that as well. We're working on the manufacturing side with a number of customers on open protocol systems, which are very common there. And this is completely, you know facility-wide type of operations. Our tools can speak to those systems. They're completely compatible. So there's a high amount of customization, and we have the folks within our company that have been brought on over these years to help us, to develop them in-house, to enable us to really work with our customers at whatever level they need us to.

JB: Very good. In this, you know, app for that world that we're in, I mean, we're essentially connecting the tools, making what I guess used to be dumb hardware, smart.

EJ: Yeah, I mean, that's really what it comes down to. And you know, it's something that I think it's not as though there's never been systems that had that capability. I think it's all about making it intuitive, making it simple. And that's really where I think the edge that we have, what we're bringing to the equation is intuitive. It collects the data. It allows for you to easily access it, and it does it in a way that I think our customers can really, it will resonate with, they'll be able to utilize it effectively. And there's not this gigantic learning curve, like with some of the other systems that have been on the market for a number of years. Right.

JB: And just how important is it when we're just talking about, you know, basic things seemingly like nuts and bolts, where I guess it used to be, just get it as tight as you could get it. Now it's to exact specifications. I mean, how important, critical is it just, you know, what could happen if there's just one or two, you know, loose bolts, so to speak?

EJ: Yeah, you know, it's true though. We always say like tight used to be when you couldn't turn the nut anymore, almost your situation on lug nuts on a car, you step on the wrench, it's tight. You know, when you get to these larger types of applications, these critical applications with these larger fasteners talking about an inch and above, it's highly critical stuff, and there's really a science behind it that needs to be adhered to. And so, it's come a long way and, you know, the engineers in the design phase are really pushing the envelope as far as what they can do. They're going with less fasteners. So the precision becomes even more so important. And yeah, the fact of the matter is, if you are not paying attention to it or doing it in the right manner, leaks can occur and leaks can be damaging for a variety of reasons, safety reasons, environmental reasons. And so, you know, we want to avoid that at all costs. And you know, that's a big part of what we're bringing to the equation. It's about, you know, we're trying to again, enhance the job safety, enhance the job efficiency, but enhance that job quality. And that's really where that precision comes in. That data feedback comes in that shows you the work was done, right, and you can rest assured that it was done right, because you have that paper trail associated with it.

JB: Great. And you were talking about the ability to do custom jobs, but especially in an industry where it's worldwide, offshore, onshore, you know, different countries, different specifications, you know, how that works, how y'all are able to work with each company individually?

EJ: Yeah, in our world, the bolting, while there are similarities, there are typical applications. We have them you know, represented here on display, like a heat exchange or things like that, you know, pipelines. But there's a lot of unique situations that come up almost all the time. It's a regular occurrence. And so our team is very accustomed and they're consistently tasked with designing custom solutions, coming up with unique accessories that allow for you to fit the tool into some tight spots. Our goal is to, again, enhance the safety. We want to provide you the right tool for the right job. And a lot of times that does require us to develop something. And again, it's not just hardware, software as well. And so that's a big part of our world, and we're in all different industries. We're in all different spaces within oil and gas. We're upstream, midstream, downstream. So, you know, there's not many applications we haven't found a way to get our tools on. And that's what our goal is. And so, but many times it does require us to think outside the box, give our engineers a few gray hairs by forcing them to develop some things that you know, are a little challenging and tricky, but they come through for us on a consistent basis.

JB: I think it was a couple years ago, y’all opened a training center for bolting excellence as well. Can you elaborate just kind of how that fits into the equation?

EJ: Absolutely. You know, training is a big part of our equation. I mean, when we go to any market worldwide, we look to ensure that if there's somebody out there representing HYTORC, they have to be able to do certain things. They have to–there’s certain criteria and training that’s a part of that. They have to be able to provide, they have to be accredited by us to provide a certain training to our customers. And so what we did, we said we have to really develop a world class training center back home at our headquarters in Mahwah, New Jersey. And that's just what we did a few years ago when we renovated our offices. And, you know, it's taking the training on bolting to a next level. And that was important for us because again, bolting has been, for lack of a better term, a little bit neglected over the years.

It's treated as a basic sort of thing, tight knit. As I said, tight is when it doesn't turn anymore, there's a lot more to it. And the training can really help with job safety and with job efficiency. So again, those areas that we're looking to hit on, we want to get the job done fast and we want to get it done better. We want to minimize the chances of leaks. Training is one of these areas that can contribute a huge amount to that. And then you couple in that with the equipment and you know, that side of it, the technology, then now you're really checking a lot of boxes. You're really advancing things and bringing value to the equation. So we're really excited about, it's been open now officially about a year and a half. And there's been hundreds of people, students, who have gone through there, both internally and externally, customers flying in, and we're thrilled about it. And we invite everyone to take a look at some of the videos we have online, but also come and visit if you're nearby. The idea is, again, we can simulate real world environments so that the people who leave there are in the best position possible to safely and effectively utilize bolting equipment.

JB: Thank you so much for joining us here for this Hart Energy Live exclusive. For more information, please read and watch online at hartenergy.com.

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