Rotary steerable systems were held by three international oilfield service companies for over two decades — rental only, fully encrypted, never sold. China became the second country to master the technology. Making it manufacturable at scale was a separate problem — that was us.
The track record, in sequence:
Behind that timeline is full-process coverage. For the resistivity drill collar, all 15 key processes — 2.6-meter Ø5 mm gun-drilled holes, antenna-ring welding on special stainless, 20° inclined holes, vacuum potting — are done in-house. Work that once took about 25 days outsourced (including transport) now takes 10; the antenna welding and potting group went from 18 days to 3. For the hydraulic control unit body, all 17 key processes are covered: three critical bore systems once machinable at stable volume only overseas are now in stable domestic production.
Deep-hole accuracy, measured — not claimed. On our showroom reference part, a gun-drilled bore entered at (X, Y, θ) = (0.00, 44.50, 0°) and exited at (−0.24, 44.20, 0.31°) — maximum deviation under 0.3 mm over full length, beating the 1 mm/m industry benchmark — drilled in the difficult materials this page is about: nickel superalloys, high-nitrogen austenitic stainless and titanium.
One detail worth knowing: over the program, tooling cost share dropped from above 10% to below 8% — experience, converted into cost.
