If You Need Us

This is how we start and where we go next

What we do

Thank you for your enquiry. ThinJack Ltd specialises in reviewing the separation of stuck well and BOP flanges, saying what it takes to separate them and then carrying out the separation.

Flanges, such as API 6A bolted 13 5/8” 10M, may need up to 700 tonnes of controlled force to shift the 830 cubic centimetres of binding rust or magnetite from inaccessible spaces.

Similarly, your other challenges may need “extreme force in tight spaces” to resolve.

Contents:

• What we do

• Our customers

• What you may be thinking

• Starting with the technical problem

• This is the process

• What we both need to understand

• The initial ‘phone call or visit to our “dummy” work site

• If you want us to do more

• Chargeable work: when prices to you apply

• Before we start paid work

Our customers are those who have:

A:  us available on their well platform, recognising the value of our expertise and flange separations.

B:  used other technically successful methods but now find them unsafe or time-consuming.

C: attempted various ineffective techniques, including manual effort.

Where your timescale allows, we offer a paid for, pre-job site survey to recommend optimal systems and any application engineering. We suggest, strongly, this pre-job site survey. 

What you may be thinking: 

A: I need indicative prices now.

B:  We should already understand the problem because of our expertise, reputation, past work with you or earlier discussions.

C: Whether our solution is viable for your challenge, before spending more time on it yourselves.

D: You have another solution. However, your company needs pricing from several entities.

E: You may be passing on an enquiry from someone else.

F: You communicate only by email, so you have a written record.

Starting with the technical problem

To start, we need to speak with the people who own the technical problem. This isn't something we can do from e mails alone. We need to get under the skin of the challenges and the site before we can indicate cost. These challenges affect the resources both you and we need, and the risks we are both exposed to and manage.

We are trying to say what we need, what we will do and what it will cost. We don't want surprises at the close-out of the work, for you or us. 

This is the process

We start with a call with the person who owns and understands the technical challenge. Your main contractor, customer or procurement specialist is welcome to join us. We’re happy to sign a mutually balanced non-disclosure agreement. As well as a ‘phone discussion we both gain understanding by you visiting our “dummy” work site, set up in our industrial unit.

What we both need to understand

You don't need to prepare a detailed scope or procedure, though we both need to know:

• What you're dealing with, where and when
• Whether we're the right team to help you
• What we need from each other to progress

Our track record includes lightning responses and proactive outcomes, for when the problem needs solving now or later. To do that we need to understand the challenge properly.

The initial ‘phone call

This first call aims to find out whether we can help and, where possible, gives you an overall, verbal indication of cost. This may be based on similar past work near to your site. We may link you to some of our existing technical and operational files.

Our preparation and time on this initial call and web based links to our existing files is at ThinJack Ltd’s cost. Similarly, there is no charge for your visit to our “dummy” work site, at our industrial unit in Aberdeenshire, Scotland.

If you want us to do more

If you want us to do more, we'll share our standard hourly rate. This paid work allows us to understand the problem in enough detail to plan the separation, tell you the solution(s) and to cost it. We need to investigate, scope, prepare and assess. 

Moreover, our paid work includes:

• Technical assessment
• Scoping and investigation
• Pre-qualification surveys 
• Tender replies and proposals
• Allocating resources

When the hourly rate applies

This hourly rate applies whether the work is urgent or can be scheduled for later.

We’ve mobilised on timescales ranging from several hours to four years after receipt of the enquiry.

If you ask us to start preparing while your internal cost approval is underway, our time and resources used are payable also, even if the wider project or work on site does not happen or is postponed or suspended.

Before we start paid work

Before asking us to start, please confirm that the person instructing us has the authority, budget and arrangements in place to pay ThinJack Ltd for the work.

We write this as we are asked to start immediately on an urgent operational need, often outside normal working hours:  when there is no customer derived contract in place and no legal or commercial staff available from our customer.

We are a specialist company. Our resources include the time and expertise of our people, as well as preparing, allocating and reserving specialist equipment and other resources. These commitments have a real cost, particularly when we are asked to respond urgently or support a project over an extended period.

Alternatively, projects evolve over several years. By then, we’ve invested significant time and expertise, following written assurances that the paid work would follow once the in-progress contracting process we’re engaged in is complete. Sometimes the wider project then goes away, for everyone and for unforeseen reasons. This leaves ThinJack Ltd with substantial work completed and no payment. Clearly, that is unsustainable: The time, expertise, equipment and capacity committed to unpaid work cannot be used for other paying work.

We are told, subsequently, that we should have asked for payment at the start of a programme with unknown duration.

This paragraph is our way of asking at the start: It’s not about making it difficult for anyone. It is about making the boundary between an enquiry and paid professional work clear from the beginning.

Thank you for getting in touch. We look forward to working with you.