I have worked with John on several assignments over the past ten years, ranging from corporate strategy development to lean manufacturing to business development for a company focused on emerging markets. In each case, he provided valuable insight and concrete recommendations that we executed with positive results. His action items resulted in, among other things, the sale of a multi-billion dollar company, a material reduction of operating costs, and the development of a successful acquisition strategy. His insight into the oil and gas industry is invaluable, and his knowledge of best practice in manufacturing has added measurable value to several of our investments.

Thomas R. Bates, Jr., Managing Director, Lime Rock Partners.

NATCO Group Inc. engaged John de Wardt for corporate wide adoption of lean management techniques. John played an instrumental role in building a keen understanding of the benefits from lean functioning from the shop floor to senior management. His ability to connect with key decision makers involved in each business system is unique. We are capturing efficiencies, driving unit costs down, eliminating waste and building a shared vision around our business priorities. As a result, revenues and profitability are at record levels. John’s guidance has been a key contribution to our success of late.

John U. Clarke, Chairman & CEO, Natco Group Inc

I have known John de Wardt for a number of years, and his keen knowledge of the oil and gas industry gives him a unique insight that manifests itself in strategies and action plans that deliver real value. His recent corporate strategy development work with Hercules Offshore resulted in a set of strategic initiatives that are already beginning to deliver value only a few months into their implementation. As a new and growing company, it was essential to have the right strategy based on realistic strategic alternatives, and that’s what John helped us develop. We plan to utilize John’s talents in the future to help execute and refine many of the key initiatives that he helped develop.

Randy Stilley, CEO & President, Hercules Offshore

John has provided tremendous insight into our corporate strategy, business planning and organization design. He brings many insights from best practices in all industries. We are an independent E&P Company involved in a major growth - and therefore change - process. One of the main values of John's involvement in this process is the practical application of his ideas and contributions in our operations and planning processes. He has also introduced industry best practices into planning, design, costing and delivery in our E&P company. He has achieved this through a combination of his proprietary products, facilitating teamwork (getting the best out of people), his thorough technical and operational knowledge and his experience of the E&P industry coupled with an ability to put that in an environment with local / regional constraints. John's emphasis on rigorous planning has resulted in tangible and measurable results in the area of drilling and completing wells. A true step-change. John continues to work with us to reap other benefits from the processes and "can do" philosophy that we kicked off some 12 months ago.” He is a great team player and motivator who is able to "read" an organization and helps departments / teams and Corporate Leadership with tools and processes to get back on track (and then strive for "best in class"). Indeed, his direct involvement in our new drilling organization, that replaced a broken team, has contributed to a step-change in performance!

Evert Jan Sibinga Mulder, COO, Addax Petroleum

“Over the past four years, National Oilwell has gone through a period of significant expansion through acquisitions. The disparate corporate cultures that need to be combined when expanding through acquisitions pose extreme challenges to the success of the integration. Mr. John de Wardt provided both tremendous insight and valuable guidance and expertise in helping National Oilwell achieve success in bringing together different organizations and creating the structure for the new organization. Without the talents of Mr. de Wardt, the success of these acquisitions could not have been realized.”

Mr Merrill A “Pete” Miller, Chairman, National Oilwell

The Industrial Company hired John de Wardt in 1998 to take us through a strategy development process for our construction business. His method of creating future scenarios and describing our business in these different scenarios was extremely beneficial for us to identify the key initiatives we needed to implement to cause and support growth. We are very proud of the changes we have made as a result of this development program and feel confident that these have created a stronger company to carry us through the significant growth we are now experiencing - doubling our revenues in the 2 years after John's intervention. We would not be in the strong position we are today without the support John de Wardt's program gave us. The value we gained with this program caused us to re-hire John to undertake the same strategy development program for our other group company - Western Summit, a water and waste water treatment construction company. Again this program delivered great value to this business.

Ronnie McKenzie, Chairman, TIC Holdings

Smith International first began working with John de Wardt in 1996. Resulting from positive experiences Smith Bits contracted DE WARDT AND COMPANY in January 2000 to assist us in establishing a business model for a new service we saw as an opportunity in drilling optimization. John was instrumental in developing scenario plans with us as well as helping us determine strategic issues and processes that required improvement. Today, 1 1/2 years later, this unique new business segment "Advanced Services Engineering" has been a great success. We have nearly 30 service contracts globally being managed by 3 regional managers with expectations of doubling this service over the next 18 months. In addition, new business processes have been developed that are core to our continued success – including substantial improvement in product delivery and resultant reductions of inventory. The catalyst for these new processes was the Strategic Planning workshop lead by John de Wardt.

Chuck Muren, Vice President Engineering, Smith Tool

John de Wardt and his concept of "Lean Drilling" has been used by Statoil on a number of wells with the objective to increase efficiency and reduce cost in Statoil’s drilling and well operations. The systematic approach used offers great advantages in establishing ambitious goals and defining risks in a costly offshore drilling and well operations project. Statoil has seen significant improvements in results and has adopted the principles in our planning and operations efforts.

Mads Grinrød, Vice President, Drilling and Well Processes, Statoil.

John de Wardt's rigorous process helped Weatherford's new Underbalanced Services group to fully quantify its value equation, competitive advantages and key competencies. He also assisted with valuable market surveys prior to our workshops. His contributions have been extremely useful.

Mr. Evert Jan Sibinga Mulder Vice President, Weatherford Underbalanced Services

“BP Norway began using the Lean Drilling™ approach to drilling exploration wells in 1998 on single well projects. The project managed work style fit very well with the complex and high cost drilling projects here in Norway, so we decided to try to go to the next step -- take the "individual project approach" and apply it to the way we work in our development drilling projects as well. The exploration activity has definitely exhibited a step change in delivery. Ranking against our peers regionally, we expect to drill first or second quartile wells now. Our Ula platform resumed work in 2000. We drilled two back to back, first quartile wells, the first being a new record well, for a platform which had been drilled out in 1998. I remain confident in this approach to drilling difficult well projects. The cost structure in Norway is such that preplanning is critical to implementation success. Lean Drilling™ is a vital part of the way we do our work, everyday.”

Tracy L. Mosness, Drilling and Wells Manager, BP Norway

We used John de Wardt's services in two separate workshops, the purpose of which was to assist in developing strategic plans that would increase the value to the customer of product lines within Intervention Services. The results of both workshops were very beneficial in defining our goals and developing a clear pathway forward.

Mr. John Roberts Vice President, Weatherford Intervention Services

Utilizing John de Wardt's Lean DrillingTM model the diverse Mad Dog Wells team, composed of BP multiple disciplines and suppliers, organizationally aligned and focused on performance, then implemented plan enhancement and other techniques to achieve best-in-class deepwater performance.

Rusty Cook, Mad Dog Wells Team Leader, BP GOM USA

The teambuilding exercise with John de Wardt was the best introduction I ever had to a new job / transfer and was very effective from a communication and operational point of view. I felt really quickly at home with the problems/opportunities facing us. All involved in the workshop were of the same opinion that it was a success.

Dick Swart - Well Construction Manager, Addax Petroleum, Nigeria

Of critical importance to implemention was the guidance and coaching provided by John de Wardt’s LEAN DRILLING™ Program. In addition to firmly focusing the team on achieving a world-class outcome, the program instilled the discipline of absolute rigor in the management of the well as a project. In particular, the program highlighted the requirement to employ a professional scheduler with the resulting benefits to project control, a thorough and detailed people selection process, and organizational architecture with clearly defined roles, responsibilities and accountabilities

J Thorogood, M Jackson & O-H Thorsen - in their paper Delivering World Class Drilling

To optimise the planning process and make further improvements, Saga engaged John de Wardt to apply his Lean Drilling program. This is a planning method based on giving ‘ownership’ of the project to all involved parties, in the operator, drilling contractor and service companies, both offshore and onshore. Each party is required to take full responsibility for their input, both in the planning and execution phase, in contrast to the usual approach in which ‘ownership’ is concentrated mainly on those in charge in the operating company. De Wardt’s method also puts great emphasis on risk management and contingency planning. Due to this planning, all the well objectives were met below AFE and under planned time. This planning process contributed to the drilling success of the Gjallar deepwater well.

F Stene, J T Helgesen, R Tønnessen in their paper Deepwater Cementing in Gjallar

Lean Drilling™, three template wells ahead of schedule, $4.8 million under budget and “surpass all the reservoir objectives”. “Key to the success was the alignment of the alliance partners”

Senior Drilling Engineer, Major Oil Company - North Sea

You accomplished more in this three day workshop than we did in one year of re-engineering”

Vice President, Major Service / Supply Company - USA

"The strength of this approach is that it is the project team who build the organization and thus who have a direct stake in its success – it is not a process that can be copied”

Project Manager, Major Oil Company, N Sea Region

"An alliance with these diverse companies was wishful thinking until the organizational architecture you guided us to develop created a team”.

Manager, Major Service Company - North America

Lean Producing™ immediately added tremendous value to our project”

Production Manager, Major Oil Company - North Sea