Baker Hughes engineer touts debut of new all-electric land cementing unit

Gregory Dean, Portfolio Manger for Global Cementing, Baker Hughes. Image: Baker Hughes.

Interview with GREGORY DEAN, Baker Hughes 

Electrification of oil and gas field functions continues apace, and the debut of a new Baker Hughes all-electric land cementing unit, Hummingbird, is another notable step in the trend. Recently, World Oil Editor-in-Chief Kurt Abraham visited with Greg Dean, Product Manager for Cementing at Baker Hughes, to discuss the technology behind the system and what its impact will be on the reliability and efficiencies of cementing operations.  

World Oil (WO): Let’s talk a little bit about how this all-electric land cementing unit came about. Was this something the operators were asking for? Is it something you folks decided would be a good idea?   

Greg Dean (Dean): It’s been multiple things, like you touched on. For both operators and Baker Hughes, over the last few years there was a lot of talk about sustainability. So, we listened. As you know, cementing has always been pretty much diesel units, at least onshore. And we wanted to take a step towards more sustainability, Fig. 1. There are some other things, too—reliability and safety— but sustainability to meeting our emissions goals, while helping our customers meet their emissions goals, was the main driver. Electrification is a way to do that. So, we've just finished our first prototype, and it has been function-tested and it is heading out to the field. 

Fig. 1. Greg Dean discusses the Hummingbird all-electric land cementing unit during Baker Hughes’ 2025 Annual Meeting in Florence, Italy.

WO: Is that within the U.S. or abroad?   

Dean: The first one is in the Middle East. And we're looking for opportunities everywhere. When we started talking about sustainability, you also think about the market. Where's the market? And carbon emission reduction also enables those new energy sources that are going to be providing sustainability. So, we thought, “this is going to be great for geothermal and carbon capture customers, who have to drill wells and cement wells for capturing carbon and the like.” We really wanted to catch their attention, and we know that's definitely going to be a good market for an electric cementing unit, whether it's in the U.S. or anywhere. There's lots of opportunities around the world, with new energy and, of course, conventional oil and gas, maybe not today, but we're starting them. This is a growth area for us.   

WO: How do some of the individual components of this system exceed what can be done with the traditional system? How good is the performance level? 

Fig. 2. A scale model of the Hummingbird all-electric land cementing unit was on display during Baker Hughes’ 2025 Annual Meeting in Florence, Italy.

Dean: The performance is great, Fig. 2. Changing to electric from diesel, you're going to get similar pumping horsepower and things like that, so there is no performance fall-off, but it’s cleaner. The big thing we found by changing out diesel engines and going to electric, as well as changing out hydraulic motors—I mean, there's quite a few hydraulic motors on these cementing units– was improved reliability. Regarding the reliability of diesel and hydraulics, I can't tell you how many times over my career I've had to deal with problems with hydraulic motors. And they're hard to predict. So, we thought, “hey, can we get rid of these, as well?” So, now we've got all-electrics everywhere. And the inherent reliability of these systems is pretty well-known, so, you have a much more reliable unit now. That means less downtime and less maintenance costs.   

WO: How much power consumption do you have with these units?  

Dean: It's going to depend on the size of the cement job and the depth of the well, but probably the peak load that you're going to need on something like this is one megawatt of power consumption. We can get that pretty easily from the grid, and there are some rigs already drilling with electricity. Those are going to be a great match-up for us. We also can easily adapt to battery power. Battery technology, as you know, is continuing to improve, and we're ready for wherever the battery technology takes us. We can run the unit off a battery now and switch back and forth to the grid, so it’s pretty adaptable, as far as your power source. It's also quieter, and our field operations personnel are going to love that. It's about as loud as a lawn mower, compared to diesel units that can be as loud as a helicopter when running at full force. That safety aspect is something that is very attractive to our customers, and attractive to us—we want to keep our people safe.    

WO:  So, you’ve got the first prototype that has headed to the Middle East.    

Dean: Yes, it will soon ship out.    

WO: How fast do you anticipate the rollout of additional units?  

Fig. 3. Gregory Dean leads a discussion about the Hummingbird all-electric land cementing unit during Baker Hughes’ 2025 Annual Meeting in Florence, Italy.

Dean: The market will tell. We're ready to do more, and we're always growing. We're always expanding and this is an area we want to expand, Fig. 3. I think the market is ready to embrace electric. I don't have a crystal ball, but I could see every unit being electric at some point. It's just hard to predict when that will be. But it shouldn't be hard for us to gear up to meet that demand.  

WO: How does the initial cost of this unit compare to traditional diesel and hydraulic cementing units?   

Dean: You know, it's a prototype. So, the first one's always different. But again, as I mentioned, if we expect this to take over the market, we expect it to be cost-competitive.   

WO: Do you have any concerns about enough availability of electrical power to run some of these units, depending on region?   

Dean: No, I don't really, but I haven't really delved into how much electricity is available in all these markets. So, that's a bit of a hard question to answer. I'm probably more concerned about where the power comes from. What does that country do to generate electricity, compared to another country? That may make a difference in some countries.   

WO: So, are these systems running on 220 or 440 volts?   

Dean: They’re running on 440.  

WO: I certainly can see larger operators utilizing these units, particularly here, in the States. Of course, abroad's a whole different kettle of fish. Do you think in time, you will see the use of these units eventually percolating down to mid-sized independents and then the smaller operators?  

Dean: I would think so, but it's really going to be driven by the end-user—the customer.  And that's going to vary drastically, depending on the geography. You definitely can look at Europe one way and other countries another way, and that will make a difference. Like I mentioned, we can run this thing on a battery, but are batteries available everywhere around the world? That's the question. It takes big batteries, too, to run something like that, so, it's going to be a dynamic market. We're the first, and sometimes that brings some unknowns and challenges that you have to work through and wait and see a little bit. The first thing we're focused on is getting it out there and proving the technology. That's really where we are today. Hopefully, in the next few months, once we get it rolled out and working, then we can really start shouting from the rooftops and talking about this, even more.   

WO: How long do you think it will be before you have some definitive numbers?   

Dean: We'll be pretty quick on our feedback, as far as customers and performance. It'll be within a matter of weeks.   

WO: We've talked about some of the advantages of the electric system versus traditional units. What are some more ways in which this system brings efficiencies and corollary advantages?    

Dean: The maintenance is one. You think of driving an electric car—and I don't own an electric car—but I know people who do. They check the tire pressure and plug it in, and that's about all that they say they have to do. Compare that to the traditional cars we drive now and the maintenance we have to do, which is much more intense. So that's a big plus, I think, as well as the reliability I've already mentioned. 

I mentioned that electric motor technology is going to come along. It's already advanced some over the years, and I'm sure it's going to improve even more. So, there should be some more efficiencies there. We'll definitely be watching electric motor technology in the future.   

The great thing about the unit is that a lot of the technology that we use—piping and how we mix cement and water—hasn't changed, because that's field-proven technology. We're not going to change our proprietary mixing system to put water and cement together on the fly and put it in the well. We still use our traditional triplex pump, the pacemaker PMP, that's served us well and is a very reliable, well-known cement pump. So, we are still keeping the best of both worlds in a way, as regards the systems and the components of the unit.   

WO: One other thing—I imagine that the system is capable of generating a fair amount of data.  

Dean: We already do that on our current cement pumps, and there's a lot of new technology being introduced to capture that data and use it for predictability. We're just getting started on that, and it will be coming in phases. Even AI will play into that at some point. I don't know how, but it will tell me how to maintain this cement unit—this month you need to do something, and then next month you need to do something. So, we're definitely on a roadmap to implement a lot more data analytics in our pressure pumping equipment.   

GREGORY DEAN is an experienced energy industry leader with nearly 40 years in positions around the globe. He currently serves as portfolio manager for global cementing at Baker Hughes. Prior to this role, he held various engineering and business development roles with Baker Hughes and BJ Services Company across the United States, Venezuela, Brazil, Kazakhstan, India, Malaysia and the Caribbean. Mr. Dean holds a degree in petroleum engineering from the University of Kansas.