Like the craze over self-driving cars, high-tech oil services companies are striving to create their own hands-off steering system: computer-guided directional drilling.

In a bid to capture such technology, Helmerich & Payne Inc. (NYSE: HP) said May 22 it entered an agreement to acquire Dallas’ Motive Drilling Technologies Inc. for $75 million payable at closing. The deal includes a potential $25 million in earnout payments based on future performance during the next few years.

The acquisition is part of a broader shift toward using technological advancements in the oil field, with service companies looking for an edge in the ultra-competitive race for efficiency.

Nabors Industries Ltd. (NYSE: NBR), for instance, has laid out a vision for autonomous drilling as the next wave of high-tech land drilling.

“E&Ps are accelerating adoption of automated drilling technologies,” said Kurt Hallead, an energy research analyst at RBC Capital Markets. “The motivation boils down to three simple tenets: drilling more wells faster, reducing costs, and accelerating cash returns.”

Motive’s technology is designed to provide guidance recommendations normally at the behest of human directional drillers, said Colin Davies, an analyst at Bernstein Research. Operators still set parameters, such as anti-collision rules, acceptable deviations to drilling paths and distance to lease lines.

The technology is “fairly young and will need further testing. While strategically the acquisition makes sense, the technology has only been used in just over 200 wells and will require effort to scale up across the HP fleet and ensure customer acceptance,” Davies said. “Other service companies are also developing solutions and consequently making a further payment contingent on milestones makes sense given the acquisition is not without risk.”

Motive’s proprietary Bit Guidance System uses “cognitive computing” to guide the directional drilling process. This algorithm-driven system considers the total economic consequences of directional drilling decisions and has proven to consistently lower drilling costs through more efficient drilling and increase hydrocarbon production through smoother wellbores and more accurate well placement, said Helmerich & Payne, also known as H&P.

The software makes choices at survey stations, rapidly evaluating “millions of potential paths to get back to plan, and determines the optimal choice based on drilling time, tortuosity risk [geometric complexity], and future hydrocarbon production potential,” according to Motive’s website.

Ultimately, the driller on the rig should be able to follow the instructions from Motive system with just oversight from directional experts working remotely, reducing the headcount in the field.

John Lindsay, H&P president and CEO, said directional drilling improvement has long been an industry focus “given the value proposition of drilling wells more efficiently and with greater accuracy, resulting in a better quality wellbore.”

Lindsay said Motive’s directional drilling technology offers high potential for the industry and it has been successfully adopted by both E&P operators and directional drillers.

Motive, founded in 2011, will remain in Dallas. Todd Benson, the company’s CEO, said he views H&P as an ideal partner for the continued growth “in adoption of our technology, particularly as we look to advance efficiencies, quality and safety through automation.”

The transaction is pending and is expected to close in June, the companies said.

Simmons & Co. International, energy specialists at Piper Jaffray & Co., served as financial adviser to H&P. Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP and Vinson & Elkins LLP served as legal advisers to H&P.

Kastner Huggins Reddien Gravelle LLP served as legal advisers to Motive.

Darren Barbee can be reached at dbarbee@hartenergy.com.