pipeline news north

Northern British Columbia and Alberta's Oil and Gas Industry

Vol. 1 Issue 6 • dIst: 20,275 june 24 • 2011 • FreeNorth

A student shows off a bird box constructed with the help of oil and gas community volunteers who came out to Energy in Action at Chalo School. (Photo by Kristian Jones)

in this issue:• FIndIng solutIons - a centre For InnoVatIon

• unexpected allIes - ducks unlImIted and o&g• takIng the reIns - energy bc takes on expo

www.inland-group-fsj.com

http://www.inland-group-fsj.com

2 • PIPELINE NEWS NORTH I June 2011

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After four years of doing charter flights for companies working in the oil sands of northern Alberta, Flair Airlines is making its first foray into the natural gas producing regions of Northeast B.C.

Based in Kelowna, British Columbia, Flair has been offering workforce trans-portation services since 2007, but natural gas producers in the Northeast had not been clients until an anonymous energy sector company chartered a flight from Calgary, Alberta to Fort Nelson, B.C. in early April of this year. By the middle of the month, Flair was already planning a new route from Kelowna to Fort Nelson, with stops in Vancouver and Comox on Vancouver Island along the way.

“We put a program together within a couple weeks,” said Chris Lapointe, General Manager at Flair, noting that the weekly flight is strictly a private charter for that one specific oil and gas company,

which they are not at liberty to identify. “They would have liked to have started earlier, but the aircraft was busy. So, we were able to get the program started for May 3. And we hope to grow it. It looks to be a twelve to eighteen month plan at this point in time.”

Flair now flies a Boeing 737 – the company consists of three such aircraft – from Kelowna to Fort Nelson and back every Tuesday for their client’s crew change. “They’ve committed to a year,” Lapointe added. “And they say it will likely go longer than that. So, we’re hop-ing it will continue.”

Lapointe explained that their client is conducting a multi-stage construc-tion project involving their natural gas developments in the Fort Nelson area, an undertaking that requires a considerable workforce of skilled labour. The construc-tion company that is the lead contrac-tor for the project had identified pools of skilled labour for the project in the Kelowna, Vancouver and Comox areas.

“I think they already had some people coming out of these markets,” said Lapointe. “And, in fact, I know they did, because they were saying that the people, for instance, who used to come

on the old system from Vancouver Island had to go to Vancouver the night before at their own expense, stay in a hotel, catch commercial flights, and then basi-cally work their way from Vancouver to Calgary in order to get the flights in to Fort Nelson.”

Previously, their client had only been arranging flights to Fort Nelson from Calgary and Edmonton. “And they’ve opted to add in Kelowna, Vancouver and Comox to service those markets in an effort to draw larger numbers of skilled workers for the construction phase of the project,” commented Lapointe.

Lapointe believes Flair’s new route to Fort Nelson offers two benefits to their client: it helps them maintain their exist-ing workforce, who have grown weary of that long and expensive journey; and it helps them attract new workers who may have been dissuaded by the old way of traveling from the Island or the Lower Mainland to the Northeast. He expects that the flight will eventually carry about fifty to sixty passengers from each of the three locales along the route.

The early feedback from the workers traveling by this new route has been very positive.

“Probably had at least a couple of dozen communications from people that are not necessarily working on this proj-ect, but are working in the region, that live on the Island, that are looking for a better way to get there,” Lapointe added. “Because the way they have to get there now is quite convoluted. So, there ap-pears to be a lot of interest in this option.”

“We’ll see where it goes,” he contin-ued, discussing the popularity of the very idea of flights from the Southwest to the Northeast. “Maybe there’s an option of operating a second flight for the general public … Our challenge is, of course, we carry 158 people. So, you need a fair bit of a crowd to make it viable. But we’re watching it to see where the interest lies.”

Lapointe indicated that Flair has not had specific discussions with other companies about flights from Vancou-ver Island to Fort Nelson, but he feels that the level of industry activity in the Northeast suggests there could be more interest in that sort of service in the not too distant future.

During peak activity in the oil sands, Flair has been doing about fourteen flights per week to northern Alberta for energy sector companies operating in that region. •

June 2011 I pipeline news north • 3

james watermanPipeline News North

28231

industry newsFlaIr For the aIr- Flair Airlines expands Northeast

www.pimms.ca

Passengers board a Flair Airlines workforce charter in northern Alberta. Although the company has been servicing the oil sands for four years, they have just begun servicing the natural gas producers of northeast British Columbia with a weekly flight from Kelowna to Fort nelson – with stops in Vancouver and Comox – for crew change for a major energy sector company operating in that region. PHOTO COurTESy OF FLAIr AIrLINES

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11 Finding solutions - a centre for resource innovation18 PRPS Trade Show 2011

profiles

technology

industry news

community

environment

safety

careers & training

special features

opinion

6 Columnist: Don Thompson

3 Flair for the air - Flair Airlines expands Northeast4 Phew! - Geoscience breathes easy7 Taking the reins - Energy Services BC takes on Expo9 Job well done - Petroleum Association awards

6 Devon ‘open’ to the community22 Starting young - Energy in Action28 Oilmen’s Golf - 2011 tournament

14 Unexpected allies - Ducks Unlimited and O&G join hands

16 NLC courses for July-Sept30 Bridging the gap - new opportunities for First Nations

24 Sufferin’ Sulphate - BioteQ & Newalta have a solution24 Joining the fugitive game

10 Sandra Minifie - rising star in the O&G industry25 Choice Energy - small town, big ambitions29 Vector has a new branch manager

26 In sync - keeping it organized

‘Lyn Anglin, President and CEO of Geoscience BC, has experienced an anxiety that few of us will ever know.

During the BC Mining Week Kick-Off and Mining Person of the year reception hosted by the Mining Asso-ciation of British Columbia (MABC) in Vancouver on Monday, May 9, 2011, Anglin was presented with a cheque for $12 million from Minister of Forests, Lands and Natural re-source Operations Steve Thomson.

“And I had a $12 million cheque in my wallet for fourteen hours, which was an interesting experience, I’ll tell you,” said Anglin, confessing that she considered sleeping with the cheque safely under her pillow that night. “I don’t know how many times I looked in my wallet to make sure it was still there. And then we took it to the bank first thing the next morning.”

“It was a bit nerve-wracking,” she added. “I thought, ‘Now would not be the day to lose my wallet.’ And interestingly enough, we needed to make an appointment to deposit it. Because you don’t just walk in and hand a cheque like that to a teller.”

However, despite the anxious moments, the experience was also a great relief for Anglin. Geoscience BC, the province’s not-for-profit ap-plied geoscience organization, was approaching the end of its funding, and possibly the end of its existence as a result. This new commitment

of $12 million from the provincial government could keep Geosci-ence BC up and running until the spring of 2014. “Essentially,” Anglin explained, “2011 was going to be our last year of major new data collec-tion projects. And after that we were looking at maybe another year or so to complete everything that we had done, make sure everything was published, and then we’d all be look-ing for other things to do. So, that was the conversation that we had with the government. If they were happy with what we were doing, if they felt they were getting a good return on the investment in geosci-ence through us, than we needed some additional resources to be able to continue operating. And they decided that they didn’t want to see us close our doors.”

“So,” she continued, “probably, right now, we’ll be looking at budget-ing to spring of 2014 – spring to fall of 2014 – instead of the spring of 2012, which is what we were kind of planning for until we got this new money. So, it adds a couple of years to what our … budgeting plan will be.

“In terms of what we’re going to do with the money, we definitely have a plan for that. The question will be in what order are we going to do the things we want to do, because we have a list of priority projects, areas of the province that we have not yet been able to address in terms of new mineral exploration projects. And also, probably, in terms of the natural gas development in northeast B.C., there’s going to be additional work that we’ll do primarily related to water resources, water sourcing in the region.”

Anglin had been discussing the future of Geoscience BC with the provincial government on an ongoing basis basically since the organiza-tion was created, but she noted that those discussions had adopted a more urgent tone in the past year.

“recognizing that we’re a non-profit and we’re arms length from government – but that our funding has primarily come from government – we felt it was pretty important to let them know how we were spending their money,” she said.

The government feels that Geosci-ence BC has been a worthwhile investment due to their contribution to the province’s economy.

“The exploration for and develop-ment of new mines and oil and gas plays can fundamentally diversify rural economies,” said Minster of En-ergy and Mines rich Coleman in a statement. “We know this funding is a strong investment in our province’s future, leading to good paying jobs and healthy communities.”

Interestingly, the most recent conversations with the provincial government took place during a period of political turmoil in the prov-ince. After all, there were a number of changes within cabinet and a race to replace Gordon Campbell as the leader of the provincial Liberals and B.C. premier after he stepped down from his position last fall. Anglin de-scribed that set of circumstances as both an opportunity and a challenge.

“It meant we talked to a whole bunch of different people in govern-ment over the last year because peo-ple kept changing,” she explained.

phew!– Geoscience breathes easy


continued pg 5

‘Lyn Anglin, President and CEO of Geoscience BC, happily accepts a $12 million check from Minister of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations Steve Thomson at the kick-off to BC Mining Week on May 9. The provincial government funding is expected to allow Geoscience BC to continue their work into 2014. PHOTO By FLOrA GOrDON

industry news

June 2011 pipeline news north • 5

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“So, it meant I probably spent a lot more time explaining what I’m doing for the first time to people in government, because there were so many of them moving from one portfolio to another and switching around. I’d have to say that was a challenge. But, again, it was a great opportunity. We got to meet a lot more people in government … The kind of feedback that we have received from the government is that they are aware of us and what we’re doing and are pleased with what we’re doing. So, I think it stood us in good stead to be talking to a lot of different people over the past year.”

Anglin noted that Geoscience BC has also been aided in their efforts to continue their work by their relationship with mu-nicipal governments and the communities where they have been conducting their studies.

“In addition to talking to the politicians in Victoria,” Anglin began, “we have spent a lot of time going out and participating in community meetings and sometimes giving presentations to mayors and [town or city] councils.”

“One of the things that I’ve enjoyed very much about this job, and has been very important to us, is to be able to be in touch with communities, to understand what their concerns and priorities are around some of the development,” she continued. “Either some want more oppor-tunities, some just want more information, some want a better understanding of what is exploration and development all about. And so it’s been really, very interesting and a lot of fun to be part of that conver-sation, and also be able to feed informa-tion back to some of the industry people that we’ve been dealing with about what

communities are very supportive of more activity or what kind of work they’d like to see done or what information they want to help address some of their concerns. So that part of what Geoscience BC has been doing has also been, I think, very important to our success, and also cer-tainly something I’ve really enjoyed doing in this role.”

A great deal of Geoscience BC’s work in the Northeast has revolved around natural gas development and a major lo-cal concern relative to that industry: water. Currently, they are in the second phase of their Horn river Basin Aquifer Project. The first phase dealt primarily with sub-surface saline water and the location, size and characteristics of those aquifers.

“That was our first foray into water studies,” said Anglin. “And then in phase two we’re looking at what tools we might be able to use to identify areas where there might be near surface groundwater. And we’re also looking at doing a surface water monitoring study and actually establishing some new climate and water monitoring stations.”

Their Montney Water Project, an at-tempt to map all surface and subsurface water sources in the area of the Montney shale gas play, is just drawing to a conclu-sion this summer.

“We’re hoping to be finalizing the reporting on that over the summer and publishing the results probably in the fall,” Anglin added. “And I expect over the summer we’ll be talking with both the Montney producers who were partners on that project, and probably a broader range of companies who are active in the Northeast, about what’s the next priority for the area. Because by all accounts, the potential doesn’t stop with the Horn river or the Montney. There’s also the Cordova

Embayment and the Liard Basin and probably some other areas that will end up having potential. We’ll be talking to the companies about what their priorities are for the kind of geoscience work that we can support.”

Geoscience BC is also helping to address the concerns of local residents regarding their local water resources.

“Everybody has concerns and a lot of questions and not all of which we can answer yet,” Anglin admitted. “But they are very happy to see somebody is out there trying to answer some of those questions. And that’s the feedback that I have personally received from quite a few people in communities in the Northeast, [they’re] just happy that somebody is out there trying to collect the information that’s going to help answer these ques-tions about how much water is there, are there certain times of year when [they] shouldn’t be taking water, are there other times of year when it’s not a problem. Is it a problem? Is there enough water there to sustain the kind of growth we think we’re going to see and not negatively impact other users of that water. Because, espe-cially in the Montney area, you’ve got a lot of different users of the water. It’s not just gas development. I’m a very, very strong believer that developing our resources in a responsible way is a real benefit for the entire province, for all British Co-lumbians,” she continued. “We have an enormous resource base here. And if we develop it carefully and properly, we all benefit. So, that’s the reason why I’m in this job. And that’s why I’m really excited about the things that we do.

“Specifically, in terms of the oil and gas industry, there are two sides to that. The new geoscience data that we generate helps develop a better understanding of

the potential in the province. And we do a lot of partnership with our colleagues in the ministry on that side. And then in terms of a lot of the work that we’ve been doing most recently in northeast B.C., we really are helping develop an understand-ing of what the sources of water are in that region to support development.

“And the two projects that we’ve been working, the Horn river Basin and the Montney area projects, really are focused on understanding what that resource is. Because the water resource is probably going to be one of the most important fac-tors in deciding how and how much of that resource to develop.”

Finally, speaking as President and CEO of Geoscience BC, Anglin was most pleased that the members of her team would not have to start job hunting over the next year, thanks to this new commit-ment from the Province.

“Because the team I have here is a great group of people and everybody was getting a bit nervous about whether we should be looking for new jobs,” she said. “And so, personally, as the President and CEO, I’m really pleased that I can keep the staff I have here, because they’re good and they’re doing a great job and I didn’t want to lose them. And they like what they’re doing here and want to stay.”

“And, personally, I feel very proud of what Geoscience BC has been able to achieve,” Anglin concluded. “We’ve had tremendous input from a number of volunteers from industry. We’ve done, I think, some great partnership projects. And I’m personally very pleased that the government has seen an investment in Geoscience BC as one that is a good investment. They see that they’re getting good return on that investment. So, that makes me very pleased.” •

cont’d from pg 4


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James WatermanReporter250-785-5631cell:[email protected]

As president of the Oil Sands Developers Group, I’ve been on the road for the past three years promoting an industry that I am passionate about because it benefits so many. However, amongst all the good news, there is growing concern about the economic sustainability of the oil industry because of the lack of market access we are facing.

First, let’s talk about the good news … the Canadian Energy Research Institute (CERI) recently released a report showing oil sands production ramping up from the current 1.7 million barrels per day to 2.1 million bpd by 2015, 4.8 million by 2030 and 4.9 million by 2035. What does this mean? More money, more jobs, more contribution to the GDP and a growing contribution to North American energy security. All of this is great news.

Over the next 25 years, $2.077 trillion will be invested in building and maintaining the oil sands.

That includes $253 billion in initial capital for construc-tion and $1.8 trillion for operation, maintenance and sustaining capital.

In terms of jobs, the oil sands currently support 75,000 jobs in Canada with this growing to over 900,000 in 2035. Do the math. That’s 825,000 more jobs (both directly and indirectly related to oil sands); 825,000 more people with work; and there is nothing that gives an individual more dignity and self-respect than a job.

It may also surprise you that our friends to the south actually receive the second largest economic impact from Alberta’s oil sands after the province itself. In the United States, new jobs are expected to leap from 21,000 in 2010 to 465,000 by 2035.

Over this 25-year period, the total GDP impact as a result of new oil sands projects is estimated to be $2.1 trillion for Canada and $521 billion for the U.S.

These are remarkable numbers; however, delays and pushback on pipeline approvals and construction could have a profound impact on lives and livelihoods if the opportunity is missed to fully benefit from the develop-ment of safe, secure and abundant energy resources here in Canada.

I recently read in the Globe and Mail oil sands pro-ducers have until around 2015 before we have no new

customers in our markets and the refineries that we rely on in the Midwest United States run out of capacity for processing our heavy oil. Stuck with an overabundance of oil, waiting for other options to materialize, could lead to weakened economic benefits for all of North America.

Keystone Pipeline XL is a $12-billion project that will

substantially expand our crude oil market as well as continue to help generate jobs in related manufactur-ing and service industries. According to the Building and Construction Trades Department of the U.S., scheduled construction of Keystone will create around 13,000 construction jobs – in a time when the American construction industry is still experiencing a 20 per cent unemployment rate.

I have said it before and I will say it again - the cross-border pipeline projects currently waiting for the regula-tory green light are too integral to the future growth of the North American economy to do otherwise. In a world where energy supply risks are growing, it would be an error to turn away from Canada’s safe, secure energy resources. •

I would like to hear from you … please email me at [email protected] if you would like to comment.

Pipelines: Bringing more than crude benefits to North America

opinion

don thompson

president ofoil Sands development group (oSdg)

guest column

communitydevon ‘open’ to the community

Fostering goodwill in the areas where you work is as important to Devon Energy as ensuring their pump jacks are greased and pipe-lines flowing. For that reason, the local energy company held its an-nual community Open House June 8 to get a chance to meet with the farmers and landowners on whose properties they work and to listen to concerns and provide feedback on upcoming plans.

Devon held the community mingler at their West Eagle facility, north of Fort St. John, where the company separates the oil they pump out of the ground from the water that brings it to the surface.

“Today was all about getting the community out and letting people know what we were up to oper-ations-wise,” said spokesperson Lucie Duffy, “But also to let them know what we’ve been up to in the community and volunteering.”

Duffy explained that the company places an emphasis on empower-ing their employees to get involved

in their communities, to make them better places to live. The company allows their staff time-off to partici-pate in projects like Fort St. John’s recent Pitch-In Week, united Way activities in the fall and projects through Energy in Action.

Between 60 and 80 community stakeholders attended the event, where they learned that local Devon Operations will proceed “steady as she goes.”

“There wasn’t really a whole lot of ‘new’ news – today was more just a way to keep dialogue open and provide an update,” Duffy said.

Devon’s local District Superin-tendent, Chris Dumanowski, said events like Wednesdays are vital to ensuring their operations continue as successfully as they have in the past.

“We’re a part of the community and we want people to know what we’re doing out here. If it wasn’t for the landowners’ cooperation, we wouldn’t be able to do what we do. So the best way to keep the onside is to communicate,” Dumanowski explained.

Dumanowski said the community feedback was really positive – re-flecting well on the company, which operates in an area where land-owners are increasingly chaffing at increased oil and gas operations.

“None of them had any big complaints, in fact they said we’re one of the better companies to work with in the area,” Dumanowski said.

That’s because Devon has adapted their techniques to address some of the concerns landown-ers have brought to them over the years.

For instance, rather than using gravel and sand to build access roads to their well pads, Devon now uses mulch that makes remediation easier once operations on proper-ties are finished. In addition the company has reduced their right of ways by 50 per cent to minimize disturbances to property owners.

Besides road innovation, Devon has also implanted strategies to re-duce the size of trenches they use through fields, which used to create depressions that could damage agricultural equipment. •

ryan luxStaff Writer

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mailto:[email protected]



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Energy Services BC (ESBC) is taking the reins of the Fort Nelson Energy Expo this year.

The Horn River Basin Producers Group – an associa-tion of ten oil and gas companies working in the Fort Nelson area – started the Energy Expo as a job fair just a few short years ago, but it has grown into something quite different during its brief existence.

“It started out as a job fair with the Producers [Group] bringing their prime contractors with them, showcasing themselves to [the] service sector and to the commu-nity of Fort Nelson in regards to the Horn river Basin,” explained Laurie Dolan, who represents ESBC in Fort Nelson. “Over the last three years, it’s evolved into northeast B.C.’s service sector wanting to showcase themselves. So, the Producers Group felt it was just a good fit to pass it on over to Energy Services BC, because we represent the service sector and service providers. And we kind of have our hand on the pulse a little bit more in that capacity.”

Dolan expects that this year’s show – which will be held on October 21 and 22 in Fort Nelson’s newly built recreation centre – will improve on its past success.

“Last year, the event was hugely successful,” she said. “It was at the high school, because of the collapse of the rec centre. We had 72 booths. ESBC had a wait-list of over 200 booths that wanted in. So, the popularity has grown within that sector.”

“I’m expecting a lot more,” Dolan added, discuss-ing this year’s event. “I’ve already had inquiries from Houston, Texas – from all over the place. From Monc-ton, New Brunswick. From Vancouver. It just seems to be [that] there’s not a lot of people that don’t want to be involved in it.”

The evolution of the event to this point has been a natural progression. The inaugural Energy Expo took place when the Producers Group was just taking shape itself. It was still something of an unknown commodity in the Fort Nelson community.

“And that’s why it wasn’t one or two oil companies putting it on,” said Dolan. “It was the Horn river Basin Producers Group.”

One of the most important elements of the event for the local community has been that the energy compa-nies have brought their prime contractors to Fort Nelson as part of the Energy Expo.

“We’ve found in northeast B.C. [that] we don’t work as much with the oil companies as we do the prime contractors,” she continued. “That’s where we need to be and that’s where northeast B.C. is getting the contracts.”

According to Dolan, the Energy Expo has played a significant role in creating new relationships between local service providers and the contractors and compa-nies working in the region, as well as new relationships within the local service sector itself.

takIng the reInsjames watermanPipeline News North

industry news

- Energy Services BC takes on Expo

“In the beginning,” she said, “not a lot of [the] service sector knew where they were going to be, knew where they needed to be in this whole expansion. The produc-ers sure didn’t know who the players were, what compa-nies there were. So, it was a way of everybody just kind of getting to know each other and what services can be provided in northeast B.C. … So, it’s definitely about lo-cal, northeast B.C. contractors getting the work. And how can we facilitate them getting that.”

That objective dovetails with ESBC’s mandate as the representative for the energy sector service providers in B.C. So, during last year’s event, it was decided that ESBC would take over from the Producers Group.

“We had our board meeting at that time, because there were so many people up in Fort Nelson,” Dolan recalled. “And we invited some of the players from the Producers Group. And it was their idea that this happen.”

“The other thing is, it’s a tremendous income stream

for the organization, which is something we require,” she admitted.

Dolan anticipates a productive “weekend of relation-ship-making and networking” among the service provid-ers this year.

“I don’t think you’re going to notice a big change other than it will be bigger,” she added. “The producers will still all be there. The [prime contractors] will be there. It will just have more of a local focus, I think, because we have our membership to draw on. At any given time, we can contact our membership. We know how our membership feels. So, this will be the first year. Second year, I’d like to get more of our membership involved in it and ask them what they’d like to see in the event.

“And it will be interesting for industry to kind of sit back and watch the networking going on with the service pro-viders,” Dolan concluded. “That happened last year and it was quite interesting. So they learn something too.” •

Energy Services BC is taking over the Energy Expo in Fort Nelson this year. The event was founded by the Horn River Basin Producers Group.

PHOTO By KATHy SMITH.

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Light-truck diesel engines of five to 10 years ago weren’t so good. They were noisy, vibrated, had smelly exhaust emissions, and were more costly to build than their gasoline-burning counterparts. Today’s diesels are much more civilized, but are they any better than their gasoline cousins? This is one of the questions we’re asked most frequently regarding 3⁄4- and 1-ton pickups. To answer this, you must understand the positive and negative attributes of each engine, while considering what you’ll use the vehicle for. Let’s look at the important criteria you should use before making a final decision.

P o w e r / To r q u e A d v a n t a g e : S p l i t Decision Typically, gas engines make more horsepower, while diesels produce more torque. Are you looking for off-the-line acceleration of an unloaded truck? Maybe you use your truck around town where quick starts are important and you don’t often tow a trailer or haul a load. If

this is the case, then you’ll want a gas engine. By design, gas engines rev faster and are able to reach higher rpm peaks than diesels. This allows them to attain greater horsepower numbers and quicker 0-60-mph times.

However, if towing capacity and brute pulling force are your game, a diesel is for you. The torque advantage of diesels is per-fectly suited for pulling heavy loads up steep grades. Because of the relatively high-compression ratio necessary to ignite the diesel fuel (17:1 diesel versus 9:1 gas), a diesel makes all its torque and

power low in the rev range. As an example, the GM 8.1L gasoline V-8 in Chevrolet and GMC pickups puts out 340 hp and 455 lb-ft of torque, while GM’s 6.6L V-8 turbod-iesel makes slightly less hp at only 300, but makes up for it in torque with a healthy 520 lb-ft of grunt.

Fuel Economy Advantage: Diesel Diesel fuel has a higher energy density than gasoline. One gallon of diesel contains approximately 147,000 BTus of energy, while a gallon of gasoline only has 125,000 BTus. This means it takes more gasoline to equal the power output of diesel, making diesel engines more efficient per gallon of fuel burned. Also, because diesel engines use the more efficient direct fuel-injection method (fuel injected directly into cylin-der) compared to the port fuel-injection setup in gas engines where gas is mixed with incoming air in the intake manifold, the diesel sys-tem has little wasted or unburned fuel. Diesels also use about one third as much fuel at idle as gasoline units. Even though there are no official EPA-mileage figures for 3⁄4-ton and bigger trucks, we’ve seen diesels get six to eight more mpg than similar-weight gas pick-ups. Over the life of the truck, this advantage could be significant, especially if you drive a lot of miles.

Initial Cost Advantage: Gasoline Because of the high-compres-sion ratios and resulting high cylinder pressure in diesel engines, they must be built to withstand more punishment than gas engines. Beefed-up parts include a thicker block and cylinder heads and stronger connecting rods, pistons, crankshaft, and valves. These parts can be costly. As an example, if you want to upgrade an ‘02 F-250 from the standard 5.4L V-8 to the 7.3L turbodiesel V-8, you’re

going to spend around $4800. However, to go from the 5.4L

to the 6.8L V-10 gasoline engine, the price is a more

m a n a g e a b l e $ 6 0 0 . A n o t h e r

diesel

d isad-vantage that comes as a byproduct of needing heavy-duty com-ponents is increased weight. A diesel engine can weigh several hundred pounds more than a comparable gas model.

Noise/Vibration Advantage: Gasoline Despite huge improvements in noise isolation and engine-noise tech-nology in pickup trucks in the past 10 years, diesels are still louder and shake more than their gasoline brothers. However, a recent back-to-back drive in two Ford trucks, one equipped with a 5.4L gas V-8 and the other fitted with a 7.3L die-sel V-8, demonstrated that diesels aren’t that far behind. At idle, the clatter and shake of the diesel are clearly noticeable, while it’s tough to tell if the gas engine is even running. under low-speed acceleration, the diesel still makes more noise. But once you’re up to speed, there’s little difference between the two even when accel-erating on the highway.

Cold Weather Advantage: Gasoline Anyone who’s tried to start a diesel engine a cold winter morning knows the winner in this category. Diesels don’t have spark plugs like gasoline engines do. The fuel is ignited sponta-neously once it’s injected into the cylinder that’s already under pressure. When it’s cold (below 30), the air isn’t hot enough to ignite the diesel fuel. To h e l p counter this, today’s diesel pickup-truck engines use a computer that senses cylinder temperature and injects the fuel later in the engine rotation. By injecting the fuel when the piston is closer to top dead center, the cylinder is under more pressure and the air inside is hotter, which aids combustion. As an added measure, most mod-

ern diesels come equipped with a 110-volt heating element designed to keep the engine block

warm when the t r u c k i s

parked.

Diesel vs Gasoline

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The Fort St. John Petroleum Association presented a pair of prestigious awards on Saturday, June 4.

Doug Wiles received the Oilman of the year Award for his history of strong community involvement and Lee Hart-man earned the Ivor Miller Award for his service to the Petroleum Association over the years.

Wiles was born and raised in the Fort St. John area, first venturing into the oil and gas industry with seismic crews and on drilling rigs, eventually becoming the northern British Columbia sales repre-sentative for Gulf Canada in 1967. His favourite joke was that his sales territory was 1200 miles long and 66 feet wide. Wiles would finish his career as an agent for Petro Canada after that company took over from Gulf in 1986. He passed away in November, 2010. His daughter, Laura Ziprick, accepted the award on his behalf.

“He would have been thrilled,” said Ziprick, imaging her father’s reaction to winning the award. “We joked last week that, if he had known that he was receiv-ing this, I would have been at the kitchen table with him, and he would have been having me write out a thank you speech. Because he was always very formal in his approach to things.”

Wiles had been heavily involved in the community since he was a young man, particularly in the world of sports, fre-quently as a coach.

“He loved this area and this commu-nity,” Ziprick continued. “He was born and raised here, as was his family. And he never wanted to move away. He valued all the people here and always marveled at how he was treated by his customers. But then, from my standpoint, he treated his customers very well. He valued them. It wasn’t just an income. It was a relation-ship that he developed through busi-ness but that trickled away to 4H Clubs and hockey teams. And he was also very concerned about children and their participation. So, if he did find that there was a child that couldn’t participate – and it wasn’t just hockey. It was other sports as well. He liked to help them out. Quietly. Nobody would know.”

“I think it’s a long list of things that Doug has done for our community from

charitable donations to a donation of time,” said Tyler Kosick, President of the Fort St. John Petroleum Association, discussing the reasons why Wiles was chosen as the Oilman of the year. “Minor hockey was a big one. It’s not necessarily someone from our club,” he added. “It’s somebody that our club recognizes as a key figure in the oil and gas industry and our community.”

Wiles’ family is deeply moved by the fact that he has been recognized in this fashion. “It’s just really wonderful,” Ziprick concluded. “I wish he was here. It would have been really nice for him to receive it in person. But, at the same time, it means a lot to my Mom. Because, as the silent wife behind such an involved man, it was very touching to her, as it is to all of us. But most especially to her, that her husband was recognized for his dedica-tion to the community and his business. It means a lot.”

Hartman was taken by surprise when he was announced as the winner of the Ivor Miller Award, but that likely didn’t surprise the other members of the club.

“Lee was the founding member of our hockey tournaments,” said Kosick, ex-plaining why they chose Hartman for the honour. “I was on the first committee with him. And he’s a very organized individual. He makes sure that everybody does their job. Holds them accountable for their job. Because of that, all of these events run very smoothly. That’s the biggest thing. you need somebody to put the time and the effort into these events. Otherwise, they flop. So, it means a great deal to our club to have people of that nature take on events such as this to make them a huge success year after year.”

Hartman has been in the oil patch and the Petroleum Association since he graduated from school in 1984. His notable achievements in terms of service to the club includes organizing the annual Oilmen’s Hockey tournament since its inception and taking the reins of the Oil-men’s Golf Tournament for the first time this spring.

“I’m speechless,” said Harman. “I guess you kind of hope that the award goes to long, long serving members. But if I look back, I am a life member with the asso-ciation already. I joined in 1984. I worked my whole life in the oil patch. So, I’m a life member. So, I guess I’m up there now.”

“I have run the hockey tournament right from the beginning,” he continued. “And I plan on running it until the tenth

job well done- Petroleum Association awards

anniversary. And [then] I’ll try and let it go. I believe the hockey tournament’s a real important event for the club, because it draws in the younger group of members. And we need the younger membership to get in and start planning some of these events so that some of the guys that have been planning the events for 25 years can just come and enjoy them.

“I’m proud of the hockey. I’m real excited to chair the golf. It’s a huge event. It’s talked about all over Western Canada, about getting into the Fort St. John Oil-men’s [Golf Tournament]. And it’s an important event for us, for sure. So, being recognized for chairing both of those and winning the Ivor Miller Award, it’s phenom-enal. Very honoured.” •


Laura Ziprick accepts the Oilmen of the Year award from Fort St. John Petroleum Association President Tyler Kosick on behalf of her father, Doug Wiles, who passed away in November, 2010.

PHOTO By JAMES WATErMAN

Fort St. John Petroleum Association President Tyler Kosick (left) presents Lee Hartman with the Ivor Miller Award for his outstanding service to the club.


industry news

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profilessandra mInIFIe- Rising star in the O&G industrySandra Minifie likes to think of herself as a bit of a rock star.

She even describes her life like a story of rock stardom. Like any rock star, her overnight success has been years in the making, starting with her humble beginnings as a school-skipping youth in Prince rupert, British Columbia and cul-minating in her seemingly sudden fame as part of Oilweek’s 2011 Class of rising Stars that was announced this May. Just as rock stars spend years learning how to play their instruments and write their songs only to toil in obscurity in small bars and nightclubs before finally emerg-ing into the spotlight, she has certainly paid her dues, too.

Minifie has traveled a unique and interesting path from Prince rupert to Dawson Creek, the community that she now calls home. She is no longer an irresponsible teenager, but a mother of three – eleven year old twin girls and a fifteen year old son – and the CEO of her very own company, Action Health & Safety Services.

Along with her husband, Ward Minifie, who is Action’s current Vice President of Sales, and a silent partner, who just so happens to be her sister, Minifie bought the company from Gary and Barb Caldwell in October, 2008 and officially took control in January, 2009. She had been managing the office for their son, Brad Caldwell, for about three years when that opportunity presented itself.

“It’s kind of a funny story,” Minifie recalled, relaxing at her charmingly cluttered desk in her recently renovated Dawson Creek office, a pair of dogs playfully growling at one another by her feet. “My husband and I lived in High river, Alberta, and he got a job with BC Ambulance Service up here as their superintendent. And so we moved here from High river.”

Their twins were only four years old at the time.

“So, the plan was that we were going to come here and I wasn’t going to work,” Minifie said. “And so we got here. And, of course, I had gone onto EI because I moved because of my spouse. So, I went onto EI. And I remember horror stories my mom used to tell me about being on EI. you know, you have to be looking for a job and they might check on you and all that stuff. So, I thought, okay, well, I better be looking for a job. So, I applied for a few jobs here in Dawson [Creek]. And that was in 2005 … Everybody was looking for people.”

“So, I got offered every job I applied for,” she continued with a laugh. “And, of course, I didn’t really want to go to work. So, I did apply to a dispatch job here at Action. And I talked to a few people about what that looked like. you know, I had never worked in oil and gas, I had no idea what type of duties a dispatcher would have. So, I wanted to make an informed decision. And what I heard from everybody was, ‘Oh, it will take over your life. you’ll work all the time. you’ll never get a day off.’ And they really scared the heck out of me. So, I wrote a really nice letter back to Brad, because he offered me the job. I wrote a really nice letter

back to him and said, ‘you know, it’s a great opportunity. I really appreciate it. But I just don’t want to work that hard. So, unfortunately, I’m going to have to say no.’ So, a couple days later he gave me a call and said, ‘you know, we really like your skill set. We’re trying to expand. We’re trying to be more professional. We’re working towards some of these goals. And we really believe that your skill set will help us with that. Would you be interested in taking on some marketing roles, maybe helping us raise our image professionally, that kind of stuff?’ I said, ‘Sure. That sounds great.’”

The younger Caldwell was running the company for his parents at that time, Minifie explained, but he was really interested in pursuing his own ventures in Alberta.

“And so he wanted to work from Calgary,” she said, “but still help his parents out. So, what he really needed was somebody to run this office. So, then a couple months after I started, I ended up coming in and running the office – the day-to-day operations of the office. So, I’ve been doing that since about 2005.”

Buying the company was a difficult feat considering the timing of the transac-tion. After all, the fall of 2008 was right at the beginning of the global economic downturn from which the world is still recovering.

“The bank was not open,” said Minifie. “I mean, I had to fight and fight and fight with the banks … It took me from October until January 31 to actually close because I could not get a bank to talk to me about buying a company.”

Thankfully, Minifie had the moral sup-port of her husband and the financial support of her sister, who was an oil and gas company accountant with funds to offer and property that they could use to guarantee bank loans.

“She joined in because she believes in me, which is fantastic,” she added. “And she knew that I was going to do some-thing really big with it.”

Minifie insists that her sister hasn’t had any trouble playing the role of silent partner. “Which [is] really funny,” she said, “because my sister’s a really strong woman. And has some definite ideas on the way things should be.”

“She’s my sister and my best friend,” Minifie continued. “And so if I am having a really bad day or I’m really stressed or at the end of my rope, I can call her and just vent to her. And it’s never going to go anywhere.”

“I don’t ever have to worry that she’s going to tell one of our competitors what a jerk I am,” she laughed.

Minifie’s sister also played an important role in a life-altering decision that really went a long way to making her the strong and successful businesswoman that she is today. It all began with her teen-age years in Prince rupert. During high school, she often cut classes, but still did well enough to get into college, a path that she chose mostly just to escape her hometown. She soon found herself study-ing Construction Engineering Technology in Prince George.

“And then I really hated that,” she recalled. “And it was not the right direc-tion for me. So, I was really at odds. If I felt like going to school, I did. If I didn’t feel like it, I didn’t. I didn’t have a lot of

responsibility. I didn’t feel a lot of re-sponsibility. Didn’t have a lot of ambition or drive. However, while I was going to school, I worked in some bars, which I really liked. I’m really social. I loved the social aspect of working in the bar, but not actually being part of the scene. Because I’m not much of a drinker and stuff. So, that was really great for me. I really enjoyed that. But, when I finished college, Prince George wasn’t where I wanted to live either.”

At that time, her sister was in the mili-tary, stationed in the small town of Sioux Lookout in northwest Ontario. Minifie ac-cepted an invitation to visit her in eastern Canada shortly after finishing college, a trip that changed her life immensely.

“I really felt that her life was so togeth-er,” said Minifie. “She had a good job. She made decent money. She had a whole community of people that she could be a part of. She wasn’t a drifter anymore. She was responsible to something. And I thought, ‘Wow! I really like that. I think I want that for myself.’ So, I joined the military. And it was the best thing I ever did for myself.”

“Funnily enough,” she continued, “in the first eight years that I was in the military, I had a total of three sick days. So, to go from a kid who got up when she felt like it, went to work if she felt like it, went to school if it suited her purpose, all that kind of stuff, to not even taking a sick day in almost eight years is pretty incredible … In the military, too, that system is quite rigid, right? … If you’re sick, you still have to get up, get your uniform on, and go to the doctor in order to get the day off. So, by the time you get up, have your shower, throw your clothes on, you’re kind of not feeling that bad anyways … you got up at six. It’s eight o’clock. yeah, you could go to the doctor and be out of there by noon and home in bed, but you really only have to work until four anyways. So, why not just go to work?”

Minifie was in the military from 1988 to 1998, at which time she moved to Calgary and worked in investor relations for a private company in that city until the birth

of her twin daughters. She took some time off at that point, eventually returning to the business world with a company that was importing furniture from Denmark. A few subsequent months working for a law firm preceded her move to Dawson Creek.

After following her husband on that jour-ney, Minifie convinced him to join her in her plan to buy Action.

“Because I’m a bit of a bully,” she con-fessed with a smile.

“There were times,” Minifie continued, “when he would say, ‘Are you sure that this is the right direction for us? Maybe the universe is telling us something.’ And I was tenacious. And said, ‘We really need to do this. This is big risk, big reward.’ And he was onboard the whole time. He was so supportive. And we both figured at that time, we’re in our early forties, we both have MBAs, if it doesn’t work, we’ll be okay, right? We’ll be okay.”

Actually, Minifie was just completing her MBA through the university of Northern British Columbia in Prince George during her transition from employee to owner of the company.

“When I started writing a business plan,” she said, “I was just finishing up my first year. And then the transition took place during my second year. So, one of the things you have to do in second year is a project, because it was project based. And so I had to do a project on something that was business related, but important to me, all that kind of stuff. So, I did my final project – or thesis project – on organizational culture through ownership change. And so throughout that process I was able to bring in experts to talk to all the employees, find out what they liked, what they didn’t like, what I could change, what was a sacred cow, all those different things. Of course, that got put in a report to me, and then I was able to take that report and write my final paper from it. And also in doing that I was able to find out what people wanted, didn’t want, what we could do, what we couldn’t do. And so it was really quite seamless.”


the accolades keep coming for Action health and safety services Ceo sandra Minifie. the recipient of the Aurora Award for Woman of the Year in Oil and Gas in 2009 has since been ranked 21st among the top 100 women entrepreneurs in Canada and has most recently been named to Oilweek’s 2011 Class of Rising Stars. PHOTO By JAMES WATErMAN

continued pg 31


What is it? Hydraulic fracturing – also known as fraccingor fracking – is a term used often in today’soil and gas industry, but what exactly is it?To put it simply, it helps get natural gas out ofunderground geologic formations. Hydraulicfracturing creates paths within the gas-bearingformations allowing natural gas to be collectedat natural gas wells. Around the world, British Columbia isbecoming increasingly known for its abundantnatural gas reserves – the shales within theHorn River Basin and the Montney siltstonesare referenced in many presentations on shalegas and tight gas as key global gas plays.But the natural gas, commonly referred toas “unconventional,” is trapped in geologicalformations – normally shale, siltstone andsandstone – as deep as five kilometres belowthe earth’s surface. It’s called unconventionalgas because it’s trapped within low permeabilityrock that under traditional operations do not allow the gas to flow. That’s where hydraulic fracturing comes in. To release the gas trapped in the rock,fractures have to be created to allow the gasto flow. This is achieved by pumping fracturefluid – a mixture that is generally over 99 per

cent water and sand – into the formation athigh pressures. When the pressure is greatenough, the formation fractures, the sand holdsopen the fractures and gas begins to flow.

What happens to the fracture fluids? The fracture fluid is pumped into thereservoir, but when its job is done, most ofit flows back to the wellhead. The collection,temporary storage, reuse and disposal ofthese fluids is regulated by the Commission. Over a period of weeks to months, thefracture fluid is collected at the wellhead.The fluid comes back from the formationcontaining a mix of the pre-fracture formationfluids, dissolved and suspended solids andsometimes dissolved hydrocarbons. Thisfluid is either stored, treated and re-used – apreferable method in regard to reducing theamount of water used by the oil and gasindustry – or pumped back down into a deepunderground formation, using a well reviewedand approved by the Commission.

How is groundwater protected? Unconventional gas reservoirs, such as thosein northeast British Columbia, are typicallyfound 2,000 to 5,000 metres below the earth’s

surface, while potable groundwater aquifersare generally less than 500 metres down. Regulations ensure that potable groundwateris protected. This is achieved by drillingpractices that include the use of non-toxicdrilling fluids under certain circumstances aswell as requirements for ensuring the wellis adequately cased. Drilling and productionregulations outline in detail how industry mustensure our water resources are protected.

What is the Commission’s role? The Commission ensures that hydraulicfracturing projects in British Columbiaare done safely for the public and theenvironment. Each division at the Commissionplays a key role, whether it is at the applicationstage, the compliance and enforcement stageor the cleanup stage. Companies must make an application tothe Commission for deep well disposal. TheCommission reviews these applicationsto ensure: oil and gas resources are notimpacted; the proposed disposal or injectionzone is compatible with the disposal fluids;the disposal fluids will remain within theunderground formation and the applicant hasobtained the necessary rights to the formation.

Hydraulic Fracturing in British Columbia

Oil and Gas — Fast Facts

The BC Oil and Gas Commission (Commission)is an independent, single-window regulatoryagency with responsibilities for overseeingoil and gas operations in British Columbia,including exploration, development, pipelinetransportation and reclamation.

The Commission has offices throughoutBritish Columbia and employs over 200 BritishColumbians who are committed to preservingthe province’s quality of life. Come see us atthe office in your region: •FortSt.John,#100-10003110Avenue •FortNelson,#101-470155Street •DawsonCreek,#3-1445102Avenue

To learn more visit www.bcogc.caFollowusonTwitterPhone1-250-794-5200

29347

FIndIng solutIons- A centre for resource innovationjames watermanPipeline News North

Doug Kulba had a vision.

It was just over ten years ago that the resource assurance specialist with Alberta Environment began to seriously think about the possible solutions to a problem that he was encountering almost every day.

The crux of the issue for Kulba was a regulatory environment in which indus-try tried only to satisfy the minimum standards set for them by the provincial government. As for the provincial govern-ment, it just encouraged companies to do the very least expected of them by only punishing those who failed to follow the rules; it didn’t encourage the sort of innovation that could really raise the bar for industry best practices and finally put that culture of a strict adherence to the bare minimum – and nothing more – into the past.

“At that point in time,” Kulba recalled, “what I believed was that, as government, we needed to communicate in a different way with our stakeholders. And it was a recognition even at that point in time – as long as twelve years ago – that we couldn’t achieve our outcomes by forcing or compelling people to the minimum

standards. So I believed that we needed to do something different. And one way to express that was through education, knowledge transfer, and inspiring people towards excellence.”

“I got together with a group of people who were like-minded,” he continued, “and said, ‘you know, we’ve got this vision here of creating something maybe a little bit different and being a little bit innova-tive, instead of doing the same old thing and expecting a different result.’”

During that period, Kulba was also on the Board of Directors at Evergreen Park, an exhibition centre on the south-ern edge of Grande Prairie, Alberta. He quickly realized that the park was the perfect location for what he was really hoping to create: a site where industry and government could come together to conduct research on mitigating the impact of industry operations on the environment and subsequently demonstrate the fruits of that labour to other interested parties. So, the Evergreen Centre for resource Excellence and Innovation was born.

It was all about changing motivations. Gone would be the days of the fear of fail-ure and the consequent slap on the wrist from government. Instead, industry would be encouraged to try new ideas, even if those ideas should fail. one of 600 black spruce trees planted in February showing its new buds in May – part of a

study designed to determine if reforestation activities can be conducted during the winter when ground conditions are more favourable for the work. PHOTO By JAMES WATErMANcontinued pg 12

special feature

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After all, it was meant to be a learning process and a constant push toward a level of excellence that simply can’t be mandated by any authority.

“That’s the one thing that we really need to understand,” said Kulba, noting that there is a definite gap between the requirements stipulated by government and the great feats that industry is able to accomplish if given the right motivation.

“It’s understanding what the legislative require-ments are actually intended for,” he added. “Once we create that understanding – that true under-standing of what they’re actually there for – that allows the people the freedom then to go beyond. Because that legislative requirement is used to identify some environmental harm or when some-body’s actually breaking the law or that type of that thing.”

“It’s not the legislation that brings out the good behaviour when you talk about the behaviour of people,” Kulba continued. “We know what the criminal code is. So, that line is equivalent to a criminal code. And yet … the vast majority of peo-ple behave way beyond that, right? Most people aren’t just doing things to meet the criminal code.”

Kulba believes that most people follow the good example of others. So, it is now up to the Ever-green Centre to set that good example for the rest of the oil and gas industry.

Access road construction is one area that has received a lot of attention at the Evergreen Centre since its inception. Sections of the site illustrate the results of that work, including road surfaces consisting of wood mulch or other coarse woody material. Sections of forest eight to ten metres wide were removed to build the roads, a far cry from the twenty metre sections that have tradition-ally been removed to create access routes to oil and gas wellsites.

The coarse woody material from those trees is then spread across the ground to create a natural road surface that can allow the forest to regener-ate itself after that road is no longer in use. It is an innovation that Devon Canada helped to develop and now employs when possible in their opera-tions. Kulba explained that Devon used similar techniques on an access road near Dawson Creek, British Columbia this winter, allowing them to keep a drilling rig at their site far longer than other producers in the region.

“That’s a real commitment by the industry to reduce environmental footprints,” said Kulba.

It also demonstrates that solid environmental practices and economic benefits can often go hand-in-hand, which Kulba claims is a common feature of these new road construction solutions.

“They’re not having to destroy and remove all those trees from another additional ten metres and process them and haul them away,” he explained. “[They] reduce their carbon footprint by reducing the amount of emissions that would normally be used to harvest and haul and process all those trees. So, from a climate change perspective, that’s a huge, huge positive thing that’s occurring. It’s kind of going unnoticed, but it is starting to happen. And I think the impact of that, although it may seem like a small gesture at this point in time, is that it’s leading the way. Because all the other producers in the area are starting to take notice.”

Tim Vinge of Alberta Sustainable resource Development (SrD) has been involved in the research with coarse woody material at the Ever-green Centre. As a landscape restoration ecolo-gist who works in the boreal forest, he has a deep understanding of the importance of wood – includ-ing live trees, dead standing trees, and deadwood on the ground – to maintaining the biodiversity of forest systems.

“If we want to know how important this stuff is,” said Vinge, “all we got to do is go somewhere like Sweden or Finland where they’ve picked up every stick on the ground. They’ve got very groomed, manicured forests over there. And every little piece of wood on the ground gets picked up for firewood or whatever. And they’ve lost 25 to 30 per cent of their biodiversity by doing that.”

“Neat and tidy doesn’t really fit with ecosys-tems,” he continued. “And we’ve been driving everybody in Alberta to be neat and tidy. So, when

we build a lease or when we build a pipeline, we have them pile up all the wood. And then we say, ‘Well, now that you’ve got it piled, the fire regulations say you got to dispose of that. So, you’ve got to burn it.’ So, we torch up all our piles. And then – to add to the lunacy of doing that – then we end up with holdover fire problems from burn-ing these piles.”

Additionally, the neat and tidy ap-proach has led to ecological problems, particularly considering the amount of oil and gas industry activity that pres-ently involves permanently removing trees from those ecosystems.

“We’re doing a bunch of things out there on the landscape,” Vinge explained. “And really it’s in the middle of the forest. So, let’s say we recognize that, okay, well, are there some things that we could use wood for to reboot the system or repair the system or help the system along or make sure we don’t lose our biodiversity? What things could we do? Well, then you start run-ning into questions like, ‘well, okay, if we want to leave a little wood behind, what size should it be and how much should we leave behind?’

“Because the problem is, when you leave wood behind, you can leave too much. So, you end up with a big pile, in other words. Or you can leave not enough. So, the distribution and the amount of that wood on the ground is important. It matters, ecologically speaking.”

The Evergreen Centre has a plot dedicated to examining the impact that coarse woody material on the surface of the ground has on vegetation. Par-ticularly, the research is interested in the response of that vegetation to the woody material, including the amount of vegetation and the species diversity at that site.

“There’s two considerations,” said Vinge.

The first is the type of material: mulch, chunks or actual logs.

“Each one of those is specific,” he continued. “And then the amount of each one of those is specific to a

vegetation response. What I mean by that is, you know, where we used those chunks there … we applied the chunks at different levels to look at how the vegetation would respond to the appli-cation of those chunks. Because what we’re finding is that there’s this busi-ness of micro-sites [or microclimates].”

Micro-sites are small spots with very localized conditions that plants prefer, such as the area right next to a log.

“What we’re finding is that, by laying the material on the ground, we’ve cre-ated opportunities for plants to seed in and grow that they ordinarily wouldn’t have, because it’s too dry,” Vinge ex-plained. “What the wood is doing is, it’s holding moisture in the soil underneath … the woody material is really good at holding moisture in the soil. And so what we experimented with – what the research question was, ‘what’s the impact of adding different types and levels of this debris on this plant com-munity?’ And we’re finding that we’re getting more herbs and shrubs growing where we used the chunks.”

It is an important part of produc-ing a residual wood field guide for the province that will show energy sector companies how coarse woody material should be handled at their work sites.

“I call this my Tylenol factor,” said Vinge. “If you take a whole bottle of Tylenol, you’ll shut your liver down, and it will probably kill you. And if you take one Tylenol, you’ll get rid of your headache. So, it’s the same thing with this stuff. Ecosystems work in centime-tres – sometimes metres, but mostly centimetres. They’re very refined. And by going in and just dumping stuff on the ground without really knowing what you’re doing, you can sometimes do more harm than good.”

The province has done consider-able work in measuring the amount of naturally occurring wood on the ground in the various forest systems through-out the province, determining that there is an average of 60 to 75 cubic metres per hectare of wood on the ground across those forest types.

“But let’s say you’ve got a … linear

feature that you want to manage for wildlife,” said Vinge. “you want to keep the wildlife off there. Well, we’re recommending 150 cubic metres [per hectare] of material. So, there’s an example where some places you’d use 150 [cubic metres per hectare], but maybe in the rest of the areas you might use 75 [m3/h], but it’s specific to what your objectives are for putting the wood on. If you’re not really clear about what you’re doing, then, you know, who knows? But if you want to keep wolves from eating your caribou, well, okay, then maybe 150 cubic metres would be appropriate per hectare.”

Another new road construction innovation that is being tested and demonstrated at the Evergreen Centre is a product called Neoweb or Neoloy, a grid of cells that can be packed with sand to create a road where gravel isn’t readily available.

“Devon Canada, for example, is us-ing this on cultivated agricultural lands,” said Kulba, who has also experimented successfully with packing the grid with fine wood chips.

“What we had originally thought is that, in the oil sands region, aggregate is very hard and difficult to come by for building roads,” he continued. “So, this assists in utilizing some existing mate-rial, because sand is very prevalent there. And sand, unsupported, doesn’t make a good road – but sand sup-ported does. So, this is a containment system that may allow that. It may be a product that could be used in the oil sands region.”

The oil sands is also a primary focus of an interesting new black spruce reforestation research project involv-ing the Oil Sands Leadership Initiative and being conducted at the Evergreen Centre.

“A lot of the areas that we have disturbed in terms of seismic has been wetlands,” said Vinge. “And everybody thinks, because they’re wet, that they’ll just grow back on their own. But when you fly in a plane from Fort St. John to wherever, you see a lot of these

continued pg 13

- A centre for resource innovation

Sand is be packed into the cells of the grid that is spread across the ground to create a sturdy road where gravel isn’t readily available. It is just another one of the new road construction techniques being tested and demonstrated at the Evergreen Centre.


cont’d from pg 11


29329

The Evergreen Centre is the site of research into the use of coarse woody material. The material is spread on the ground at different depths to examine the response by vegetation. PHOTO By JAMES WATErMAN

wetlands, and they’ve been cutlines for a long time. And they’re not com-ing back. Well, why aren’t they coming back? There’s lots of water there. Well, the problem is there’s too much water. And in many cases the water’s right at the surface. And there’s no oxygen in that moss for anything – any trees – to grow. So, it takes a long time for those systems to recover.

“Is there anything we can do to get them to recover a little faster?” he continued. “Es-pecially in areas where we’ve got caribou issues, where we want to stop wolves and other animals from walking down those lines, those muskegs. What could we do to get the trees to reestablish a little quicker? Well, we could create an opportunity for the roots to be out of the water. Well, how do you do that? Well, you get a bucket on a hoe, and you reach in and you flip it over and you make a mound. Make a little hill. And then you plant your tree on the top. So, now the tree has a rooting zone that isn’t flooded. And it will grow.”

The other twist is that the spruce trees planted at the Evergreen Centre for this project were planted in the middle of winter.

“Because it’s just impossible to get out there in June to do that,” Vinge explained. “And somebody might say, ‘yeah, but you could mound it in the wintertime and go out there in June.’ Well, the last place I want to put a planter is in the middle of one of those in June. Put yourself in that place and tell me if you’d want to fight your way through that to plant trees. It’s just too inhumane. It’s too hard. It’s too expensive. So, what we wanted to know was … could we take these trees when they’re frozen

popsicles and, because the muskeg isn’t frozen in the wintertime, if we make a mound, could we simply plant the tree in January and February when we’re doing the mounding?”

Vinge noted that the results have been promising so far. As of the end of May, ninety per cent of the 600 black spruce seedlings planted at the site in Febru-ary have survived. That is an impressive number considering that the night before the trees were planted the temperature in Grande Prairie was approximately forty degrees below zero Celsius, and daytime temperature during planting was still just ten degrees below zero Celsius.

It is just the beginning.“We need to test this with different spe-

cies,” said Vinge. White spruce is kind of like black spruce. It’s kind of tough. But I wanted to look at larch too. Larch grows kind of similar to black spruce. Is it pretty hardy as well? We need to look at that.”

During its brief existence, the Ever-green Centre has also been involved in developing, testing, and showcasing new pipeline construction techniques and new culvert systems for waterways with sensi-tive fish populations. The demonstrations are vitally important, according to Kulba, as it is almost impossible for the people in the field to really know how to perform new practices, such as managing coarse woody material, unless the can see the work firsthand.

“This entire site was built by the com-munity out of volunteer man-hours and equipment and labour,” Kulba concluded. “And there’s not been one nickel of fund-ing for this site. It’s all been volunteer. And it’s brought the community closer. They believe in it.” •

cont’d from pg 12

This display at the Evergreen Centre for Resource Excellence and Innovation showcases advances in pipelining strategies, including the use of a narrower bucket to reduce ground disturbance. PHOTO COurTESy OF DOuG KuLBA, ALBErTA ENVIrONMENT

A big concern for companies working near streams and rivers is how to ensure those waterways remain habitable for fish. this bridge uses a steel grid to hold the soil and a bottomless culvert that doesn’t disturb the flow of water or the behaviour of fish.


Tree planter Gordan Sheepwash planting black spruce in February, 2011 as part of an oil sands reclamation study being conducted at the Evergreen Centre for Resource Excellence and Innovation. PHOTO COurTESy OF DOuG KuLBA, ALBErTA ENVIrONMENT.


environmentunexpected allIes- Ducks Unlimited and O&G join handsIt appears that the old adage that birds of a feather flock together is really starting to apply to a pair of seemingly unlikely partners: conservationists and the oil and gas industry.

That is certainly the case with Ducks unlimited and a trio of energy sector companies that have offered funding and expertise to a pair of projects undertaken by the wetland and waterfowl conservation organization in recent years.

Encana and Imperial Oil provided funding for the Hart-nell Marshes restoration project in the Doe river area about thirty kilometres north of Dawson Creek, British Columbia. Encana, Imperial Oil and Devon Canada have all collaborated in a wetland mapping partnership with Ducks unlimited that is producing a detailed wetland in-ventory of northeast British Columbia – which includes in-formation on the types of wetland, distribution of wetland types, inferred knowledge on hydrology, soil moisture and waterfowl productivity – and other related products. Ducks unlimited it also combining that data with water-fowl surveys – ducks and trumpeter swans particularly – to help guide oil and gas industry activity in the region in the interest of conservation as well as identify critical habitat for waterfowl that may be protected from industry activity.

“We started doing work in northeastern BC [about] seven years ago,” said Al richard, Ducks unlimited’s GIS Manager for the Western Boreal Project, during a presentation on the wetland mapping project at Fort Nel-son’s Demonstration Forest held Tuesday, June 7.

richard noted that the three energy companies have been participating in that work for the last five years, be-ginning with a partnership between Ducks unlimited and Encana. Imperial Oil and Devon soon followed suit.

“It’s such a wet environment here,” he continued. “It’s an area important to waterfowl continentally. So, between doing the wetland mapping and bird surveys, we’re working with these companies on bringing more informa-tion – better information – about wetlands and waterfowl distribution.”

The mapping is being done in three phases. The two northernmost sections have been completed already and the third section that encompasses the Dawson Creek and Fort St. John area will be completed this year. Each phase has taken about a year and a half, including 40 to 50 hours of helicopter-based fieldwork per project, for a cost of about $200,000 per phase. Still, according to richard, that only amounts to about six to eight cents per acre of wetland mapped.

“And we’re still developing our waterfowl distribution products,” said richard. “That will be ongoing here prob-ably over the next year. And sharing that information with our partners so they can improve their environmental performance and practices.”

Devon got involved in the project for that exact reason.“We got involved in this particular wetland mapping

project because it’s something that we are looking for-ward to doing, looking forward to know what the baseline habitats are like out in Northeast B.C. areas where we’re operating,” explained Amit Saxeena, Environmental Advi-

sor and Wildlife Biologist with Devon, during the event in Fort Nelson.

Devon has contributed funding as well as information that they have acquired through their own work.

“We’re making a financial contribution over many years,” said Saxeena. “It’s a multi-year commitment that we’ve made to Ducks unlimited over all of our operations. And one of the areas that we have a particular interest in is Northeast B.C. and their boreal wetland program.”

“We’ve worked with Ducks [unlimited] on outlining the objectives for the mapping and giving any information that we have on operational level data collection that we do regarding water level and water quality and all those kinds of things,” he continued. “So, we’ve got quite an interactive relationship.”

Danielle Speers, a biologist who works as an Environ-mental Advisor with Imperial Oil, mentioned trumpeter swans as a particular concern identified by her company going into the wetland mapping project.

“Being environmentally responsible is a core value to Imperial,” she began. “This project – particularly the wet-land inventory – is important to know because wetlands provide multiple ecosystem services. It’s habitat for water-fowl, but they also provide maintenance of water quality and water quantity and they establish a flow and maintain the flow regimes.”

“There’s sensitivities to trumpeter swan,” Speers con-tinued. “They are a Blue listed species provincially, which means they’re a Species of Special Concern.”

The BC Oil and Gas Commission stipulates in the Environmental Protection and Management Guideline that companies establish a minimum 200-metre setback from swan nesting sites. A trumpeter swan observation data set compiled by Ducks unlimited between 1998 and 2000 should help companies identify those areas.

According to Speers, Imperial Oil always conducts pre-disturbance environmental assessments of a site before beginning any new activity, but the wetland inventory and bird survey results could help facilitate that process in terms of long range planning around sensitive areas.

“We’re hoping on our end, with Ducks unlimited, to

better understand the important areas for waterfowl,” said richard. “And we’re doing that with our data we’ve col-lected over the years. And with the energy companies, our partners – they’re probably better able to speak to it, but part of their mandate, their business needs on the environ-mental side, is to improve their sustainable development practices. This information will help them understand the distribution of these wetland systems. So, from a planning perspective, road development, all that stuff that’s part of their business needs, to better understand the layout of these wetland systems for better planning purposes and development purposes.”

Ducks unlimited also hopes to develop a set of recom-mendations from this work for oil and gas companies operating in the region.

“We’re working on that part,” said richard. “There’s a lot of information and research that’s going on, on boreal wetland systems and hydrology – how it functions. So, we’re supporting a lot of research that the academics are working on, too, to address some of those information gaps that we have right now.”

Ducks unlimited held another event on Wednesday, June 8 to showcase the progress they have made restor-ing the Hartnell Marshes to their partners and supporters, which include the provincial and federal governments, various conservation organizations, and Encana and Imperial Oil.

Historically a wetland habitat, the Hartnell Marshes had been used for agriculture for decades by the previous owners, who made considerable effort to drain the parcel through a series of ditches. Ducks unlimited is hoping that their project to restore the site to a wetland habitat will encourage the return of breeding ducks, geese and swans, as well as other wildlife.

“It was farmed before we acquired it,” said Darryl Kroeker, regional Planning and research Biologist with Ducks unlimited based in Tomslake. “And the landown-ers actually came to us and said, ‘you guys are looking at wetland restoration. This would be a great parcel for you


;,;;;,

continued pg 15

For information on Membership

contact Art Jarvis, Executive Director South or Laurie Dolan, Executive Director North

for contact information seewww.energyservicesbc.org 31

280

Al Richard, GIS Manager for Ducks Unlimited Canada’s Western Boreal Program, discussed the Northeast B.C. Enhanced wetland Classification during their wetland Mapping partnership event at Fort nelson’s Demonstration Forest on tuesday, June 7.


http://www.energyservicesbc.org


605640

unexpected allIesguys.’ Basically they had spent a good part of their farming career trying to drain it and clear it and make it productive from an agricultural perspective.

So, we looked at restoring some kind of wetland habitat on it. Our efforts were not necessarily to restore what was there historically. Historically, it would have been somewhat boggy in parts of it and cer-tainly overgrown with willows and some spruce and so on. We weren’t endeavour-ing to try and restore that kind of habitat, but we were looking at restoring wetland habitat. So, what we did was we built a bunch of dikes.”

Ducks unlimited purchased 640 acres of that land in 2008 and spent the follow-ing two years building dikes to flood ap-proximately 250 acres of that section. The cost of the purchase and restoration was about $500,000. As a result of the dikes, the site almost flooded to capacity last year and did flood to capacity this spring.

It is unlikely that the site will return to its historical form any time soon.

“That kind of a habitat would have been probably important for a lot of aquatic invertebrates, amphibians, maybe more riparian songbirds, that kind of a thing,” said Kroeker. “And, over time, whether

that kind of a habitat will accumulate again, whether we’ll start seeing some trees growing and stuff like that, time will tell. We’re not going to spend a lot of energy and money trying to re-establish that. We’ve started out with putting water back on the landscape. And then see what evolves. Because typically there are seeds that persist in the soil that were there historically. Some of them survive for decades. And so we’ll see what comes up. And you get windborne seeds and stuff too that will help establish it.”

At the very least, it should prove to be a good site for nesting ducks and geese.

“Much of it is fairly shallow,” Kroeker continued, noting that those are ideal conditions for breeding waterfowl.

“With shallow wetlands,” he said, “what you get is high productivity. The water warms up quickly and so you get the aquatic insects, the invertebrates that are living in the water. They come out of that winter dormancy quickly because it warms up. The sunlight penetrates all the way to the bottom. So, you get lots of primary productivity. you know, algae and plants and so on that can grow very easily. Lots of nutrients in the soil. So, there’s natural fertility to it. Productivity for agriculture and productivity for wildlife is the same thing. So, they kick into gear really quickly.”

Ducks Unlimited’s Hartnell Marshes restoration projects, just north of Dawson Creek, has transformed waterlogged farmland into a wetland. Historically, the site was a wetland that was drained for agricultural use. PHOTO COurTESy OF DuCKS uNLIMITED

Rick Shewchuk of Ducks Unlimited Canada, Jeff Beale and Brian Lieverse of Encana Corporation, Helga Shields of Imperial Oil, and Brad Arner and Darryl Kroeker of Ducks Unlimited Canada at Hartnell Marshes on Wednesday, June 8. Ducks Unlimited hosted an event at the site just north of Dawson Creek to showcase the restoration work they have performed since purchasing in the land in 2008. PHOTO COurTESy OF DuCKS uNLIMITED

Kroeker explained that waterfowl migrat-ing to these areas shallow wetlands are easily able to re-establish their bonds with their mates and find a secluded spot among the plants to make their nests. Fur-thermore, the female ducks require plenty of protein, fat and energy to lay ten to twelve eggs at a rate of one egg per day.

“So, that amount of [nutrients] she’s got to accumulate by eating bugs out of the water column when she first arrives,” said Kroeker.

Speers noted that the project is of par-ticular importance considering the carbon footprint of the oil and gas industry and the fact that wetlands such as the Hartnell

Marshes sequester a great deal of carbon that might otherwise find its way into the atmosphere.

“When you’re restoring vegetations and those ecosystems that are going to con-tribute to carbon sequestration, than that’s just one of the benefits,” said Speers.

The upland areas at the site were also seeded with grass and alfalfa, which will be hayed by a local landowner on a yearly basis.

“They’re good for nesting cover for the ground-nesting birds,” added Kroeker. “The songbirds and so on. And by the time

whoever’s got that license comes out and hays the crop off of it, most of those birds have hatched their young and have left. And the crop can be taken off of it. And you get some re-growth in fall and that provides the nesting cover when the birds first show up the following spring.”

Hartnell Marshes is one of eighteen landscapes in the Peace region that Ducks Unlimited have identified as being important for wetland and waterfowl con-servation projects. The site is now part of a 2600 acre wildlife corridor that includes other nearby conservation properties. •

cont’d from pg 14

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prps trade show

Westfab Manufacturing

The youngest owner of any of the companies that were present at the 2011 Peace Region Petroleum Show – held in Grande Prairie, Alberta – had to be Lonny Thiessen.

At just twenty-five years old, Lonny Thiessen, the owner and manager of oilfield equipment manufacturer Westfab Manufacturing, has already been in the industry for thirteen years, ever since he started painting for his father at Peace Land Fabricating in Hythe, Alberta, his after school job when he was twelve years old.

“And as I grew up, kind of with the business, Dad moved me into purchasing and project management,” said Thiessen. “And then he sold the company out to Foremost Universal about five and a half years ago. And we kind of rolled out of there and started Westfab Manufacturing. And have grown from there.”

Thiessen was only twenty-three when he started the business, but he doesn’t

think that the age difference between him and his older clients who have been in the industry for many years has been an issue. “I don’t really think about it, because I have been around the indus-try for so long myself,” he explained. “I recognize and know a lot of the key play-ers. And I don’t feel like I’m young in the industry, I guess.”

Actually, it is the age of the company – not the age of its owner – that attracted Thiessen to the Petroleum Show for the first time, representing Westfab this year.

“A trade show like this gives us expo-sure,” he said.

“We’re a relatively new company. We need to simply let people know that we’re here. That’s why we’re at a show like this. It’s amazing – with the current market, if we can make contact with the people, the work is there. you know, I can make a sale by just meeting the right customer here.”

Westfab specializes in manufacturing 400 barrel rental tanks and production tanks for long-term use on oil and gas industry lease sites.


At just 25 years old, Lonny Thiessen is already the owner of his own company, Westfab Manufacturing in Hythe, Alberta.

Dave Knox of Direct Horizontal Drilling.

special feature

Bud Rich of TA Structures.

Leo Gillis, Warren McKechnie and John Kroon of Compass Bending.

Calvin Ermantrout and Eric Templeton of Cummins Western Canada.


prps trade show

Although W.E. Greer is now an eighty-eight year old company, Sales Consultant Dave Grace was attending the 2011 Peace region Petroleum Show hoping to push the supplier of commercial and industrial cleaning products into a brand new market: the oil and gas sector.

“I think most people think of Greer and they think of cleaning supplies,” said Grace, discussing his presence at the event. “And maybe not so much industrial supplies and solvents and degreasers and things like that. So, it’s getting our name out there and letting people know that we do have other products and ser-vices to offer.”

The company believes that the oil and gas industry is a perfect fit for items such as their industrial cleaners and degreas-ers, but that hasn’t really been a part of their business to date.

“right now,” said Grace, “we service the educational facilities, recreational [facilities], and are trying to break into the industry sector up in the North.”

Greer began as a hardware store in Edmonton in 1923, eventually moving into manufacturing cleaning supplies that were predominantly used in schools until recreational facilities across Alberta began using their products about ten years ago.

The company has had an office in Grande Prairie since 1978.

W.E. Greer

(above) Sales manager Donny Fillenberg and owner Troy Schmitke of Sea Box Depot stand inside one of their steel containers.

(below) Steven Gouthro and Kevin Johnson of Flexpipe Systems. Flexpipe’s products help oil and gas companies avoid corrosion problems in certain applications.

(above) Jonathan Paglia, Assistant Manager at SafetyBoss.

(below) Medics Jenny Vega and ty Kerr of on-site Advanced Medical services, which has offices in both Alberta and British Columbia.

PHOTOS By JAMES WATErMAN

www.goodon.com

Dave Grace, Sales Consultant for W.E. Greer.

Calvin Ermantrout and Eric Templeton of Cummins Western Canada.


http://www.goodon.com


Micro-Watt Control Devices

Micro-Watt Control Devices took advantage of the 2011 Peace region Petroleum Show to showcase a piece of equipment so new that it isn’t even being used in the oil and gas industry yet.

“It is used to detect combustible or toxic gas and flames in the oil and gas industry,” said

Brett Billey, Technical Sales represen-tative for Micro-Watt in Grande Prairie, in describing the new equipment, which is known as the SiteShield Detection System.

As Billey explained, SiteShield was actually developed by Micro-Watt’s sister company, Net Safety, to replace similar equipment that had been previously built by another company.

“They took it off the market for some

reason we don’t know,” he added. “So, our service department decided, ‘Hey, here’s an opportunity to build a product to replace that and start marketing it to the oil and gas industry.’”

Micro-Watt brought the SiteShield to the show hoping to attract interest in the new technology. According to Billey, the event was fairly successful in that regard.

“A lot of the customers that I deal with there, they were looking at that, going, ‘Oh, man, I can use that,’” he said.

For Billey, who spent the first thirty years of his life in Fort St. John, the Petroleum Show was also an opportunity to see old friends from the northeastern B.C. town.

“I ran into a lot of old buddies there.” This year’s event was something of a

test run for Micro-Watt in preparation for next spring, when they hope to have a “bigger” presence at the show.


Brett Billey, Technical Sales Representative for Micro-Watt Control Devices in Grande Prairie, showcases the company’s new SiteShield Detection System at the 2011 Peace Region Petroleum Show.

special featurePeace Region Petroleum Show - cont’d

Century Vallen staff demonstrating their fire safety training products. this equipment allows office workers to learn how to put out a fire with a fire extinguisher.

(right) Mike head of Vieworx

demonstrates his young company’s hi-tech

planning tool during the 2011 Peace Region

Petroleum Show in Grande Prairie.

(below)Jeff Peterson and Jeff Carratt of oil and gas

environmental services company Summit Liability

Solutions.

Ryan Zarowny, Account Manager at i-GEN Solutions, showcasing his company’s opLYNX technology for field data capture, production reporting at service requests at the 2011 Peace Region Petroleum Show in Grande Prairie.

(right) Shawna Schwerdt of

Maxim Rentals.

(below)Rick Wasfy, Kelly

Sawatsky, Carl Johnson and Gary Rempel of

Specialized Tech.

PHOTOS By JAMES WATErMAN


At a trade show featuring numerous companies involved in the energy sector in one form or another, an unexpected industry kept popping up: sport fishing.

Four businesses – BC Sportfishing Group, Great river Fishing Adven-tures, Sandspit Adventures and Milton Lake Lodge – attended the Peace river Petroleum Show in Grande Prairie this year to tempt the men and women of the oil and gas industry with chances to land everything from the Arctic grayling and northern pike of northern Saskatchewan to the massive white sturgeon of British Columbia’s Lower Mainland.

Tony Nootebos, the owner of Van-couver-based BC Sportfishing Group, has been attending the Petroleum Show for years.

“It’s a big market for us,” he said of the corporate sector, including the oil and gas companies.

The main reason is that sport fishing trips have become a popular way for companies to do teambuilding exercis-es and show their appreciation to their clients and employees, particularly in an industry so full of people who love to fish.

“Most of them are outdoors people,” said Dana Northcott, General Manager of Sandspit Adventures.

Sandspit, which is based in Grande Prairie, offers charters from Grande Prairie, Calgary and Edmonton to Queen Charlotte Island of B.C.. Clients can fish for salmon and halibut or just do a bit of whale watching.

As for Northcott, he worked in the oil and gas industry before his company began operations about twelve years ago, and so he knows his clientele in the sector quite well.

“They’re into hunting and fishing and things like that,” he added.

It was Northcott’s third year attend-ing the Petroleum Show for Sandspit.

“Part of the reason we’re here is because we’re a local business,” he said. “Locally owned and operated. And so we know most of the people from Grande Prairie. And it’s our home-town.”

It was a quite different story for Mil-ton Lake Lodge. Situated in the remote far northeast corner of Saskatchewan, Milton Lake Lodge is a luxury resort that offers its clientele – who must fly in from Saskatoon – guided fishing tours in pursuit of lake trout, Arctic grayling

and northern pike.“We come to an oil show because

we cater to corporate retreats or [cor-porations] bring clients to come in for a vacation,” said Diana Watts, explaining their presence at the Peace region Petroleum Show, so far from their northern Saskatchewan location.

This summer is Watts’ first season as one of the new owners of the lodge. She attended the event this year in the belief that an oil and gas trade show in Grande Prairie would be an ideal place to attract new clients, particularly because of the tradition of hunting and fishing in Western Canada and among those who work in the industry.

“That’s always been a part of their lives,” she added.

His past clients suggested that Dean Werk, President of Great river Fishing Adventures, attend the Peace region Petroleum Show.

“And I thought this is absolutely a no-brainer,” said Werk. “That’s why I’m here.”

Although he is only 46 years old, Werk has been fishing for over forty years and was one of the first people to start a sport fishing business in the Chilliwack area 23 years ago. His company does a lot of corporate work such as teambuilding and customer and employee appreciation.

“We have a lot of individual people that come,” he added. “Guys that are finishing break-up and they have time off. Guys that are working shift work.”

As far as Werk is concerned, sport fishing is a natural fit for people in the energy sector, particularly when a business such as his is offering an opportunity to catch one of the most impressive beasts on the planet.

“Alberta is hunters and fisherman,” he explained. “They love to hunt. They love to fish. And they’re always looking for an opportunity to go places where they can fulfill great dreams.”

“And probably the key to all that is that one of the biggest, most sought after fish now has become the white sturgeon,” Werk continued. “And, of course, we worked very hard in the last sixteen years to conserve and preserve this fish. So, people are all onboard about touching a living dino-saur. The money from the licenses that they’re purchasing goes directly back to that fish and the preservation and conservation of that fish.

“So, first and foremost, you’ve got a living dinosaur. you’ve got people who love to catch big, giant fish, and see them jump out of the water like marlin. And then you’ve got a combination of giving back to society and giving back to protect a fish that’s been around for 175 million years.” •

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A-fishing we will go

Maxine Key, one of the co-owners of Milton lake lodge. the fishing resort often attracts people from the oil and gas industry to northern Saskatchewan, where they try their luck with lake trout, Arctic grayling and northern pike.

Dana Northcott, General Manager of Sandspit Adventures, worked in the oil and gas industry before forming his Grande prairie-based fishing tour company about twelve years ago.

Dean Werk’s Great River Fishing Adventures gives it clients an opportunity to catch a living dinosaur, the white sturgeon.

Every spring for the past seven years, men and women from Canada’s energy sector have traded their pump jacks and drilling rigs for the sort of simple tools required to plant trees and build bird boxes.

It is all part of Energy in Action, a Ca-nadian Association of Petroleum Produc-ers (CAPP) initiative designed to teach children about the oil and gas industry and environmental stewardship with the help of their industry members and the non-profit environmental education orga-nization Inside Education.

“Essentially, what we do is work with the kids in the morning to explain to them the fundamentals of the oil and gas industry,” explained Laura Perry, CAPP’s Energy in Action Coordinator. “So, where oil comes from, how we get it out of the ground, the products that are produced using petroleum, the difference between renewable and non-renewable resourc-es. And also the fact that oil and gas companies work really hard to reduce their environmental footprints in these developments. And what it means to be good stewards of their environment.”

Inside Education has played the lead role in the morning sessions throughout the seven year history of Energy in Ac-tion, developing lessons – primarily for Grade 4 and 5 students – about natural resources, energy and environmental stewardship that are linked to the school curriculum.

“I think the program gives the students an opportunity to connect their curriculum to an activity where they can actually get their hands dirty and put their knowledge and work to use,” said Alex O’rourke of Inside Education.

“I think it’s an important approach that they get a chance to learn why we use energy,” she continued. “How we use it in our daily lives. How it’s extracted. And what they need to do to find ways to use some of these products that we use every day responsibly through steward-ship.”

Stewardship is the focus of the after-noon activities, which now commonly include planting trees and building bird boxes, frequently for new outdoor class-rooms such as those that have been built at Ecole Frank ross School in Dawson Creek, British Columbia and Parkland Elementary in Farmington, B.C. as part of the Energy in Action program this year.

CAPP asks their member companies with a presence in each project area to participate in the program. The com-panies that volunteer to do so provide the funding for the projects at a rate of $2000 per company per project location. That funding also provides a collection of new environmentally themed books for the school libraries, which Perry selects with input from the teachers and Inside Education staff.

“We usually contact the schools in the fall [to] explain what the program is,” said Perry. “We contact the principals, we offer them the program, and we’ve

never been turned down. They’re always very excited that their school has been selected. Then we ask them to come up with their environmental vision for the school. We like to make sure that the projects that we do are sustainable. We give them a list of projects that we’ve done in the past ... And we ask them to make sure there’s a sustainability plan associated with that.”

Ecole Frank Ross School – which held its event on Thursday, May 26 – came up with a unique idea for their sustain-ability plan, revolving around the fact that local Grade 7 students are now back in elementary school rather than middle school.

“And we recognize that they’re just one age group above the elementary kids,” said Carmen Barber, Principal at Ecole Frank ross School. “They need some sort of place where they can have a space of their own. So, at recess time and lunchtime, we’ve given them permis-sion to use that as ‘their’ space, but they’re to be the stewards of that garden. They’re to make sure there’s no graf-fiti on it. They clean up the place. They make sure that their actions and behav-iour [are] appropriate to being out where the public sees them.”

“It will be the Grade 7’s responsibility to look after the garden,” she added, sug-gesting it could become a sort of rite of passage for her students.

Barber has been impressed with the work of CAPP, the oil and gas company volunteers, and the maintenance crew from the school district who prepared the Ecole Frank ross School and Parkland Elementary sites for the outdoor class-room installations prior to the events.

“It means a lot, actually,” Barber said of her school’s inclusion in Energy in Action. “When the CAPP people approached us, we thought that was a really great idea because our school participates in Destination Conservation, which is also looking at how best to conserve energy within our school … So, when they came and approached us, we thought, ‘What a great addition to the school – to be able to have a green space for kids to congre-gate and have an outside classroom.’ Es-pecially for September and October and April-May-June, when it’s nice outside and it’s too hot to be inside.”

The rain on the day of the event didn’t dampen the spirits of the Ecole Frank ross School students, who were just ea-ger to get their hands dirty digging holes for the trees and shrubs and building the new nesting sites for local birds.

Luckily, the sun shone for the event at Parkland Elementary, which was held on Friday, May 27. A group of volunteers that outnumbered the students helped the children plant trees and shrubs in their own outdoor classroom, situated on a piece of adjacent woodland donated by a neighbouring landowner. It will eventually feature hiking trails as well. The school also let their creativity shine, adding old farm equipment that had been donated by area farmers for the installation, along with a stuffed beaver seemingly gnawing on a stump, a giant mosquito, and an enormous spider with a welded metal web.

“I think it’s important, because it is an



startIng young- Energy in Action

Students from Ecole Westhave School in Edson, Alberta enjoyed planting trees at a nearby park during an Energy in Action event held on May 16.

PHOTO By KrISTIAN JONES.

Kevin Carroll of Huron Energy and Grade 4 student Cullen Swejda plant a spruce tree at the new outdoor classroom at Parkland Elementary in Farmington on Friday, May 27. The outdoor classroom was built as part of CAPP’s Energy in Action program that also visited Ecole Frank Ross School in Dawson Creek this year. PHOTO By JAMES WATErMAN

continued pg 23

community


avenue to get together as companies and open up these communication avenues with the schools,” said Sam Sedlowsky of Encana, team lead for the Parkland Elementary project, in discussing the value of the Energy in Action program. “Because, I think, otherwise, it would be really hard for me as Encana to come in and say, ‘Hey, we want to work with your kids.’ They’re going to look at it and say, ‘What’s in it for you?’ It just doesn’t look as good as all of us coming together without a face, just saying we’re all indus-try, nobody’s in it for anything other than giving back to the kids. And it’s a little bit easier, I think, for CAPP to manage that relationship.”

“I think it’s just a great opportunity to give back to the communities we work in,” added Delaney Harms, Communica-tions Coordinator at CCS Corporation and team lead for the Ecole Frank ross School project. “A lot of our employees have kids that go to these schools. And to give back to where we work and where we take the resources from, it’s obviously good to give back to the communities.”

The events at Ecole Frank ross School and Parkland Elementary also included safety demonstrations by the participating companies, during which students had a chance to try on cover-alls, hard hats and safety boots used by the industry, all of which were far too big for the young children.

“It was very awesome,” said Caleb Harris, a Grade 4 student at Ecole Frank ross who participated in the safety dem-onstration with staff from CCS Corpora-tion, before getting muddy planting trees in the rain. “I liked it. It’s fun planting.”

Not every school involved in Energy in Action opts for building an outdoor classroom, however. During the event at Chalo School in Fort Nelson on Wednes-day, May 25, the students built bird boxes to hang on trees along a cut line near their school. Andrew Stiles, a bird expert who works with the Nature Conservancy in Alberta, also taught the children about migratory birds common to the region.

“One of the things that I’ve been do-ing – ever since I was a kid – is building birdhouses for the bluebirds and the tree swallows, setting them in rural areas, in farmland on the fence posts,” said Stiles. “And over my lifetime, I’ve seen the bluebird population and the swallow populations – I’ve seen those populations go up and up because of this increased breeding habitat. Energy in Action has been kind enough to invite me to be part of this program because the best place to build these birdhouses and get them set

up is in these rural environments.”Bluebirds and swallows have historical-

ly been displaced from their nesting sites by non-native starlings, which are slightly larger than those two native species. So, the students build boxes with holes that are just big enough for bluebirds and swallows, but too small for the starlings.

“It just adds a little bit of nesting habitat which, in the grand scheme of things, is just a small contribution,” Stiles contin-ued. “But the real reason I do this [is] to inspire a generation of birdwatchers that are connected to the natural world, that notice what’s going on around them … Birdwatchers are people that understand the connectedness of all things. They understand, over time, how we as people are making significant impacts on the world around us. And that we need to re-examine what we’re doing and change our ways sometimes.”

Justine Lissack of Apache Canada, who was team lead for the Fort Nelson project, described Energy in Action as a “unique opportunity” for both the students and the companies.

“Students get to actually learn hands on about how energy impacts their com-munity,” said Lissack. “And just a really unique opportunity because actual teach-ers come in and tailor the program to the area that they’re in. I know in some other areas they’ve got windmills and things like that, and the teachers will actually tailor that to the energy that they use in their own community.”

Ecole Westhave School in Edson, Al-berta decided they would do a good deed for the whole community by planting spruce seedlings along a trail in a new park near the school during their event on Monday, May 16. “We have worked with Next Generation tree planting out of the Beaverlodge area,” said Perry. “So, they were kind enough to come down so they could demonstrate for the kids the proper way of planting those seedlings. And we also had a fellow by the name of Michael Wagner who is a researcher in forestry from the university of Alberta. So, he also worked with the kids. And we demonstrated. Then they supervised.”

“We had 82 students,” she continued. “And then the Next Generation folks and Michael Wagner went along and took a look at how they planted trees. Pulled some of them out. Made the kids replant them. And we sort of picked up garbage along the way as well. It worked out really nicely. The kids, you know, they’ll live there, hopefully, for a long time, and they’ll see how their seedlings grow and become full-fledged trees. And they can tell their kids, ‘Hey, I planted those trees.’” •

Email [email protected] Fort St. John 250.785.6009 Toll-free 1.800.667.5557www.enformbc.ca

Working with industry to help eliminate work-related incidents and injuries Enform is the safety association for Canada’s upstream oil and gas industry. Established by industry for industry, Enform helps companies achieve their safety goals by promoting shared safety practices and by providing:

» Effective training, including courses on general and operational safety programs and petroleum fundamentals

» Expert audit services

» Professional advice

Our vision is no work-related incidents or injuries in the upstream oil and gas industry. Contact Enform today for more information.

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Grade 4 student Chaianne Ellis and Kimberly Gray from CAPP hard at work in the new outdoor classroom at Parkland Elementary. The classroom was built as part of CAPP’s Energy in Action program.


cont’d from pg 22

A Chalo School student shows off a bird box she constructed with the help of oil and gas community volunteers who came out to Chalo School’s Energy in Action event on May 25.

PHOTO By KrISTIAN JONES.



http://www.enformbc.ca

going into mining and certainly that’s benefiting our business. The second is the launch of this new technology.

Clearly, that is opening up new market opportunities for us and driving new customer inquiries from sectors that we haven’t worked with before. And the third is strategic alli-ances that we formed over the last year with companies like Newalta … All of those alliances are introducing us into new customers and new markets, and part of the driver for them is this sulphate removal technology. They’re very interested in introducing it to their customer base.”

McQueen also noted that the oil and gas industry in West-ern Canada is one area where potential exists for the com-pany to tap into new markets as various jurisdictions across the globe tighten regulations on water use and management. However, she also suggested that it isn’t at the top of the list at this time.

“Sulphates,” she explained, “are found in a wide range of industrial applications including mining wastewater, certainly in oil and gas, power generation waters. you also see it in landfill leachates. We’re seeing it in steel manufacturing. There’s a wide range of industries that generate water that’s laden with sulphate.”

BioteQ’s Sulf-IX technology is designed to remove sul-phate ions from water through an ion exchange process and also satisfy the more stringent water management regula-tions that are starting to emerge.

“The main driver right now for customers is compliance with new regulations that are tightening around sulphates,” said McQueen. “And so we’ve developed the technology to provide, really, an alternate solution for removing sulphate cost-effectively so that companies can meet their environ-mental compliance obligations.”

The immediate opportunities are not in Western Canada.“I think there are other jurisdictions that have more strict

sulphate regulations that are driving pressing priorities for companies today,” McQueen offered. “For example, in Chile, it’s a very arid country. re-use of water is extremely important. And the removal of sulphate from water in places like Chile or the southern [united States] is extremely important. And that’s really where we see the most fertile ground right now.”

Indeed, BioteQ’s first commercial scale Sulf-IX plant was built in Arizona last year. “Canada’s one of the places that’s just beginning to tighten up the regulations,” McQueen contin-ued. “And so we’re definitely seeing an increase in inquiries from companies who are looking at what they need to do to meet their environmental obligations around sulphate.”


Two companies are working cooperatively to solve sulphate issues in water.

Pursuing its goal of growing the company by access-

ing new markets for their services, Vancouver-based management specialists, BioteQ Environmental Tech-nologies, completed the engineering of a mobile Sulf-IX water treatment plant for environmental services firm Newalta during the first quarter of 2011.

The two companies plan to use the mobile plant to demonstrate how Sulf-IX can be used to remove sulphates from water that becomes contaminated dur-

ing a number of industrial processes commonly used throughout North America, including hydraulic fracturing that is regularly performed in the natural gas plays of northeast B.C.. Two important questions that remain are, when the plant will actually be constructed and how widely this technology could be used in the oil and gas industry in Western Canada.

“We’re not sure yet what the timeline will be,” said Tanja McQueen, Vice President of Corporate Develop-ment at BioteQ. “We’re waiting to hear from Newalta what they want as an execution timeline.”

regardless, McQueen expects this Sulf-IX technol-ogy to play a significant role in the company’s plans to grow its business.

“There’s really three main drivers to BioteQ’s busi-ness at the moment,” she said. “The first is the growth in the mining industry. There’s lot of new investment


suFFerIn’ sulphate- BioteQ & Newalta have a solution

technology

BioteQ’s Sulf-IXTM process is an ion exchange based technology that removes sulphate from wastewater, producing clean water compliant with regulations for water quality and a clean gypsum by-product while recovering up to 99% of water for re-use. PHOTO COurTESy OF BIOTEQ ENVIrONMENTAL TECHNOLOGIES

joining the fugitive gameA young company providing a relatively new service that employs a relatively new technology has a lot to gain from participating in a trade show.

Kris Shouldice, Vice President of GreenPath Energy, knows that. So, for the first time in the four year history of the company, GreenPath was present at the Peace region Petroleum Show this spring to showcase the infrared camera they use to target fugitive emissions at facilities in the oil and gas industry.

“It’s a good way just to get some dialogue going with everyone out there,” Shouldice said of the event,. “We’ve been pursuing this full time for three years. So, we feel we know, actually, quite a bit about it compared to a lot of people. And we get to share our stories of success and the types of things that we’ve seen out there in the field that often go unnoticed. Without this technol-

ogy, it’s very easy to miss a lot of the leaks and vents out there.”

“A lot of people haven’t seen these cameras in action yet,” he added.

The camera that GreenPath uses has only been in Canada for about as long as the company has been in existence, which is only slightly longer than the technology – previously the property of the United States military – has been available to the public south of the bor-der. According to Shouldice, the tech-nology can detect everything from very large leaks to very small ones. He even had one of the cameras and a monitor set up at the show to demonstrate that it can register the butane from a cigarette lighter, the gas appearing on the screen like grey smoke rising in front of his face.

“And we can see this from way farther away than this,” said Shouldice. “And this is on the regular auto mode. you can turn up the sensitivity quite a bit on this camera to see even farther. So, we find really, really small leaks. And really, really big leaks.”

Shouldice and his partner, Josh Anhalt, President of GreenPath, both became interested in solutions to fugitive emis-

sions problems when they were working in the petroleum sector as journeyman instrument technicians.

“As an instrument tech,” Shouldice recalled, “we would go out there and see leaking pumps, leaking valves, leaking everything. And being kind of environ-mentally conscious guys that we are, we would always be a little concerned about it, and say, ‘you know, this is a lot of waste. And there’s something that should be done about it.’”

The duo soon discovered the infrared camera thanks to a pioneering study into using the technology to target fugitive emissions that was conducted by Cono-coPhillips. That was about five years ago. Shouldice and Anhalt decided that was the right road to follow. GreenPath now operates across Western Canada from Manitoba to Fort Nelson, B.C.. They have even done some work for the Minis-try of Environment in Ontario.

“They were looking at steel facto-ries, chemical plants and oil recycling facilities to see what kinds of emissions were coming out of them,” Shouldice explained.

He also noted that use of the technol-

ogy is taking off in Alberta, thanks in part to a new provincial government regula-tion that came into effect in January, 2011 demanding that companies install a fugitive emissions management program.

“Before that,” said Shouldice, “it was a lot of pilot projects and studies on the technology. So, we would get some jobs here and jobs there as they were kind of checking out different options. Because a fugitive emission program can consist of a guy with a bucket of soapy water – and anywhere in between.

“So, they were kind of just seeing what’s out there. And for the most part everyone’s come back to the camera be-cause of how quick and efficient it is. We can do two to four compressor stations a day, depending on the severity of the stations, how many leaks we find. But we can cover a lot of ground in a hurry.”

A handful of companies offer this ser-vice in Alberta presently, but Shouldice appears confident that events such as the Petroleum Show will help GreenPath attract its fair share of the market.

“It’s great to meet the clients,” he said. “Meet people in the field. They can look at this and see the benefits right away.” •


continued pg 27


suFFerIn’ sulphate

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profiles

“It’s been really positive going forward with all our clients and our vendors,” he said. “It’s been really good. And they’ve all been very helpful, you know, getting back on track. And they’ve experienced us before. I mean, we’re a new company, but just another name. We have the same people and same equipment and services that we’ve had for the last fifteen years.”

“Nothing changed, really,” Brown contin-ued. “My desk is here where it was before. And the phone number and everything else – nothing changed. We kept that.”

Apart from mostly minor administrative details, the transition has gone smoothly.

Brown has enjoyed a busy first sea-son with Choice Energy. He did note that Choice Energy may have benefitted from an uncommonly long, cold winter and a late spring break-up, but he mostly at-tributes the amount of work this season to the fact that the oil patch is generally busier than it was in recent years.

“you know,” said Brown, “the last few years were quite a bit tougher in the busi-ness, in the oil patch. Now [it has] turned that corner and everything’s looking posi-tive. It’s very promising.”

Although challenges continue to exist. Horizontal drilling has taken a bit of a bite out of Choice Energy’s business because they are not able to swap horizontal wells very deeply. However, Brown is confident about the future of his company.

“It does a take a percentage of the work away,” Brown said of horizontal drilling, “but I think there’s enough out there to maintain our steadiness in the business. Things come and things go … Price of oil right now, obviously, is helping out huge. And there’s lots of new oil plays coming up in Alberta that we’re working with.”

Choice Energy is primarily focused on the Cardium oil play, but Brown is also excited about the potential of the emerg-ing Swan Hills oil play just north of Choice Energy’s Whitecourt facility.

“As that gas price comes up,” Brown added, “we’ll get busier bringing wells on that have been set aside because the costs were too high. We’re looking for the price of gas to come up a little bit. And obviously it will pick our business up a little bit.”

“I’m looking forward to the future in Al-berta and B.C.,” he continued. “And I think it’s going to be very promising … I think it’s going to be a steady, slow increase in work. And hopefully it’s slow and not just really up and a down. Steady’s better than flat out and then nothing. A happy medium, I guess, would be nice for a change. I mean, in 2006, we were right through the roof, and then all of a sudden we went to the basement with the way the oil patch went. Just a slow increase would be very nice because there’s a very big shortage out there, right now, of employees.”

choIce energy- small town, big ambitions

Choice Energy Services isn’t old, but it isn’t exactly new either.

Although Choice Energy has only been operating from its base in Beaverlodge, Alberta since September 23, 2010, the core of its business – swab rigs – is something that owner and manager Marvin Brown and his crew have known for years.

Brown has worked in the oil and gas industry since he graduated from high school, tackling a variety of roles dur-ing his time, including doing production testing for a company that was eventually absorbed by Enseco Energy Services about six years ago.

Brown continued to work in production testing for Enseco Energy for the following three years before moving into managing the swab rigs about three years ago.

Choice Energy was born out of that situation, purchasing twenty-one swab rigs from Enseco Energy last year and finally becoming its own private company with two additional offices in Red Deer and Whitecourt, Alberta.

Born and raised in Beaverlodge, Brown is quite happy to be running this new, old company from his own hometown, which he believes is the perfect location for his business.

“Beaverlodge was basically where these swab rigs were founded,” Brown explained. “And it’s central to our work. I mean, being central is to go to red Deer or to [Fort] Nelson. So, you’re kind of in the middle. So, we can better service, one, our customers, and, two, our equip-ment. And it’s a small town. Great little community to be from and try and help move forward. And so we keep our busi-ness local here.”

That includes hiring locally. The Beaver-lodge location is staffed largely by workers from the Beaverlodge and Grande Prairie area, just as the red Deer and Whitecourt facilities hire from within those communi-

ties as much as possible. Considering the importance of this policy, Brown thinks back to when he was working on service rigs in 1979, regularly spending six weeks away from home before returning to what had become a strange world in the mean-time. He would like his crew to avoid that experience.

“Hiring locally is huge,” said Brown. “It’s just easier for myself and for Choice, the company, and for the guys from that area. It’s nice to have them home at nights, rather than in hotel rooms. So, our biggest focus is family. Have our guys have a fam-ily life.”

Brown feels that allowing his crew to have good home life is reflected positively in their work. It is also a perfect fit with small town life. “They play on the local hockey team,” he said of his workers. “They’re all supporting their community in some form.”

The small town experience definitely suits Brown. He lives just down the road from the shop, which enables him to be a very hands-on employer.

“If there’s a problem,” he said, “I want to be on top of it.”

That is also what he prefers about be-ing part of a small, private company.

“A small company like this,” said Brown, “we can get out and see our customers more one-on-one. We can make the deci-sions ... pretty much instantly.”

“The thing about being private like that is you can do whatever you want, when you want,” he continued, noting that the employees who moved from Enseco Energy to Choice Energy along with the swab rigs are happy with the change to a small, private company.

“We’ve kept everybody on that wanted a job and to stay with us with Choice,” Brown added. “It was very good. We got experience from guys with fifty years in the oil patch to top notch mechanics to our field [supervisors] to our managers, right down to our rig managers. They all have good experience.”

According to Brown, Choice Energy’s clientele has also been pleased with the transition.


Marvin Brown, Owner and Manager of Choice Energy, was born in raised in Beaverlodge, Alberta, the small town that his company calls home.


continued pg 31

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as a sole proprietor, you are indispensible


Brian Nodwell was just another IT professional.

For fifteen years, he had been plying his trade in the service sector of the oil and gas industry, gradually working his way up from an IT manager role to the position of Chief Information Officer (CIO) at Savanna Energy Services. His work at the company mostly revolved around operational matters such as payroll, inventory and purchasing.

“Basically, tools to help you manage the business,” said Nodwell.

“And we had as big of a safety depart-ment there as we did any of the other departments,” he continued. “And yet the safety department would come to me and say, ‘Hey, I need a tool for doing these things, too.’ And I had a big long list of things that – well, call it projects or requests that people were asking of our IT department. And I would take it to the executive team and say, ‘Hey, they need a system for managing these records. And they need a system for rolling out training.’ And they would say, ‘Ah, shoot, safety’s just a cost. And we’re getting by. And we’re doing well on our [safety] audits … We get a good core score. So, we really don’t need it for safety.’

“So, it would just keep kind of getting postponed or put to the bottom of the list. And it never made it to the top because the other issues from operations were always trumping the safety requests. And so, when I left Savanna, I decided that there was that opportunity. There wasn’t anything, that I could tell, that was really satisfying that need. So, we decided to build it.”

It was a moment of inspiration that resulted in a new web-based safety man-agement tool known as Safety Sync that has been commercially available since 2007.

“It’s like accounting software, but for safety professionals,” explained Nodwell, the president of the company. “So, basically, it’s a tool that’s used by safety departments to help manage all of the [health and safety] requirements and communicate them to all the workers.”

“Essentially,” he added, “it has all the different components that you would normally have in a safety program that, in the past, sort of resided on spreadsheets or [Microsoft] Word documents or even in binders or file folders. And what we’re try-ing to do is, we’re trying to create a spot for all these things, but in an electronic format on the internet.

“So, anyone, anywhere can access the safety program and either download information like training or policies, or as an administrator you might want to upload forms or procedures or whatever so those same workers can see them.”

Enter Allyson rozak. rozak had started working in the health and safety side of the oil and gas industry at about the same time that Safety Sync had hit the market in 2007. A few short years later in Octo-ber, 2010, the Fort Nelson, B.C. resident was starting her own health and safety consulting company, Survivor Safety Ser-vices. When she first saw Safety Sync, she was concerned that it would actually take a chunk out of her business, but the opposite has been true.

It all began when rozak, despite her concerns, mentioned Safety Sync to one of her early clients, who was so interested in the tool that she was soon on her way to Calgary to learn the system from top to bottom.

“I feel it’s just been the greatest thing,” rozak admitted. “However, consultants and auditors and such, it’s competition for them. And I’ve looked at that. When I first started, I thought, ‘Why would I even want this? It’s competition.’ But I’ve used it to my benefit.”

When it comes to using Safety Sync in her business, rozak has largely been tar-geting small companies that may not be able to employ their own full-time health and safety professionals.

“I do have clients where I do act as their safety person,” she said. “And I am at the point now where I’m not having a hard time convincing my clients to go that way. It takes a little bit of time to set it up, but once it’s set up, it’s done. So, it’s just a one time initial set up that’s going to be your cost and expense. But once it’s in, it’s in.”

Among the benefits for Rozak are that it cuts down on the amount of time she has to spend on administration and that it allows her to work remotely with any one of her clients.

“Basically,” she explained, “it would cut my visit down from three visits in their office to one visit in their office, being able to administer from my computer, wherever it may be.”

“It’s going to eliminate the administra-tion portion of a safety person’s job,” ro-zak added. “So, instead of saying it’s go-ing to eliminate their job, basically, I would flip it and say it’s going to allow the safety person more hands-on time to get into the field and into the operations, instead of being bogged down with paperwork.”

Nodwell believes that Safety Sync and consulting companies like Survivor Safety Services are a perfect fit for one another.

“Without our tool,” he said, “it would be very hard for a consultant to really be in-volved in the safety program. There would be no way for them to go in and see what people are saying about the training, what kind of feedback they’re leaving, what sort of comments they’re posting on policies. In fact, there would be no tool to even do those things. But even if there were, how would she know unless she was to actu-ally go down and work there?”

Nodwell suggested that the system makes it easy for rozak to do regularly scheduled checks of the companies for which she is a consultant.

“On a weekly or a monthly basis,” he continued, “she can go in and check out what [their] level of compliance is with training, and she can check to make sure that some of the policies aren’t coming up for renewals and need to be reviewed, and things like that. So, she can behave as that resource, but she doesn’t need to be there full-time. And it’s perfect for a small company that maybe doesn’t have the budget, I guess, for a full-time safety person. But they still get that expertise. And she can still come in if she needs to. But there’s a lot of things she can do remotely with the software.”

Of course, Nodwell is confident that his system can benefit any company regard-less of how it is administered.

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In syncjames watermanPipeline News North

continued pg 27

When you own and run your own business, you’re responsible for all aspects of the business. What would happen if you became seriously ill or died? Your busi-ness would lose its key person and your income source may disappear. There may not be enough income to manage all the business liabilities if you died. Creditors would press for immediate payment, and accounts re-ceivable might become uncollectible.

If you die or become ill, your family would face three alternatives:

1. They could continue the business, requiring family members to have the ability and experience to run your business, sufficient cash after debts are paid and the ability to retain your customers.

2. They could liquidate the business. A forced sale at-tracts bargain-hunters and with “goodwill” gone, the value of the business may be drastically reduced - by as much as 40 to 90 per cent.

3. They could sell as a going concern. However, finding a qualified buyer may be difficult; the cash for purchase may not be readily available and the agreement on a fair price may be difficult to reach.

Alternatively, you could protect your business and fam-ily if you chose business life, disability and critical illness insurance. These products could help you and your family carry out your plans for the business if you were to become critically ill or die - for example, life insurance can provide funds to buy the business under a purchase agreement, and disability insurance can pro-vide income if you become disabled.

Critical illness insurance can help you pay off debts, stabilize your credit position, offer cash values or loan options or establish a fund for personal income at retire-ment, independent of the business.

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“I don’t think companies as a whole are really aware of how many requirements there are,” he said, delving into the advantages that Safety Sync can offer. “And I don’t just mean the regulations, although there are lots and lots of regulations. But there are also industry recommended practices that the [professional] asso-ciations would write a document to say, ‘This is what you should be doing.’ And it is overwhelming for safety departments. I don’t know how they do it.

“I believe that they do what they can, but is it meet-ing the expectations? I very much doubt it. I mean, you would have a hard time keeping up with the require-ments if you were to try to do it manually. And this tool is more productive. So, you can get further along than you would otherwise be able to get with the traditional methods.”

The paperless aspect of the system, according to Nodwell can also improve a company’s efficiency when it comes to health and safety matters, Nodwell noted.

“The speed of documents happens so much faster,” he said. “Like paperwork typically gets generated in the field. And then they might get accumulated in the back-seat of a truck or something like that until the next time they come into the office. And then even then it’s going to sort of sit on the administrator’s desk. And then at some point, if there’s any issues, it might make its way to a safety manager, if there was one, or an operations manager. But, with our system, if they have a computer in the field and they complete it electronically, or they fill it in by hand and they fax it in, and there’s a barcode that reads it, those documents are available to every-one in the organization immediately. So, the speed – it just goes so much faster. And it gets to people it needs to get to.

“But then the other advantage is that particular piece of paper – we call it a safety record – but that record can apply to so many different things. It can apply to a job. It can apply to an employee. It can apply to a piece of equipment. And from any one of those screens, you can see that record, whereas if you put it in a file folder, you have to decide, ‘Okay, I’m going to put it in this equipment file folder.’ So, therefore, it would not be in the employee’s file folder unless you made a bunch of copies of it … So, it gives you so much sort of connec-tivity of all those different parts of safety requirements.”

Interestingly, although Nodwell’s background is in the oil and gas industry, and the technology was designed with that industry in mind, the energy sector has not been the big part of the business to date.

“We have clients in lots of industries,” he noted. “In fact, oil and gas has been slow for us. I mean, almost immediately, when we started up the company, the oil and gas service industry kind of went into a bit of a slump. And so, as a result of that, we had to sell it to other industries, and it’s really done well.

“We have clients in food processing, manufacturing, construction, transportation – anywhere where there’s industrial safety where you need to provide training, which is almost everywhere where you need to have policies, practices, procedures. Wherever you generate safety records, you need, I think, a system for managing

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it, and why not do it online? So, it’s been good for us.”“We have different levels of implementation,” he con-

tinued, adding that rozak has been using Safety Sync to implement entire safety programs for her clients, while a substantial number of prime contractors simply use it as an orientation tool to teach new workers what they need to know and what they can expect before arriving at their worksite.

Obviously, the availability of health and safety ma-terials on the internet is not a new phenomenon, but Nodwell explained that Safety Sync goes well beyond videos that can be found online in terms of a practical

means to improving safety performances and creating a culture of safety within a company.

“The reality is that information is so readily available and it’s so easy to get, either through photocopies or just doing a Google search, that it’s really not about the piece of paper anymore,” he said. “It’s how are you communicating it and how are you making it a part of your safety culture – integrate it into your operations and really get your employees involved. If you just have a manual and you photocopy it and you stick it on a shelf someplace, and no one really takes it seriously, than what’s the point?”

Safety Sync is unique in that regard.“The system forces the employee to spend a certain

amount of time reading that policy,” Nodwell continued. “And then, at the end of it, they actually have to acknowl-edge it. And if there’s anything that they take exception to or that they would like to make a recommendation about, they can put in those comments. And those com-ments immediately get emailed to the administrator to say, ‘Joe the worker has this to say about the policy.’ And even then, immediately, that person, that administra-tor, can make that change to the policy. And then if they want to they can make everyone have to acknowledge it again.

“So, a policy doesn’t become a static piece of paper anymore. It becomes a flowing, evolving document that everybody knows about and may on occasion need to re-read and spend time going over it. And a good exam-ple is if you did have an accident and it’s related to that policy and maybe people were not following that policy and you wanted to reinforce it, within the software, you can just go in and immediately publish it again as a new version – as a new major version – and everyone would have to read it again that day in order to stay compliant.

“So, it really just plugs into the culture, whereas a pho-tocopied document … what is it, right? People think, and they’re right, ‘oh, you just photocopied it from some other company and put your name in there’. And is it really yours? Is it really mine? Does it really apply to me?”

The answer, according to Nodwell, is “probably not.”ultimately, rozak is just pleased with what Safety

Sync is allowing her to do with her company, which is earning more business all the time thanks in part to the system.

“I’ve seen the opportunity,” she said. “I tell every-body this is the future of safety [and] I’m very passion-ate about the program. And I think this is the way that safety’s going to be. And I’m just confident it’s going take over the administration part of the industry.” •

BioteQ and Newalta have a solution

Discussing those environmental concerns, McQueen mentioned that studies have shown that the presence of sulphates in water can have a negative impact on agricultural production, includ-ing reducing crop yields and adversely affecting the reproduction of livestock.

McQueen also explained that sulphates get into the water in a number of ways, depending on the industrial process.

“For example,” she began, “in the power genera-tion sector, sulphates will build up through flue gas desulphurization. So, for example, if you’re burn-ing coal, coal will contain sulphur, and there are emissions standards that require coal fired power plants to scrub their emissions. In other words, to not allow the sulphur to go up the stack. And typi-cally what they’ll do is scrub it with water. When it combines with the water, it will form SO2, which is a sulphate. And that’s what then creates concern.

“They then have to find a way to remove the sulphate from the water so that they can either reuse that water within their process or discharge it to the environment. So, although there’s an envi-ronmental driver, there’s also a process driver, be-cause sulphate, if you leave it within your process, if you’re running sulphate laded water in your process, it will build up a scale on your equipment. And so companies need to remove the sulphate to prevent the scale from building up.”

Scaling of process equipment can cause equip-ment failure and increase costs in terms of equip-ment management and chemicals that prevent scaling from occurring. That type of scaling is a significant concern for natural gas producers per-forming hydraulic fracturing operations in shale or tight gas plays such as the Montney formation and the Horn river Basin in northeast B.C.

Finally, McQueen concluded that BioteQ will continue to search for new opportunities in West-ern Canada and beyond with the help of Newalta.

“Newalta continues to hold a five per cent inter-est in BioteQ,” she said, describing the relation-ship between the two organizations. “We are working with them to identify potential projects op-portunities to work on together. Newalta certainly has a great deal of strength on the operations side and they also have a strong sales team that are meeting with customers every day.

“So, part of their sales process now is looking for and evaluating whether there are water treat-ment opportunities that might be able to apply our technologies. It’s a very symbiotic relationship, where they have good relationships with custom-ers and we have technology solutions that can help grow the business for both companies.”

cont’d from pg 24Allyson Rozak

Brian Nodwell

PHOTO COurTESy OF SAFETy SyNC



oIlmen’s golF- 2011 TournamentSand traps and water hazards weren’t the only obstacles facing golfers during the Fort St. John Petroleum Association’s 49th Annual Oilmen’s Golf Tournament this year.

The event, that began on Wednesday, June 1, also had to deal with a Thursday afternoon thunderstorm and a late spring snowfall on Friday.

regardless, the tournament was still a great success in the opinion of Petroleum Association President Tyler Kosick.

“Overall, I think it was another success,” he said. “you know, other than the weather.”

After a beautiful start to the tournament on Thursday morning, the clouds crept into town that afternoon, bringing the rain and the snow.

“We started playing in the morning [on Friday] because it was just sleet,” said Lee Hartman, chair of the golf tournament’s organizing committee for the first time this year. “We played as long as we could until the course shut down. And it shut down because guys couldn’t find their balls in the fairway. It was packed in snow. So, when the course shut down, any of the results that had happened already stayed. Anybody that couldn’t get out and golf, and didn’t get a result, had to cut cards, flip coins – they had chip offs and putt offs and everything [to determine] winners.


Attention: New Regulations in Effect on Containers for Transporting Diesel Fuel The Transportation of Dangerous Goods Regulations require that when transporting more than 450 litres of diesel fuel, it must be carried in an approved container with designated safety marks.Since January 1, 2010 all diesel fuel tanks with a capacity over 450 litres must meet the requirements under Part 5 of the Transportation of Dangerous Goods Regulations and must conform to Canadian safety standards. For more information regarding this issue, please visit:www.tc.gc.ca/tdgClick on Containers and Newsletter (Summer 2009 and Winter 2010).

Attention : Entrée en vigueur d’un nouveau règlement sur les conteneurs destinés au transport de carburant diesel.Le Règlement sur le transport des marchandises dangereuses exige que le transport de carburant diesel de plus de 450 litres soit effectué dans un contenant approuvé portant des indications de danger reconnues. Depuis le 1er janvier 2010, tous les réservoirs contenant du carburant diesel dont la capacité est de plus de 450 litres doivent répondre aux exigences de la Partie 5 du Règlement sur le transport des marchandises dangereuses et doivent être conformes aux normes de sécurité canadiennes. Pour de plus amples renseignements à cet effet, consultez le site suivant :www.tc.gc.ca/tmdConsultez les sections Contenants et Bulletin de nouvelles (été 2009 et hiver 2010).

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community

Members of the Fort st. John petroleum Association enjoyed summer weather on the first morning of a 49th Annual Oilmen’s Golf Tournament that also experienced thunderstorms and a late season snowfall.


continued pg 29

http://www.tc.gc.ca/tdg

http://www.tc.gc.ca/tmd


605786

“And I didn’t hear too many complaints. It was kind of entertaining for me to watch and see what guys were doing to get results. So, there were lots of nine hole coin tosses and that kind of thing. And so I think the guys had fun with it.”

Hartman has been playing in the tournament since 1984 and has never lost that amount of time due to weather, but he was told that they lost an entire Satur-day to the elements forty years ago.

According to Hartman, a number of the golfers de-cided to flip coins or cut cards for that afternoon as well, even though they were able to golf by that point.

“Which was a little disappointing,” he admitted. “I would have liked to have seen the guys play. But it was wet and cold – some of the guys didn’t want to play.”

A number of the players did finish their matches in the afternoon, however.

The golfer got a late start on the final, but the return of the spring weather allowed them to finish the final round and the Best Ball portion of the tournament.

The tournament consisted of nineteen flights, includ-ing a championship flight for the best golfers in the group, and two Best Ball matches. The championship flight was won by Travis Eggers, who was unavailable for comment because he was already on his way to a British Columbia amateur golf tournament.

“Basically, everybody, with their entry form, hands in their handicap,” said Kosick, explaining how the flights are decided. “They just assign everybody throughout the flights according to their handicap and try to best match everybody that they can.”

The golfers in the championship flight typically have a single-digit handicap. “At the end of the day,” Kosick continued, “nobody really cares if they win or lose. They’re just out there to have a good time and visit with people that we don’t get to see every day. And others that we do see in the field where we work, we get to hang out with them on a personal level for a change.”

He noted that the tournament attracts players from Fort Nelson, Grande Prairie, and even as far away as Edmonton and Calgary.

Next year will mark the fiftieth anniversary of the tournament; so, planning for that event will start almost immediately. “These guys will have a wrap up meeting next month and that will also start as the first meeting for next year’s golf tournament,” said Kosick. “Obvi-ously, next year is our fiftieth anniversary for this golf tournament. So, it will be a big event. And there will be a lot of planning involved in that.” •

www.aspenindustrial.net

oIlmen’s golF- 2011 Tournament

cont’d from pg 28

WINNERSBest Ball ABruce Ross, Jeremy Clothier and Phil BernertBest Ball Blyle hall, Ken Griffin, ryan Mitchell and Craig Boyd1st Flight champ:John Ross 2nd Flight champ:Troy Dorie 3rd Flight champ:Gary Decker 4th Flight champ:Ted Pimm5th Flight champ:Anthony Corno 6th Flight champ:Les Isberg7th Flight champ:Bob Ravagnet

8th Flight champGlen Rost 9th Flight champ: Tyler Levers 10th Flight champ:Scot Pengally 11th Flight champ:Lorne Little 12th Flight champ:Larry Pimm 13th Flight champ:Chris Willson 14th Flight champ:Jim Sanderson 15th Flight champ:Rob Petrone16th Flight champ:Gary Reeder 17th Flight champ: George Soule18th Flight champ: Bill Miller

profiles- Vector has a new branch managerPeter Stringer, President of Vector Geomatics Land Surveying, is confident their new Fort Nelson office is now in good hands.

richard Gook, a B.C. Land Surveyor with over thirty years of experience in the industry, assumed the role of branch man-ager in Fort Nelson on April 1, 2011.

Gook had previously been owner and operator of r.E. Gook and Associates out of Prince George, as well as contracting his services to the oil and gas industry in the Peace region since 1988.

“He’d worked for us for the last five years as a contractor,” said Stringer, discussing the decision to hire Gook. “He’s a BC Land Surveyor who had operated his own business and, in order to supplement that work, he would come to Fort St. John and surroundings – and quite often it led to Fort Nelson – to do contract work for us during the winter when we were busy.”

Prior to that appointment, a group of five BC Land Surveyors had been rotating through the office, each taking the reins for a week at a time. Vector had been looking for a permanent solu-tion for about three months before they hired Gook, feeling that he was a perfect fit for the area and their clients in the region.

“He’s excellent,” said Stringer. “He’s a first class man – a very well-seasoned professional. He’s been a BC Land Surveyor for many years and he understands the business. He understands the oil and gas business as well as the more private land type work. And, having had his own business for years, he’s able to cope quite nicely with that. He’s also the kind of man that is interested in the community and he likes to get involved.”

Community involvement is of particular interest to Gook.“Being on the location,” Gook explained, “it’s a whole lot to

do with community. It really is. We’re involved. I’m a director on the [Fort Nelson and District] Chamber of Commerce now. And it’s just fun to be involved. When I used to run around in the field, I would never get involved with communities directly. You know, you’d be in them, but, of course, you’d be out in camps most of the time. And then, when you’re back home, you’re taking time off.

“But here, that’s a really important part of it, too. It’s really fun to be part of the community. And it is a smaller one, so it’s easy to meet people it seems. Not that it’s not easy to meet people there, but you sort of bump into them more often, if you know what I mean.”

Stringer noted that creating this permanent presence in Fort Nelson – particularly with a branch manager who is so keen to get involved in the life of the town – was an important step for their company in terms of working where the municipal government has put an emphasis on local hiring for the oil and gas industry.

“And we’ve hired a number of people locally already,” he added. “That’s our first priority, to hire people who live and work around Fort Nelson. And hopefully we can build a very strong business from that. Now, in the kind of business that we’re involved in, there aren’t always the people available to do the work that you want locally. you sometimes have to go outside to get the kind of expertise that you need. However, Richard is great. He’s good at finding the right people. And he’ll

also take the time to train people locally, too.”Vector appears to be serious about being in Fort

Nelson for the long haul.“A lot of it was an opportunity for us to get our foot

in the door in that area, in order to take advantage of what appears to be long-term building of a business – a large business – in the Fort Nelson area,” said Stringer.

“you have to get your foot in. you have to get known by your clients. And they have to know that you’re serious about what you’re doing. So, we actually went about setting up a full time office with full time staff – you know, secretary, office manager, BC Land Surveyor, full time field staff, and so forth. We’ve put the money up to make those things hap-pen. It’s been a long time since they’ve had a really strong full-time BC Land Surveyor office in that area,” he continued. “There’d be a local office set up – kind of a satellite office with the main office in Fort St. John – with the idea of trying to service the local people as best they could. But it doesn’t always work real well. We felt we needed a full time presence there.”

Gook, who has always enjoyed his visits to the Peace region, is quite pleased to part of that initia-tive, partly because it is an opportunity to spend less time moving from town to town on a contract basis, and less time working in the field.

“I was as small legal land surveyor, running up to two crews out of Prince George,” said Gook. “And one of them would be myself. And I would be the one who came up when we got work up here in the oil and gas – which would be probably six months of the year.”

He will still be doing some fieldwork in his new role, but the majority of his time will be spent in the office, supervising the daily operations of the business in Fort Nelson. “It takes a little adjustment,” he said of the change of pace from fieldwork to sitting behind a desk, “but you know how life is. I’m 55 now.”

“It’s actually a wonderful opportunity for me,” Gook concluded. “I had been keeping one eye out at other opportunities for a BC Land Surveyor throughout the whole of B.C. And, you know, you could have picked anywhere. But this one was the one for me. I like it here.” •


RichardGook

PHOTO COurTESy OF VECTOr GEOMATICS

http://www.aspenindustrial.net


careers & trainingbrIdgIng the gap- new opportunities for First NationsNicola Valley Institute of Technology’s (NVIT) Trade Routes program is helping open doors to the skilled trades for Aboriginal people across British Columbia.

Saulteau First Nations near Chetwynd, British Columbia hosted an open house on Wednesday, June 8 to give visitors a glimpse into the program run by NVIT, an Aboriginal college located in Merritt, B.C.

“It seems like a lot of young people these days aren’t sure of what they want to do,” said NVIT’s Mike Hassel, coordi-nator and instructor for the program. “So, by giving them these sixty hours of each trade – welding, millwrighting, electri-cal and plumbing-pipefitting – they get a good glimpse. And from that hands on experience they can take from that what they need.”

Guests to the open house were al-lowed to tour the mobile classroom – a trailer containing all the required tools and equipment that Trade routes hauls from site to site – where a number of those students were hard at work on welding projects and other assignments. Danny Harrington, a twenty-nine year old with experience framing houses, but interested in embarking on a new career, was practicing precision skills by mak-ing steel dice to fit exact specifications. Twenty year old Caleb Grusing was welding a steel picture frame as an extra assignment after racing through his other mandatory projects. He hopes to con-tinue his education at Thompson rivers university after Trade routes.

Presently, Trade routes travels to First Nations communities across the prov-ince with its mobile classroom. Hassel, who has been involved with the program for three and a half years, is away from home, teaching trades that have been his profession for about forty months out of the year. He hopes that will change eventually.

“I’m trying to develop a program that we could set up back home in Merritt,” he said. “And we could pull students from each band to come there and stay at our residence – our college – and it would be more of a cross section of different people working together than just mem-bers of the community working together. So, that’s what I’ve been really trying to develop right now. So, naturally, I’m at home more. And the students get more of a real feel for college life, not just being at home.”

The program also includes academic upgrading in both math and English, which is an element that Audrey Sam, Ex-ecutive Director of the North East Native Advancing Society (NENAS), believes is crucial to the success of the students.

“NENAS has put people through train-ing,” she explained. “And what we find is they may go to the college … and they’re assessed at maybe a Grade 9-10 level. Even though they left the school system with a leaving certificate, they think they have a Grade 12 education, but they don’t. And so then they’re disheartened – and they don’t want to go through

upgrading for four years or whatever. An extra four years of education before they can even get into a program, like an ap-prenticeship program or whatever trade they want to get into. And so this program is bridging the gap, the way I see it. It’s a stepping stone. So, they get a flavour of various skills and trades, and then they can decide: is this really for me? Or is there something different?”

Sam also enjoys the cultural com-ponents of the program, which include regular Circle Talks based on First Na-tions traditions and plenty of support from the First Nations community, particularly its elders.

“That’s really important, because what we find within the mainstream is our cli-ents go in and they don’t have a support system,” Sam added. “Support systems are limited within the college in terms of Aboriginal support workers. And so here they have a circle where they support each other and they have the freedom and the flexibility to talk. And it’s safe because there’s an elder, and industry’s there, community members are there, so they can hear from their clients and their members if they’re struggling in a course or having a problem with an instruc-tor. They can feel free to voice that and resolve the issue rather than leave the program.”

“I think the cool thing about this program is it’s actually within the com-munity,” echoed Tamara Dokkie of Community Affairs with Shell Canada and a member of the local First Nations com-munity. “They are five steps away from their school instead of being shipping off to Fort St. John, Dawson Creek or Chetwynd. I think that’s a major bonus for them, because they’re able to have their family support and still go to school.”

Interestingly, the Saulteau First Na-tions session of Trade routes has taken place at a time when a shortage of skilled labour in the oil and gas industry is increasingly becoming a hot topic of conversation and a significant concern for companies in that sector.

“We do have a shortage of skilled la-bour,” said Charlie Edwards, BC Projects Superintendent with Shell Canada, one of a list of Trade routes’ industry partners that also includes Surepoint Services, Flint Energy, Patch Point, Summit Pipe-lines and Western Coal. “There’s a lot of people who want to come out and work, but they don’t have trade qualifications. And that’s from all sides of the fence. So, getting the trade – and that’s what I spoke with these people about.

“The actual credentialed red Seal is the most important thing you can get if you’re in the trades. Apprentice is great, but you’ve got to finish it up. And there is a shortage of [tradespeople]. Pipefitters are one of the main ones, I find. Welders – you can’t weld without your ticket. They just won’t allow it because there’s so much quality control on that. Pipefitting, we’re getting to that stage. We’re moving into that stage.”

“If they didn’t know what trades were needed,” he continued, “I think this is a whole lot better, actually going out and trying them, than me just rattling off: we need pipefitters, we need welders.”

Edwards also stressed his belief that the skilled trades are a great way to earn a living, particularly in terms of “pride

in accomplishment” and, obviously, the wages.

“Trades is fast becoming more white collar than blue collar,” he said. “you can make as much money in trades as you can with four years of college. So, I think it’s great showing them what we do out there and what can be done, and you can be a tradesman and be proud of your work.”

Sam has seen that the aboriginal workforce is definitely starting to gravitate towards the skilled trades.

“And it’s good paying jobs as well,” she remarked. “Welders make fairly decent salaries.”

According to Steve Wilks, a job coach with the Northeast Aboriginal Skills and Employment Program (NEASEP), which is involved in delivering Trade routes to First Nations communities, the program is a good first step toward transforming in-terested students looking for a new career path into fully qualified professionals.


continued pg 31

trade routes student eddie Brown works on his pipefitting project. PHOTO By JAMES WATErMAN

Maurizio Caron practices cutting steel, already an area of expertise for the young student. PHOTO By JAMES WATErMAN


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Choice Energy“I’m looking forward to the future in Alberta and B.C.,”

he continued. “And I think it’s going to be very promising … I think it’s going to be a steady, slow increase in work. And hopefully it’s slow and not just really up and a down. Steady’s better than flat out and then nothing. A happy me-dium, I guess, would be nice for a change. I mean, in 2006, we were right through the roof, and then all of a sudden we went to the basement with the way the oil patch went. Just a slow increase would be very nice because there’s a very big shortage out there, right now, of employees.”

Brown’s approach to community involvement may help solve that workforce problem.

“In the past, we’ve had a lot of involvement in the schools,” he explained. “And that’s what I want to do going forward, is go there, do a presentation, you know, here’s what we’re about, and here’s what the oil patch is about a little bit ... I guess you call it Career Day ... And young people, they need to start somewhere, and maybe that’s the angle they’re looking for.”

“Not all kids’ parents are in the oil patch,” Brown con-tinued. “So, they don’t know about it. And we’ve got some great employees that kind of came right out of Grade 12 education and stepped in and now they’re rig managers. Some of these guys have been here with our prior compa-nies seven, eight years. We’ve got a couple new guys we’re starting out again right out of school. They’re great. They’re ambitious. They want to know about it.”

Brown remarked that educating residents not involved in the industry about the industry is important for other reasons as well, particularly in an agricultural area where there can be a big gap between farmers or ranchers and oilmen. Brown is also certain that he has the ability to bridge that gap.

“I was born and raised on a farm,” he said. “And I’ve ranched cattle for years. So, I know that gap. And whether we like it or not, agriculture and oil patch go hand in hand. Each one’s crossing each other daily. Whether we drill a new well on a ranch somewhere, or maybe that rancher’s crossing their roads to get to his leases, they do go hand in hand. And I think for the biggest part they work very well together.”

“I’ve been on both sides of the fence,” Brown concluded. “And I still am.” •

cont’d from pg 25

Sandra MinifieMinifie didn’t make many changes to the

company until recently, even though the oil and gas sector is an industry that she describes as very “dynamic.”

“We really wanted to just sort of let it run,” she explained, “see what was going on, how it would work, and if it could work. And could we retain the long-term employees? And how was that going to work?

“So, we did do that. And then, in the last sort of six [to] eight months, we’ve had quite a large turnover in the office itself, because we’ve de-cided to increase our size. We’ve created some goals for the company. And some of the people who were here before were not necessarily on board with those changes. They didn’t have any buy-in. And so they’ve moved onto other things and we’ve hired different people in to help us fulfill the goals that we’ve created.”

Minifie seems to believe that change that makes the industry so dynamic is essential for people and companies trying to deal with the inherent stress of careers in the sector.

“The burnout rate is quite high,” she admit-ted.

After her long journey to Action and all her hard work growing the company, Minifie was summoned to Calgary for a photo shoot in March, 2011. She had just joined the ranks of Oilweek’s 2011 Class of rising Stars.

“And then I had to keep quiet,” she said of the photo shoot for the magazine. “you have no idea how hard that was.”

She had a bit of trepidation heading into that adventure. Oilweek’s rising Stars must be 45 years or younger. At 44 years young, Minifie just made the cut.

“I thought, ‘I’m going to get down there [and] I’m going to be the oldest person in the pic-ture,’” Minifie said with a laugh.

“And then I get there,” she added. “And I’m not!” •

cont’d from pg 10

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“If they successfully complete the program and go through the [human resources] process for our industry partners, and there’s an opening there, these guys will get an apprenticeship,” said Wilks. “Because this just grooms them to an apprenticeship level. It doesn’t give them any technical accreditation towards their appren-ticeship. All it is, is grooming them so they’re entry level.”

The students had their resumes ready during the open house, all eager to speak with the industry rep-resentatives, who were just as eager to speak to their potential employees of the future. Patch Point represen-tatives were careful not to make any promises, but did express a genuine interest in recruiting employees from the program. Flint Energy representatives were similarly enthusiastic, adding that it was an honour to be part of the Circle Talk at the end of the day.

“I’ve already got one of the fellows with the other part-ners talking about electricians and [saying] they don’t want to be short changed,” Wilks said of the interest from industry. “They want somebody from this program. I told them who the top candidates were in the classroom. They’re looking like they really want to play for real. So, we’re pretty happy about that. So, hopefully the other in-dustry partners will come through too and they’ll connect today with the students.”

“If we don’t have industry partners, we don’t have a program,” he added. “We have to have them. We have to have some kind of a commitment to jobs and employ-ment or we don’t even consider the program.”

During the open house, the students seemed confi-dent about their prospects and excited about the oppor-tunities that Trade routes is opening up for them.

“I feel like Alice in Wonderland,” said Eddie Brown, the real character in the group. “you open one door and another door opens, and another door opens.”

An impressive 22 students out of the 24 individuals who began the program have completed the course this session. According to Hassel, about thirty per cent of past students have gone to the next level in their pursuit of a career in the skilled trades.

Sam was quick to note that there are a variety of pro-grams for students who are anxious about paying for a college education after Trade routes and that they can always contact NENAS to discuss those options.

“We encourage youth [to get] involved in these kind of training initiatives that are coming up,” she concluded. •

cont’d from pg 30


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