Pipeline News August 2008 by Pipeline News

PIPELINE NEWS Saskatchewan’s Petroleum Monthly

August 2008

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INSIDE

Saskatchewan Energy and Resources minister Bill Boyd meets an American delegation about Encana’s Co2 project.

Volume 1 Issue 3

Focus Edition Service Rigs Roughneck Brandon Hall dopes the pipe on Garrison Oil Well Rig No. 3 near TangleÁags. Photo by Brian Zinchuk

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PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

Record August land sales to open the oilsands Weyburn-Estevan to top oil and gas sales By Geoﬀ Lee Pipeline News Regina – The August 11 sale of Crown oil and gas rights will be the king of sales to date with at least 520,000 hectares (ha) posted for bids including new oilsands exploration permits. This compares to annual total postings of 400,000 ha in the past three our four years. “We’re hoping for a great land sale,” said Bill Boyd, Energy and Resources minister. “There are never really any expectations on these kinds of things. We see land sales that are very strong right now. There’s a great deal of interest in Saskatchewan. We expect that to continue.” The total August sale will include about 220,000 ha in oil and gas rights with most sales slated for the red hot Weyburn-Estevan area with an additional 300,000 or more ha for oilsands exploratory permits. Postings for rights are driven by industry requesting the land and Ed Dancsok, director of the geology and petroleum lands branch noted, “This is only the second time in history anyone had expressed interest in posting oilsands rights in one of our land sales. It’s just starting to emerge as an area of interest. We’ll wait and see how much steam it gains. “Right now, there’s been a lot of marketing going on about the oilsands. It’s educating the industry and the public that Saskatchewan does have some level

of oilsands potential. Last August was the first time oilsands were offered in a public bidding.” The largest disposition of oilsands rights is held by Oilsands Quest Inc. with about 259,000 ha. Boyd told the Pipeline News more exploration is forthcoming in the area. “There will be new development there – exploratory permits that will be let in some of these areas. I think there will be some good opportunities there that companies will be taking advantage of. “This is just the start,” he said. “There has been exploration. Now, we’re into the next stage.We will start to see development before very long which will be important to the province.” Once again, the Weyburn-Estevan area will be the hottest area for oil and gas sales in August as it was in the June sale with about 168,000 ha up for bids. “The Weyburn-Estevan area is looking really big,” said Dancsok. “The majority of the land is southwest and south of Weyburn in the Bengough and Ceylon areas. That’s where large tracts of oil and gas are being posted for sales of exploratory licences. These are just west of the Weyburn field.” Dancsok explained, a licence allows a company to explore and produce oil or gas that they find while a permit grants permission to explore only for a five year period. Asked what these sales means to the economy

Dancsok said, “I can see extended levels of activity for at least the next five years as all of these rights are drilled. We don’t see an end. Already, our August sale is looking larger than the last few. “In fact, the five-year sale average (oil and gas sales) is about 83,000 ha for the entire province. This sale coming up is three times that size. We don’t see any drop in interest levels. We already know there are vigorous or active requests coming in the October sale as well.” Asked about the potential of the Bakken formation, part of the Williston Basin covering North Dakota, Montana, western Manitoba and southeast Saskatchewan, Dancsok says the entire feature could contain as much as 100 to 400 billion barrels of oil. “If we could get any significant percentage of that, it will be very good for the province,” he said. Revenue from the sale oil and gas rights goes into general provincial coffers. Before a sale, geology and petroleum lands staff check to see if the rights belong to the province, and are not currently leased, then hold a public tender process based on a minimum acceptable bid. “The highest bidder gets the parcel, but if the highest bid isn’t what we feel is fair value to the province, we will reject all bids,” said Dancsok. He added some bids are made by land companies on behalf of oil companies who want to keep their business a secret.

TransCanada meets in Shaunavon Keystone XL pipeline represents a $7 billion investment

Ken Phaff, manager of Canadian Projects for TransCanada points to the route map for the pipeline while standing in front of a cross-section demonstrating the size of the pipe.

By Stephan Burnett Pipeline News Shaunavon - Ken Phaff, manager of Canadian Projects for TransCanada is pumped to lead the new Keystone XL pipeline project. Phaff sat down with Pipeline News in Shaunavon in late June and explained the project will bill out at a total of $7 billion. “The project starts in Hardisty and will run across Alberta and southwest Saskatchewan for a total length of 527 km with an additional 2,200 km of pipe proposed for the U.S.,” he says. “There will be eight pump stations in Canada with five in Alberta and another three in Saskatchewan,” he says. Keystone XL is expected to eventually move 700,000 barrels a day and with expansion, the throughput could go as high as 900,000 barrels. Townhall meetings for the project were recently held in Consort, Hardisty, Oyen, Shaunavon, Piapot and Burstall. Phaff says the regulatory application to the National Energy Board will be filed by early 2009 while construction is targeted from mid-2010 to the third quarter of 2011,pending regulatory approval. All the pipe will be buried at least 1.2 metres deep. “No contractors have been hired yet. We’ll figure that out in the coming months,” he says. Phaff explains there will be a moving assembly once construction is underway with several teams of between 500-600 construction workers working on different portions of the pipeline at any one point in time. ‘We’ll prep the right of way, strip the top soil, grade the line, string the pipe, dig the ditch, weld the pipe, xray the welds, coat the welds, lower the pipe, back fill, cover over, replace the grade material, replace the top soil, cultivate, seed and reclaim,” he says. Currently TransCanada’s team has a number of field environmental surveys underway including soil type, vegetation, wildlife, birds, archeology and paleontology. “We have teams of folks out on the line performing different types of information gathering. We’ll combine that with feedback and see if we can come to a final route.”

PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

(Left to right) U.S. representative Tim Mahoney, Saskatchewan Energy and Resources minister Bill Boyd and congressman Rick Boucher enjoyed a tour of Ecana’s Weyburn area operations to learn how CO2 is used for enhanced oil recovery and carbon storage.

U.S. energy politicians drawn to Encana’s CO2 project

Encana’s use of CO2 for enhancing oil recovery from it’s Weyburn oil Àeld and storing it underground as a way to Àght climate changes has resulted in more than 230 tours of the facility from academic, scientists and the media from around the world.

By Geoﬀ Lee Midale –Encana’s use of CO2 for enhanced oil recovery and storage near Weyburn caught the attention of two U.S. congressmen, who toured the facility on June 30 with a delegation joined by provincial energy and resources minister Bill Boyd. The congressmen were Rick Boucher from the District of Virginia and chair of the House Energy & Air Quality Sub-Committee and representative Tim Mahoney from the District of Florida who both visited the Petroleum Technology Research Centre in Regina that day. The group was one of more than 230 since 2001 to visit the host site of an international research project on CO2 storage run under the auspices of the International Energy Agency Greenhouse Gas Research and Development Program, Encana and partners. “It shows clearly that the technology that’s being employed here is world class,” said Boyd. “Today, we have representatives from the U.S. Congress that are here to look at the facility and learn more about the process of carbon sequestration and how it has a second component of enhanced oil recovery.” Encana’s oil production from the Midale beds has grown to approximately 30,000 barrels of oil a day thanks to CO2 injection.

“Had we not done the CO2 injection, we would be producing around 10,000 barrels a day, “said Encana’s operations superintendent Darcy Cretin. “The results we’ve seen in production are pretty significant and that continues to drive investment. We have spent over $1 billion since the start of the project. “The global interest is the focus on the CO2 sequestration. The enhanced oil recovery side is fairly routine. People inject CO2 to recover oil in a lot of places in the world. What’s driving interest is the fact our CO2 is a waste product. What we’re doing is taking the CO2 that would be going into the atmosphere and putting into it our reservoir.” Encana has been purchasing CO2 from the Dakota Gasification Company in Beulah, North Dakota for nearly 10 years. The CO2 is transported from Beulah to the Weyburn oil field via a 323-kilometre pipeline and injected underground at high pressure. The CO2 acts as a solvent making the oil thinner and while causing it to swell and flow from the reservoir into the wellbore. Encana expects to store about 30 million tonnes of CO2 underground while enhancing oil recovery. “A lot of policy discussion around the world is that this is a concept that would work (for climate change), said Cretin. “In our case it works because we got a source of CO2 that’s readily available and a target reservoir that works well for enhanced oil recovery.” The project caught the attention of Boucher who is chair of a U.S. sub-committee on energy and air quality that will be writing new climate change legislation. “This is a timely project for us,” he said. “Fossil fuels will be a part of our long-term energy future and at the same time, we have to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

“

Given these two factors he said, “Carbon sequestration is essential to us. This is the way we can do both things at once. Learning what has happened at Weyburn is important information for us as we make progress toward these goals.” Ditto the enthusiasm of Mahoney who said gas in his state of Florida is over $4 a gallon and the American public wants a real energy policy to get prices under control and help the environment. “The Encana people have been able to demonstrate that carbon sequestration is a win-win for climate change and for the oil and gas industry in terms of being able to use the CO2 again and be able to prolong the life of the fields,” he said. “The question now is how we take this technology - how do we encourage investment and expand this program throughout North America?” The tour group learned from Cretin that research project began in 1999 with the aim to verify the integrity of Encana’s reservoir for CO2 storage. “That concluded in 2004 and these results were published,” said Cretin. “Before we injected a single drop of CO2, scientists collected all of the baseline data and continued monitoring while we injected CO2. “A second phase of research kicked off within the last year. They are looking at establishing a framework around sequestration. It’s more of a howto guide.” When asked about Encana’s field activities, Cretin said, “Our annual capital budget all revolves around the CO2 flood. We are drilling new wells and rolling out new patterns for CO2 injection so we can inject CO2 into these areas. We are also upgrading our infrastructure to handle an increased volume of CO2. As a result of that activity we employ more than 60 people.”

The Encana people have been able to demonstrate that carbon sequestration is a win-win for climate change and for the oil and gas industry - Rick Boucher

”

EDITORIAL

PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

Pipeline News Publisher: Brant Kersey - Estevan Ph: 1.306.634.1015 Fax: 1.306.634.0141

Mission Statement: Pipeline News’ mission is to illuminate importance of Saskatchewan oil as an integral part of the province’s sense of community and to show the general public the strength and character of the industry’s people.

Editorial Contributions: SOUTHEAST Geoﬀ Lee - Estevan 1.306.634.1015 SOUTHWEST Stephan Burnett - Swift Current 1.306.778.6952 NORTHWEST Brian Zinchuk - North Battleford 1.306.445.7261 MANITOBA Brent Fitzpatrick - Virden 1.204.748.3931

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Editorial To submit a stories or ideas: Pipelines News is always looking for stories or ideas for stories from our readers. To contribute please contact your local contributing reporter. Subscribing to Pipeline News: Pipeline News is a free distribution newspaper, but in the coming months watch for our online version. Advertising in Pipeline News: Advertising in Pipeline News is a newer model created to make it as easy as possible for any business or individual. Pipeline News has a group of experienced staﬀ working throughout Saskatchewan and parts of Manitoba, so please contact the sales representative for your area to assist you with your advertising needs. Special thanks to JuneWarren Publishing and Nickel’s Energy Group for their contributions and assistance with Pipeline News.

Pipeline News Estevan, SK Ph: 306.634.1015 Fax: 306.634.1041 Published monthly by Glacier Ventures International Corporation, Central Oﬃce, Estevan, Saskatchewan. Advertising rates are available upon request and are subject to change without notice. Conditions of editorial and advertising content: Pipeline News attempts to be accurate, however, no guarantee is given or implied. Pipeline News reserves the right to revise or reject any of all editorial and advertising content as the newspapers’ principles see ﬁt. Pipeline News will not be responsible for more than one incorrect insertion of an advertisement, and is not responsible for errors in advertisements except for the space occupied by such errors. Pipeline News will not be responsible for manuscripts, photographs, negatives and other material that may be submitted for possible publication. All of Pipeline News content is protected by Canadian Copyright laws. Reviews and similar mention of material in this newspaper is granted on the provision that Pipeline News receives credit. Otherwise, any reproduction without permission of the publisher is prohibited. Advertisers purchase space and circulation only. Rights to the advertisement produced by Pipeline News, including artwork, typography, and photos, etc., remain property of this newspaper. Advertisements or parts thereof may be not reproduced or assigned without the consent of the publisher. The Glacier group of companies collects personal from our customers in the normal course of business transactions. We use that information to provide you with our products and services you request. On occasion we may contact you for purposes of research, surveys and other such matters. To provide you with better service we may share your information with our sister companies and also outside, selected third parties who perform work for us as suppliers, agents, service providers and information gatherers.

Green Shift carbon tax huge threat to oil boom By Brian Zinchuk On June 19, Liberal Leader Stephan Dion announced one of the federal Liberals major policy platforms: the Green Shift. Dion proposes a carbon tax that would ramp up from $10/tonne to $40/tonne on carbon dioxide emissions. The idea is to be revenue neutral, and money raised by this tax would come back to individual Canadians through income tax cuts. The numbers they are throwing around are in the $15.4 billion a year range – or double the annual budget of the province of Saskatchewan. Boil that down, and it means the people in the hydrocarbon industry – oil, gas, and coal-fired power production - are going to beaten down mercilessly by this tax. And compared to other provinces, Saskatchewan would likely take a few kicks to the head, as well as kidneys and ribs. After years of stagnation, Saskatchewan is seeing some real, serious growth. The economy is on fire in all major sectors – potash, uranium, agriculture and oil. Provincial coffers are overflowing with unbudgeted royalties and land sales. Make no mistake, a large portion of our newfound prosperity is based on our production and sale of hydrocarbons – the very thing Dion wants to tax the dickens out of. Look at how fickle the petroleum industry can be when it comes to shifts in tax policy. Alberta’s recent changes in royalty structures has meant a drop in money invested there, and a jump in investment here. Dion’s policy could mean the same on a nation-wide scale. On high-capital cost oilsands projects or offshore platforms, are the big multinationals going to carry through here, or go elsewhere? Canada could see investment dollars flee to other markets. Even if the industry can sustain the tax now, with a high price of oil, what happens if the price drops back to the $85/bbl. level – where the last Saskatchewan budget predicted oil would be? Will risky ventures make the cut?

Saskatchewan and Alberta will also face a double whammy in the nature of its power production. The old jokes about Saskatchewan being flat like a pancake are no joke when it comes to hydroelectric power production. What we do have is coal – and lots of it – to produce baseload power supply. Even with the province announcing in mid-June a desire to look at new power production, including nuclear, we’re looking at a decade or more before anything glowing in the dark is lighting our lightbulbs. We better hope SaskPower is able to make “clean coal” work, and do it quick, or we are in serious trouble. What this means is that, if implemented, Saskatchewan is going to be severely punished for having a strong oil and gas industry and relying on coal for lightbulbs. That might be fine for those people in Quebec who can gloat about their carbon emissions-free hydro power, or nuclear-powered Ontario, we in Saskatchewan will suffer disproportionately in paying these carbon taxes. With our small population, Saskatchewan would receive much less of its “revenue neutral” payback. Ontario and Quebec, with their larger populations, will get much more of the payback. How much of this Green Shift carbon tax will come out of Quebec, and how much will be paid to its citizens? Ontario possibly becoming a “have-not” province will be paltry in comparison to how much this tax would shift tax dollars to Central Canada. The Liberal “Green Shift” will be a shift alright – shifting all the cash from the west to the central Canada, just when the West is finally coming into its own as the economic powerhouse of this country. The National Energy Program was a long time ago, and it took a long time to recover from its damage. NEP’s got nothing on what the Green Shift could do. What the Green Shift likely will not do is have a real impact on emissions. More likely, it will just be another tax grab – a grab for our throats.

PIPELINE NEWS INVITES OPPOSING VIEW POINTS. EDITORIALS AND LETTERS TO THE EDITOR WELCOMED.

PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

Opinion

If they had spent all that money here . . . In early July, the U.S. Congress approved another $162 billion to fund its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the bulk of which will go to the Iraqi campaign. This is on top of the hundreds of billions spent on a war that has already cost over 4,000 American lives and countless more Iraqi lives. That’s a lot of money spent on a war into which the American people were duped. We’re going to stop Saddam and his weapons of mass destruction, they said. Bovine feces. The former head of the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank, Alan Greenspan, has even acknowledged the Iraq war was all about oil. This got me thinking, what if the American had decided to spend that money on peaceful ways to secure oil? What if they had just left Saddam Hussein alone, and instead spent that money elsewhere. But where. . . ? Um, how about Canada? When I was coming off the Alliance Pipeline project in 2000, there was a lot of talk about the Mackenzie Valley pipeline. If one believed the hype, and at that time, I did, my mortgage would have been paid off by 2005. Every pipeliner available would have been needed on that job, we were told. Well, it’s now 2008. My mortgage is not yet paid, and after a few years of hope for that job, I abandoned it and went back to reporting. Enbridge and TransCanada have major projects in the works this year, but Mackenzie Valley might happen when the cows come home. This would probably be a lot different if the U.S. treasury was being drained to pay for North American oil development, instead of bleeding their army white in the sands of Iraq for supposedly easy and plentiful oil. I

don’t care how easy it is to get out of the ground, or how plentiful it is. If you need to pay for it with the blood of your youth, it’s not easy, and probably not worth it. If Mackenzie had gone forBrian Zinchuk ward, along with the other line from Alaska, I wonder how many American lives would have been lost? What about fully developing the oilsands in both Saskatchewan and Alberta? How about some more enhanced oil recovery? Maybe some more domestic refining capacity to handle heavy oil or oilsand bitumen? Even in their own backyard, the Yanks could have put more into their gulf-coast production. Maybe, just maybe, there’s oil under the Pacific? How about the oil shales of Colorado? How many privates and corporals and captains would be getting prosthetic limbs fitted now if money had been spent on these projects, instead of the Iraq war? That would have been too easy, and in a way, too hard. How do you rally a people to spend countless billions on Saskatchewan’s heavy oil patch? Will they stand in the streets, waving flags as their young men go off to the rigs, instead of to war? But they will line the streets to support their troops. There is, of course, a link to the Iraq war and the current boom we are seeing in oil prices. If there was no war, would anyone really think oil would cost $140 a barrel? And would Saskatchewan see the development it is seeing now, if the price were $50 a barrel? Would provincial coffers be overflowing if there were no Americans in Bagdad? Probably not. Then again, maybe the coffin business wouldn’t be doing so well, either. Brian Zinchuk is a reporter with Pipeline News. He can be reached at brian.zinchuk@sasktel.net

From the top of the pile

Time to add value to uranium Business with Burnett Stephan Burnett

The time is ﬁnally upon us. The Saskatchewan government has asked Bruce Power to commission a study looking at the opportunity of building a nuclear reactor here in the province. The study is called the Saskatchewan 2020 Initiative and it will look at all aspects of the impending development. That study will also look at ways to improve the electricity grid so that we will be better able to export electricity south to the United States rather than exporting raw yellow cake elsewhere. For years people throughout the province have seesawed on the debate over developing our nuclear resource. I maintain it is more ethical to export electricity than it is to export raw uranium. For those naysayers concerned over what to do with radioactive waste, I say Saskatchewan is a big place and surely there are geologists out there who can tell us where a safe storage mine for this waste exists. Adding value to uranium could become another vital plank to the province’s economy. Oil and gas prices are at an all-time high and activity levels are on the rise. Royalties to the province have gone through the roof but the cost of extracting those resources is increasing — both economically and environmentally. We must begin the process of building up our ura-

nium resource and create a viable industry, which creates power not only for the province but possibly for export as well. The creation of electricity through a nuclear power plant creates no greenhouse gases, which will put our province more in line with international eﬀorts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. I believe the Wall government is correct in assessing the mood of the public. Citizens of the province realize the development of our nuclear resource is the wave of the future. New technologies have made nuclear-generated power even safer than it was before. And to my knowledge, there has never been a major incident involving any Canadian-built nuclear reactor. The province is also correct in courting private investment to get the job done, As a province we are still billions of dollars in debt and courting private investment is the only way to grow the province while at the same time paying down our debt. In time, adding value to our nuclear resource might become an additional pillar of strength for the provincial economy. I believe the development of our uranium resource is not only an economic imperative but also a moral imperative. I believe it is more ethical for the citizens of our province to control the development of our uranium resource and control the value that we add to it when exporting electricity than it is to export it in its raw form. The Saskatchewan of the future will stand tall on the strength of its agricultural resource, it’s petroleum resource (especially through the development of it’s oilsands) and also through its mining, and especially through adding value to our uranium resource. The time is ﬁnally upon us.

The answer is blowing in the wind Bakken Forth Geoff Lee

On the road to Encana’s CO2 injection facility near Midale, there are so many pump jacks you would think the oil and gas industry is throwing a giant PJ party. The pump jacks or PJs as I call them out number bails of wheat. Remember when farming was king? It’s inevitable too, that the current oil party will wind down in a few years as resources dwindle. When it does, I can’t help thinking all those abandoned wells serving as pre-fabricated homes for gopher colonies. After a few months of breeding, hundreds of thousands of these critters could emerge from their man-made tunnels to spawn a new fur industry to keep the boom alive in southeast Saskatchewan! I wouldn’t bank on it though to make a living. A better replacement industry than gopher hides may be wind power. Recently, U.S. oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens (don’t you love that name) launched a plan to wean the U.S. off oil. Pickens is planning to spend $58 million during the U.S. presidential campaign to pitch his plan for America to spend over $1 trillion over the next 20 years on wind power. U.S. presidential hopeful Barack Obama has proposed a 10-year $150 billion alternative energy research plan while John McCain wants to bundle $300 billion for nuclear power. In Canada, we’re slow to adopt practical alternative energy projects, but the winds of change are blowing toward renewable wind power on both sides of the border. While the Bakken play shows no signs of letting up today, someone should realize that neither is the wind in this neck of the woods. There is no better place in Saskatchewan to start breeding a wind power industry than in the SE quad. It beats harvesting gophers. Wind power could energize the major cities and towns in the Bakken play including the “energy city” of Estevan and sell excess power to Regina to keep the economy booming when oil activity slows. The alternative is hoping for a global market for fur gopher hats, but wind is more realistic and abundant. You don’t have to feed it either. Just as it sounds odd that CO2 is a commodity, so it might be with wind. We could sell it by the windbag to our politicians in Ottawa! As we saw with the recent G-8 Summit, world leaders will rarely take the lead on jumpstarting an alternative energy industry, just as they didn’t to get oil and gas off the ground. It always comes down to fortune seekers like T. Boone Pickens who saw a way to make a buck with wind. The first time I heard of wind as a money-maker was when I windsurfed in B.C. and read how it helped to generate a huge economic revival in communities skirting the Columbia River gorge thanks to windsurfing itself. With surfing, all you need is wind itself to fill your sail. Wind generated energy is not the final solution to global warming or our entire domestic energy requirements, but when you have a huge renewable energy stock of it, it makes sense to find a way to make a use it profitably knowing our oil riches are not renewable. Maybe I am heaping too much praise on T. Boone Pickens. Maybe it’s Bob Dylan I should be thanking. “The answer my friend is blowing in the wind...” The question was: How do we power our economy without harming the environment? It’s not going to be with gophers.

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Alberta Clipper turns into whirlwind By Brian Zinchuk Pipeline News Kerrobert – An Alberta Clipper might be known as a fast moving winter storm in a weather sense, but the Enbridge project is hitting Saskatchewan like a whirlwind this fall. The project is a major expansion of Enbridge’s crude-oil capacity, adding another 36-in. Mainline from its Hardisty, Alta., terminal to Superior Wisconsin. At the same time, another existing line will be reversed, bringing diluents back to Alberta. Its path almost exactly follows the typical track of an Alberta Clipper storm. The growth of crude production from the Athabasca oilsands around Fort McMurray is the primary impetus behind the expansion. Alberta Clipper is a 1,607 km crude oil pipeline project. Pending U.S. regulatory approvals the pipeline is scheduled to be in service in mid2010. The pipeline will have an initial capacity of 450,000 barrels-perday (bpd) and allow for expansions to increase capacity up to 800,000 bpd. Alberta Clipper will be integrated with, and form part of, the existing Enbridge Pipelines system in Canada and the Enbridge Energy Partners' Lakehead system in the United States. Right of way work is slated for early August, including staking, locating overhead power lines, and preparing access roads to the right of way. Topsoil stripping is

slated for mid-August. Waschuk Pipeline and Robert B. Somerville are the general contractors handling the Saskatchewan spreads. During the summer of 2008, Waschuk will operate out of White City on Spread 6, while Somerville will operate out of Kerrobert on Spread 3. During the winter of 2008, Somerville will do more work out of Kerrobert on spread 4, with a small yard in Rosetown. Waschuk will be working on Spread 7, still based in White City. For the summer of 2009, Waschuk will be working on Spread 8, with a yard site yet to be announced. Somerville will have a yard set up at Moose Jaw for Spread 5 work. Willbros Midwest Pipeline Construction LP will be working on the Alberta loop, from Hardisty to the Saskatchewan border. Michels Canada will be working on 15 km of the Manitoba loop, working out of Brandon. In addition, Michels will be working on Southern Lights, a complimentary project. Their Southern Lights work involves a new 20-inch crude oil pipeline from Cromer to Glenboro, Manitoba to replace the capacity of an existing Enbridge pipeline that will be reversed to transport diluent, according to Enbridge’s website. This is the ﬁrst major mainline project in Canada for Michels Canada, a division of U.S.-based Michels Corp., according to Jason Thompson,

project manager. Louisbourg Pipelines Ltd. will do the last Canadian portion, from Glenboro to Gretna, Manitoba. Unionized workforce The workforce will vary, but each spread is expected to peak at 500 to 600 workers. S omer ville, Waschuk, Michels and Louisbourg are unionized under four diﬀerent international trades unions. Heavy equip-

ment operators will be working under the banner of the International Union of Operating Engineers. The Laborers International Union of North America will provide labourers for the project. Truck and bus drivers will come from the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. The United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipeﬁtting Industry of the United States and Canada will

take care of the welding and fabrication work. Willbros Midwest

is unionized under the Christian Labour Association of Canada.

Several major expansion projects are starting this year for Enbridge, with Alberta Clipper having the largest impact on Saskatchewan. With the intent of bringing Ft. McMurray oil to the U.S. Midwest, it will add another mainline to Enbridge’s existing infrastructure. Map courtesy Enbridge

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PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

Bon¿re on lease Maidstone - Sometime between Saturday, July 19 and July 22, suspects entered an oil lease just a few kilometres Southeast of Lloydminster, SK. The suspects lit a bonfire only a few metres from the well head and consumed alcohol beverages. The suspects then smashed and removed several gauges and damaged valves. “This one is not far from the city of Lloydminster,” notes RCMP Sergeant Brad Zerr of the Maidstone and Lloydminster Rural RCMP. He notes the police keep an eye on local party spots that tend to be frequented by city youth. While a number are on oilpatch sites, he notes this incidence was different in the nature of the vandalism. Zerr notes it appears to be vandalism for vandalism’s sake. He notes those involved were perhaps ignorant of the gravity of what they were dealing with. Beyond the criminal nature of the incident, Sgt. Zerr points out the public safety concerns, being close to the city. The Maidstone RCMP would like to remind people of the importance for safety reasons of not entering oil lease sites. Oil wells have the potential of leaking natural gas and hydrogen sulphide (H2S) into the air. Hydrogen sulphide is an extremely toxic and flammable gas. Inhaling this toxic gas is quickly absorbed by the lungs. Exposure to hydrogen sulphide prevents the brain from using oxygen and can result in death. Damaging and tampering with gauges, or having open fires near a well head can result in an explosion. If you have information about this crime, please contact the Maidstone RCMP Detachment at telephone number (306) 893-4800 or you may call Crime Stoppers at 1-306-825-TIPS (8477).

Black gold girl Edam – Having just ﬁnished a two-year diploma in environmental conservation and reclamation, Amy Gabruch is spending the summer operating for Husky before going back to school this fall. Gabruch, 20, plans to go to the University of Saskatchewan this fall to upgrade her education to a Bachelor of Science in Agriculture, specializing in environmental studies. “I want to do project management with an environmental company,” she says, but adds she may pursue a masters degree and a teaching position at a college level. Her diploma came from Lakeland College in Vermilion, Alta. If she does end up doing project management, Gabruch says it will likely be oil-related. Grabruch grew up near Edam, and is now working with the same company her father, Terry Gabruch, works for when he’s not farming. It’s not exactly her ﬁeld, “But I’m learning lots,” she explains. Terry’s friends are also keeping an eye out for her, she notes. She is glad to have found work that was close to home. Currently she’s working with 42 heavy oil wells. Gabruch enjoys the outdoor work, and the lower maintenance, i.e. no need for makeup. “It’s good. I get up in the morning and put on the coveralls,” says the Nomex-clad operator. Two more years of university are in her future. After that, she’s not sure or picky. “I would like to go overseas and travel. If you could work and travel, that would be good. But I’m not worAmy Gabruch is operating for Husky this summer, before continuing ried about that yet.”

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PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

Multiple cranes improve ef¿ciency By Brian Zinchuk Lloydminster – Elite Mechanical is getting a lot bigger. In 2006, Carson Welding and Maintenance bought Elite Mechanical in Lloydminster. This year, they are putting a substantial investment into their facilities, building a large new shop on the west side of Lloydminster. The expansion is several times larger than the current Elite facility, taking them to approximately 20,000 sq.-ft. for the main building shop area, 7,000 sq.-ft. for the paint shop, plus additional administrative space. The old facilities will likely see use as mechanical bays. The plan is to be operational in the new facility in September, having broken ground in the fall of 2007. Much of their work in Lloydminster includes skid packages, modular construction, fabricated

buildings, piping spools and large diameter piping. But in the current facility, they struggled without an overhead crane, and it was simply cramped. The new facility takes care of that, and provides room to grow into. “There just wasn’t enough room to be eﬃcient,” says Mickey Armstrong, Lloydminster general manager. He points out the geographic advantage of being between Saskatoon and Edmonton. “There’s lots here,” he says. “We’re going to be more eﬃcient to meet clients’ needs.” Elite Mechanical was focused on facilities, while Carson’s area of specialty was pipeline. “We complement each other,” Armstrong says, noting they are growing into one entity. The building features three overhead ten-tonne gantry cranes that run the length of the facility, including linking the main building to the paint

With the shell up, interior work is now taking place on the new Carson Welding and Maintenance/Elite Mechanical location in Lloydminster.

shop. The track is built to handle 20-tonne cranes, if need be. Two ﬁvetonne overhead cranes sit on the north and east sides of the building. Each is positioned to inventory stock, and then feed it into special ports built into the side of

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the building. This eliminates the need to open the large doors to bring stock in. There will be a further dozen or so column-mounted jib cranes throughout the facility. The main building has receiving, fabrication and hydro-testing areas. The north end focuses on pipe fabrication for items like piping spools. The south end is for structural skid and module fabrication. “That’s where we

assemble the modules, pump skids, piping modules, pumps and valves,” Armstrong says. There’s a gap between the main building and the paint shop, allowing for ﬁnished items to be hauled away. “We are set to accommodate any local expansions,” Assistant Manager Dean Swan says when asked if they are targeting any possible future growth at the Husky Upgrader.

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Carson Welding/Elite Mechanical’s new shop in Lloydminster is substantially larger than its predecessor, which ran under the Elite Mechanical name. Mickey Armstrong, left, heads up the Lloydminster operation, with Dean Swan as his No. 2.

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A10

PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

The pipe talks to you By Brian Zinchuk Tangleflags - Several zones on this particular well are perforated, but the ones that were producing have stopped. Time to bring in the service rig. Garrison Oilwell Servicing’s Rig No. 3 is a double-double, run by toolpush Sheldon Garrison. With 29.3 m (96-ft.) of derrick, they can pull two joints of tubing or two rods at a time. Garrison notes there are not many big service rigs like their’s in the area – most are singles. In this instance they are going to pull out of the hole, drill down through two bottom plugs, reinsert the pump at a lower depth and patch the previous zones. The rig is set up and the tanker truck is off to the side, providing produced water for circulation and to prevent blowouts. They take the well head off, installing Blow Out Preventors (BOPs), “In case the well kicks on us,” Garrison says. After a pressure test, the well is given a flush, killing any possible casing gas. The rods and rotor are pulled. The tubing is pulled out too, 550 metres in total. There’s a problem, however. A part of the pump stator is missing, requiring a trip in to get it. A downhole tool called an overshot, or alternatively, a grapple, is sent down. It looks like a coffee can with the teeth of a pipe wrench on the inside. Daren Helfrich with Source Energy Tools is on hand to assist. As the grapple reaches the pump, he feels the tubing, detecting when contact is made. It’s something akin to putting you ear to a railroad track, trying to detect a train. Through 550 metres of pipe,

A joint of tubing is spun off a downhole tool after a successful retrieval of an errant pump stator.

he’s still able to detect it. “The pipe talks to you, man,” he says. Going after the elusive pump stator is likened to ﬁshing, and referred to as such. Helfrich feels the grapple “engage on the ﬁsh.” “You’ll feel it vibrate as it goes through the teeth of the grapple,” he says. The overshot slides over the outside of the pump, its teeth clenching the outside of the stator. Now it’s

time for the trip out. Driller Bill Church has been watching a large gauge all this time. The weight indicator is the crucial instrument for the driller, telling him if he has picked up the weight of the pump, or if the tubing has settled on it on the way down. An aﬀable laugh can be heard from the three-decade veteran of the rigs. Don’t ask him about Saudi Arabia, we’re told. He’ll talk forever. ɸPage A11

PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

A11

... 16 hours a day 7 days a week ɺ Page A10 “If the weight indicator shows 3,000 pounds added weight, you know you’ve got it,” Helfrich says. “You need to have a good driller,” Garrison notes. “If the guy’s green, he can wreck things or kill somebody.” Derrickhand Jeremy Stahl nimbly moves about high on the monkeyboard, leaning out to intercept

Roughneck Brandon Hall manipulates the tongs into place on a trip out.

the tubing as it comes out of the hole. Church notes, “If I see a guy tripping and falling on the ground, he’s not going up on the derrick.” Stahl says the first time up, “the knees are a little shaky.” After that? He smiles. On the drilling floor, roughneck Brandon Hall swiftly manipulates the tongs, breaking the connection between every second joint of tubing. As a double-double, the trip in and out is quicker, because there’s less handling of joints of tubing or rods. Relief driller Ashley Fox can be found placing tubing in the pipe rack. The moment of truth comes when the pump stator emerges from the hole, something of a relief, because sometimes that’s not always the outcome. It’s laid out on its side, and some brute force and a few very large pipe wrenches remove it and the overshot from the tubing. The pump is destined for a trip into town. “They want to do a bunch of work on this well,” Garrison notes. The next run in will retrieve the casing patch that blocks off the upper perforations. Then they run in with a drilling collar and drill out the two bottom plugs in the well. This has the effect of lowering the pump into a deeper production area of the well. The upper zones will end up closed off, and the lower zones put into production. With the upper patches in place, the tubing is replaced and wellhead restored. Hopefully, it will make oil. “Every well is different,” Garrison says, a common refrain heard in the well servicing business. “You’re only as good as your crew,” Garrison explains when asked about the obvious good humour between the guys. “A lot of guys argue a lot.” Garrison

Garrison Oilwell Servicing derrickhand Jeremy Stahl intercepts tubing as it comes out of the hole.

doesn’t want that. The good natured ribbing is contagious. When one man goofs, it’s a while before they let him live it down. With the long hours put in on a rig, laughter helps make the day go by.

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A12

PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

Pipeline completion to open production opportunities Lloydminster – Husky Energy is completing the third and ﬁnal phase of a 24-inch pipeline from Wainwright to Lloydminster this summer, with construction of the last 11 km taking place on the west side and north end of the city. The line will allow heavy crude diluted with condensate to go from Lloydminster to Wainwright, and from there onto mainline transmission. Oil using this pipe will be produced in the Lloydminster region, but will not be processed through either the Lloydminster upgrader or reﬁnery, according to Rick Corrin, operations superintendent for Husky’s Lloydminster pipeline operations. The increased pipe capacity will open the door for further production capacity in the Lloy-

dminster region. “There is going to be a need for more production in the area,” Corrin notes. Lloydminster’s phenomenal growth in recent years has impacted the project. When it was initially planned, there was no Home Depot, for instance. The line now runs along the east side of the home improvement store. “It would have been nice if we could have ﬁnished it a year ago,” Corrin notes. Some of the challenges with this ﬁnal phase include some boring in Lloydminster’s north end, and a long bore going diagonally under a major intersection near the Home Depot on Highway 16. Corrin speaks of working with the city to indentify underground utilities and ensuring the project is done safely. “We work here, we

A coating crew protects welds for possible corrosion on this section of an 11km 24-inch pipeline for Husky, west of Lloydminster.

live here,” he says when speaking about minimizing impact. Carson Welding and Maintenance Ltd. is the general contractor for the project, with approximately 60 workers

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PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

A13

Alaska to cyclic solvents: wide range of symposium speakers Lloydminster - Petroleum Society - Lloydminster Section’s 15th Annual 2008 Heavy Oil Technical Symposium will take place September 10 and 11 at the Lloydminster Stockade Convention Centre. The symposium is meant to coincide with the Lloydminster Heavy Oil Show. This year’s theme is “educating the world about heavy oil.” Mahesh Makkar, symposium chair, says, “We try to keep diversiﬁcation in the topics. We are not just addressing pumps or SAGD.” Most of the attendees are engineers, technicians, quality control and

servicing people, Makkar says. Last year around 175 people came out. This year they expect about 125 to 150. The drop is anticipated as the heavy oil show is running concurrently and is expected to take away some of the crowd. Each day’s sessions run during the morning only. Aug. 31 is the registration deadline. Sept. 10 sessions will kick oﬀ with Erik Hulm of BP Alaska, speaking on “CHOPS Progress in Alaska.” Next up is David Bexte of Schlumberger, who will discuss “Improved Cementing Practice Prevents Gas

Migration and Surface Casing Vent Flow.” Dustin Newman of Husky Energy will go over “Over-Pressurization of the Sparky Zone in Aberfeldy.” On Sept. 11, Jose Alvarez-Marine of the Alberta Research Council will speak on “CSI – Cyclic Solvent Lab to Field.” Next up is Darryl Corbin of En-

viroline Group. He will go over “New Technology for Proactive Corrosion Management.” EnCanna’s Jason Abbate follows up with “SAGD Fundamentals and Future Growth.” The ﬁnal speaker will be Sheldon Jahn of Kudu Industries Inc., speaking on “The Next Generation of PC Pumps.”

Heavy Oil Show for the working man Lloydminster – It’s a full house for the Lloydminster Heavy Oil Show this year, with booths having sold out back in February. A total of 207 participanting companies are registered. The event, hosted by the Oilfield Technical Society, will showcase expertise and equipment related to the heavy oil industry. The show takes place at the Lloydminster Exhibition Grounds Sept. 10-11. Scott Black, chair of the show, says, “This show is for the working man – a lot of equipment to see.” The theme is educating the world about heavy oil. The Heavy

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Teeing up north of the river Mervin – Mervin Golf Course will be hosting the 13th annual North of the River Oilman’s Golf Tournament on Aug. 8. Seventy-two golfers are lined up, with a waiting list should anyone drop out. Most of the golfers are from the Edam, Mervin, Turtleford, and Lloydminster districts, according to organizers.

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A14

PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

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PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

A15

Cleaning up north of the river Edam - Running a fleet of 16 units, Arnold Poole of Arnold’s Sand and Gravel was getting tired of having his trucks washed outside. But with the nearest truck washes in St. Walburg and North Battleford, there really wasn’t much in the way of options. “There was no wash bay for trucks in the area,” Poole told Pipeline News. “I was washing mine outside, and I didn’t like that.” So he built his own. Edam Wash Bay opened for business on June 1, with a grand opening on July 22. They went through 250 hamburgers that day, with a large portion of the community coming out for a burger and pop. Saskatoon’s Custom Trucks brought out their barbecue for the event. Peggy Dunlop, Poole’s other half, served up burgers. The new truck wash is east of Arnold’s Sand and Gravel, just east of Highway 26 in Edam. Two people, Roy and Gilbert Ramstad, work at the wash bay. Most of their clientele is oilpatch-related, with a few farmers making use of the facility. It takes about two to three hours to wash a truck, he says, and, so far, they’ve been seeing about five trucks a day. It takes about 45 minutes to clean up after a three-hour wash. “You pretty much have to do it after every truck,” notes Gilbert Ramstad. The bay is 30 ft. by 100 ft., big enough for a service rig or a super-B. The facility is designed with the oilpatch in mind. For instance, there are no gantries along the walls, as they tend to collect oil, he says. “Everyone advised against platforms along the wall.” Instead, there’s a rolling platform. The office area includes a drinking water refill station, the first for the com-

munity, Poole notes. It’s tied into the reverse osmosis system used for the spotfree rinse. The mechanical room includes three natural gas on-demand instantaneous water heaters, something new to the wash industry, according to Poole. By eliminating tank heaters, they will never run out of hot water. Eﬄuent is treated, he adds.

Hundreds of burgers were gobbled up during the grand opening of Edam Wash Bay on July 22. The new truck wash is the only one open to the public between St. Walburg and the Battlefords. From left are Peggy Dunlop and Arnold Poole, owners, and attendants Gilbert and Roy Ramstad. The new wash bay opened June 1. Edam Wash Bay is the only truck wash bay open to the public between St. Walburg and the Battlefords.

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A16

PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

Moving “big inch” around ethanol plant You can never have enough hardhat stickers, especially ones issued by Pilsner. This is Saskatchewan, after all.

Unity - With a new ethanol plant under construction beside Unity’s Northwest Terminal, TransGas had to move a 16 inch pipeline to make way for the new plant. Flint Energy of Medicine Hat came in during late June to put in the 3.7 km of pipe. The pipe has an HPCC coating to withstand the 85 C temperatures as the gas comes out of the compressor station. At its peak, the project had close to 50 workers on site. It kicked oﬀ June 18, with completion in early July. “Although it is a small project, it has many challenges,” says Ray Moroz, consultant for TransGas, as he stands beside a souphole. As soon as the excavator ﬁnished cleaning out the ditch, the pipe was lowered in. Besides the swamp area, there was also a road bore across Highway 14, plus crossing several existing TransGas lines.

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S9V 129

15th Annual 2008 Heavy Oil Technical Symposium September 10th & 11th, 2008 Stockade Convention Centre, 5521 49 Avenue - Lloydminster, SK

“Educating the World about Heavy Oil” September 10, 2008

September 11, 2008

• 8:00 a.m.

- Registration

Morning Session Chair - Ryan Rowan & Murray Tluchak

• 8:30 a.m.

- Welcome - Mahesh Makkar

• 8:00 a.m.

- JOSE ALVAREZ-MARTINE, Alberta Research Council “CSI - Cyclic Solvent Lab to Field”

• 9:00 a.m.

- DARRYL CORBIN, Enviroline Group “New Technology for Proactive Corrosion Management”

Morning Session Chair - Bob Mottram • 9:00 a.m.

- ERIK HULM, BP Alaska “CHOPS Progress in Alaska”

• 10:00 a.m. - DAVID BEXTE, Schlumberger “Improved Cementing Practice Prevents Gas Migration and Surface Casing Vent Flow” • 11:00 a.m. - DUSTIN NEWMAN, Husky Energy “Over-Pressurization of the Sparky Zone in Aberfeldy”

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• 10:00 a.m. - JASON ABBATE, Encana “SAGD Fundamentals & Future Growth” • 11:00 a.m. - SHELDON JAHN, Kudu Industries Inc. “The Next Generation of PC Pumps” • 12:00 p.m. - Closing Remarks - Mahesh Makkar

$125.00 Non-Members

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*Note: To accommodate the guest speakers some dates & times may change. Check the web for updated postings.

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For further information, please contact:

Registration will be limited to the first 200 participants, so be sure to register early as the conference is expected to sell out. The format will be informal with overheads or slide presentations, but no formal papers. Open discussions are always encouraged.

Mahesh Makkar, Symposium Chairman, (780) 205-4833 Irene Regner, Secretary/Treasurer (306) 825-1274

PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

A17

Flushby ... the other service rig Edam – In the realm of well servicing, the flushby has become a relatively quick and painless method of bringing a balky well back into production. “A flushby is a cross between a service rig and a pressure truck,” says Ken McConnell, owner of Racken Enterprises, an Edam flushby outfit. Before, a service rig would lift the pump, unseating it, and a pressure truck would push fluid past the pump and into the formation. “Sand is the issue here,” he explains, as sand causes problems in the formation, sump, and pump as well as the tubing. Most wells pump up a share of produced water in general. The problem comes when the water follows sand. Since water doesn’t carry the sand as well as oil, the sand falls out of the oil and causes problems. Soon the well is not producing. “The pumps are designed to lift the sand, but sometimes they get too much and they can’t do it.” A flushby lifts the rods with its derrick, then uses its own tank and pumps to pump into the well. This accomplishes both tasks in one unit. Hot oil from the site is usually used to push the sand back into the formation. However, sometimes a combination of produced water and oil is used. “There are certain things flushbys cannot do,” McConnell says. Pulling pipe, for instance, is possible, but not conventional. “To do a normal flush, you don’t have to pull the rod string out. But it is possible to do so,” he adds. A typical flushby operation will take about one and a half hours. Some are quicker, some are longer. “The flushby is a quick fix. We can do 10 jobs in a day,” McConnell says. Some wells might see a flushby once every six months. Others might be done twice a day. “Wells are like people. Each has

their own personality,” McConnell says. Is it worth it to service the same well twice a day? “Yup, with oil at $140 a barrel,” he says, adding less than one cubic metre of oil will pay for a ﬂush, and some of the wells are making 20 cubic metres a

day. Most wells pump up a share of produced water in general. The problem comes when the water follows sand. Since water doesn’t carry the sand as well as oil, the sand falls out of the oil and causes problems.

A Áushby is a quick Àx, pushing hot Áuid back into a formation and allowing production to resume.

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A18

PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

More levers than hands and feet Unity - In cathedrals of old, pipe organs took highly skilled hands to ﬂy over dozens of knobs, key, levers and pedals in order to create beautiful music. If that organist were a pipeliner, he would operate a live drawworks sideboom. Most sidebooms these days have hydrau-

lic controls – one for the boom line, one for the load line. The old-style machines, the ones that were built a generation or two ago, and are still in service, are much, much more complex, however. At the operator’s hands are a dizzying array of dogs, brakes and clutches. “Most companies

have weeded them out. They think they are too dangerous,” says Doug Williamson, who was running a “live boom” for Flint on a TransGas project at Unity. “They’re not dangerous, if you know what you’re doing.” The tricky part, he explains, is keeping the load line level while

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booming out. “It’s like doing a smoke show in your car.” If the load line dog is released at an inopportune time, the load will freewheel down, to everyone’s peril. Bringing up the boom he explains, “boom in, release the load line dog, engage the boom dog, release the brake a little bit, grab the clutch. . . pull in and in she comes. . .” Such highly skilled work is not easy to break into. Indeed,

Williamson explains that few operators in the past have wanted to pass on the knowledge. That way they reduced the number of people available to do that sort of work, and kept themselves busy. “You had to be tutored,” Williamson says. “You had to have someone willing to take you under their wing.” The old machines are becoming sparse, at least with live drawworks. “This is the ﬁrst live [boom] I’ve sat on

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for three years,” Williamson explains. “The 30-in. job I did last winter, there wasn’t a live boom on it. . . and that made me very sad.” “It’s a lot of fun. You’re busy and you gotta keep your mind on it. But it’s lots of fun,” Williamson says. Using a live tractor to feed a bending machine or on stringing operations, (laying joints of pipe along the right of way) can keep an operator so busy, he doesn’t even notice it’s lunch time, he adds.

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PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

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30 years in service rigs with the whole family involved By Brian Zinchuk Lloydminster – It comes as a little bit of a surprise when she realizes it, but this September will make 30 years in the service rig business for Darryl and Bev Garrison. In those 30 years, they’ve stuck together through the thick and thin, and brought up their three children who are all now part of the business. Garrison Oilwell Servicing Ltd. operates three service rigs out of Lloydminster. Much of their work is in Saskatchewan, but they have worked extensively in Alberta as well. Darryl heads up the operation, while Bev works in the office. Natalie Garrison is bookkeeper, while Chantelle (Garrison) Villenueve is the head office administrator. Chantelle’s husband Shawn is manager of Rig No. 2, while Sheldon Garrison manages Rig No. 3. So while approximately one quarter of their staff is family, it’s not a requirement. “It’s not a prerequisite, no,” Bev says with a smile. But having their children, ages 25 to 30, active in running the business has its upside – a strong interest in keeping it going. “If you can’t trust your kids to look after your business... “ Bev says, her voice trailing off. “We’re lucky to have them. They are very business-oriented.” As for Bev and Darryl, they’re each still married to their first spouse. “You can’t say that too often in this industry,” Bev notes. Continued growth Starting off in 1978, Darryl brought in his experience from pole rigs, which he had worked on since the age of 16. Bev’s father had a small rig company. “Between us, we all decided to go into business and buy a rig,” she says. They were able to buy out her parents in the first year. Darryl operated the rig, which had a crew of three men including himself, working around Lloydminster and Lone Rock. Back then, according to Darryl, a rig could handle perhaps 20 to 30 wells. Now that’s more like 200 to 300. Over the years, they’ve built up the company. Rig No. 2 came online in 1984. “We built our second rig right from the ground up,” Bev says, noting it is still in service. It’s a single double, that can pull single tubing and double rods. Rig No. 3, a double double, was purchased out of California in 1997. That was quite the learning experience, she notes. “We learned a lot about financing, international buying and selling.” Rig No. 4 came online in 2003. Eventually, Rig No. 1 was retired. With a staff averaging 22 to 25, Bev notes, “Our accountant keeps telling us we’re not a small mom and pop operation anymore – you’re a going concern. “Oh, when did that happen?” she asks. Their long term staff includes Arnold Wollmann, Don Deans, William Church, Jeremy Stahl, Sheldon Garrison, Andrew Burt and Ashley Fox. Wary of a bust While their efforts at diversification are still oilpatch related, there is an underlying reason for it. Bev remembers well when times were not so good. They ran a hotel in Marwayne for three years while running their rig at the same time. Darryl even hauled grain for a neighbouring farmer to keep things going at one point. She says there is some humour around the office from the constant calls of people out east, looking to cash in on the boom. “They want to be in on the boom that’s going on out here. “There actually isn’t a boom,” she says. Indeed, Bev says oil companies have cut back on servic-

ing, and they are down 15 per cent this year. She’s heard other companies are down as much as 30 per cent. “We were busier when the price was $50 a barrel than we are now at $140 a barrel.” “We have seen our share of boom and busts. You look at the boom to give you that cushion you will need for the bust that you know will come.” Spiral Lift Garrison has a couple sideline businesses, an attempt to diversify. One product they’ve developed is spiral rod boxes, sold under the name Spiral Lift Tools.. It’s a onefoot long section of rod that is added between rods at regular intervals, including between every rod. The segment has a heavy-duty flighting that provides one twist in one foot of rod. The flighting itself is as thick as your pinkie finger. This is not your grandpa’s grain auger. These tools perform two functions, according to Darryl. First, they centre the rod in the tubing, reducing tube wear. Second, they assist in lifting the product to the surface. “It helps take pressure off the pump at the bottom.” Darryl says there was some concern developing such a product would be cutting their own throats as a service rig company. However, by making it easier to bring heavy product to the surface, it allows oil companies to bring into production heavy wells that they otherwise wouldn’t look at. Another diversification has been a 30-ft.-long screen to protect pumps underground. This fall they plan on launching another new product that is in the works. Finally, they also offer mats for sale and lease – some of which Pipeline News observed in use on a TransGas project at Unity in late June. Garrison’s office is hardly noticeable in downtown Lloydminster. They do not have a shop, but rather get any necessary work done of their rigs either in the field or at local businesses. “The local” is important to them, as she notes having sent only a few maintenance jobs to Edmonton over the years. The rest have all been done around Lloydminster.

These spiral rod boxes developed by Garrison Oilwell Servicing allows heavier oil to be produced, while reducing wear on tubing.

A20

PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

From a truck with no heater to several businesses: Fred North By Brian Zinchuk Lloydminster – Some people build houses, ﬂip them and build more. Fred North does something similar, except with oilpatch trucking-related businesses. His start was small. He began driving truck in 1968, hauling water for Murphy Oil. It was a 1958 International, he recalls, with no heater. “And that was the coldest winter on record,” he says. From there he bought his ﬁrst truck, a GM single axle 427 gas tractor in 1974, working as a lease operator. He did that until 1990, ending up with three trucks. “[With] no hour restrictions back then, you could work as long as you wanted, twenty hour days, six days a week,” he says.

He bought out Temor Oil Services in 1990, starting a trend of building up a company before selling. At the time, Temor had 32 units, heavy oil haulers focusing on crude and a little road oil. “We built it up a bit, and bought an old shop,” he says. By the time Temor was sold to Mullen in November, 2002, there were 149 units running. He made the sale because he was ﬁnding it hard to get good people, and “the big guys wanted to buy us.” Sometimes he wonders if he should have held onto it, though. That turned around into a purchase of T’N’T Tank & Trailer Repair, a little repair shop on the north end of Lloydminster. It’s not so little any-

Fred North spent a lot of time pulling tankers before selling them at T’N’T Tank & Trailer Repair Ltd., one of several companies he heads up in the Lloydminster area. The list of companies looks like a phone book.

more, with a recent 10bay building constructed on the western edge of Lloydminster. March, 2002 saw the purchase of Ventures North in Waseca, providing vac, pressure and ﬂushby units. It was sold

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to Winterhawk in 2004. He kept the shop, but sold the equipment. A purchase of 70 per cent of Leachman Enterprises in Provost added rig moving, winch trucks and picker trucks. He then bought 70 per cent of Mercury Ventures Group Inc., which included Excel Insulations, Klinger Building Systems, Custom Scaﬀold and Select Soft Covers. Select makes insulation blankets that cover piping in a manner similar to a quilted winter front on a pickup truck. T’N’T became the main operation, selling primarily tanker trailers. While they specialize in tankers, they also handle utility and stock trailers. “Anything that’s a trailer, we deal with,” he says. Currently they have about 75 trailers out on

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lease. You’ll find North on the phone, arranging sales, but he adds, “I do janitor work, put wheels on trailers.” He’s just started a new finance company, Ventures North Financial Group Inc. Aaron Davison is his partner on the finance side. North says the secret to his growth has been good people and good managers. “You can’t keep good people by paying lots of money. That doesn’t work. It’s got to be more than money. “Certain people follow you. I don’t know why, but they do.” Lilly Goodwin is one of those people, working with North for three decades as his financial supervisor. Her business cards read like a telephone listing, including all the companies

North runs that she does the books for. Goodwin remembers well processing the tickets for those 149 units. When North does something, he does it big, she notes. Growing up on a three quarter section farm, he notes, “My father taught me – never spend money you haven’t got.” The 1980s, for instance, were deadly, in his words. You don’t want to over expand, he said. When he bought Temor in 1990, he says it was pretty well paid for when he started. That was a lesson his father had learned from the experience of his more ﬂamboyant grandfather. “First you make the money, then you spend it.” “Like the guy said, the harder I work, the luckier I get.”

PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

A21

Tank manufacturing take a leap Kitscoty, Alta. – Heavy oil storage tank manufacturing is about to take a serious leap forward with new processes being set up at Kitscoty, Alta., just west of Lloydminster. While robotics have long been used in automotive manufacturing and have become commonplace in mainline pipeline construction welding, Automated Tank Manufacturers plans to bring similar processes to the manufacturing of the ubiquitous oil tank. Eventually a lot of the welding will be handled by robotic welders, according to Joe Bowser, who heads up the company. The result should be a higher-quality product that can be produced with significantly fewer people, an important consideration in a labour crunch. The key change in the process is two deep, wide holes in the manufacturing plant floor. These holes allow tanks to be raised, lowered and spun around, all in one place. As each course of steel is added to the tank, the tank is adjusted to accommodate the welder. The plan is to have one semi-automated hole and one automated hole, in that order. The first crucial piece of hardware is the lifting, rotating table. That lowers, raises and spins the tank in the hole. This will allow for what Bowser characterizes as “semi-automation.” Human welders will be able to control the movement of the tank as they weld. A feeding device will push steel in, forming the circle. The welder remains in place while the tank rotates at

his discretion. This should be in place in September, he says. Currently tanks are raised and lowered by the gantry crane. Grit Industries is doing the fabrication work on the semi-automated systems. PFM, now part of Bar Engineering, is handling the engineering end. “Everything we’re doing here is being built and machined in Lloydminster,” Bowser says. The next phase is to add robotic welders. These welders will handle both the welds running around the circumference of the tank and the longitudinal welds. Automation should be in place

The Àrst production run of tanks, left, awaits insulation and painting.

by November, according to Bowser. Eventually both holes will be automated, he says. The ﬁrst hole can handle 400 to 1,000-bbl. tanks, while the second will be able to go up to 2,000-bbl. While the majority of current demand is for 1,000bbl. tanks, Bowser says there are signs 1,500-bbl. tanks will come into demand.

“We’re ready and able to do it now.” Double overhead gantry cranes move the tanks about and extend into the paint and insulating shop north of the main building. With everything in place, he projects an ability to produce two tanks a day, painted and insulated. To do so will require 14 staff in the shop and another five administrative people. That’s about a third the staffing of a competitor for similar production capability, he asserts. “It’s not an inexpensive process to get to where we are. Costs, time, engineering have been substantial.” Once in place, the method will reduce steel handling by over 50 per cent, Bowser says, “which really brings in a lot of safety factors.” The company has had some startup hiccups, common in business start-ups. “Growing pains have been part of any business,” he acknowledges. There were issues in securing a steel supply, according to Bowser. High demand for steel overseas has led to deliveries being delayed eight to 12 weeks, depending on where you are on the grid of ordering, he says. Mills are already packed with current clients. “They’ve basically rationed the supply of steel,” he says. “We were very lucky in the last couple weeks,” he said in early July, noting two steel suppliers have come forward. There were also issues with staff. The initial hire were all laid off, and they have been hiring back slowly. Bowser

Welder John McGovern grinds around the Àretube during Automated Tank Manufacturers Àrst production run. The tank sits in a hole, where it will be able to raise, lower and rotate at the welder’s control.

says particular attention is being paid to team building and he conducts extensive security background checking before someone is hired. He wants a “work-with” attitude, not a “work-for” attitude. The site is 22 acres on the east side of Kitscoty, with ﬁve of those acres excavated and built. Another ﬁve acres are expected to be developed this fall for tank storage. Automated Tanks is privately held, mostly by local Lloydminster investors, according to Bowser.

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A22

PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

Wear resistance sprayed on

The beam-like spray of high velocity oxygen, gas and air plus injected powder allows machined parts to be thermally coated in wear-resistant material that greatly extends the life of the part, according to Brad Matthews of Endeavor Machining Solutions. Photo by Brian Zinchuk

Lloydminster – If you could make people’s heads as hard as this coating makes steel or aluminum, hardhats might be a thing of the past. Endeavor Machining Solutions of Lloydminster is bringing a new thermal spray coating service to the Lloydminster oilpatch, improving the wear resistance of new and used machined parts. In a process called High Velocity Oyxgen Fuel (HVOF), a special powder is blasted onto a metallic surface. Because the spray coating is so fast, the metallurgical properties of the base metal are not altered. The result is a dense, hard, wear-resistant coating, according to Brad Matthews, the machinist who owns and operates Endeavor. Endeavor has been in operation since October, 2007. They have four machinists on staff. “There’s nobody else in the Midwest who does this,” Matthews says. One would have to go to Saskatoon or Edmonton to have the treatment done otherwise, he adds. Sprayed on, a matte finish is the result, with a texture similar to 320 grit sandpaper. That finish can be machined to a polished finish, yet with a 68+ Rockwell hardness. The resulting finish is good for abrasive wear on surfaces, he says. The thickness of application can vary from five to 25 thousandths of an inch. The bond is mechanical, not metallurgical, he notes, with less than one per cent porosity. The powder is a mix of tungsten carbide, cobalt and chrome in the most common formulation for abrasive wear applications. Matthews notes there can

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be a hundred different powder products applied. The application is different than chroming, he notes, in that chrome is more prone to flaking and corrosion from underneath. It is also a much faster process to apply and turn around. There are also no nasty chemical baths and all their associated environmental issues. “So far we’re using it for any kind of high-pressure seal application such as progressive cavity pumps.” Some applications he notes are rotary stuffing box shafts and pipeline transfer shafts. But does it last? “I haven’t had one failure. Nothing. I probably had 500 pieces so far, and haven’t had any returns.” Other processes Matthews sees growth in the coating business in Endeavor’s future. They currently offer sprayed and fused coatings that are used for reciprocating plungers and wear sleeves. Combustion wire spray is useful in dimensional restoration of worn parts. Instead of throwing a part away, it may be possible to rebuild it and actually improve it, according to Matthews. “There’s not a lot you can’t fix. It just takes figuring it out.” To complement spray applications, Matthews says automation is on its way. He hopes to have a robot within three years. Robotics would lead to a dramatic increase in capacity. It would also go a long way in countering the shortage of skilled machinists. Those people will always be needed, he notes, to reverse engineer, repair and manufacture parts.

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PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

A23

Growth fuels two moves in 5.5 years Lloydminster – In five and a half years, Apex Oilfield Services(2000) Ltd. has had to move twice to accommodate continued growth. The finishing touches are being put on its new location, just three and a half years after building a new facility on the south side of Highway 16, west of Lloydminster. Apex is a rental service company that focuses on surface equipment primarily for drilling rigs, plus meeting service rig needs. Their lines include trailers, tanks and gen sets. The new facility takes them up to roughly 15,000 sq.-ft. of shop space and 5,000 sq.-ft. of administration space. That’s up from 6,500 sq.ft. in the current facility. The yard goes from four acres to 15 acres. The move takes them a couple kilometres closer to the city, just west of Home

Depot. The move-in date is planned for late August, according to Brad Zomar, area manager for Apex. “We’ve outgrown this one,” he says of the current facility. “We’re running 200-some pieces of equipment.” Breakup would be particularly crowded, and they

needed to rent storage space to accommodate all the equipment coming back. “We’ll have enough room there,” Zomar says, noting the new facility is being built big enough for expansion. Their current staﬀ is around 14. Zomar projects they’ll probably add a few more as they grow into the building. Most of Apex’s Lloydminster staﬀ are service technicians. Scott Builders of Red Deer is the general contractor. Mid-July saw windows installed and the parking lot graded for Apex OilÀeld Service (2000) Ltd.’s new facility just west of Lloydminster. The new facility, triple the size of the previous one, was needed to facilitate continued growth.

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Triland Becomes Three Again The Family trio have bigger plans for Triland Welding & Machine Ltd. - Watch for them in the future The Tri in Triland Welding & Machine Ltd. came from the three founding owners in 1980. Tim and Susan Sawarin bought Triland in 1992, after Tim had been a machinist/ foreman there for 9 years. Since then, he has been raising and then training his two award-winning machinists, Katharine Messmer (nee Sawarin) and Adam Sawarin, to join the team, putting the Tri back into Triland. Katy and Adam left the Sawarin name on some hardware at the SIAST Kelsey Institute in Saskatoon. Katy received an unprecedented 100% on her journeyman practical exam and the John A. Merz Memorial Scholarship in 4th year machining. Adam followed 5 years later winning the centennial scholarship award in his 2nd year. Tim’s 28 years of maintenance and repair

experience means he can Àgure out any unique situation. Katy is the main CNC operator, but still prefers to manually fabricate the Ànicky high tolerance pieces. Adam still enjoys the large machining jobs, but also has the natural talent required in the welding department, where he spends most of his time fabricating and repairing new and old pieces. Both Katy and Adam also have strong drafting skills which is a huge asset when designing projects. Tim’s insistence that all apprentices do more then push brooms means that all apprentices can improve their skills far quicker. This attitude of allround learning has meant that another apprentice won an award at a Skills Canada Competition. Triland Welding and Machine’s walk-in-

service makes it easier for customers to design the trial and error stages of any new concept. The shop caters to the oil, agricultural, trucking and construction industries. They have manual and CNC lathes, mills, drills, iron worker, pipethreaders, horizontal and vertical band-saws, inshop welders and a 157 ton press. Triland repairs drivelines, thread repairs, Áange, pipe and barrel threading, straighten cultivator shanks, resurface grain rollers, fabricate new or repairs old hydraulic cylinders, bearing surfaces, fabricate calfactor oriÀces, casing spiders and drift pigs, the list is endless, including carrying a variety of steel supply. The Family trio have bigger plans for Triland Welding & Machine Ltd. - Watch for them in the future.

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A24

PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

Flushby operator quadruples units By Brian Zinchuk

Edam and the RM of Turtle River acquired this 2001 Kenworth Àre truck this spring. Flushby operator Racken Enterprises Ltd. of Edam contributed $12,000 toward the unit, a thousand dollars each month for a year.

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Edam – It’s only been two years since Ken and Rachel McConnell, the Rac and Ken in Racken, went out on their own after Rachel’s father decided to retire from the flushby business. In that time, Racken Enterprises Ltd. has gone from two flushbys to three, and have added two pressure trucks, a body vac unit, mobile pumping unit and steamer. Ken worked as a lease-operator with his father-in-law Alvin Jakubowski’s AJ Flushby out of Lashburn from 1997 to 2006. “In October [2006], we broke off and became Racken,” McConnell explains. “We were the only flushbys based out of Edam,” he says. “It keeps us pretty steady,” McConnell explains, noting their area of operations runs from the Celtic field north of Maidstone to Edam. Most of their work is within a 160 km radius. Since heading off on their own, they’ve set up in a new shop on the east side of Edam. McConnell and five others went together to build the four-bay shop with enough room for 16 trucks. Racken uses half of it. But even with a new building, that’s not enough. When Pipeline News visited in late July, foundation work was already underway for another building to the north, a new shop and wash bay. It’ll provide shelter for new units, as McConnell notes a plan to expand. “Our philosophy has been go with what you got first, then go from there,” he explains, talking about the new units that have been added. “We’ve had a good couple years.” ɸ Page 25

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P.O. Box 1155, Lloydminster, AB T9V 1G1 Email: csoil@mwwireless.ca Clayton “C” Gessner, C.E.T./A.Sc.T. /A.P.I.653 Manager/Owner

PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

A25

Racken keeping up with the times ɺ Page A24 “I’d like to say we to open one on Edam’s ployees drive in from the Battlefords. could attribute it to do- Main Street. As if runing good work. ning a growing It’s manpower. “I’d like to say we could business isn’t I’ve got some reenough, on top ally good guys, attribute it to doing good some coming on work. It’s manpower. I’ve got of being a husband and dad eight years. They some really good guys, some to three kids, look after stuff coming on eight years. They McConnell also when I can’t be sits on the vilthere.” look after stuff when I can’t lage council, and As owner, be there.” is one of about a McConnell will Ken McConnell still go out on a dozen volunteer firefighters. That truck. He thinks civic duty is recustomers appreflected in a recent ciate seeing him Most of those staff donation, with Racken get dirty along with everyone else. A staff of 18, are local, but after a while, contributing $12,000 to it means more time spent “that pool kinda ran dry,” a newer fire truck for the in the office. They had he says. Now some em- community.

“

”

Two years ago, Racken Enterprises Ltd. of Edam spun off from AJ Flushby with two units. Now they operate eight, including three Áushbys, two pressure trucks, a body vac unit, mobile pumping unit and steamer.

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A26

PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

EV-DO opens up wireless to the bald prairie By Brian Zinchuk Unity- You’re working from your SUV oﬃce again, laptop on the passenger seat as you’re sitting on an ap-

proach. In the middle of bald prairie and surrounded by pumpjacks, you’re able to get download speeds close to what you get at home.

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It’s hard to see in the sunlight, but when the EVDO symbol shows up on your cell phone, wireless downloads are up to 20x faster than before. Kindersley, Kerrobert and Unity saw EV-DO expansion on the SaskTel wireless network in late June. This Flint pipeline crew was under the EVDO umbrella at Unity in late June. Photo by Brian Zinchuk

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That’s the promise of EV-DO, a third generation cellular technology that recently went online in the Kindersley, Kerrobert and Unity areas. Consultants of the world can rejoice, if they have an EV-DO modem plugged into their laptop. SaskTel cellular network customers in Kindersley, Kerrobert and Unity now have access to faster data speeds thanks to the new EV-DO Revision A enhancement announced in late June. EV-DO technology enables a host of wireless data services, including web browsing, content downloads and video streaming. This expansion is part of an $11.3 million project to expand or improve EV-DO service in 64 locations across the province by the end of 2008. "SaskTel's commitment to offering its customers world-class wireless services is evident from this latest improvement," Crown Corporations Minister Ken Cheveldayoff said. "This project to deliver improved wireless data service to residents and businesses across the province will help bring SaskTel's total investment in digital cellular service to over $170 million." Michelle Englott, spokesperson for SaskTel, told Pipeline News that the Kindersley area was targeted to service the oil patch. While Lloydminster is not specifically listed for EV-DO expansion this year, all the area around Lloyd on the Saskatchewan side of the border is listed. EV-DO Rev A is a third generation network technology available to Code Division Multiple Access cellular carriers that will support peak average upload speeds ranging between 350 kbps and 550 kbps, and peak average download speeds ranging between 2000 kbps and 2300 kbps. In order to use EV-DO Rev A, the customer must be using a EV-DO Rev A capable device in the EV-DO Rev A locations. If customers roam outside of the EV-DO coverage area, the device will switch to 1X coverage automatically. SaskTel's entire digital network has been enabled with 1X functionality since 2003.

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PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

Invention turns miserable 15 minute job into seconds Lloydminster - Heavy cables for winching routinely need to be serviced or replaced, be it on a bed truck or a dozer or any other piece of iron that relies on cable. Whenever the end is

cut off and a new end is established, putting the cable bell back on the line became a tiresome struggle involving a screwdriver and a hammer, and could take anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes. It is not a fun job. An invention by Waseca heavy mechanic Henry Kwasny takes that frustrating fact of life and reduces it to under a minute. Kwasny works at the Flint Transco shop in Lloydminster. The Bell Buddy is a special tool that takes a lot of the manhandling out of the process, greatly simplifying lining up the strands of the cable. It’s made out of flat steel, and looks something like an elongated pingpong paddle. In the flat part are six slots that narrow as they get closer to the middle. The slots are aligned in a pinwheel fashion. A strand is inserted into each slot, then the handle is twisted around – one direction to tighten, the other to loosen. The old way of putting a cable bell on, Wedges can be popped in easas demonstrated by James Northey, is ily, and with another twist, the typically a tiresome affair, manipulating wedge and strands are ready to the cable strands with a screwdriver while be seated into the bell. A couple holding them together by hand. Photo by Brian Zinchuk wacks with a hammer, and the

bell is in place. foreign patents, according to Kwasny. The usual method, as demonstrat- While the idea came to him a few years ed by James Northey, a bed truck driver ago, he’s just now started to actively who works with Kwasny, is not nearly market the product. as easy. It involves gripping the strands by hand, pulling them tight and manipulating them with a screw driver. “It takes a while,” Northey says. “It would be a good 15 minutes at least.” He notes he has to splice the line every service, usually at 300 hours, but it can be as often as once a week if the line breaks. “Out in the ﬁeld, it’s a pain to do,” he says. Indeed, Northey’s so convinced of the usefulness of this tool, he jokes, “I tried to buy shares in Bell Buddy, but he wouldn’t bite.” “It really proves itself on used cable,” Kwasny says. “The object of this tool is to hold every strand evenly and in place. No fuss, no muss, no cut up hands. The Bell Kwasny says it will work Buddy, invented by Henry Kwasny of Wasewith cables from 3/4 inches ca, turns a 15 to 30 minute swearing and to 2 1/2 inches in diameter. cursing affair into a minute job. The special Patents are pending for wrench aligns cable strands into perfect poboth Canada and the United sition for the bell and wedges to be installed at the end. Photo by Brian Zinchuk States, and he’s working on

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PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

Out of the ashes, Mid¿eld arises Unity – It’s perhaps fitting that Midfield Supply ULC’s Unity location is in a new red building. That’s because in March, 2007, the old building went up in flames. “They don’t know, they never found out,” says Terry Laturnus, manager, when asked what caused the fire. “Right to the ground. Nothing left,” he adds. In that blaze, 11,000 sq. ft. when up in smoke, along with three semis, two service trucks, a skid-steer loader and a tractor with a blade. The back half of the building was a tire shop. Laturnus started the Unity location in 2004 as an agency for Midfield. He was bought out in September, 2007, and the location was turned into a company store. Laturnus built the new building, and leased it to Midfield. June 26 was the grand opening of the new 7,500 sq. ft. facility, complete with vendor displays and a barbecue. Construction had started in October, 2007, and the building was ready for operations in January, 2008. Up until that point, Midfield operated out of a for-

mer Saskatchewan Wheat Pool service centre on an interim basis. “We sell quite a bit to farmers,” Laturnus notes. When asked if it is readily apparent whether someone walking in the door is a farmer or oilman, he notes, “Farmers still price everything out, then come back. “Oilﬁeld – we’re the only game in town. “Most of the people we get in here are regular customers. We know them all.” Things have been steady up until the early summer, he says. “There’s no big projects. This summer, there hasn’t been a lot of projects yet. “We keep hearing it’s going to boom,” he adds.

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Pipeline consultant Lyle Liebrecht, right, stops by the new MidÀeld Supply location in Unity to pick up some supplies while on a stint at home. Terry Laturnus, left, Corrine Van De Meutter and Ian Blodder make up the Unity staff for MidÀeld.

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PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

A29

CE Franklin customer appreciation Lloydminster’s CE Franklin is sponsoring Codey McMurrach on the WPCA Chuckwagon Circuit. The chuckwagon was out for CE Franklin’s customer appreciation day July 10. From left are: top Brad Empey, Rick Dyck; back row - Tyler Bosch, Steven Spates, Cliff Blais, Emile Bourassa, George Barr, Codey McCurrach; front - Angie Barr, Melissa Hemmelgarn, Brenda Zinger.

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Melissa Hemmelgarn, left, Angie Barr and Tyler Bosch of CE Franklin Lloydminster cook up pancakes during the company’s customer appreciation breakfast and WPCA Chuckwagon on July 10. Photos by Daniela Tobler

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A30

PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

Sending it back to where it came from A vac truck driver unloads at the CCS Unity Cavern Facility. Slop can be seen gushing out of the back of the truck. On the right is the mechanical water cannon arm that rinses out the empty trucks.

Liquid Rig Wash Liquid Rig Wash - a non-phosphate biodegradable, liquid cleaner-degreaser, safe on clothing and painted surfaces, can be used with high pressure washers. • 205 litre drum $387.00 • 20 litre pail $47.94 ALSO AVAILABLE: • Powered & Waterbased Degreasers • Solvent Based Degreasers • Citrus Based Degreasers • Lubricants and Coolants • Rig Wash Products

Unity – With heavy oil production, you are guaranteed to get sand, and lots of it. There’s only so many things you can do with this sand. Road spreading doesn’t make very good roads. It can be processed into coldmix asphalt. Or it can be sent back where it came from, underground. That’s what CCS Midstream Services does at its Unity Cavern Facility. Nestled beside the Sifto salt mine, it takes advantage of salt caverns leftover from the solution mining of salt. That salt is used for everything from melting road ice to water softeners to

the kitchen table. Caverns may be something of a misnomer, however, in that they are not empty. A brine solution ﬁlls the void, and must be pumped out to make room for storage underground. The brine is then pumped into another deep well. Balancing out what comes in and what goes out is an important part of the operation. It’s not just sand that gets sent underground. If it can be suspended in a slurry, down it goes. “If it’ll go down, we pump it down,” says, operator Mike LeClare, one of the operators.

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The receiving pad can take up to three trucks at a time. It takes about 20 minutes for a tri-axle vac truck to empty. As they come and go, there’s seems to be something missing. There is – the sound of the vibrator on the truck shaking the last of the load out. Each receiving bay has a remote-controlled water canon on a mechanical arm. It reaches around and ﬂushes out the inside of the tank with brine water. Some fresh water is used to keep the pad clean, but otherwise most of the water is recycled brine. The water cannons were developed by Grit Industries of Lloydminster. From the receiving pad, the product is sent from the collection hopper through a series of pumps and down into the two caverns in use. “It’s not all that complicated of a system,” says LeClare. ɸ Page A31

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PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

A31

Produced sand might be a messy business, but the CCS Unity Cavern Facility is as pristine as a health-care facility.

FOR SALE

Replacing what’s removed ɺ Page A30 On average, each hour can see 110 cubic metres being pumped down. There are aboveground tanks for brine storage and oil that is brought back from the cavern. That oil is treated and sold. The facility is a sweet facility, with no sour gas allowed. Screenings collected are sent to the Marshall landﬁll. If you’ve spent much time around sand operations, you know they can be incredibly messy. What’s striking about the CCS Unity operation is how clean it is. From the pavement to the receiving bays to the shop, the whole facility sparkles as if it were a hospital. Staﬀ remove their shoes and

put on slippers when they enter the oﬃce. “It’s a state of mind. People don’t like working in a dirty environment,” says Dale Fittes, facility business manager. “It’s part of our culture.” The facility currently operates two caverns, and is negotiating on a third. One has a capacity of 625,000 cubic metres, while the second has 1.5 million cubic metres. After 11 years in operation, the ﬁrst is roughly 80 per cent full, while the second is around 50 per cent. They see an average of 40 to 50 trucks a day. Fittes says salt caverns provide good hydrocarbon storage, having healing properties and being self-sealing. He adds they are much more

secure than tanks on the surface. “We have no product stored on the surface,” according to Fittes. “As product comes it goes away.” He adds this process helps remove producers’ liability. “We have a very environmentally responsible solution,” he says, removing products from the surface and putting it back where it came from. “You’ve heard of cradle to grave? A cavern is the final grave.” CCS has 14 staff at Unity, and Fittes notes there is a very low turnover. He adds the company is active in the community, and offers two $1500 scholarships each year for anyone entering

environmental sciences. This year one went to Macklin, and the other went to Wilkie. New

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A32

PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

#4899 2008 Chevrolet Tahoe LTZ GM Co Car

#4953A 2003 Chevrolet Trailblazer Ext V8

#4885 2008 GMC SLE Yukon XL 9 Passenger

#C 2008 Chevrolet LTZ Crew Dually 4X4 Diesel

#4973A 2007 Chevrolet Tahoe

#4949B 2007 Durango Hemi

WAS 67,100

WAS 17,500

WAS 55,180

SALE $49,985*

SALE $16,365*

SALE $45,986*

SALE $52,900*

SALE $32,500

SALE $32,500*

#4897A 2002 Explorer

#4692A 1999 GMC SLT Yukon

#4787B 1999 Chev Tahoe

#4504B 1991 Explorer Eddie Bauer

#4876B 2005 GMC Envoy

#4635A 2002 Jeep TJ.

WAS 9,500

WAS 11,900

AS IS Runs 4x4 good

WAS 19,900

SALE $9,215*

SALE $6,804*

SALE $9,987*

SALE $873*

SALE $16,928.*

SALE $8,900*

#4950A 2005 Chevrolet LS Ext 4x4 Z71

#5002A 2006 GMC SLT 4X4 Crew Diesel

#4948A 2005 GMC SLE Ext 4X4

#4944A 2006 GMC SLE 4X4 Crew

#4980A 2004 Chevrolet ZR2 Blazer 4X4

#4855A 2007 Chevrolet Uplander LT2

Was 21,000

was 19,900

SALE $21,840*

SALE $44,000*

SALE $18,962*

SALE $18,790*

SALE $16,000*

SALE $20,496*

#4976A 2007 Chevrolet LT Crew 4x4 Diesel

#CRHA 2002 GMC SLT Ext 4X4

#4988A 2003 Buick Rendezvous

#4327A 2003 Chevrolet LT H/D 1/2 Crew 4X4

#4849A 1998 F250 3/4 Reg Cab

#4708B 1998 Chevrolet LT Diesel 4x4 Ext

WAS 16,500

WAS $4,900

was 8,500

SALE $43,000*

SALE $14,500*

SALE $10,500*

SALE 13,900*

SALE $3,431*

SALE $7,540*

#4971A 2005 GMC SLE Yukon XL 4x4

#4894A 2005 GMC SLE Crew 4x4

#4932A 2005 Chevrolet LS Crew 4X4

#4926B 1997 Chevrolet 2wd Reg Cab

#4841B 2003 F150 Supercab 4x4

#4990A 2008 Chevrolet Equinoz Sport

Was 24,500

WAS 24,000

WAS 26,000

WAS 28,000

WAS 14,500

WAS 26,000

SALE $22,948*

SALE $21,984*

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SALE 3,928*

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SALE $24,620*

#4922 GMC Canyon Crew 4x4

#4989A Pontiac GT Torrent AWD

#4785 Pontiac Torrent All Wheel Drive

#4817 Pontiac Torrent

#4847 GMC W/T Reg Cab 2wd

#4578 Chevrolet W/T Crew Diesel 4x4

33,740.00

31,020.00

28,825.00

36,905.00

WAS 27,500

SALE $29,900 or ask for 0%

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#4614 Pontiac Solstice GXP

#5011A Buick Allure

SALE $29,040 or ask for 0% SALE $27,332 or ask for 0% SALE $23,250 or ask for 0% #4559 Chevrolet Impala LT

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56,615.00

SALE 41,988 or ask for 0% #4669A 2002 Pontiac Grand Prix GT

4115.00

WAS 21,000

30645.00 Apply for Eco Rebate

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36325.00

WAS 9,500

SALE $37,900 WITH 0%

SALE $ 20,230

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#4920A 2002 Focus Wagon

#5012A 2008 Chevrolet Impala

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#5013A 2008 Pontiac Grand Prix

#4076 2006 Pontiac Grand Prix GT Demo

SALE $21,000

SALE $19,900*

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#4911B 2004 Chevrolet Impala LS

#4104R 2007 Chevrolet HHR LS

#4734B 2007 Chevrolet HHR LT

#4024R 2006 Chevrolet HHR LT

WAS 23,600

WAS 19,500

WAS 20,000

SALE $ 11,000*

SALE 17,500*

SALE $16,497*

SALE $14,976*

#5010A 2008 Chevrolet Cobalt

WAS 39,140.

SALE $5,900* #4865A 2001 Chevrolet Z24

WAS 8,500

SALE $6,121*

SALE $18,000 #CBL 1998 Honda Prelude

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PIPELINE NEWS

B-Section August 2008

Saskatchewan’s Petroleum Monthly

charts growth for investors, communities By Geoﬀ Lee Estevan – The TriStar Oil & Gas Ltd. story in the Bakken reads like a hot summer novel about energy. The plot is fast moving with excitement bubbling over drilling, takeovers and production numbers that have investors on the edge of their seats. Since it started exploring and drilling in the Bakken last August, the company`s stock has zoomed from around $6 to nearly $21 by mid June. In just two and half years, TriStar has gone from producing 500 barrels of oil a day to over 11,000 in southeast Saskatchewan, thanks in part to acquiring Kinwest Corp., Arista Energy Ltd., and Bulldog Resources Inc. earlier this year and Real Resources in 2007. TriStar also has an aggressive drilling program. In the Bakken, TriStar has more than 65 producing wells and will add another 67 (net) to its list by year end or 119 (gross) including partner wells. Corporate production numbers including Alberta ﬁgures are 20,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day with a target of 23,000 by the end of 2008. Production manager Jim Larter in Estevan sees more blue sky ahead, especially for the Bakken. “We are a company on the move. It’s exciting. We want growth. We will continue to grow by the drill bit and by acquisition,” he said. “With the acquisitions we have done, we’ve realized some good drilling inventory. There’s been some great upside with those. “The focus has shifted to the Bakken. They’re calling this the biggest new oil play in North America. There were companies that tried to drill the Bakken in the past, but the technology to get the oil out of the

TriStar Oil & Gas Ltd.’s production manager, Jim Larter is bullish on the growth potential of his publicly-traded company that has 443 drilling locations in the Bakken oil play.

formation wasn’t there. With the new selective fracing tools, it’s just opened up to a new world of opportunities in the Bakken. We’re getting anywhere from 100 to 300 barrels of oil equivalent per day with the new wells that are coming on. The Bakken is a tight zone. It`s tough to get the oil out of the formation, but with new frac technology, it has made all the world of difference. The reserve life it adds to our company is just incredible.” TriStar estimates that there is more than three billion barrels of oil in the ground in the Bakken or three to ﬁve thousand barrels of oil equivalent in place per section of land. TriStar has 130 sections of Crown and

freehold land with 443 net unbooked drilling locations, assuming only four wells per section. The average recovery rate is pegged at 500 mboe per section, or only 10 per cent of the high-value light oil. “The lighter the oil, the better the price, said Larter. It’s the best price you can get for the Bakken oil. It is good for blending with other heavier oils to bring up the quality.” TriStar’s oil producing activity is centred on Stoughton, Forget, Kisbey and Star Valley with six active rigs contracted from companies like Eagle Drilling Service Ltd., Ensign Energy Services Ltd., Lakota Drilling and Advance Drilling Ltd. “Our company philosophy is to spend ‘in or around’ our cash flow,” said Larter. “Obviously, the price of oil is incredible. If we can keep getting the cash flow we are from our barrels, we will add drilling rigs as we go.” As for land sales, Larter said, “If we can add to our land base and it fits into our production, then absolutely we’ll look at it seriously. We look everywhere. Yes, we have had to pay a premium, but only if the economics are still there. We are very fortunate to have a nice land base with a long reserve life. ” TriStar has a budget of $240 million this year for southeast Saskatchewan with $150 million of that earmarked for the Bakken, including plans to finance the building of two new batteries in Star Valley and Handsworth to go with ones in Freestone and Kisbey. “We are reviewing our options to build a new gas plant for 2009,” said Larter. The gas volumes we are getting with these wells makes a gas plant a good project. It`s all to do with the Bakken. A lot of that money will be spent over the next several years on drilling and infrastructure” Asked about the impact of oil and gas production on surrounding communities, Larter said, “These communities are benefitting because of oil and gas and have been for last few years. The industry is giving young people a reason to stay in our province and keep these communities thriving. The Bakken has revitalized southeast Saskatchewan.” TriStar opened its Estevan office in January and now has over 40 employees and contract operators. “Some of our employees came by acquisition,” said Larter, who doesn’t discount the possibility of TriStar being a buyout target down the road. “If the right deal comes along is TriStar here in three years? If it’s good for the shareholders and the timing is right, then absolutely we’d look at it.” But our plan is that we are in it for the long term.” Jack Soloshy, a TriStar production foreman, explains the functions of his company`s new Freestone battery near Stoughton where oil and water is separated and gas is Áared.

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PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

Crescent Point ups spending while the going is good Calgaryâ&#x20AC;&#x201C; Crescent Point Energy Trust is on a drilling tear with oil prices at record highs and has increased its capital spending for 2008 by 89 per cent from $225 million to $425 million accordingly. A news release from June 16 stated the majority of the expenditure increases, â&#x20AC;&#x153;...will accelerate development of the Bakken resource play, which will further extend the Trustâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s dominance in the play and capitalize on record high

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oil prices.â&#x20AC;? Crescent Point is the largest oil producer in southeast Saskatchewan and its operations in the Bakken play cover 35 townships. The company anticipates an accelerated drilling pace in the Bakken will hike production to more than 37,500 barrels of oil a day at the end of 2008. The company will spend approximately $255million in 2008 on drilling and completions in the Bakken. The drilling program has a goal to drill up to 174 (139.7 net) wells in total including 110 (93.4 net) Bakken horizontal wells. Crescent Point had planned to drill a total of 140 (105.7 net) wells and 79 (65.5 net) Bakken horizontals prior to the budget revision. Plans also call for Crescent Point to fracture stimulate up to 130 (114.4 net) Bakken horizontal wells. Crescent has a current inventory of 150 Bakken horizontals for stimulation. The release also stated the revised budget calls for Crescent Point to increase its spending on land, facilities and seismic activities from $45 million to $170 with most of the investment earmarked for the Bakken including the acquisition of more undeveloped land. Approximately $80 million will be spent on facilities including a capacity expansion of the ViewďŹ eld gas plant from six million cubic feet per day to 15 mmcf/d, strategic battery consolidations and on gathering lines construction as the Bakken resource expands. Crescent Point plans to further expand the ViewďŹ eld gas plant to 30 mmcf/d in mid 2009. Crescent Point and its Shelter Bay Energy Inc., a privately held conventional oil and gas growth company plan to spend about $800 million this year in southeast Saskatchewan. Crescent Point is a conventional oil and gas income trust with assets focused in properties comprised of high quality, light oil and natural gas reserves in western Canada. More than 80 per cent of Crescent Pointâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s production is in the Weyburn area.

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PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

Independentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s service rigs are mobile and crew friendly Estevanâ&#x20AC;&#x201C; With more than 30 years of experience crewing and building service rigs, Tim Huber knows how to build and operate a better mouse trap, so to speak. With the Bakken play opening up, he saw a need for an independently owned service rig company and an opportunity to custom build freestand-

ing mobile double tubing rigs that he knew were the way of the future. In 2003, he formed Independent Well Servicing Inc. with partners Jerry Mehler and Brian Crossman and has built ďŹ ve custom rigs with a sixth in the works. â&#x20AC;&#x153;At the time, most of the service rigs in this country were double tub-

ing guy-line rigs or freestanding singles,â&#x20AC;? said Huber. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We build our rigs as freestanding mobile doubles. It allows you to pull triple rods and double pipe. It makes your tripping time shorter and you can work on deeper wells.â&#x20AC;? IWS service rigs perform production work, completions, workovers

and abandonments to any depth or complexity with experienced crews. IWS markets its rigs as a package with a pumper truck, support unit, doghouse, equipment trailer and crew trucks â&#x20AC;&#x201C; all with innovative features. â&#x20AC;&#x153;All of our rigs are sister rigs. Theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve all got the same innovations and are built to be user friendly

for our people so they can do the best job for the customer,â&#x20AC;? said Huber. To Jeremy Rubiletz, manager of Rig 1 who had his crew running a frac liner for Crescent Point at the time of this story says the freestanding derrick is the outstanding safety and environmental feature. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Other guy-line rigs are a lot more time consuming and you need another service to come out and drill anchors for your lines,â&#x20AC;? he said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;With our rigs you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have to drill anchors and worry about

hitting ďŹ&#x201A;ow lines or power and telephone lines.â&#x20AC;? On IWS rigs, the guylines are anchored back to the beam on the rig. Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s why they are called freestanding and the rigs are stable to 100- kilometre per hour winds with a full string of pipe in the derrick. All of the ďŹ ve IWS rigs have custom features like dual man hydraulic winches, an oversized working ďŹ&#x201A;oor and electronic environmentally friendly engines. É¸ Page B4

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Field supervisor and Independent Well Servicing partner Jerry Mehler keeps one hand on the 7-valve manifold on the custom pumper truck that is a key asset of the companyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s service rig package.

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Prairie Mud Service â&#x20AC;&#x153;Serving Western Canada With 24 Hour Drilling Mud Serviceâ&#x20AC;? Head OfĂ&#x20AC;ce: 738 6th Street Estevan, Sask. Phone 634-3411 or 634-7361 Fax: 634-6694

Calgary Sales OfĂ&#x20AC;ce: #1560-727 7th Ave. S.W. Calgary, Alberta 1-403-237-7323

DARWIN FREHLICK Environmental Division Cell: 421-0491

TYSON ERETH Weyburn, Sask. Cell: 861-5544

JIM MERKLEY Glen Ewen 483-7633

Estevan: Ray Frehlick Residence: 634-2107; Cellular: 421-1880 Wayne Hein Residence: 634-0002; Cellular: 421-9555 Calgary: Chuck Haines OfĂ&#x20AC;ce: 403-237-7323; Cellular: 403-860-4660

IAN SCOTT Oxbow, Sask. Cell: 421-6662

JASON LING Carlyle, Sask. Cell: 421-2683

GERALD SMITH Cell: 421-2408

Prairie Petro-Chem â&#x20AC;&#x153;We Never Mistreat Oilâ&#x20AC;? Head OfĂ&#x20AC;ce: 738 - 6th St. ESTEVAN, SK. S4A 1A4 Phone (24 Hr.): 306-634-5808 Fax: 306-634-6694

Oil & Gas Treating Compounds

ESTEVAN SALES

WEYBURN SALES

SWIFT CURRENT SALES

LAB SERVICES ESTEVAN

GENERAL INQUIRIES ESTEVAN

Murray Miller Mike Lacoste Greg Kallis 421-3696 421-6578 421-3358

Darren Woodard 861-5490

Greg Mouland 741-1604

Brent Frehlick Res.: 634-3895 Cell.: 421-0625

Blane Fichter Res.: 634-7952 Cell.: 421-1306

PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

Custom pump truck key to service ɺ Page B3 “The rig itself is as compact as possible so it’s as mobile as possible,” said Huber. “Our rigs are big enough to work in the Bakken and work areas deeper than the Bakken. We are ﬂexible to work on any well that’s in the southeast corner of the province. “A lot of us in the rig service industry have our way of doing things. We all want to customize our rigs to ﬁt the area

“

us in the industry are trying to oﬀer the best package to our customers. All of our equipment is mobile and designed for quick set up and take out.” The pump trucks come with a rig tank that holds 225 barrels or 35.7 cubic metres of ﬂuid and a large triplex pump for high volume pumping. “The tractor for the pump truck is a bought tractor,” said Huber. “We

It’s a highly competitive business. All of us in the industry are trying to oﬀer the best package to our customers. -Tim Huber

that we are working in. In the Bakken, a lot of our work is running frac lines and prepping wells for fracs and coming back and putting them on production – running cleanouts and running pump rods. “It’s a highly competitive business. All of

”

made the deck for it and we put the triplex pump on it. The tank and the trailer are custom built. We also use electronic tank gauges, stroke counters, electronic sandline counters and pressures gauges, so people don’t have to be crawling up in the rig tank to gauge it.

- Cage

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“The support unit is a just a truck and we put a custom deck on it with a picker. We built all that ourselves.” Rubiletz and his crew also appreciate the 10-ton picker installed on the support unit. “Having that picker is definitely handy,” he said. “It takes a lot of the grunt work out of it. For these jobs, it’s nice to move the packers around with no manual labour.” On hot days rig crews also appreciate the air conditioned doghouses that feature a spacious change room, lunch room and a separate office for the oil company consultant and rig manger. Jerry Mehler, the field supervisor visits each rig at least once a week to troubleshoot and he said aside from the air conditioning and a good winter heating system, “We have all of the latest safety equipment in the doghouse. With the doghouse office, the rig manager is independent from the crew so he can

Field supervisor Jerry Mehler confers with Rig 1 manager Jeremy Rubiletz about an ongoing frac liner job for Crescent Point Energy Trust near Stoughton. Rubiletz has the open door to his air conditioned ofÀce in the doghouse.

do all of his bookwork unbothered. We also have an extra man on every crew so they can have rotating days oﬀ.” IWS rigs are fully booked and Huber says, “I am happy to see the level of activity. It’s very busy right now and the outlook looks positive. In 30 years, I went through several booms and busts so you take it

in stride. I’ve seen both extremes. “Our sixth rig is 25 to 30 per cent complete. Once we get it done, we’ll look at the situation and if it warrants it, we will be planning to move ahead from there.” Huber launched his career in heavy road construction then jumped to Badge Services Ltd. as a

roughneck (ﬂoorhand) in the 70s. He logged over 25 years moving up as a derrick hand, a driller, ﬁeld supervisor and operations manager until Badge was bought out. He worked three years as an area manager for Rockwell Servicing Partnership, a division of Ensign Energy Services Inc. before the IWS idea came to mind.

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PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

Trican solidiÂżes its reputation with cement casings Â&#x201E; By GeoďŹ&#x20AC; Lee Stoughton â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Trican Well Service Ltd. makes frequent house calls to drilling sites in the Bakken. Crews administer routine well applications such as stimulation, formation fracing and ce-

we will â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;tie the Trican cementing crewâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; to the casing at surface.â&#x20AC;? Trican bulked two blends of cement to the site â&#x20AC;&#x201C; heavy cement for the bottom and lighter cement above. â&#x20AC;&#x153;If we ran the heavier cement all the way to the top, it

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Business is full bore the last couple of years. Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s enough work for everybody. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s just unreal. - Lyn Dame ment casing. Trican visited Ensign Energy Services Inc. rig 528, northeast of Stoughton, at least three times to cement surface casing, intermediate casing and to assist a service rig crew with fracing. At some sites, a fourth visit is required to assist with the liner system applications. Pipeline News caught up with Trican at rig 528 during an intermediate cement job. Ensign had pre-drilled the wellbore for TriStar Oil and Gas Ltd. in the Corning ďŹ eld and installed the casing in preparation for the arrival of Tricanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s cement pumper truck. Casing is run into the hole to prevent sloughing and for well control issues like preventing a blow out. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll circulate the annulus (space between the casing and the formation) clean,â&#x20AC;? said Larrie Rae, the consultant for TriStar Drilling in charge of site operations. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Once itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s cleaned and our mud is in good shape

would exert too much force,â&#x20AC;? said Rae. Lyn Dame, Tricanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s base manager in Estevan noted the cement is blended for temperature, depth and the time it takes to pump. â&#x20AC;&#x153;If we donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have the additives for the proper tempera-

ture, the depths and time it will take to pump, it will set up in midstream and you have to spend a lot of money to drill it all out and pull the casing out,â&#x20AC;? he said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;At the site, we will run some pre-ďŹ&#x201A;ush ďŹ&#x201A;uids to clean out the hole and we will pump cement down. Then we will drop a plug and pump water behind it. The plug will displace all of the cement to the surface.â&#x20AC;? At the rig 528 site, the Trican crew pumped 32,000 litres of cement and an equal volume of water into the casing under the watchful eye of Trican supervisor Thurston Holland who tracks density, temperature and pressure throughout the process. When asked what else he does, Holland said, â&#x20AC;&#x153;I make sure the weight is good and let the pumper operator know if we need to make adjustments.â&#x20AC;? The entire

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Estevan Location - Phone: 634-8545 Frobisher Location - Phone: 486-2044

job can take as little as one and a half hours with a four person crew. The cement however, can take up to nine hours to properly set and Rae noted, â&#x20AC;&#x153;If you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have a good cement bond you can get gas or ďŹ&#x201A;uid to leak in. You could have â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;communicationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; between your upper and lower zones. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s important also to have good cement to ensure water used by farmers isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t contaminated.â&#x20AC;? É¸ Page B6

Rod McDermit, Trican Well Serviceâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s pumper operator works the controls pumping the cement from a bin into a casing hole.

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PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

A blast from start to Ă&#x2026;nish Â&#x201E; Story and photos By GeoďŹ&#x20AC; Lee Estevan â&#x20AC;&#x201C; The 11th annual OTS Oilwomenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Golf Tournament began with a shotgun start and turned out to be a blast for most of the 144 play-

â&#x20AC;&#x153;

ers until the very end. â&#x20AC;&#x153;This is the biggest year yet,â&#x20AC;? said Cindy Romanyk who is on the organizing committee. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s been growing with the oilpatch. More companies are ďŹ nding ways

Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s been growing with the oilpatch. More companies are ďŹ nding ways to recognize employees. - Cindy Romanyk

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The OTS Oilwomenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Golf Tournament committee made the 11th annual event possible. Back row are Tanya George and Nicole Miller. Middle row are Cindy Romanyk and Michelle Prawdzik and in the front row are Crystal Wilson and Kristin Dupuis.

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to recognize employees. We started the event to interact with the people we work with on a daily basis.â&#x20AC;? Blue skies, green grass and a best ball format combined for 18 holes of fun and networking at the Woodlawn Golf Club in Estevan on July 18. A sampling of comments throughout the round said it all. Bonnie Sidloski was one of about 30 golfers who came by bus from Weyburn and she said, â&#x20AC;&#x153;I golfed here last year and had the best time of my life. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s really a great day and Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m meeting new girls too.â&#x20AC;? Cathie Haines from Prairie Mud Service ďŹ&#x201A;ew in from Calgary last Sunday with four other lady golfers who spent the week working out of the ďŹ eld oďŹ&#x192;ce in Estevan. Haines was on the original OTS organizing committee 11 years ago and said, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s grown. We started with about 50 golfers and now itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a full shotgun. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a great to meet people you talk to all the time on the phone that you never get to meet. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s good networking. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s good for business and itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s good for socializing. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not intimidating to the girls who donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t golf. It's for everyone.â&#x20AC;? Even the low score team of Andrea Wilson, Holly Ruel , Dena Bachorcik and Colinda Doerr chuckled at the fact they shot a 72 and won water fountains for their eďŹ&#x20AC;orts. É¸ Page B7

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PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

Estevan Oilwomen tee off 11th annual golf tournament ɺ Page B6 “I’m shocked. It’s awesome,” was the reaction of Wilson. “I’m shocked,” stated Ruel with a laugh. “I never thought our score would be a winning score.” Each member of the second place team of Tricia MacKenzie, Kristy Doan, Chelsea Green and Nikki Herlick won a $50 Canadian Tire gift cards. The third place team of Hayley Racicot, Sherri Neiszner, Tammi Goetz and Christa Jarvis received a $25 Canadian Tire gift card. There was also a host of special and putting prizes and awards for the three most honest teams. In keeping with the fun format, foursomes were a mixed bag of play-

ers who rated themselves good, fair, poor and awful during registration. Sponsored watering holes helped to lengthen the day. The event was organized by a committee of Kristin Dupuis, Tanya George, Michelle Prawdzik, Nicole Miller, Cindy Romanyk and Crystal Wilson. All of the members ordered perfect weather. “We’ve always had nice weather. Every year we’ve had a sunny day. We’ve been lucky,” said Romanyk. Dupuis on the other hand, recalled it raining once but just as play was about to start in 2008 said, “Today is absolutely gorgeous and perfect. There’s hardly a breath of wind and no clouds.” Her comments were wistful however,

as she noted she had to leave early for a high school reunion. Noreen Steﬃns whose employer, Bert Baxter Transport sponsored a hole said, “This is a chance to get to know what some of the girls you talk to on the phone look like. It’s nice to put a face to a voice. It’s a lot of fun.” Colleen Pingert from Penn West was having her own brand of fun and was caught putting barefoot to which she quipped, “It’s my technique. I wasn’t doing good with sandals so what the heck. It’s too hot for footwear.” The event wrapped up with a supper and presentation of prizes including door prizes donated by local businesses.

Rebecca Henricksen from Prairie Mud Service in Estevan putts her stuff during the 11th annual OTS Oilwomen’s Golf Tournament played July 18 in Estevan.

This trio is happy golfers includes Christa Jarvis, from Josco Consulting Corp., Sherri Neiszner from Newalta Corp. and Hayley Racicot with TS & M Supply. Double parking in the fairway are left to right, Yvonne Sever from Penta Completions, Jackie McGillicky from McGillicky OilÀeld Construction Ltd., Krista Sandney from Aldon Oils Ltd. and Mona Dukart from Duce Oil Ltd.

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PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

Venture upgrades with bright orange service rig Estevan –Venture Well Servicing Ltd. took delivery of a new service rig in July that caught the eye of competitors and potential customers with its distinctive orange paint job parked in the com-

pany yard shared with sister company Viking Surplus Oilfied Equipment Ltd. Orange and dark green are the new company colours replacing the familiar blue. At the time of this

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story, when mechanics were adding Venture’s own brand of handling equipment (pipe and rod elevators and hand tools) to the rig, field supervisor Cliff Haddow said, “We’ve had a few inquiries from customers, but until it’s ready to go, I haven’t made any commitments. Customers like to have a nice looking rig on their locations.” Fist dibs, so to speak, go to T-Bird Oil Ltd., Venture’s associate oil client. All three Field supervisor Cliff Haddow climbs aboard the cab of Venture Well Sercompanies mentioned vicing’s new service rig made in Red Deer, a freestanding double triple rig. above are owned by Estevan’s Ron Wan- Williston, North Da- will help to the relieve breakdowns. You want ner. kota. Another rig is pressure on Venture’s to keep working while Venture’s rig divi- booked at a site west of maintenance schedule the work is there. We sion provides oil and Highway 47 on route as they continue to up- need new rigs to stay gas completion servic- 361 and a third is post- grade their equipment. competitive. It’s a comes and general service ed in Redvers, 20 miles At one time, Ven- petitive business.” work on both sides of west of Manitoba. ture had seven rigs but “Customers want the border. They also “The well we are when business slowed freestanding rigs to get provide abandonment working on in Redvers before the Bakken play away from ground disservices, rentals and is a case hole comple- spiked, they downsized turbance, so everything leasing and swabbing. tion,” said Haddow. their fleet. With three we buy is freestanding.” Viking Surplus recon- “We do a lot of open or four rigs, they were The new rig costs ditions and sells used hole completions. Our able to keep up with over $1 million and is a oilfield equipment in- niche is customer ser- the work. double triple freestandcluding pump jacks. vice and getting the “A lot of people ing , manufactured by The new orange job done in a reason- have modified their Rykar Industries Ltd. in colour rig brings Ven- able time without ac- old rigs and have gone Red Deer and features ture’s fleet to four with cidents.” to freestanding. We Kobelt disc brakes with one rig operating near The new Rykar rig got our use out of our the draw works. old rigs and we’ve been “The disc brake selling them off and re- allows for extra runplacing them with new,” ning depth,” said Hadsaid Haddow. dow who likes the new PROPANE “It’s easier to find 60-series engine on the men to work on new Rykar. “In the past five equipment and there years, people have been are fewer breakdowns. getting rid of the old You want to keep your 8-V71 and V92 enequipment operating. If gines and going with there’s work in the field, the 60-series engines you don’t want to miss which are more enviany days because of ronmentally friendly.”

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PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

New freestanding rig for Venture ɸ Page B8 The rig was shop tested before Venture took delivery and Haddow noted, “There’s somewhat of a break-in period as the operator gets the feel of the rig. It’s been driven from Red Deer to Estevan so the motor has some hours on it.” Venture currently has two full five-man rig crews, but Haddow said, “It’s a fight to keep guys. You can’t just pick up a guy walking down

the street and say ‘come to work for us on a rig’. There’s specific training. It’s a different job. Not everyone cares for that kind of work and being in the elements. To keep our guys, we pay competitive wages. You have to or they don’t stay.” One of Haddow’s job functions is to coordinate manpower and manage job scheduling and he said the Manitoba area is a hot zone right now.

“It actually started late last year. Most of the activity is around Sinclair Manitoba and there is activity in the southern part as well just south of Pearson. We’re had a couple of good runs there and as I far as I know the work is ongoing.” When asked about Venture’s U.S. operations, Haddow said, “It’s very busy but you have the same problem finding men as up here. We had three rigs down there at one time, but staffing was too hard and it was hard on our equipment. It’s easier to work in Canada and our maintenance shop is here.”

Field supervisor Cliff Haddow handles the steering wheel in the cab of Venture Well Servicing’s newest service rig.

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PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

New downhole anchor repair shop opens Estevan– At age 40 and years of local oil patch experience under his belt, Tracy McConnell has literally decided to drop anchor and set up his own business. McConnell opened the doors to Kash Downhole Anchors Inc. on Perkins Street earlier this month to sell and service downhole anchors used in completions. “I wanted to get out on my own and start something new,” he said. “No other companies are committed to anchors only. For an independent, there is money to be made for sure.” His plan is to provide quick turnaround time, oﬀer competitive pricing and market his expertise beginning with a lengthy list of oil companies his has worked with for more than 20 years. “I know how anchors work. There’s no doubt about it,” he said. “I hope we have got the relationship already, so they know my experience and my technical abilities. That will help bring business my way. I’ve ran them on service rigs. I’ve serviced them and I’ve sold them.” An anchor prevents movement of the tubing string during rod pumping operations and extends the life of the pump, rods and tubing. When pipe is pulled that’s when anchors need servicing. The mandrels need to be inspected and shears need to be replaced. Dismantling anchors for servicing is a labour intensive business at most completion shops, but McConnell has purchased a motorized bucking unit to cut time and eliminate manual torquing. “To break it apart in the past meant jumping on a snipe,” he said. “Usually you have a 36-inch pipe wrench and a six foot snipe on the end of that to break these things apart. They are torqued together pretty good. “The bucking unit rotates and torques all the connections together or viceverse to break apart the connections.” The bucking unit is powered by a 50 hp electric motor. McConnell has also bought a parts washer, a sandblaster, a compressor and a forklift to service anchors quickly. Shears, slip springs and slips are among the parts that need changing. “Oil companies need overnight turnaround. Most of the time, it’s out with tubing and right back at it. I’m hoping with my experience and the service I will provide, along with pricing, they will come to me,” he said. McConnell will begin as a one-man operation wearing hats as a salesman, manager and labourer while his wife Kelly handles the bookkeeping. “ I hope to grow and have lots of employees,” he said.

Tracy McConnell grips the type of anchor that he will service and sell at his new company, Kash Downhole Anchors Inc. in Estevan. A bucking unit will eliminate the need for manual torquing and offer competitive pricing.

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PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

B11

Welcome mat rolls out for offshore oilpatch hires Meg Brooks, Service destinations for perma- working on the cultural for cities to lease RVs nents residents in Sas- awareness side of things and park them in camp- Canada’s acting managgrounds and rent them ing for the foreign workkatchewan by permanent too. “Availability of hous- out. At least that would ers unit in Regina said resident applications,” said Bloor. “Because of ing is also a huge issue. work in the summer Saskatchewan’s economy economic conditions in We are looking at being a months. Our role is ad- has generated some acthe southeast, we’re go- connector – making sure vocating for the new- tivity in the temporary ing to see more and more we have a good listing of comer and getting ideas foreign worker program. Brooks said companies rental accommodation to the right people.” immigrants. Bloor also gets calls that apply for a labour “The biggest issue and connecting newwe are seeing is with comers to realtors as well from companies ask- market opinion to her language. We partner as advocating incentives ing which immigration branch must meet sevwith Southeast Regional for developers to create program will meet their eral criteria. “It’s essential that needs. Aside the from College on that and we rental housing.” Bloor says generally, the provincial immigrant the employer is paying are looking with local literacy groups and even it’s the men who come nominee program, work- the prevailing wage and school divisions – we are over first for six months ers are also hired through has made every effort to Tamara Bloor Àelds calls about services available talking about family lit- and run into trouble the federal government’s hire a Canadian from to welcome skilled oilpatch immigrants at the eracy.” Foreign advertising recruiting eflooking for housing when Temporary Southeast Community Settlement Committee ofWorker Program in part- forts,” said Brooks in orLast month, SCSC their family arrives. Àce in Estevan. “One suggestion nership with Citizenship der for the application to piloted a workplace cula comprehensive list of tural diversity program that’s come forward is and Immigration. By Geoff Lee be processed. all of the services new- with one of its partners, Estevan – Skilled comers can access in the Canada-Saskatchewan immigrant workers hired community. Each com- Career & Employment for oilpatch jobs in south- munity is going through Services in Estevan. east Saskatchewan need a needs assessment pro“The program will not feel like foreigners cess to connect newcom- be for service providers for long. They have an ers to these services and and employers who hire available friend in the fill in any service gaps,” newcomers and want form of the Southeast said Bloor. their own employees to The Saskatchewan be ready for issues that Community Settlement Nominee might crop up,” explained Committee (SCSC) es- Immigrant tablished in November, Program has a goal to Bloor. “Apart from lanEstevan Office: Carlyle Office: 2007 in Estevan to con- nominate 2,800 immi- guage and transportation grants for work in the nect them to services like barriers, there are invisPhone: (306) 634-2681 Phone: (306) 453-6233 English language train- province for the 2008-09 ible barriers like negative Fax: (306) 636-7227 Fax: (306) 453-2204 ing, rental and perma- fiscal year. A Saskatch- attitudes toward imminent housing and com- ewan delegation toured grants. That’s why we’re Manila from May 20 to munity social links. More Community 30 to recruit 250 skilled Settlement Committees workers. Another delegaare being established in tion went to the Ukraine oil centres like Weyburn, in June. In southeast SasCalgary Edmonton Bentley Lloydminster Lampman Victoria Carlyle, Oxbow and Ki- katchewan, oil workers 403.290.0008 780.414.0008 403.748.2661 780.870.5226 306.487.2505 250.389.2212 pling under the guid- are being recruited from ance of immigration and Germany, Ukraine, Rosettlement coordinator, mania, South Korea and China. Tamara Bloor. We planted our seed... “Estevan and Wey“We are all working on welcome packages – burn are in the top 10 join us to celebrate the grand opening of the LandSolutions Lampman office.

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B12

PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

Fastenal holds the oil and gas economy together Estevan – Fastenal, a U.S. based company, is helping to keep the oil and gas economy of southeast Saskatchewan together as a major distributor of threaded fasteners and industrial and construction supplies. Fastenal sells everything from abrasives and nuts and bolts to welding supplies. If you call cable ties zip ties, as Estevan area sales manager Rob Beam does, then it’s a full alphabet distributor that even retails toilet paper to oil and gas companies and restaurants. “This is an established business that is growing massively fast,” said Beam. “Everybody who opens a new shop needs more fasteners and more equipment for us to sell. There are six stores in

equipment and fasteners to trucking companies like Baxter Trucking where Beam worked last summer. “They take a ton of bolts and stuff for trucks and trailers, hotshots and pickers,” said Beam. “We also like to stress our safety products. With new oil and gas companies springing up, there’s always a need for safety glasses, harnesses and gloves and helmets. It’s a large focal point in the store. “I am also putting Rob Beam outside sales manager at Fastenal together some specialty serving southeast Saskatchewan with fasteners and industrial and construction supplies takes a packages including a phone order at the Estevan store. welding package where ordered from a distribu- hub will allow us to get you get starter kits and tion hub in Minnesota shipments in every day accessories that fill your or from a new distribu- directly from Alberta,” stocks at better prices.” Beam is into his third tion centre in Edmonton said Beam. set to open at the end In the oil patch, Fas- month on the job and he of the month. “The new tenal sells a lot of safety says what surprises him most is sales of toilet paper under the janitorial products category. “You see a lot of nuts and bolts sold, but you wouldn’t expect to see toilet paper and soap at a tool store.” The Wal-Mart apMade by proach to product lines Canadians for makes Fastenal one of Canadians! the top 10 industrial distributors in North America with a familiar customer-first approach. “If a customer requires us to warehouse some supplies and they order regularly and product is moving through the store, then we will house bulk inventory for them,” said Beam. “We offer bin stocks. We will come out to a business and fill their bins individually and do their count and inventory. “Everyone is busy. Everyone’s got places to go. It’s important to service them. I like working with people. I love the people in this area and the community. It’s my home town. I also think this is a really organized store, so I feel comfort* Large Safety Door • Flanges Fiberglassed in (orientation by owner) able with the business.” • Inside Seams Laminated/Sealed • Painted Beam completed high school in Estevan and recently returned after working in AlberAlso Manufacturers of: ta and Saskatoon. His brother tipped him off • Fiberglass Belt Guards • Internal Fiberglass of Steel Tanks about the outside sales • Tank Skimmers • Insulated Wellhead Shelters opening and he is also the acting area manager until the company fills that position. The store has two other inside sales employees. Ryan Walsh is the district manager based in Saskatoon. Saskatchewan and they are planning another 10 in the next three years. The stores make a good profit and they have a lot of buying power. It’s important for people to see that.” The Estevan Fastenal has been open for about three years and is one of more than 2,200 stores worldwide that utilizes local inventory, outside sales staff and on-site delivery vehicles to save customers time and money. Corporately, Fastenal chalked up sales of over $2.2 billion in 2007 and has a business philosophy of growth through customer service. “We get out to the businesses personally. We want to make a connection and make them

feel comfortable ordering through us,” said Beam. “A large part of my job is outside sales and getting to the customer and bringing them the catalogue and the ﬂyers. People have heard of Fastenal. They don’t realize the inventory we stock.” The paper catalogue is nearly two inches thick and there’s a comprehensive e-commerce web site with ordering access to many fasteners, tools and equipment, HVAC supplies, chemicals and paints, electrical and janitorial supplies. The company also has a manufacturing centre that can custom-produce a speciﬁed part. If the Estevan store doesn’t have a desired item in stock, it can be

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PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

B13

Production tests begin at Axe Lake oilsands site Calgary â&#x20AC;&#x201C;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s black ďŹ&#x201A;y season in northern Saskatchewan and another black gold summer exploration season for Oilsands Quest Inc. at its Axe Lake oilsands discovery site covering 41 sections of land north of La Loche. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We have three sites for reservoir tests, and late this summer we will start reservoir testing at Site 1,â&#x20AC;? said Terry Lauder, a consultant from Hedlin Lauder Investor Relations Ltd. contracted to Oilsands Quest. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The data from our test program will tell us how best to produce the Axe Lake reservoir.â&#x20AC;? The company expects a 30,000 bbls per day commercial pilot project will ultimately follow the

â&#x20AC;&#x153;

We acquired this land at the same time we acquired the oilsands area. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s just a good opportunity for a good exploration play. - Terry Lauder

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reservoir test program that will look at everything from reservoir pressure and permeability to ďŹ&#x201A;ow data. The company is also furthering the exploration of its Raven Ridge bitumen discovery site next door in Alberta and plans a drilling program on a portion of its 489,730 acres of shale holdings in Pasquia Hills in east â&#x20AC;&#x201C;central Saskatchewan. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We acquired this land at the same time we acquired the oilsands area. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s just a good opportunity for a good exploration play,â&#x20AC;? said Lauder. Oilsands Quest has the largest contiguous land holdings in the industry with permits and licences

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covering 730, 598 acres of oilsands holdings in Saskatchewan and Alberta. It has another 22,773 acres under lease northwest of Fort McMurray. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Overall, we have drilled less than ďŹ ve per cent of our contiguous land holdings, so weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve got many opportunities for exploration,â&#x20AC;? said Lauder. As of June, 2008 estimated discovered bitumen resources at Axe Lake range from a low of about 1.2 billion bbls to 2.3 billion bbls. Total estimated discovered and undiscovered oil at Raven Ridge and Axe Lake combined is pegged as high as 6.5 billion bbls by McDaniels & Associates Consultants Ltd. The estimates followed an aggressive exploration program that counted 349 exploration and delineation holes and 1,850 km of 2-D and 3-D seismic surveys in a 30-month period. É¸ Page B14

SAFE - TEE MANAGEMENT

Oxbow, Sask. Email: admin@safe-tee.com

OH&S Consulting Group

SAFE-TEE MANAGEMENT IS PLEASED TO OFFER A NEW SERVICE! Safe-Tee Managementâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Emergency Medical & Safety Services Team provides the industrial and oil and gas industry with professional and experienced emergency medical care! â&#x20AC;˘ Registered Nurses & EMTâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s for exceptional service â&#x20AC;˘ Treatment and transport casualties to medical facilities â&#x20AC;˘ Fully stocked unit with a locking stretcher â&#x20AC;˘ Our mobile transport and treatment units are equipped with all the supplies required to deal with major injuries â&#x20AC;˘ Automated External DeĂ&#x20AC;brillator â&#x20AC;˘ Drilling, Servicing, Fracing, High Hazard Work, Plant Turnarounds, Construction For more information or to book our units call: 306-483-2480

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B14

PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

Tests will dictate Axe lake recovery strategy ɺ Page B13 “About 33 months ago, Oilsands Quest virtually didn’t exist,” said Lauder. “Today, look at us. We’re sitting on 6.5 billion bbls of discovered resource with the prospect of adding to that number. It’s absolutely exciting. It’s wonderful to be involved in the development of what could be a very important industry to the province of Saskatchewan.” Pertrobank Energy and Resources Ltd. has followed Quest’s lead and has acquired a 23,000 plus acre oilsands licence in the Saskatchewan oilsands. “The fact other companies see an opportunity there makes perfect sense,” said Lauder who wouldn’t let on if Oilsands plans to bid on addi-

Big Sky Drilling, operating out of Oxbow, Saskatchewan, has the largest rig fleet in Saskatchewan.

“

What’s going to be determined through our test sites is which methodology we’re going to apply - Terry Lauder

”

tional oilsands rights available in the Aug. 11 provincial oil and gas lands sale. The bitumen deposits at Axe Lake are a continuation of the Athabasca oilsands in Alberta, but are covered by up to 200 metres of overburden and are not surface mineable with current technology. “Our production methods will be in-situ because of the depth of the discovery,” explained Lauder. “What’s going to be determined through our test sites is which methodology we’re going to apply.” Typically, with in situ, steam is injected and hot bitumen migrates towards producing wells, bringing it to the surface, while the sand is left in place (“in situ” is Latin for “in place”). “We can talk about Steam Assisted Gravity

Drainage (SAGD) as a generic form of recovery, but there’s a lot of ways this can be applied in terms of how the reservoir is exploited,” said Lauder. “Do we go with hot water? Do we do with low pressure steam? Do we go with added solvents and this sort of thing? It really depends on what our engineers come up with at the end of the reservoir tests this summer and fall.” Oilsands Quests has raised more than $313 million for its oilsands projects since 2004 that includes the development of hundreds of kilometres of roads and trails and a 5,000 foot long airstrip at Axe Lake. The base camp at Axe Lake, one of two camps on Quest’s permit lands, currently houses about 150 workers and that number spiked to 400 last winter, during the height of drilling season, a time when freeze up allows for the movement of drilling rigs and other heavy equipment. Asked why Oilsands Quest was interested in these overburden properties, Lauder said, “Based on our experience in Alberta, we had conﬁdence that rich oil-bearing oil sands reservoirs didn’t stop at the provincial border. For very good economical rewards for our shareholders.”

ENVIROTRAP SYSTEMS THE PROBLEM

Environmental damage from wellhead packing failure and seepage costs the oil industry millions each year.

Big Sky Drilling specializes in oil and natural gas drilling in Southeast Saskatchewan and Southeast Manitoba.

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EnviroTrap will save you $$$: • reduce reclamation, clean-up, steam cleaning, disposal costs • reduce wellhead rust and corrosion • protect stufﬁng box packings from snow, rain, wind, debris • contains blowout contamination • help meet ever-increasing government environmental standards Preserve your good working relationship with landowners by demonstrating your commitment to responsible environmental practices.

THE SOLUTION

ADVANCED DESIGN FEATURES fully enclosed and self-contained durable, rust-free construction U.V. resistant all hardware is corrosion-resistant stainless steel sloped collection tray provides natural drainage, making the unit more drainage efﬁcient and maintenance-free tapered polish rod washer drains migrating ﬂuid back into collection unit automatic pumpjack shutdown also available

EASY TO INSTALL, EASY TO USE

3 quick, easy installation (well shutdown during installation is recommended) 3 separate models available for any style stufﬁng boxes 3 spacious, semi-transparent holding tank - instantly monitor ﬂuid levels 3 EnviroTrap two-piece cover is easy to remove and replace to accommodate packing changes and cleaning 3 available with Murphy Auto shutdown switch CHEMICAL BARREL CONTAINMENT STAND

WELLHEAD CONTAINMENT UNIT

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ANNOUNCEMENT Sask. Industry & Resources announced at the Redvers Oil Show that Secondary Containment for the Wellhead will become a requirement in new policy they are enacting in the Spring of 2008.

MISSION STATEMENT “We Work In Harmony With Both The Oil Industry & Landowners To Protect Our Environment”

ENVIROTRAP SYSTEMS 1-306-489-2250 Sales Contact: CHEYENNE OILFIELD SERVICES 1-306-483-7924 E-mail: envirotrap@sasktel.net www.envirotrap.com

PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

B15

Celebrating Roger Service Rig 25 Anniversary!

Roger Service Rig Ltd. purchased rig 3 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It is a 1978 Cooper rig.

Tamera Huber was the brainchild behind this 25th anniversary display at the entrance to the company yard. The sign, “Lest We Forget” is a joke referring to a tubing anchor (pictured left) that got lodged in a tight spot in a well and took crews 43 days to retrieve at great expense.

CONGRATULATIONS to Roger Service Rig Ltd. on their 25th Anniversary!

Your complete one stop OilÀeld & Industrial Supply Store CENTRON FIBREGLASS LINEPIPE & TUBING

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Congratulations Roger Service Rig Ltd. Proud To Be Your OilÀeld Supply Store

ESTEVAN FIRE & SAFETY

Happy 25th Anniversary!

COMPLETE LINE OF PIPE, VALVES & FITTINGS

HEAD OFFICE - ESTEVAN 306-634-6494 www.tsmsupply.com

Fishing & Rental:

Overshots Spears Jarring Equipment Drill Collars & Handling Equipment Power Swivels Washover Equipment

Pipe Recovery:

Freepoint (For all Tubing, Casing up to 7” & Drill Pipe/Collars) Backoff Equipment (Starting at 5/8”) Chemical Cutters Jet Cutters Perforating Tubing Punches

Casing Jack:

Casing Jacks Power tongs for back-offs and replacing casing

93 Escana St. Estevan Sk. Phone: (306) 634-4095

Estevan Fire & Safety Sales & Service to all makes & Models of Fire Extinguishers

634-5363

Weyburn (306) 842-4604 Oxbow (306) 483-2522 Provost (780) 753-2364 Regina (306) 721-2260 Winnipeg (204) 888-5454

Melita (204) 522-3238 Moosomin (306) 435-2969 Redcliff (403) 548-6131 Saskatoon (306) 931-2929 Thunder Bay (807) 622-5554

Proud to Congratulate & Serve Roger Service Rig Ltd. on 25 Years of Business

Don's Tire Shop 101 4th St., Estevan 634-3637

We are proud to Congratulate Roger Service Rig Ltd. on 25 Years in Business!

Prairie Mud Service 738 6th Street, Estevan Ph: 634-3411

Prairie Petro-Chem 738 6th Street, Estevan Ph: 634-5808

Centerspread Sent Separate

B18

PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

We Proudly Congratulate Roger Service Rig Ltd. On 25 Years Of Service In The Oilfield

Proud To Congratulate Roger Service Rig Ltd. On 25 Years of Business

"We Dispatch for the Oil Patch"

Congratulations

Roger Service Rig Ltd. on Celebrating Your

th Serving Saskatchewan and Manitoba

• Two Way Radios • Alarm Monitoring • Safety Checks

#3 Hwy 39 E • Estevan 634-2679 www.sawyersafety.ca

Congratulations To Roger Service Rig On Your 25th Anniversary! Bienfait, SK. OfÀce (306) 388-2322 Fax: (306) 388-2321

gratulations on You n o r C

Roger Service Rig Ltd.

634-8888 - ESTEVAN, SK Congratulations Roger Service Rig Ltd. On Your

Hwy. 39 East, Box 843, Estevan, Sk. S4A 2A7 Fax: 634-4575 No phone inquiries please.

738 5th Street (back door) Phone: 634-3522 24 Hour Service - 7 Days A Week!

637-2121 HOURS: Mon. - Fri. 8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. ON CALL 24 HOURS A DAY

89 Escana Street, Estevan Toll Free 1-866-332-2121 Fax: (306) 637-2124

Congratulations to Roger Service Rig Ltd.! We are pleased to provide Petroleum Services to you. SOUTHERN PLAINS CO-OP PETROLEUM/AGRO CENTRE 311 Kensington Ave., Estevan Phone: 637-4330 or Toll Free: 1-800-465-FUEL Monday - Saturday 8:00 a.m. - 12:00 noon • 1:00 - 5:00 p.m.

We Congratulate Roger Service Rig Ltd. on 25 Years in Business. Happy Anniversary!

Apex Distribution Inc. 315A Kensington Ave. Estevan, Sask.

Proud to Congratulate Roger Service Rig On Their 25th Anniversary!

CE FRANKLIN LTD. 306 Kensington Avenue Estevan, SK

PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

Celebrating

Roger Service Rig 25th Anniversary! Congratulations Roger Service Rig Ltd. on your 25th Anniversary

B19

Proud Lube Supplier to Roger Service Rig Ltd. Congratulations! UCL Esso 912 6th Street Estevan, SK. 634-7275

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Congratulations Roger Service Rig Ltd. on your 25th Anniversary!

Congratulations on Celebrating 25 Years in Business

122 Perkins Street, Estevan

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Estevan’s one-stop Shop ... for all your motoring needs.

Roger Service Rig Ltd.

Congratulations Roger Service Rig Ltd. on your 25th Anniversary!

Phone: 634-9955 NEW LOCATION!

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SPECIALIZING IN: INDUSTRIAL, COMMERCIAL & OILFIELD ELECTRICAL • UNDERGROUND TRENCHING • GEN SET RENTALS • LIFT TRUCK • DISTRIBUTOR OF TECO MOTORS & WILLETT PHASE CONVERTERS

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B20

PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

This 1971 Kenworth pump truck was badly burned when Roger bought it. He restored it three times, including repairs due to a rollover and when rods came through the cab.

Three Star ENVIRONMENTAL * Environmental Protection Plans * Impact Assessments * Pre-Site Assessments * Environmental Audits & Assessments * Well Site & Battery Abandonments * Drilling Waste Management * Pre/Post Water Well Testing * EM Surveying * GPS Mapping

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FAX: 443-2453 BOX 160, ALIDA, SASK. S0C 0B0 www.threestarenvironmental.com Roger Huber recalls a few mishaps in his day including this rollover of a doghouse in his 1971 Kenworth.

• Completions • Consulting & Supervision • Contract Battery Operating • Production Management • Canada & USA 24 Hour Hot Shot Service

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Estevan Shop Now Open! Service Facility Operational Summer 2008! Manufacturer of downhole Electrical Submersible Pumping Systems as well as surface Horizontal Pumping Systems and Variable Frequency Generators to the oil industry. • Service Technician available 24 hours • Spool Truck available from Estevan Office • Call Chris Istace 461-6644 (cell) or 634-6281 (office)

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www.cai-esp.com

PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

B21

Prairie Mud pretty much does it all One company looking to punch 400 holes Derek Klassen, area representative for Prairie Mud Service in Swift Current took some time recently to speak about mud services and activity in the patch in and around Swift Current.

The Leaders in Wellbore Surveying Our earth-rate/north-seeking gyroscopic systems are not affected by magnetic interferences and are accurate to 0.1 degrees Azimuth and 0.05 degrees Inclination. We provide high accuracy wellbore surveys (vertical to horizontal) and provide cased hole orientations for various drilling/completions operations.

Over the years we have developed various user friendly conÀgurations: • RGS-WB: Electric wireline conveyance - all angle applications • RGS-BT: Battery tool (slick-line/rig's survey line) <45' Inc. • RGS-DP: Wireless battery tool (surveys at each connection while tripping out) <45' Inc. • RGS-OR: Orientation (whipstocks, perf. guns, downhole tools) • RGS-ST: Seated steering (Real-time tool face updates on surface) • RGS-CT: Continuous - (pump down, tractor coil) all angles For a complete listing, further details of our services and what we can do for you, please visit our website at www.gyrodata.com or give us a call today.

Canadian Sales & Marketing

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Greg Belbin www.gyrodata.com 403-813-2665 (403) 640-7755

By Stephan Burnett Swift Current - Derek Klassen, area representative for Prairie Mud Service just about does it all. Prairie Mud Service opened its shop in Swift Current in 1995. The company’s head oﬃce is in Estevan with owner Ray Frehlick working out of the Estevan oﬃce and part owner Chuck

Haines doing all the PR work based in Calgary. Along with the main oﬃce in Estevan and the oﬃce in Swift Current, the company also sports a warehouse in Kindersley and built a new warehouse in Lacombe a year and a half ago and up in Lloydminster, Powell Trucking warehouses for the company. “We service drilling

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rigs and supply different types of mud for drilling. You take a drill bit and a drill and add in different products like benonight gel it’s a real powdery clay and it’s one of the main ingredients when they’re drilling. Then there’s tons of other stuff, pails of stuff that’s premixed and when they hit the pay zone and take a kick I’ve got other material that can kill that well, so they can keep drilling,” says Klassen. “Horizontal drilling sometimes goes through two or three different zones through one pocket and into the lower pocket and they catch the next pocket when the first one dries up,” he says. Prairie Mud Service has mud hands, which check the mud to make sure the viscosity is correct.

Klassen, who moved into Swift Current six years ago, says the patch is booming. “In the Estevan area there’s in the neighborhood of 50 to 60 rigs and up here we’ve got in the neighborhood of 20 or so,” says Klassen. “With Penn West some of their pay zones are1,000 barrels a day so if it costs $1 million to drill that well it’s paid for in 10 days – that’s phenomenal,” he says. “They’re also pulling in seven for Enerplus in the Shackleton/Abbey area and they’re going to punch 400 holes there and then there’s Wave Energy out by Shaunavon and Crucible Energy out north of Frontier,” Klassen explains. While the patch is busy, Klassen adds it was probably busier four or ﬁve years ago. But with some pipelines coming through southwestern Saskatchewan, Klassen adds there will be “tons of work coming through Swift Current.” Prairie Mud also mixes potash KCL. “I use that for fraccing to ﬁnish up the wells. I mix it all here in the yard and then the trucks come and pick it up,” he says.

B22

PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

Trican’s 27 rigs going full bore ɺ Page B5 Trican has a fleet of 27 well service rigs and Dame said, “Business is full bore the last couple of years. There’s enough work for everybody. It’s just unreal. Since the Bakken it’s been flat out. We’re busy but we are short of staff. The hands

you get are from out of town and you have to help them ﬁnd places to rent.” Trican has a staﬀ of 38 and they hope to double that number by the end of the year. The company is looking for operators, supervisors and Class 1 and 3 drivers.

“Everyone has to drive a truck,” said Dame. “All of our equipment is hard mounted on trucks. We have three driver training people in the company. We are looking for people across Canada in all of our locations.” “Oil companies can’t drill without us because

someone has to cement the well so we start with that primary work and go to remedial work afterward,” said Dame. On initial surface casings, Trican will cement to secure the well and add blowout preventers to contain the well should the driller hit a gas or oil

JACK!

IT’S ABOUT TIME

Jack knows time is money PAYS FOR ITSELF

– 4 WEEKS

The increase in oil/gas production is immediately measureable not only in time, but real dollars.

William Wollman secures a tube of casing, left, while Áoor hand Joel Marten rolls casing in the string to be picked up to the rig Áoor.

– ZERO

– 1 DAY

the

right

Our safety qualified installers will perform maintenance checks when required, onsite, saving you the trip in.

answer Troy Smith Sales & Service Representative

www.annugas.com Toll Free

1.866.ANNUGAS

sembly. We will drill the horizontal section of the well. We do a clean our and trip and run the liner system for the frac.” Trican can also apply acid to clean up the wellbore and will assist with hydraulic fracing. Dame says well servicing has become a lot more sophisticated. “There’s a lot of high-tech stuﬀ and computers record everything for the customer. We also come up with new cement blends all the time to meet customer needs.”

YOUR TIME

INSTALLATION It only takes a few hours to have your compressor up and running, practically eliminating production downtime.

pocket. “The purpose of cementing is to secure the pipe and shut oﬀ other zone that may leak up to the ground level. We isolate the zones,” said Dame. When the surface casing is complete, the oil company will drill through the bottom plug and commence drilling the intermediate hole. At rig 528, Rae said once the cement process is done, Ensign “runs back in the hole with our drill and bottom hole as-

Wright Road, Moosomin Saskatchewan, Canada S0G 3N0

COMPRESSION

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• • • • •

Cellular Business Facsimile Email Toll-Free

306.435.7095 306.435.2410 306.435.2416 tsmith@grenco.com 1.800.661.3945

GENERAL OILFIELD HAULING TANK & TREATER MOVING 24 HOUR PERSONALIZED SERVICE PIPE CUSTODIAN PUMP JACK HAULING

PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

B23

Supreme Oil¿eld relocating as business booms Estevan – Supreme Oilfield Construction Ltd. is for its use but has since subdivided some of the expan- July 1, but legal issues relating to subdividing land on the move as the demand for its oilfield and pipeline sion site into five acre parcels for sale. and a shortage of tradesperson has delayed that. We’re construction services grows along with its newest line “We were going to use the land for ourselves but hoping to get in by October.” of lease building. Supreme is known for building head- we had all kinds of people contact us about buying it Supreme’s latest growth spurt followed the purers, batteries and gas plants. chase of the ‘cat’ assets of Heaton Con“In order to keep up with the flow struction in Kipling and the takeover of work, we had to have a bigger shop of Brocks Construction Ltd. in Oxbox and a bigger yard,” said field supervilast June. sor Don Biette. “Construction is going “That’s what got us into the lease pretty hard. There are a lot of Bakken business and then it’s kind of exploded wells to be drilled.” since that point,” said Pachal, “OrigiThe company vacated its old buildnally we bought about six cats from ing on Edward St. on June 30 after Heaton and now we have 15. selling it to Midwest Surveys Inc. that “We are lease building. We build has also outgrown its location on 4th the areas where the drilling rigs go in St. in Estevan. and we clear the land and strip the Supreme’s field crews and vehicles soil. When they are done, we go in and report each day at the new construcclean that up. tion site on Shand Road and trailers “Three years ago we had 25 vehave been set up for supervisors. Ofhicles and now we have 125 units. fice employees are being temporarily That kind of gives you an indication housed at a vacant retail store at 1207 of what’s happened to the business. It’s 4th Street. The new shop and a double been amazing.” storey office should be ready for occuSupreme has increased its payroll pancy as early as September. in the same period from 30 employees The new building will be 100 to more than 150 today, making the by 240 feet, nearly twice the space of Edward St. location too cramped. the old building and will feature a 90 “We had a good location, but we Don Biette, Àeld supervisor for Supreme OilÀeld Conby 100-ft welding shop and an 80 by had some residential problems,” added 100-ft mechanical shop with a wash bay and a 42 by struction Ltd. checks out progress at the construction Pachal. “It’s easier in the new location to get our big100-ft two-storey office. There is also plenty of yard site of the company’s new ofÀce and shop location ger trucks in and out. We needed a bigger yard too.” on Shand Road. OfÀce workers are located at a store space to park a growing fleet of vehicles. When asked why they choose the Shand Road downtown until the new building opens in the fall. “We didn’t have enough room in the shop where site for expansion, Pachal said, “Peterbilt (Frontier we were and we’re growing too fast,” said Biette. “The Peterbilt Sales Ltd.) started the ball rolling. There biggest demand for our services is the Bakken. It’s a and that’s when we put the plan in place to subdivide,” are a lot of places expanding out there. It’s just the big play and we do a lot of work here. It’s pretty busy.” said Kent Pachal, the controller. availability of property. Also, we got the land at a deSupreme originally purchased 46 acres of property “We had planned to move into the new site on cent price.

Ground Floor Oil & Gas Investment Opportunity Tremendous Growth Potential - www.Estevan.com The state of Kentucky has seen over 100,000 wells drilled since the 1930’s but thousands were shut in or abandoned during a period of low commodity prices. In the past decade the state has seen little new exploration or development as oilmen retired, large companies looked elsewhere, and the application of new drilling or production technology was all but ignored. KOS Energy is a private company focused on oil & gas exploration in Kentucky. After an initial round of Ànancing, their plan is to list publicly on a Canadian stock exchange to provide investors with liquidity and transparency. They are doing a current round of Ànancing at $0.50 with the next proposed at $1.00 or more. Funds are being utilized to build a large inventory of carefully selected oil & gas leases which should put them on target for 30,000 to 40,000 acres by Q1/09. Balance of funds will be used for drilling. • Veteran landmen from Kentucky are key shareholders and sourcing leases from both Eastern & Western Kentucky • Share structure is excellent with a tightly held shareholder base and strong insider and management participation • Cost of acquiring Leases is a Fraction of what is being paid in Canada and other oil producing regions of the U.S. • Cost of drilling and production is also far below industry standards due to shallow depth of oil & gas zones • New Downhole Stimulation Tools (exclusive to KOS in Kentucky) will be utilized • Extensive utilization of fracture mapping and satellite imagery backed by old school Àeld experience Deep well drilling is all but ignored in Kentucky but deep shale discoveries in other regions have created tremendous excitement across North America - the Bakken in Saskatchewan, North Dakota, and Montana, Barnett in Texas, Marcellus in Pennsylvania, Ohio and New York, Haynesville in East Texas and northern Louisiana, and the Piceance Basin in western Colorado. Few will even know that the Àrst major shale gas play occurred in Kentucky during the early 1900’s. KOS Energy will own their oil & gas leases (to depth) after drilling only 1 well in the parcel. Over time the rights to those deeper formations may prove to be highly valuable. Contact information along with further Detail, Disclosure and Disclaimer is available Exclusively on www.Estevan.com or www.Weyburn.com

B24

PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

Reinhart smooths the way for future growth

Kelly Day an area manager for Reinhart Construction Southern stands in the bucket of a company backhoe used to help site prep land for a new industrial park on Shand Road.

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1123 5th Street, Estevan

and put the drainages in,â&#x20AC;? said Smith. Asked what led to the selection of their own building site, Day said, â&#x20AC;&#x153;It was just one of the parcels the owner liked, but he doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t need the whole 21 acres so he decided to sell the rest. Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re hoping it pays for itself. We put a lot of work into it. We have some people from Alberta and locally interested in the lots. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I think youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re going to see this is the industrial park of the future. You have Peterbilt on the other side and Supreme Oilfield going to the south of us. Youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re going to see a lot of heavy traffic here.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s going to be a good oil patch segment out there. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s probably going to grow from where it is now in a big way over the next two to three years.â&#x20AC;? Reinhart Oilfield Services Ltd. from Red Deer is currently excavating land adjacent to Roger Service Rig for a new development.

Canam Country Inn

1/2 Section

1/4 Section

We thought weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d give it a try and see how it went. We are here to stay and be taxpayers.â&#x20AC;? The work on Shand Road served as showcase for the type of subdivision work the company does in addition to earth related projects such as lease preps, pipeline right of ways, small flow lines and road building. The work at Shand Road started by draining the site of water and removing the top soil to create a solid and deep surface for building. Site foreman Brad Smith said, â&#x20AC;&#x153;We had to move a lot of earth to get it flat. It started out to be terrible soil so we did a â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;flipâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;. We put a bunch of top soil in a deep hole and brought up all the good soil. Excavators also used the topsoil from a neighbouring property to help raise the land by about six feet and lay the ground work for an access road off Shand Road. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We did the levelling and flattening

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Estevanâ&#x20AC;&#x201C; Reinhart Construction Southern, based in Red Deer is a mover and shaker of earth hoping to make a name for itself in the oil patch of southeast Saskatchewan. The company just completed excavating a 21-acre site on Shand Road for its own shop and an industrial subdivision after just three months of local operation. The company also scored some early PR points when it built a new football field across from Woodlawn Golf Club. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re hoping to get some notice that we are contributing to the community,â&#x20AC;? said area manager Kelly Day who has lived in Estevan for three years. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We want everyone to know we are not just here from Alberta to take all the work and disappear. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The owner, (Bruce Reinhart) is from the area and decided it was busy and not a lot of people were coming here from our industry.

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Modus lands major deal Swift Current - Modus has inked a $54-million deal with Suncor to provide the oilsands giant with 1500 housed bed-units. “Upwards of 90 per cent of the work order will be filled out at the Swift Current plant so clearly that’s good news,” said Janeen Norman, director of public relations with the modular structure manufacturer. Modus’s story is an interesting one – one that personifies success in a free market economy. The company started manufacturing classrooms for the government of Alberta four years ago and in that time sales have risen from $700,000 in annual sales to over one hundred million. “When we started this our company produced high-end products and created a market for our product that we consider the next generation of modular structures with hotel finishings, durable high-end finishing and that was at a time when our companies we’re trying to provide the lowest cost possible. That gamble has really paid off now,” said Norman. It’s an amazing success story for the company. “It is and really we have to attribute that growth all our marketing partners and Purdy and Lanz Marketing Corp.,” said Norman. “They were actually the ones that got us the first contract with the government of Alberta and helped us land contract with Suncor,” she said. As a result of landing the contract Modus the company is looking to expand its facilities to accommodate future growth. “We want to capitalize on that and we have the base to do that,” she said. Currently the company is sitting at about 100 employees and it is looking to grow to 200 over the next year or so while also expanding the facility. “Because we went high end we’re getting a lot of attention from oil ad gas executives and when everything is equal those workers are going to work for the company that provides better accommodation. It helps attract them and keeps them with the company,” she said. In terms of constructing the units Modus is underway now with first delivery expected in the fall. Ellis Don is the construction management company constructing the site for fall delivery.

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PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

Natural Gas Prices

B26

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A M Inspection: the pipe testers Cabri - Michael Korven is the owner of A M Inspection, which has been checking pipe for fractures since1986. “We provide testing to the oil and gas industry and to the mining industry which includes radiography as our mainstay, but we also do ultrasonic testing, mag testing and liquid penetrant testing,” he says “Radiography sees through the pipe so that when you take a radiograph picture it’s similar to what’s in a hospital, so you see the total weld inside and outside,” he explains. Ultrasonic testing uses sound waves that travel through the pipe, “It’s becoming more prevalent throughout the industry. It’s taking over on the big pipeline it’s not new however, it’s been like that for years,” he says. Liquid penetrant and the mag particle method are similar. “One is with electricity and we put a mag powder on it and if there’s a crack it will draw those particles to show a line and liquid penetrant works on something that is not magnetic,” he says. In the process everything has to be cleaned and sprayed. “The penetrant is then sprayed on the area to be checked and after a 10-15 minute dwell time the penetrant seeps into any slight cracks and then we spray a developer on it and the penetrant will be drawn back out and shown clearly if there’s a tight crack,” he says. If there are hairline fractures or any kind of defects in the pipe there’s code which lays out what the defects can be accepted or rejected, Korven explains. Repairs can vary from welds to cut outs, he says. Presently, the company employs close to 25 people in the field and a couple more in the office but at one point there was as many as 35 people working with the company. “Right now we’re operating 12 two-man units. And then we have a couple trucks running around doing ultrasonics and two mainline units — with a developing area and a viewing area — that use we can use a gammamat internal crawler to get a look from inside the pipe on anything from a six-inch to 24-inch pipe and take a whole x-ray at one time which gives you better x-rays and speeds things up,” he says. “We provide services for the uranium mines and Agrium as well as TransGas or SaskEnergy.” Korven adds the company is COR safety certified and has recently moved a couple trucks into that Weyburn-Carlyle area. “We’re hoping to get a few more people working down in that southeastern part of the province.”

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PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

B27

Blackdog to drill on its Whitebear holdings Â&#x201E; By GeoďŹ&#x20AC; Lee Calgaryâ&#x20AC;&#x201C; Blackdog Resources Ltd. has begun to drill into some known light oil leftovers in the Whitebear area that promise to ďŹ ll its plate and satisfy shareholders. High oil prices and a favourable royalty regime in the province are among the factors motivating the junior oil and gas company to drill now on property it acquired in 2005. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The wells are older wells drilled in the 80s and now weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re going in with a partner and â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;punchâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; some horizontals,â&#x20AC;? said David Corcoran president and CEO. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t rush into boom areas. We like to get there ďŹ rst. We had this land for awhile and we are drilling now because the price of oil is so high. We are conďŹ dent good things will come out of those wells pretty quick.â&#x20AC;? The drilling will be performed by Eagle Drilling Services Ltd. that is under contract with Blackdogâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s private partner. Blackdogâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s partner has drilled two wells on adjacent lands, one in the fourth quarter of 2007 and one in the ďŹ rst quarter of 2008, both of which had initial production rates of over 150 bbls of light oil per day. These have levelled oďŹ&#x20AC; to the 80 bbl per day range after several months of production. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We expect to ďŹ nd the same and that would probably triple or quadruple the value of our company,â&#x20AC;? said Corcoran. The August drilling will tap into the Tillston Souris-Valley formation that is shallower than the Bakken. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The wells are a little cheaper to drill,â&#x20AC;? said Corcoran. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Normally, the Bakken wells are about $2 million a well. The area we are in is about $1 million a well.â&#x20AC;? Blackdog will pay a $600,000 share of an antici-

â&#x20AC;&#x153;

With identical wells in Alberta and Saskatchewan, youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re going to accrue 25 greater value in Saskatchewan - David Corcoran

â&#x20AC;?

pated $1 million cost to participate in the ďŹ rst of up to three (1.8 net) horizontals development wells in the Whitebear area as a 60 per cent working partner. Asked if Blackdog plans to participate in the August sale of oil and gas rights, Corcoran said ,â&#x20AC;&#x153;Land sales are very expensive down there (Bakken). We are well aware itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s booming. â&#x20AC;&#x153;What happens when thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a lot of activity, prices tend to get a little ahead of themselves. Our strategy is more to ďŹ nd people who already have land and either take it over or farm-in on what theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re going to drill. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We have several Bakken opportunities that we are looking at but we havenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t ďŹ nalized anything yet. We are always planning on doing more, but this (Whitebear) is what we have on our plate right now. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I think the activity in southeast Saskatchewan is great. You have a province that is royalty friendly. It makes it easier to raise capital. With identical wells in Alberta and Saskatchewan, youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re going to accrue 25 greater value in Saskatchewan. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s pretty simple math.â&#x20AC;? Blackdog became a public company in January, 2006 with shareholder value in mind. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re a small junior oil and gas company and we will get a little bigger,â&#x20AC;? said Corcoran. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Then, we will sell out

to someone else who wants to get real big. Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s our strategy.â&#x20AC;? The company also announced that it plans to drill exploration well in the Granite Wash formation on its 100 per cent owned EVI property near Red Earth in northern Alberta later this month or early September. Successful Granite Wash wells in the area have shown initial production rates ranging from 350 bbls of oil per day up to as high at 1,000 bbls of oil a day with cumulative production from some wells totalling over two million bbls and still producing at high rates. A secondary target of the same well is the Slave Point formation well. Over 300 Slave Point wells have been completed in the area with initial production rates averaging 150 bbls of oil per day and cumulative production rates ranging from 120,000 to 150,000 bbl per day. Blackdog may farm-out 50 per cent of its interest in this Granite Wash that would cost approximately $1.1 million to drill and complete and another $200,000 to complete a Slave Point zone. To fund its exploration and development activities, Blackdog stated in a news release it intends to issue on a non-brokered private placement basis, up to four million common shares for gross proceeds of up to $1.35 million. Pursuant to the private placement, the company will issue up to three million common shares on a "ďŹ&#x201A;ow-through" basis under the Income Tax Act (Canada) at 35 cents per share and up to one million common shares at 30 cents per share. Closing of the private placement is expected to occur on or before Aug. 7 and is subject to the receipt of all requisite regulatory and stock exchange approvals. The common shares and ďŹ&#x201A;ow-through shares will be subject to a four month hold period from the date of closing. Certain directors and oďŹ&#x192;cers of the company may participate in the private placement.

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B28

PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

Precision service rigs work 24/7 in the Bakken

Precision’s service rig crew installs a pack-off bolt onto a blowout preventer. All of the crew members are from Weyburn including rig manager Pete Gill, driller Darcy Carter, derrickman, Evan Winter, Áoorhand Blake Anderson and Áoorhand Brian McKechnie.

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Estevan – The drilling rig has gone. The wellhead is in place. It’s time for Precision Well Servicing (PWS) to wheel in their service rig for oil companies like Petrobank, Crescent Point and Apache and perform a number of downhole services and operations to get the well production-ready without the pump jack hook up. “We will run pipe downhole and bottom hole tools, circulate fluids with the pump and tank and get the well to the point where they (oil companies) produce it with a pump jack,” said Barry Dubasov, PWS field supervisor in Estevan. “After the frac, we’ll come back and we put it online. We will trip some tubing and put some rods in the hole and hook it up to the pump jack or leave it ‘properly spaced’ with the rods hanging in the hole so when they put a pump jack on it, they connect the jack to the polish rod and get it going themselves.” PWS has contracted 27 service rigs in the Bakken as business has doubled in the past few years. PWS has a western Canadian fleet of 100 freestanding rigs. On its corporate web site, PWS lists completions, workovers, abandonments, well maintenance, high-pressure and critical sour well work and re-entry preparation among its services.

JJ TRUCKING

“Business has picked up because of the price of oil and the Bakken ﬁeld – how it has changed everyone’s outlook and outcome,” said Dubasov. “It’s meant more rigs out the door.” PSW is a sister company of Precision Drilling and is noted for their emphasis on safety. PWS has an industryleading health, safety and environment initiative called “Target Zero” which places a premium on safe working practices. “Safety is the key aspect,” said Dubasov.”If it’s not safe, we won’t do it. We’ll manage the hazards or bring in other support equipment to make it safe. Safety covers everything from picking up tubing to conducting business on a professional level and training our hands to do the job.” “At the site, we will hold a safety meeting, get our marching orders and after we’re done making sure everything is right, we stand the derrick up and start picking up pipe if we’re on a completion. “On the production side of things, when there’s a repair to do, we will remove the horse’s head (top of pump jack) and do some pumping or start pulling rods and pull the bottom hole out. If there’s more to do, we will pull the tubing as well. We don’t touch the casing side of it. It’s more the rods and the production tubing that we do.” PWS contracts its service rigs as a package including the dog house, the ﬁve ton transporter that hauls support equipment as well as

the pump to bleed off gas. “If it’s at the point where it’s not possible to bleed off gas when the H2S is high, that’s when we bring other services in,” said Dubasov.” PWS can also perform an acid job, a swab and evaluate procedure or change a string of rods or tubing. When the work is done, crews put the horse’s head back on. The oil company will send battery operators to the site to start the well, test the flow and piping and test the emergency kick-off switch. When asked about the impact of the Bakken, Dubasov said, “We work wherever the oil companies are. For us making the Bakken feasible – that’s not us. We just help them achieve their dreams. The challenge for us is get new people. We hired a recruiter to hire staff for our Estevan and Swift Current operations. We are looking everywhere and anywhere.” Each PWS service rigs has a rig manager, a driller, a derrick hand and two floor hands and is staffed on a six man rotation to allow for days off. The busiest times of the year are before Christmas and before and after road bans. “It’s a 24/7 business,” said Dubasov. Dubasov says even if the boom ends in five years and activity slows down, “they’ll find new ways and technology to get oil to the surface. Precision is always finding ways to prolong the life of their fields. One of our core values is to empower to affect change. We definitely have the people and technology to make it happen.”

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PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

B29

Considering the nuclear option Is Saskatchewan ready to add value to uranium? By Stephan Burnett Swift Current – With oil and gas prices hitting all-time highs and more pressure being exerted on governments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the provincial government in Regina has decided to begin considering the nuclear option. Lyle Stewart, Minister of Enterprise and Innovation maintains that the province has never added value to the raw uranium yellow cake it currently exports. With oil and gas prices forecast to remain at record levels and with heightened concern over coal-burning power plants, many citizens within the province are beginning to see nuclear-generated power as the next step in the province’s evolution. “As you know in Saskatchewan we have never added a single pound to the value of yellow cake. As a new government we welcome interest from the private sector and we were pleased to be approached by Bruce Power over the possibility of locating a nuclear power plant here,” said Stewart. Currently, Bruce Power is undertaking a feasibility study and looking at establishing some potential locations. “It’s a very preliminary step. If the answer is yes, it will start a long process of environmental hearings. It’s a long process and we’re just entering the ﬁrst step,” said Stewart. The minister maintains the public’s perspective on nuclear power has been in the process of shifting over the past decade. “The previous government was opposed to it and wouldn’t entertain any thoughts of adding value to one of our greatest resources,” Stewart said. Still, even if the preliminary study is positive the minister added the whole process from environmental hearings to bringing a nuclear power plant online will take at least 10 years. It is projected that hundreds of jobs could be created in the running of a nuclear power plant while

during the construction phase well over 1,000 jobs might be created. Nuclear research will be performed if the project moves ahead and additional private sector development will also occur, the minister maintained. Stewart also maintained there would be a net economic beneﬁt for the province if additional electricity were exported as opposed to raw uranium. “Absolutely there is a beneﬁt but the grid is not in place to do that. There would also have to be private sector involvement in exporting power and adding to the grid,” he said. Producing more from coal is becoming less of a viable option for the gov-

“

We’re going to take a wait and see attitude on the one or more potential sites

”

-Lyle Stewart

ernment with concerns being raised over the province’s generation of greenhouse gases. “We have to do something diﬀerent,” said Stewart. Whether nuclear power is part of that mix is yet to be determined but the government is welcoming attempts to expand wind power and also encouraging the development of ethanol plants, like a current effort, which is underway in Shaunavon.

A nuclear power study done by SaskPower was recently leaked to the public. The minister called the study dated and lacking in depth. “We’re going to take a wait and see attitude on the one or more potential sites,” he said. The current study being performed by Bruce Power is oﬃcially entitled the 2020 Initiative. Unveiled in mid-June, Bruce Power president Duncan Hawthorne said in a news release that Saskatchewan

has the opportunity to become a leader in developing clean energy options over the next decade. “The reality of climate change is upon us and the government clearly understands the need to consider all options if we are to tackle one of society’s most pressing issues,” Hawthorne stated in the release. “I believe nuclear energy, when properly integrated with technologies such as hydrogen, would be a worthy addition to Saskatchewan’s energy mix and look forward to exploring the potential further.” According to the June release, as part of its Saskatchewan 2020 program, Bruce Power will consider:

* How best to integrate nuclear energy with hydrogen, wind, solar and clean coal technologies to give Saskatchewan a diverse and secure supply of clean energy for 2020 and beyond. * The economic impacts, public attitudes and level of support for adding nuclear energy to the province’s current electricity supply mix. * Potential locations that would be suitable to host a new generating station and the provincial transmission requirements needed for new nuclear and other clean energy sources. Bruce Power intends to begin its analysis this summer and issue a report by the end of the year.

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B30

PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

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Swift Current - With its head office in Lampman, Carson Welding and Maintenance Ltd. has been operating in Swift Current for nine years now with other offices in Carlyle, Alida, Halbrite and Lloydminster and Alberta offices in Wainwright and Calgary. Even though the company names evokes the idea of a welding enterprise Carson safety manager Trent Samson says there’s a lot more to the company than simply welding. “The majority are track hoe operators, pressure testing guys, equipment operators and mechanics and guys who do construction on buildings and pipeline insulation,” he says. The company had its start in Lampman in the mid-70s when founder Ron Carson, a welder, started up the business when one oilfield activ-

ity eventually led to others. Now, the company boasts 75 people in Swift Current alone. “We are primarily a pipeline and oilﬁeld construction company as well as a safety trainer,” says Samson. “What we do is complete pipelines to existing wells -- either oil or gas wells -- and we tie

“

include training and safety. “Our safety training is provided for the oil and gas industry and we provide a service to the agricultural industry and some to our government clients include Sasktel and SaskPower,” he says. This aspect of the company, called Carson Safety and Environmen-

It is growing and (within the region) the primary thing that caused the growth was the Shackleton and Lacadema ﬁelds -Trent Samson

them together to a central point. The gas wells are compressed and it’s sent into SaskEnergy and from there it’s shipped to the customers. Our clients use us to tie together existing wells and we offer a multitude of other services,” says Samson. Training and safety Those other services

”

tal Service, offers courses in: H2S, ground disturbance, first aid and CPR, WHMIS, TDG, driver training courses, confined space entry and rescue as well as entry-level safety courses such as Petroleum Safety Training and Pipeline Construction Safety Training. ɸ Page B31

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PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

B31

Training and safety a big part of Carson

Tyson Crowe, at left, and Trent Samson of Carson Safety and Environmental Services stand inside the air-supply trailer at Carson’s shop.

ɺ Page B30 There are other courses available as well but there’s not a high demand for them, Samson explains. Those courses include “rigging and hoisting courses and we provide an introduction for personnel loading cranes and lifting loads as well as forklift training,” Samson says.

“Initially our primary focus was our own personnel but we supplement our courses by bringing in people and all the courses are available to the public. We’ve grown in to training the public,” he says. “The initial thought was to reduce our own costs but it’s grown way beyond that,” he adds. About growth The oil and gas in-

: r u

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r o F

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dustry has been growing throughout the province and within the region due to a number of factors. “It is growing and (within the region) the primary thing that caused the growth was the Shackleton and Lacadema ﬁelds,” he says. Both ﬁelds are located north of Swift Current. “They basically run along the river valley and around the Kyle area,” says Samson. And the future for the industry also looks bright. “We probably will be the next big producer of oil and gas and the royalty structure change in Alberta may have been a bit of a factor but it’s not the big thing that oil companies are saying. Good things are in store and we are probably one of the better provinces to be in for untapped reserves,” Samson concludes.

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PIPELINE NEWS

C-Section August 2008

Saskatchewan’s Petroleum Monthly

Crescent Point buys rights to rename Weyburn Coliseum By Geoﬀ Lee Weyburn – Crescent Point Energy Trust scored a key public relations goal at the Weyburn Coliseum on June 26 with a $200,000 donation for rink renovations and the rights to rename the arena Crescent Point Place. In his presentation speech, Scott Saxberg, president and CEO of Crescent Point and Shelter Bay Energy Inc., a privately held conventional oil and gas growth company, garnered added applause for his company’s investment plans in the area. “We’re going to spend close to $800 million out here this year between Crescent Point and Shelter Bay,” he said. “Going forward over the next 10 years, we’re going to spend about $500 million a year in this area. So, we’re very excited to be part of this project and part of the community of Weyburn. This is a great rink and I’m sure there’s a lot of great hockey out here.” Crescent Point is a conventional oil and gas income trust with assets focused in properties comprised of high quality, light oil and natural gas reserves in western Canada. More than 80 per cent of Crescent Point’s production is in the Weyburn area. Mayor Debra Button took to the podium and said, “I would like to announce today that Cres-

cent Point has joined our fundraising efforts to support the Weyburn Coliseum. In recognition of their generosity, they will receive the naming rights of the Weyburn Coliseum. From today, this will be Crescent Point Place. “The generosity of Crescent Point comes at a strategic time for the City of Weyburn and they have helped immensely as we continue our plans to improve our aging coliseum.” Button also singled out the effort of local Crescent Point director, Ken Cugnet for helping to make the cheque presentation possible. Crescent Point’s donation is part of a fundraising campaign which began three years ago to renovate the rink that was built in 1961 and is home to the Weyburn Red Wings. Elmer Franks, the fundraising coordinator said his committee has just put 11 private boxes up for sale and has sold three for $50,000 each for a five year period. The committee has also sold three sponsorships to name the dressing rooms in sponsors’ names. Crescent Point operations in the Bakken cover 35 townships and Saxberg said, “We want to support all of the communities in that area. We’ve supported the infrastructure of the Stoughton rink and we support a lot of hockey teams in Weyburn and

Holding up Crescent Point’s $200,000 cheque to rename the Weyburn Coliseum, Crescent Point Place and help fund renovations are (from left) Crescent Point president and CEO Scott Saxberg, Crescent Point director Ken Cugnet, Mayor Debra Button, councillor Bill Rudachyk and arena fundraising coordinator, Elmer Franks.

Estevan.” Crescent Point is the largest oil producer in southeast Saskatchewan. In his opening remarks Saxberg said, “We came out here in 2001. We were small at the time and we raised $9 million and did our ﬁrst acquisition in the Manor area and we’ve grown the company ever since.

We have one of the largest positions in the Bakken play that has reenergized the city and

we’re developing is three times the size of the Weyburn oil ﬁeld discovered in the 50s.

Weyburn Mayor Button and Crescent Point president and CEO Scott Saxberg cut a ceremonial cake after announcing the oil and gas producer purchased the rights to rename the Weyburn Coliseum to Crescent Point Place with a $200,000 donation.

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PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

City sizzling with growth

Encana and oil technology Weyburn – The City of Weyburn is on ﬁre economically and the oil and gas sector is largely

responsible for fanning the ﬂames. There’s a high energy buzz on the street as

Weyburn sizzles on most fronts. Manufacturing, agricultural processing and residential and com-

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mercial real estate are hot. Livestock is the only cool ember. The night before Pipeline News showed up to investigate, CBC National News aired a report on the oil and gas boom and Weyburn’s growth that Mayor Debra Button describes as phenomenal. “It’s oﬀ the charts. We have had record growth,” she said. “Construction in the winter time is one thing we are seeing more and more of. Usually it’s a seasonal thing, but it doesn’t stop here now. That is a sign we are prospering. “We opened up 52 lots in November and we had a line-up at the counter to buy that day. We sold out in April. We are opening another 72 lots this year. We will start to pre-sell these in August. We already have a waiting list.” The city is also proposing to create a new subdivision in the South Hill area with 56 lots priced between $30,000 and $40,000. The lots will be available in one to three years depending on demand. As a sign of times, the house that Mayor Button grew up in has been sold by her par-

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Mayor Debra Button says Encana’s CO2 project and the Bakken play are responsible for the growth of Weyburn and new residential, retail and commercial developments. The city’s tax base is growing allowing the municipality to keep up with infrastructure projects like road paving.

ents to make way for a new hotel on the busy highway commercial strip near Wal-Mart and other big box retailers. The City Centre Mall is under new ownership

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and new tenants will be found to fill space. The city has budgeted for a planned set of traffic lights at the busy intersection of Railway Avenue and Government Road and Button said, “It may seem like a small thing, but for a community of 10,000, that is a big indicator of growth.” While oil was discovered in the Weyburn oil field in 1954, what’s driving the current economic boom is new technology that’s boosted oil production. “They were talking about the oil fields coming to the end of their life in this area, but CO2 technology has increased the life of the oil field,” said Ken Evans, chair of the South East Regional Economic Authority (SEREDA). “With new technology like horizontal drilling, they are able to access the Bakken field as well.” Encana’s WeyburnMidale CO2 project is leading the global development of storing CO2 underground as a climate change strategy. ɸ Page C3

PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

driving Weyburn’s growth ɺ Page C2 “People are looking at us from around the world,” said Button. “When Encana brings in their international visitors, they often welcome me out for lunch. It gives us (the city) a bit of a partnership. “In the 50s and in the 70s, when oil was going again, we didn’t quite make the welcome. My job and council’s job is to support the welcome and to let people know Weyburn is here and that we’re a beautiful community. Weyburn hopes to win the national Communities in Bloom title this year in its population category. Last year, marked the third year in a row Weyburn earned the maximum ﬁve-bloom rating without a national title. “I think we have a beautiful city,” said Button. “We have an exceptional library, a wonderful indoor pool and all the amenities. What we lacking in the past was good jobs.

Certainly, the oil industry has brought the good jobs. They’ve brought the highpaying jobs.” Weyburn is the host of the Saskatchewan Oil and Gas show to be held in 2009 and Button teamed up with MLA Dustin Duncan, SEREDA’s outgoing chair Dylan Clarke and oil show board members Marlene Nedelcov, Stan Runne and Ron Jeﬀery to market Weyburn during the 2008 Global Petroleum Show in Calgary in June. “We were glad handing booth to booth and being at the social functions and welcoming people to Weyburn,” said Button. “Through that we’ve had a couple of contacts and successes.” Weyburn promotes itself as the Opportunity City and Jeﬀ Richards, who manages the Weyburn Chamber of Commerce, said both sides of the business equation – retail and industry are strong.

“A new Ramada hotel is being constructed and should be ready to go right away and we have new retail outlets opening up,” he noted. “We do get a number of calls from oilfield related industries looking for property and buildings which is excellent since we are going to see a lot of new construction. We don’t have an inventory of empty buildings so it’s good to see new stuff being built.” When asked about the buzz about Weyburn’s growth, Richards said, “It’s always positive for business any time there‘s a buzz. What happens is, it creates a want. People want to be where things are good.” On the downside Richards said that the business community is struggling to find qualified employees. “It’s a supply and demand thing. It’s a growing pain we’re experiencing.” At the SEREDA office, Evans says the la-

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A new log home is being constructed in Weyburn’s Assiniboia Park subdivision. The boom in oil and gas is fuelling the development of new housing and condominiums throughout Weyburn.

bour shortage is not only impacting the oil and gas sector, but other sectors like manufacturing, agriculture and agriculture processing. “They all have challenges ﬁnding workers,” he said. SEREDA has hosted a number of seminars for businesses on the option of hiring oﬀshore workers and is also looking at holding job fairs in Ontario where the economy is less vibrant. “There’re folks in Ontario who may be interested in coming to Saskatchewan,” said Evans. “Southeast Saskatchewan is where it’s at.” Weyburn is also counting on its close prox-

imity to Regina to help it grow. “It’s a marketing tool that we use,” said Button. “The oil and gas industry needs the airport and we are an hour away. We are also trying to convince the federal and provincial government the traffic numbers are there to twin Highway 39.” The city met with the province during its study on affordable housing and Button said the city may look at tax incentives to encourage developers to build more rental properties. Over at the Royal LePage office, broker/ owner Leslie Smith said she had 21 listings, the

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most in over a year, ranging from $209,000 to over $500,000 including condos and resale homes. “The oil and gas sector has put a higher demand on housing,” she said. “Our prices have doubled in the past three years like other markets in the province. The market has cooled somewhat. Last year, people were quick to act on a property. When a house was listed, it was gone by the end of the day. Coming into this year, people want to see three or four before they buy.” Smith said she is also seeing a lot of interest in commercial properties as local businesses expand or investors buy properties to refurbish and rent to oil companies as oﬃce space. “We have also had a lot of new retail added in the past two years. Five years ago, you could walk down the main street and you would see a lot of empty buildings. Today there’s not an empty business. Life is good in Weyburn.”

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PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

Boyd notes the economic value in Encana’s CO2 play Weyburn – Encana is a major producer of oil and gas in southeast Saskatchewan and a major economic engine helping to drive growth in the

community of Weyburn. Encana’s use of CO2 to enhance oil recovery and store carbon underground in its Weyburn oil ﬁeld has also put the

company and Weyburn on the global map. Energy and resources minister Bill Boyd toured Encana’s CO2 ﬁeld ofﬁce in Goodwater along

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More than well testing.

Encana’s CO2 sequestration project centred at the Goodwater Àeld ofÀce, continues to generate international attention and increased oil production for the Weyburn oil Àelds. The project has had a large economic impact on Weyburn.

with U.S. congressmen Tim Mahoney and Rick Boucher on June 30, and he took a moment to tell the Pipeline News how important project is. “It demonstrates, not only to Saskatchewan and Canada, but to the entire world, the kind of initiative and the kind of project that’s happening here – the carbon sequestration part of it and the enhanced oil recovery part of it. It’s a win-win situation that creates a lot of investment,” said Boyd. “These kinds of facilities employ people. They are all very good paying jobs, so it’s great for the economy down here.” Encana has spent over $1 billion since the international CO2 sequestration research project started in 1999 and oil production has risen to 30,000 barrels a day with CO2 injection.

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The final phase of the research project is underway along with an increased supply of CO2 piped from the Dakota Gasification Company in North Dakota, from 95 million cubic feet a day, to 125 million cubic feet a day. “We’re upgrading our plant infrastructure to handle an increased volume of CO2 and we are building a new office as a result of that activity,” said Darcy Cretin, operations superintendent. When Boyd was asked for a brief comment on the impact of Encana project on the local economy he said, “There’s a tremendous amount of jobs and investment. The spinoff from this is tremendous in terms of housing sales, car sales – all those kinds of things. All of the businesses obviously benefit from it.” About the oil boom, Boyd said, “The technology that’s come along in terms of sequestration and enhanced oil recovery is a part of it. The drilling technology, the completion technology – all of these things have invigorated the area and that’s why we’re seeing the kind of investment by the oil and gas industry. It’s great news for the area and for the province.” The Boyd tour was one of many hosted by Encana’s community relations advisor Twila Walkeden whose audiences range from academics and media to the general public and politicians. Boucher is chair of the U.S. House Energy & Air Quality Sub-Committee and Mahoney is looking

for ways to cuts gasoline prices and reduce emissions. “What we’re trying to find out is what’s the trade off between increasing production and making sure we’re doing it in a responsible way,” said Mahoney. “This is ground zero for that in Weyburn.” All site guests receive a copy of Encana’s DVD titled, “Weyburn CO2 Storage, A Win Win” in which Walkeden helps to explain the entire CO2 storage and oil enhancement process. “I am very lucky to meet these people,” she says. “It gives me a chance to see the world through their eyes and see that Weyburn is so well known for the work we are doing here. The attention is something we deal with on a day to day basis. We don’t let it influence what we do. We are just here doing our jobs and that’s our main focus.” As a community relations advisor, Walkeden knows the influence Encana has on Weyburn. “Obviously, we are a big part of the economy in term of direct and indirect employment,” she said. “We hire a lot of local contractors and we employ about 60 people at our plant. “As well, our community investment program supports the economy. We donate money to charitable organizations. We try to find opportunities that resonate with the community of Weyburn. The community has supported us for so many years in our operations. Without that support, we wouldn’t have the success we do.”

PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

Oil Boom feeds oil show Weyburnâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;The 13th biennial Saskatchewan Oil and Gas Show to be hosted by Weyburn June 3-4, 2009, promises to be the best ever judging by the early word on the street. A delegation led by Mayor Debra Button with MLA Dustin Duncan, SEREDAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s outgoing chair Dylan Clarke and oil show board members Marlene Nedelcov, Stan Runne and Ron Jeffery was swamped with show inquiries during the 2008 Global Petroleum Show in Calgary in June. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve never had a strong reaction as weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve had this year,â&#x20AC;? said Jeffery, the show coordinator. In Calgary, we were like a magnet. Between that and the fact the Bakken is hot and the CO2 (EnCana project) is high priority, the response has been unbelievable. This one looks like a huge one.â&#x20AC;? To Mayor Button, the Calgary show also served as a venue to sell oil-related companies on the merits of locating in Weyburn as they have in the Estevan area. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Encana is the big player here but oil and gas companies arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t just showing up at our door,â&#x20AC;? she said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I want people to know that we are a beautiful community and we are the other option and weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re working hard on that.â&#x20AC;? Jeff Richards, manager of the Weyburn Chamber of Commerce said when companies are thinking of relocating here, â&#x20AC;&#x153;they have to look at the green space and the overall attractiveness and as a place to live. Weyburn excels at that. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s something the city has worked hard on.â&#x20AC;? Ken Evans, chair of SEREDA said, â&#x20AC;&#x153;We are hoping there area companies that want to get in on the Bakken play. SEREDA was at the Calgary show letting

business know that Weyburnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s doors are open.â&#x20AC;? In 2007, more than 4,000 people visited the oil and gas exhibits at the Weyburn Exhibition Grounds and Jeffrey says organizers have added 23 or 24 outside spaces given the early interest. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve never had a demand this early,â&#x20AC;? he said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The anxiety of people wanting to be part of the Bakken play is the reason they are trying to get into the show early. All of the big name companies will be here. â&#x20AC;&#x153;When you mention the show any place in western Canada they know where Weyburn is. They like the show. They have fun and they do some business where they are here.â&#x20AC;? While no one has done an economic impact study on the show, Button exclaimed, â&#x20AC;&#x153;The amount of money goes through our community the week of that show â&#x20AC;&#x201C; I wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want to guess. You canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t get a hotel from Estevan to Stoughton.

Interest in the 2009 Saskatchewan Oil and Gas Show is already strong thanks to the Bakken play, EnCanaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Weyburn-Midale CO2 injection project and the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s marketing efforts at the Global Petroleum Show in Calgary in June.

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Swabbing company growing with the times

Distance not a factor for Richmound company Richmound – Brandon Brilz started up Absolute SECOR handles every angle of safety operaWorks in December of 2004 with one swabbing unit tions. and one water truck and now the company has three “There are more and more companies that are swabbing units and three water trucks. requiring a SECOR or a COR certification. We had “I’m the sole owner and president and we work an auditor come in and we had a 98 per cent score. OilÄeld Welding & Construction in Richmound, Sask. and area and we get into Al- He was really impressed, so impressed that we got • 23 Ton Picker • Bed Truck berta and as far as Calgary and further east, but our our audit extended from one year to three years,” he main base is Richmound,” said Brilz. said. • Pipe Custodian “I developed the company into three swabbing The SECOR certification is designated for • Pipe Racks • Rig Matts units and when I started out I used to weld and that’s companies which have completed the program with • Flarestack Sales & Rental how it started out with repair welding,” he said. under 10 employees and a COR is for companies • Tubing Trailers On a swabbing unit the purpose is to clean the with over 10 employees. • 400 BBL Test Tank Sales & Rental water out of the gas wells. “We have a perfect safety record and from the • Wellhead Sales & Installation “When there’s too much water the well won’t first day of business no reports have been made and blow and hydrostatic pressure holds the gas back,” we plan to keep it that way,” he says. • Backhoe & Skid Steer • Steamer Brilz explained. In the future Brilz hopes to stay at the same • Crew Truck • Test Separators A swab rig consists of a 40-foot derrick and level of activity or expand. • Work Strings • Light Towers 9,000 feet of cable. “It would be nice to see it a little bit busier and “We go down with a special tool that’s ma- would be nice to see fuel prices comes down … have 24 hr. Mobile Pressure Welding chined and rubber cups pull the water the out of the to tighten the ship a little more with fuel prices being well,” he said. higher. I’m an owner operator so I’m in the trenches res. cell. When you’re swabbing water from a gas well with the guys and the distances don’t matter us. No 842-1707 fax. sometimes it’s muddy water and sometimes it’s matter where the job is we’ll do it.” he says. gibson welding10@hotmail.com clear. “I have a good team of workers backing me and P.O. BOX 926 WEYBURN, SK S4H 2L2 “It depends on what well you’re on and some- that’s what makes everything successful.” times sand will come out and when we draw the water up it punches up a Y-branch and goes through 50 metres of hose and into the water trucks,” he said. Brilz adds some companies like them to be on the wells for an hour or two and sometimes it’s only a halfhour job. “We can set up be rigged up and BlackBerry® 8830™ swab the wells and be gone in a half Motorola Razr2 smartphone hour if we don’t have far to travel,” 2.0-megapixel camera/camcorder Overseas roaming capability MP3 player says Brilz. Qwerty keyboard Huge outside display Push email technology Swabbing is also a very cost efTitanium frame Micro SD capability Stereo Bluetooth® capability fective way to get your well produc® ing to full potential compared to coil B Blackberry ™ tubing. Pearl 8130 “It’s about 40 per cent cheaper,” smartphone he says. Amethyst Micro SD capability Things have come a long way for 2.0-megapixel camera Absolute Works. Push email technology “When I started out I had to find Condensed keyboard Very small & unique design an employee and now we have an office and a lady at the office and at times we have had up to 12 employSamsung m620 LG 8700 Shine ees,” says Brilz. 2.0-megapixel camera/camcorder 2.0-megapixel camera/camcorder Samsung u740 Right now the company is workDual display design MP3 player Touch sensitive MP3 player 2.0-megapixel camera/camcorder ing on a steady pace and there’s not as Stainless steel construction Additional battery pack included Dual swivel design Vertical outside display many employees. Full Qwerty keyboard MP3 player “It’s starting to pick up a bit. My best years were ’05 and most of ’06 I’m seeing it start to pick up a bit but it’s not as fast as I expected it to be but as far as I understand things will change Motorola Rokr 2.0-megapixel camera/camcorder in fourth quarter,” he said. Come in today MP3 player “We also fish. We retrieve lost and have one of Sliding mechanism tools and any kind of equipment so Titanium frame our specialists find ® capability Stereo Bluetooth fishing is available,” he says. the perfect device The company is also SECOR cerfor you! tified. Research in Motion, the RIM logo, BlackBerry, the BlackBerry logo and SureType are John McMurdo registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and may be pending or registered “We’ve gone through extra steps Manager in other countries — these and other marks of Research in Motion Limtied are used under license. in getting our SECOR certification. Now we have a top-notch safety program. We took courses in Calgary and restructured our whole safety manual and program and everybody’s on the same page now. Now there’s a lot of good constructive safety work and we talk about the risks involved in doing different jobs and we are keeping our 300 Railway Avenue, Weyburn, SK safety tail gate meetings up to date and our safety kit stocked,” he says.

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842-1242

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PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

Flame Well Servicing growing with patch 37-year veteran leads company Swift Current Jim Cummings is the 37-year patch veteran who heads up Flame Well Servicing. “My dad had owned Alterry Well Services and he sold out in 1986. That’s when I made the move to Flame Well

Servicing,” he says. “I started in the oil patch in 1971 and drove tank truck for a year and a half and then worked with a service rig until 1986,” he says. Cummings now runs the company with his son and they have

15 employees. With the help of his father Cummings started out with a pressure truck and a hot oiler and later added a flushby unit. Then we progressed into what we have today: two pressure trucks,

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three hot oil units, one flushby unit and seven tank trucks set up for fraccing,” says Cummings. The tank trucks just deal with fresh water and we haul water for the fracs and tank flushing and whatever clients need water for. “We’ll haul anything to keep them trucks rolling,” he says. With the pressure truck, the company pressure tests pipelines, pressure tests for blow drains, for service rigs and it performs chemical corrosion inhibiting programs for tanks and vessels,” he says. On the hot oiler, the company dewaxes wells, heats fluid for fracs and saws out blow down tanks. The company also boasts a flushby unit, which is a small service rig.

“With that we do the light rod work, fish for broken rods and lost tools and chains and change bottom hole pumps,” he says. On one truck the company has a 50-foot derrick run with a hydraulic winch. It also has a triplex pump and a tank mounted on it all of which is all housed in one unit. “We run a three man crew on it,” he says. The advantages of running a flushby unit is that it’s much more cost effective for the smaller jobs. “It works for about half the price of a service rig,” says Cummings. Cummings says that while activity levels are steady there was a time in the early-tomid 1990s when busi-

ness was a little busier. “That was in the Renaissance Oil days when we had an oil company that bought up a bunch of property in southwest Saskatchewan and they were very aggressive,” he says. “It really was a boost to the area there was a lot of drilling and service activity.” Now activity levels are starting to pick up again. “It’s actually quite a bit better here in southwest Saskatchewan with the Shackleton shallow gas play which has expanded the area a lot,” says Cummings. Cummings concludes that shallow gas is going to kick oﬀ and the patch will be very busy. “The oil is going to stay steady and probably pick up I don’t believe companies are going to sit on it for too long.”

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PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

Big Guns offers many services Company has patent on unique truck

Big Guns part owner and southern area manager Gary Eirich.

Swift Current - Gary Eirich the southern-area manager/owner for Big Guns Perforating and Logging says his company oďŹ&#x20AC;ers a multitude of services to the oilpatch. The company was started 12 years ago in 1996 by a couple of Eirichâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s partners. Those two partners are Dill Darling and Duncan McPhedren. Eirich came on board in 2000, having bought into the company. The company has approximately 60 employees working for it. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve got locations in Red Deer, Medicine

yard. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m thinking with any luck within the next year youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll be hearing the boom word again,â&#x20AC;? he says. Eirich explains a lot of the bigger companies in the energy sector did not budget for the current oil prices. â&#x20AC;&#x153;What happens is thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a time frame involved in these budgets to acquire land and thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s why the second quarter is a little confusing. Word is the third and fourth quarter will be exceptionally busy and before long weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll be crying for time oďŹ&#x20AC; and begging for mercy.â&#x20AC;?

Hat, Whitecourt and Swift Current opened in 2007,â&#x20AC;? says Eirich. The company oďŹ&#x20AC;ers a full range of cased whole wirelining as well as completion work to abandonment services and anything in between. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We provide logging and perforating services in all of Alberta, B.C. and Saskatchewan and weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re expanding. Primarily we can identify the formation, we can locate and give a depth and the potential to the oil or gas zone,â&#x20AC;? he says. While seismic work is a little more general, the Big Guns are pretty accurate, says Eirich. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We have the ability to run tools in the ground to 10,000 feet deep and to communicate to those tools,â&#x20AC;? he says. Eirich believes activity levels in the patch are going to increase. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a lot of optimism. Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve had a wet spring so we have a lot of equipment sitting in the

Big Gunâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s patent Along with insightful views on the patch the Big Guns have also carved out their own unique market niche. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve designed and built the only wireline truck in the world that runs jointed tubing,â&#x20AC;? he says. Each unit represents an investment of approximately $1.3 million, said Eirich. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t need service rig. We log your well, swab a well and install tubing conveyed perforating (TCP) without the aid of a service rig,â&#x20AC;? he

says. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve got the patent on that. Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s only three in the world and weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re building a fourth one right now. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s deďŹ nitely some innovative

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PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

Acutec Messenger • Spill Prevention Monitoring. • Tank level inventory reporting. • Equipment runtime monitoring. • Pressure or temperature sensor monitoring. • Turbine Áow meter volume reporting. • RectiÀer monitoring. • Analog and modbus input channels • Four Discrete input channels NO/NC (Real Time Clock Onboard)

The front of Transco sits on Highway 1 just west of Swift Current.

Transco busier than ever

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By Stephan Burnett Swift Current Transco Energy Services Inc. has 17 branches across Western Canada with one Saskatchewan branch located in Swift

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Current. Ross Heitt, manager of the Swift Current branch explained Transco is a couple years old with Flint having bought a number of diﬀerent

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companies and placed them under the Transco name. “We are an oil rig moving company we also have the only pipe yard in southwest Saskatchewan. It’s a pretty busy place we have about 40 employees and we’re a little understaﬀed and could use a couple more,” he said. The majority of Transco’s workers are truck drivers. There are four people who work in the pipe yard and four mechanics. ɸ Page C16

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PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

C11

Veriperm manufactures and installs tools Company closing in on 40 years of operation

Swift Current James Nurcombe, the president of Variperm, says the company is a manufacturer and supplier of downhole tools. The company then installs those tools. â&#x20AC;&#x153;These would be packers, anchors, bridge plugs, cased-holed ďŹ shing tools, and tubing grain sand screens . . . anything we do is down hole,â&#x20AC;? he says. The company president says southwest Saskatchewan produces

casing and provide a seal between the casing and the tubing. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We supply a variety of application for injection wells and a whole variety of applications to seal the well bore from the tubing,â&#x20AC;? he says. An anchor is run in conjunction with a pump to prevent the tubing from cycling while pump is stroking, he says. There are many different types of bridge

â&#x20AC;&#x153;It was initially a California-based company and it was purchased and moved to Swift Current. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s privately-owned,â&#x20AC;? says Nurcombe. Over the years the company expanded from its initial sand screen oďŹ&#x20AC;erings and slowly migrated into cased-hole ďŹ shing tools. Now the company has operation in Lloydminster, Brooks, Provost, and in the 1980s the company moved its

James Nurcombe, president of Variperm recently took some time to talk with Pipeline News about his company. Varipermâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s shop lies on the west end of Swift Current.

a lot of sand with its oil and that negatively affects pumps and surface equipment. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The sand screens ďŹ lter the sand out of the oil in the well bore not at the surface,â&#x20AC;? he says. Nurcombe explains further that packers are run in the well and anchor themselves to the

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plugs and it is run in the well and anchored in the casing, which prevents anything below it from coming up the well bore, he says. â&#x20AC;&#x153;As well, if something is dropped in the well bore, we have special equipment that recovers everything,â&#x20AC;? he says. Next year will be Varipermâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 40th year in business. The name stands for variable permeability.

head oďŹ&#x192;ce into Calgary. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We have a machine shop and engineer all our equipment in house,â&#x20AC;? he says. The company currently employs 65 people. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Business is strong. We have a good customer base and a wide range of customers and lot of international work on the sand-control side and the outlook will be strong for some time.â&#x20AC;?

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C12

PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

Wiebe Contracting: 26 years of know how Swift Current - John Wiebe, president of Wiebe Contracting Ltd. has been a big part of the oilpatch for many years. The company has been a major part of the oilďŹ eld maintenance operations in the southwest for approximately 26 years. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We have managed to acquire a professional working relationship with local, as well as out of province oil and gas companies,â&#x20AC;? says Wiebe. The company is involved in pipeďŹ tting, ďŹ&#x201A;ow testing, well tie-ins, lease preparation, fencing leases, oil and gas maintenance, painting and clean up, single well construction and Texas gate installations. The company states it has performed complete manufacturing and fabrication of compressor station facilities. These activities include: pipeďŹ tting, ďŹ&#x201A;ow back fracs, ďŹ&#x201A;ow testing wells, oďŹ&#x20AC; loading of pipe, coil tubing unit support services, moving and rigging in blow back tanks and hauling services. While oil and gas prices are hitting all-time highs

Wiebe says the company has been busier at times. â&#x20AC;&#x153;It seems like the valleys are longer than the hills, I guess thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s why they call them peaks,â&#x20AC;? he says. Wiebe explains oil and gas companies have â&#x20AC;&#x153;wheel barrels full of money now and they donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have to go looking for it. The up costs have also changed. In 1997 it was about $12 a barrel and those wells are still pumping and they get $140 now,â&#x20AC;? he says. The company president has high hopes for the rest of the year. â&#x20AC;&#x153;It will get stronger once the Calgary stampede and holidays are over with everyone and has to go back to working. Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re working now but itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not real strong.â&#x20AC;? Once activity levels in the southwest region catch up to commodity prices Wiebe Contracting Ltd. will be ready for it. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We have the equipment and operators for ground excavation including tandems and pup for removal work and we have undertaken feats such as complete

1120 East Avenue Weyburn, Sask. S4H 3E4 Ph. 842-7290 Fax 842-7277

A service truck pulling a bobcat sits outside Wiebe Contracting, just north of Highway #1, a few miles west of Swift Current.

dismantling and removal of entire battery sites. We also have quality control in place for the construction and erection of pressure piping systems and welding procedures,â&#x20AC;? Wiebe stated in a written release. Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s been quite a bit of equipment acquisition over the years. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We started with a steamer and a backhoe and now we have gravel trucks, a payloader backhoes and trackhoes and we run three steamers in the winter and build compressors and do a lot of construction,â&#x20AC;? he says. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The steamers keep the wells warm in the winter time when itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 40 below. We use them a lot on service rigs and the frac crews use them.â&#x20AC;? Currently the company has close to 10 employees. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re only as good as your crews are,â&#x20AC;? Wiebe concludes.

Welcome to Industrial Electric Industrial Electric (Weyburn) Ltd is a major maintenance and installations contractor for manufacturing and processing industries in the oil and gas sector. For over 35 years, IEW has provided high quality maintenance and installation services for some of Canada's largest companies. From general electrical contracting to complex installations, IEW's committed group of electrical professionals is prepared for any project. Our growing team of electricians and instrument mechanics maintains exceptional standards of quality and customer service. Check us out on the web www.industrialelectric.ca

Exceeding expectations IEW is committed to the highest standards of quality.

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OIL TREATING COMPOUNDS ESTEVAN OFFICE 634-7627 Fax: 634-7827 Kelly: 861-6045 Darcy : 421-1551 Jeff: 421-7973 Chad : 421-0338 Lyle: 421-2491 Armand: 421-8286

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PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

C13

Entegra records 40 per cent growth

“

Our vision is to provide excellent quality of service and we pride ourselves on being an instrumentation and electrical leader - Brad Paschinski By Stephan Burnett

Swift Current Brad Paschinski is the manager for the southwestern region of the province for Entegra Controls and Energy Services. While some companies in the Swift Current region are reporting mixed activity levels so far this year, Paschinski says for Entegra the market has been great. “From the tail end of last year up until now the market has been very good. We’ve seen a 40 per cent growth over last year.” The company is part of the Maverick Group, which is comprised of four different companies with its head office in Medicine Hat, Alta. Those companies include: Southern Plains, a contract operating and well-testing outfit; Global Flow, a remote satellite monitoring service and a final company, Dynamic Welding.

Entegra itself is an instrumentation and system control company, Paschinski explains. “We also handle any electrical issues, maintain machinery and compressor controls and we build control valves and pressure release valves and we also do tubing jobs,” he says. Entegra has four employees based in Swift Current and another two based in Shaunavon. Four are instrumentation journeymen with two of those being two instrumentation technologists and in Shaunavon the company has one journeyman electrician and one second year apprentice. “Our vision is to provide excellent quality of service and we pride ourselves on being an instrumentation and electrical leader,” says Paschinski. “We also handle construction jobs and design options for the end user on how to

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make their plant run at optimum level.” The company has oﬃces in Swift Current, Claresholm, Calgary, Medicine Hat, Grande Prairie, Fort Nelson and Lloydminster. “We’ve been in Swift Current since January of ’05. Overall, the company has been around for ﬁve years,” he says. “We’re a newer company that’s been heavily into the southern Alberta and southern Saskatchewan area and we’re moving north,” he says. “Our area runs from Swift Current south to the U.S. border north to Kindersley and to the Alberta border.”

Ltd.

DRILLING • COMPLETIONS • PRODUCTIONS • Lab facility • Fresh water available • Industrial Cleaning Products Blaine Fallis General Manager 306-421-2623

Dean Carriere Technical Service Rep. 306-421-1238

Steve McLellan

Jay Burback 421-1894

Rick Breisnes 421-5502

SWIFT CURRENT Kevin Burton Technical Service Rep 421-3473

Stacey Gleim Technical Service Rep. 421-9418

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Join the Oil Wives club of Estevan, a social club for women whose significant others work in the oil patch. We understand relocation and how hard it may be to meet people in a new town. With our long established “Links of Friendship” via over 30 clubs in B.C., Alberta and Saskatchewan, you will always have a group of friends wherever the patch may take you and your family. Our motto is “Fostering Friendship” and we meet every third Thursday of the month... just to have fun and a meal. Come out and meet with women who share similar interests and take the opportunity to make life-long friendships. Next meeting will be Thursday, September 18th.

For more information call Cindy Beaulieu at 634-4970 or Connie Spencer at 634-1012

“Packing Quality and Service into Everything We Do” 634-7966 • 106 Perkins Street, Estevan, SK www.xtremeoiltools.com E-mail: cmcgillicky@xtremeoiltools.com

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PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

SaskPower working with alternative energy Gull Lake wind farm pays dividends Â&#x201E; By Stephan Burnett Gull Lake - The Cypress Wind Power Facility is a good example of alternative energy becoming a reality. Gilles Gauthier, Saskpowerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s production supervisor for the facility, says the wind turbines, located approximately 10 kilometres south of Gull Lake were put into service in October 2002. Construction started on July 15th, 2002. Prior to that the wind studies took place, environmental impact studies were done and other studies were completed. â&#x20AC;&#x153;There are 16 wind turbines at Cypress. They were built in two phases: nine in 2002 and seven more were built in Phase 2, which came into operation in December of 2003,â&#x20AC;? he says. Approximately $18 million was invested in the project. It will take approximately eight to 10 years to pay back the investment, said Gauthier. Saskpower, Vestas and private contractors were all involved in the construction phase of the project. Saskpower also signed a ďŹ ve-year contract with Vestas to operate and maintain the turbines. Approximately 25,000 manhours were allotted to constructing the Cypress facility. Presently, there are three wind farms located in the province and all are located in the Swift CurrentGull Lake area. The Centennial Wind Power Facility located southeast of Swift Current boasts 83 turbines â&#x20AC;&#x153;That oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a monster,â&#x20AC;? says Gauthier. The third wind farm is also located near Gull Lake and is owned by Sunbridge, a partnership be-

â&#x20AC;&#x153;

Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s extremely diďŹ&#x192;cult to compare cost of wind generation to coal or gas as wind has high capital cost for the amount of energy produced and no fuel cost.

â&#x20AC;?

-Gilles Gauthier

tween Suncor and Enbridge. Another wind project will be announced in the near future, says Gautier. Currently, Saskpower is undergoing an assessment on how much wind energy it can handle. Saskpower will be announcing a Wind Power Deployment Strategy in 2009 to determine future wind generation. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a lot of various issues. The wind isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t as reliable as far as a hydro or natural gas or a coal unit. You take what you get â&#x20AC;Ś if the wind isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t going to blow thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s no power generated. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a good mix but the thing is thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a balance to be maintained. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Nowadays, you can compare the price of wind generation to the price for gas generation. They run fairly stable and theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re not a big headache,â&#x20AC;? he says. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s extremely diďŹ&#x192;cult to compare cost of wind generation to coal or gas as wind has high capital cost for the amount of energy produced and no fuel cost. In other words, wind has minimal econonomies of scale. In addition, wind has a variable electrical output which can make grid operations a Challenge,â&#x20AC;? he says. Gauthier adds the turbines have been positively received in the Gull Lake area. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Within the community thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s even some murals where people have painted the turbines and the land

owners appreciate the competitive rate theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re receiving for access, and these days with people concerned about greenhouse gases itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s good to have SaskPower involved as far as wind generation goes. It deďŹ nitely is windy down there. If you can make some megawatts you might as well do it as the natural resources wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t last forever.â&#x20AC;?

A V47 wind turbines located just south of Gull Lake at the Cypress Wind Power Facility.

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C15

PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

Weatherford supplying the patch see why it wouldn’t last. It is surprising that we are not busier than we are,” he says. Jansen also provided kudos for the premier. “I think Brad Wall has done a pretty decent job in selling the oilpatch,” he says. Jansen recently

Weatherford’s shop in Swift Current.

Swift Current - Kal Jansen Swift Current manager with Weatherford ALS says his company is a supply store for the oil patch. “We supply everything from soup to nuts, including pumps jack, rods and tubing. As well as pipes valves and ﬁttings -- just about anything to do with the oilpatch,” he says. The company also supplies variable fre-

quency pump jacks and progressive cavity pumps which are manufactured in Edmonton. “We’re the ﬁrst company in Canada to manufacture progressive cavity pumps (PCP) otherwise it’s all been out of Europe and one company down in the U.S.,” he says. PCP brings the oil up to the surface. Presently, the company has ﬁve employees

and will soon make a sixth hire. “Business is good. For this area probably it’s the best year for Weatherford. In other places it’s not. 1997 was probably one of the busiest years in the patch,” he says. Jansen sees good things in the future for the patch. “Oil is up at a record high again. It’s over $140 a barrel so I can’t

moved back to Saskatchewan from Alberta. “I’ve been here for about two months and I’m still getting to know people but I’m originally from Gull Lake. I moved away 24 years ago because it was slow and now I’m back where I came from.”

With the sixth hiring Weatherford is making in Swift Current, Jansen commented on how things have changed. “I’m getting applications from people from Alberta. I guess that indicates how much times have changed,” he says.

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C16

PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

40 employees do the job for southwestern SK

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You can start at the bottom and work your way up in a hurry. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m always about hiring from within and we take the time and the eďŹ&#x20AC;ort to train them. -Ross Heitt

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Éş Page C10 I guess there are probably 25 drivers and swampers,â&#x20AC;? he said. The Swift Current branch runs 40 trailers and probably 20 heavy trucks, bed trucks and pickers. Heitt says the branch can handle a little more business but adds â&#x20AC;&#x153;weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve been going great guns for a couple years.â&#x20AC;? The next closest branch is Medicine Hat. Heitt mentions that Chris Auger is the dispatch coordinator while Jody Lussier and Chris Purves work on the pipe side and all three work to help coordinate ring moves. When rigs are moved Heitt explains there has

to be some â&#x20AC;&#x153;law and order around and the truck pushes supervise and get everything to the destination and get everything put together again.â&#x20AC;? Heitt believes activity levels in the patch surrounding the southwestern Saskatchewan region are busier than he has ever seen it. â&#x20AC;&#x153; I would have to say thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s more rigs around here than Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve ever seen.â&#x20AC;? He adds many of the new rigs are coming in to drill deeper for oil at around 1200metres whereas shallow gas wells typically run at the 700-metre range. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We are a happy bunch of people and weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re going to be around here for a long time.

â&#x20AC;?

Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re always looking to expand have increased geographic footprint. The future is looking bright for companies likes ours,â&#x20AC;? he says. Currently the company operates from Fort St. John, B.C. all throughout Alberta and down to Swift Current. There are possibilities the company may move into the east and central region of Saskatchewan. Within the branch itself, Heitt says he has recruited ďŹ ve people over the last months. â&#x20AC;&#x153;You can start at the bottom and work your way up in a hurry. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m always about hiring from within and we take the time and the eďŹ&#x20AC;ort to train them,â&#x20AC;? he says.

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PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

C17

Lonkar services Swift Current/Shaunavon a sliding sleeve is simply a valve that slides open or closed. It is run as part of the tubing string on multi-zone wells. Another use for plugs is to stop pressure from coming up the tubing. Then the tubing can be snubbed out. A familiar logo throughout Western Canada hangs â&#x20AC;&#x153;Snubbing means outside Lonkarâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ofĂ&#x20AC;ce in Swift Current. you can move the tubing Swift Current - used when tools are lost in or out of the well while Lonkar Services area down the wellbore. In- thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s pressure in the manager Brent Neis has cluding lost perforating well,â&#x20AC;? he says. one crew operating in the guns, pulling WR plugs, Overall, Lonkar has Swift Current-Shaunavon etc. been around in Canadaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s â&#x20AC;&#x153;A pressure recorder oilpatch for 20-plus years. region, which is made up of one operator and two is an electronic instruâ&#x20AC;&#x153;We have oďŹ&#x192;ces in ment that gives you the Brooks, High River, Prohelpers. â&#x20AC;&#x153;In Swift Current bottom-hole pressure and vost, Red Deer, Drayton thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s likely to be just temperature of the wells,â&#x20AC;? Valley, Rocky Mounthree for the immediate he explains. tain House Whitecourt, â&#x20AC;&#x153;A tubing plug is a Edson, Hinton, Grande future, but hopefully we will be doing some ex- tool we run into the bot- Prairie, Fairview, Fort St. pansion,â&#x20AC;? Neis adds. Ja- tom proďŹ le nipple which John and Fort Nelson,â&#x20AC;? he son Bonk is the assistant will seal the pressure from says. manager based in Swift coming up the tubing Generally, the comstring. You run that so pany specializes in slickCurrent. â&#x20AC;&#x153;In Swift Current if you want to do a zone line and electronic line for right now we run slick change, between upper logging and perforating. line, bottom-hole pressure and lower zones. This is They also do well testing recorders, tubing plugs, accomplished by setting and provide specialty data shift sliding sleeves and a plug and opening the services. we do general well pres- sliding sleeve. Neis says Swift CurContinuing to de- rent is very similar to the sure control and we do a ďŹ ne well-known wireline Brooks area in the sense lot of ďŹ shing,â&#x20AC;? says Neis. Fishing is the term terms, Neis explains that that there are a lot of oil

wells and gas wells to work on. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The depths are very similar, anything from 800 to 1200 metres,â&#x20AC;? he says. How long a wireline stays on site depends on the job. â&#x20AC;&#x153;It depends on what

weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re doing. Quite often weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re on one well for ďŹ ve or six hours and then move on to the next one or sometimes itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s just the one for the day,â&#x20AC;? Neis explains. With regard to thoughts for the future, Neis says he has high

hopes for Saskatchewan. â&#x20AC;&#x153;It looks like itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s going to be very active out there,â&#x20AC;? he says. But for this spring and early summer weather has played a big factor. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s been a very wet year, Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s been the biggest factor,â&#x20AC;? he says.

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C18

PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

Wanner brothers active in business Swift Current Wanner’s Energy Services was started up in 1979 with one crew truck. Mike Wanner stands outside his shop and explains that while he and his brother Mark run the business now, his father, Lawrence started up the business. Now the company is into pipeﬁtting,

building tanks, working on pumpjacks, setting up ﬂow lines and working on battery sites. While Lawrence retired 10 years ago, Mike started into the business when he was 17 and brother Mark entered a few years later. Mike’s wife Denise and Mark’s wife Connie are also a big part of the business, running the books, the payroll and

all the invoicing. Mike has his Class A picker ticket, a useful piece of paper since the company started up with picker trucks in 1992. Now the company boasts four picker trucks, four crew trucks and one Texas bend winch tractor that can roll up and haul tanks. While the patch has always been up and

down the company has made a few investments throughout the years, which correspond with good times in the energy sector. “In ’92 we started with our ﬁrst big truck and in ’99 we purchased a 23.5 ton and in 2005 we got to a 35 ton,” says Mike. More recently, Mike says last year was a good year while so far

this year it has been “hit and miss. Estevan and Shaunavon is where the big work is going on. We go down to Shaunavon and we’ve even gone as far north as Cold Lake,” he says. Even though the business is 29 years old Mike and Mark still do the same type of work. “We still go out and work on site,” he says. The company now

has 12 employees with 16 being the most they’ve ever employed. “We’re staying around the same level. We try to keep everyone busy,” he says. Mike is optimistic for the future. “She’s going to boom. She’s going to get real busy,” he says. The price of oil and gas will fuel the coming activity, he reasons.

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PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

C19

Shaunavon Electric sees steady growth Shaunavon - Dale Burch started up Shaunavon Electric 22 years ago with one apprentice and now has three jour-

neymen and another three apprentices working along side him. Burch’s wife Linda is his partner in the ven-

ture, handling much of the administration of the business until the couple hired another woman to work in the oﬃce.

“Linda assists her and is in the process of training her,” he says. Over the past 10 years business has been slowly picking up for the couple and now things are as good as they’ve ever been. “I would say it probably going into the busiest period I’ve ever seen and it reﬂects on the drilling activity which is the highest I’ve ever seen,” he says. From the left is Dale Burch, Jeremy Dueck, Kris Nelson, Greg Lewans, and Quintin “ We ’ v e Cairns. also enrolled

in the new COR safety program and we’re implementing that right now,” says Burch. “It’s something the oil companies like to see and most of them are starting to require that. Most contractors wanting to stay in the ﬁeld are joining that and getting going,” he says. Currently, the company is doing work with Talisman and Wave Energy and they are also keeping busy with electrical work for ranchers as well as commercial work within Shaunavon itself. “But the oilﬁeld is getting much busier,” he says. “Typically, we keep the pump jacks pumping. They run on electric motors or downhole pumps and that all has to keep running,” he says “Most of them are metered through SaskPower we hook up between SaskPower and the pump jacks and the oil continues onto the battery site,” he says. There are a lot of

controls to separate the oil from the water. “There’s treaters that knock the water out of the oil and the water gets pumped back into the ground and the oil gets shipped to market,” he says. “There’s a lot of processes for that and a lot of work for electricians,” he explains. Shaunavon Electric runs one trencher. “There’s not that much trenching in the oilﬁeld now but I think it will increase because SaskPower is in the process of changing who will bring electricity into the well so that could increase. Previously, SaskPower had there own contractors doing it and now the oil companies may be choosing their own contractors,” he says. To conclude Burch adds, “I enjoy the work and enjoy living here. I sure don’t want to be anywhere else and hopefully, the prosperity stays and it’s hard to predict how long they last.”

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C20

PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

Shaunavon sees sunrise on economy Shaunavon-Jay Meyer has just gotten off a weekend of beautiful weather and golfing in the southwestern Saskatchewan town of Shaunavon – it’s a tough life. The regional economic development officer for the town reports the community and surrounding region is very busy right now. The housing market has been on the increase along with commercial property. “There were a few empty commercial lots in the town about a year ago but now they’ve all been snapped up,” says Meyer. Things started getting busier around a year and a half ago when residential properties started turning over, he says. About the same time the oil and gas industry started to get busier near the town. There’s an obvious correlation between the

upswing in the industry and the increase in activity in the town. But there’s more to it than just that. “Shaunavon is just a beautiful place to live. The cost of living is more affordable,” says Meyer. “People are realizing that the grass is greener on the other side of the fence and here it’s Rider green,” Meyer says with a chuckle. While the area surrounding Shaunavon has been busier from an energy perspective agricultural commodity prices are also on the upswing. It’s all creating a renewed sense of optimism within the town. “It’s not just how many rigs are out there. It’s also the water haulers and the grader operators and a lot of businesses are busier. Many restaurants and hotels are looking to expand. So it’s good time,” he says. And with the oil

and gas activity and the higher commodity prices and all the positive spinoffs that creates peoples attitudes are also beginning to change. “A few years ago we were ready to die and now we’re ready to give her,” he says. Reflecting on his own personal journey, Meyer says he’s been in town since June of 2005. “It’s been a great place to live. For me, the standard of living is a little more reasonable, I’m closer to work I can walk to work if I want, so I’m saving money on gas.” But while the oil and gas sector is booming and commodity prices are on the upswing the best is yet to come on Shaunavon’s economic development plan. For the past six to seven years stakeholders within the region have been working toward the development of an

The economy is on the rise in Shaunavon as oil and gas activity, rising commodity prices and plans for an ethanol plant have all provided the town with an injection of optimism.

ethanol plant. Proponents are looking for additional provincial and federal funding but the dollar figure on the investment so far runs to the tune of $150 million and with inflation the end investment may

be higher than that. “We’re looking to turn dirt on the project this September,” says Meyer. Along with the ethanol plant there are plans for the development of a feedlot to

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40229198•08/08/08

• Containment Buildings

Website: www.jamalcontracting.com Email: jamalcontracting@shaw.ca

ON CALL 24-HOUR SALES & SERVICE

Wrangler Flame Resistant Apparel is NOW AVAILABLE!

• Utilidor

1-888-313-3302

work hand in hand with the plant. The community is also in the process of building a $7 million community complex, combining both a curling and hockey rinks under one structure.

*Compliant with OSHA 29 CFR 1910.269, NFPA-70E and ASTM F1506-02ae1. *Flame-resistant. Fabrics and garments provide protection against clothing ignition and sustained flame spread. FR fabrics and garments self-extinguish almost immediately upon removal of ignition source. *Compliant for the lifetime of the garment

We Carry Specialty Clothing From:

PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

Eric Kosolofski of Kurmer Resources, left, delivers a valve to a new well for Reece Energy on a new well drilled north of Kindersley. Photo by Brian Zinchuk

Total OilÀeld Rentals in Midale is looking for:

-Picker Operators -Bed Truck Drivers Minimum 2 Years oilÀeld experience required.

FLUSHBY OPERATOR for Elk Point area. Must have or willing to get B.O.P. ticket. Excellent wages, benefits and scheduled days off. Safety tickets an asset.

Fax resume to 458-2813 or call 458-2811

(A Division of Total Energy Services Ltd.)

Contact Cody 780•645•0040

Career Opportunities

Delivery

C21

Precision Contractors Ltd. are looking for a

Journeyman or

3rd/4th Year Apprentice Heavy Equipment Technician for our Lloydminster shop.

Precision Drilling A division of Precision Drilling Trust is currently recruiting

EXPERIENCED AND ENTRY LEVEL SERVICE RIG WORKERS

We invite you to become a member of Precision’s Family and grow with a service rig company where the field comes first. Valid H2S Alive ticket is required. Experience is an asset but not required. Preference is given to applicants with a valid class 5, class 1A or 3A license.

Call 1-877-Rig Work Or Call Jennifer Gusikoski - 306-637-6262, Fax - 306-634-6053 Forward all resumes to PWSRecruiting@precisionwellservicing.com or visit our Careers page at www.precisiondrilling.com 2006/07 Winner of Class A CAODC Safety Leadership award for the best safety performance in our industry Employee spring savings plan Excellent benefit package Various employee incentive programs Hands on training provided Paid travel time Transportation provided to and from worksite (as required) New 19 man camp in S.E. Saskatchewan

Our people, Our passion, Our performance

The position is permanent, full time with wage depending on experience and attitude. Preference will be given to those applicants with experience maintaining and repairing modern Caterpillar equipment, but we are willing to further train the right individual. Precision Contractors Ltd. offers an above average wage and an excellent work environment that includes scheduled time off and a tool allowance. Please fax or email resumés to: Frank Tremmel, Service Manager Fax: (780) 875-3339 or e-mail:

ftremmel@precisioncontractors.com Visit our website: www.precisioncontractors.com We appreciate all interested applicants but only those candidates selected for interviews will be notiÀed.

C22

PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

Career Opportunities

We have recently expanded and we need your help.

We are currently looking for

Welder/Fabricators with 5+ years experience, as well as an

Crew Foreman

Experienced FOR LLOYDMINSTER AREA

ELECTRICAL APPRENTICES REQUIRED Require safety certiÀcates & valid drivers licence. Competitive wages and beneÀts package.

Fax resume to 637-2181 or deliver to: 62 Devonian Street, Estevan, Sk.

MUST: • Have Valid Drivers License & Be A Team Player • Safety Tickets • Picker & Bobcat Experience An Asset C’s OFFERS: • Top Wages • Benefits Package • Performance Bonuses • Scheduled Days Off • Opportunity For Advancement • C.O.R. Safety Program • AB & SK B31.3 Q.C. • Premium Equipment

Industrial Painter/Sandblaster to work in a new 37,000 sq. ft. facility in S.E. Saskatchewan, with: affordable living, proÀt sharing, Health and RSP beneÀt programs. If you are interested in one of these positions please forward your resume complete with cover letters and references to:

Roberta - fax: 306-483-2503 email: roberta@saskarc.com

DUTIES: • Daily Operation Of A Light Picker Truck • Pipe-fitting & Construction

OILFIELD Journeymen Electricians SERVICE LTD.

CONSULTING & CONSTRUCTION

Apply in confidence to: Fax (780) 808-2273

WORLDWIDE LEADER TALENTED TEAM

Needed

We offer: • beneÀts custom to YOUR needs • company vehicle • starting wage of $27 - $32/hr • advancement opportunities for a progressive person

*Come join a stable, growing company* Email resume to info@eltekelectric.com

DRIVERS WANTED

We are currently recruiting for:

Oilfield experience an asset, wages negotiable. Safety tickets would be an asset, (H2S, Confined Spaces, CPR & First Aid). Interested applicants can apply in person, mail or fax resumes to:

• •

Vac & Pressure Truck Drivers needed for Lloydminster and Elk Point area. Class 1A & 3A. Please send driver’s abstract and resumé to:

or fax to 306-483-2340

Labourers Wanted for Full-Time Positions

National Oilwell Varco is a worldwide leader in the design, manufacture, and sale of equipment and components used in oil and gas drilling.

(2) Shop Service Technicians (1) Yard Person

These positions are responsible for the safe handling and accurate documentation of incoming and outgoing goods.

Fax: (780) 724-2211 E-mail: rockypine@telus.net or Phone (780) 724-2625

The ideal candidate will have strong communication skills, and either a high school diploma or shipping receiving experience. Also forklift and loader experience an asset.

FABRICATOR REQUIRED

We are currently offering competitive wages, excellent benefits, a company RRSP program, and incredible training and growth opportunities. Thrive in an environment with unlimited growth potential and join the NOV Team!

• Great place to work • Excellent benefits • Experience in auto CAD required

If interested, please email your resume stating B_ bgm^k^lm^]% ie^Zl^ ^fZbe rhnk k^lnf^ lmZmbg` ihlbmbhg If interested, please email your resume stating position position of interest to: cory.bjornadal@nov.com h_ bgm^k^lm mh3 \hkr'[chkg]Ze9gho'\hf of interest to: cory.bjornadal@nov.com Fax to 306 634 7747 or visit www.nov.com ?Zq mh ,)/ /,- 00-0 hk oblbm ppp'gho'\hf fax to 306 634 7747 or visit www nov com

McGillicky OilÀeld Construction Hwy. 39 East, Box 843, Estevan, Sk. S4A 2A7 Fax: 634-4575 No phone inquiries please.

Box 11793 Lloydminster, AB T9V 3C1 Phone 780-872-5234 Fax 780-872-5235 e-mail: bendtec@telus.net

Canadian Sub-Surface Energy Services Well Optimization Division

FIELD TECHNICIANS NEEDED Canadian Sub-Surface Energy Services has an immediate opening for Field Technicians in our growing Well Optimization division. Typical responsibilities include conducting the following tests:

HEAVY-DUTY MECHANIC Is it time to join a company that puts the employees first? Due to continued growth, Frontier Peterbilt Sales Ltd. is looking for full-time service Technicians in Estevan to work on the premier product in the industry and the newest dealership in the city.

We have opportunities for all levels of Technicians, from 1st year apprentices to Journeymen. We require people that are meticulous, results-driven and customer service oriented.

We offer excellent pay as well as an extensive employee benefit package and the opportunity to progress within the Company. Qualified applicants are encouraged to apply in person to

Justin Miller, Service Manager or by e-mail or fax to:

Mark Thompson Human Resource Manager E-mail mthompson@frontierpeterbilt.com Fax 306-664-3386

• • • • • • • •

Fluid level testing. Manual and auto foam depressions tests. Dynamometer testing. Acoustic buildup tests. Fall off testing and surface pressure logging. Installation and service of automation equipment. Provide support for Canadian Sub-Surface Field/Calgary sales. Provide customers with support to ensure all work is performed in a safe, timely and professional manner.

As the successful candidate, you will preferably have experience in one or all of the above duties. You will also possess a clean driver’s abstract and must be able to pass a pre-employment drug screen. You must have the ability to work independently and adhere to safe conduct while on location. You will, preferably, possess your H2S and First Aid certificates. Canadian Sub-Surface offers a competitive salary, benefits and other incentives to their employees. Job training will be supplied to the successful candidates. Forward all resumes or questions to Dave Gallaway at the following contact: Cell: (306) 421-3314 Fax: (306) 634-1071 Email: dgallaway@cansub.com We would like to thank all those candidates who apply, however only qualified personnel will be contacted. For a list of all current job opportunities, please visit our website at www.cansub.com Confidentiality will be respected

PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

ESTEVAN FIRE & SAFETY FULL TIME EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES The successful applicants will posses a willingness to learn the products & services of a safety supply and service company. We offer a full beneÀts package. Wages will be based on experience. Driver’s License & Clean Driver’s Abstract Required. Strong organizational and person skills required. Safety tickets are an asset, but not required. **Extinguisher Field Technician Duties include servicing extinguishers, receiving stock, etc... Experience an asset, but not required. Drivers abstract required.

C23

Career Opportunities

**Warehouse & Delivery Person Duties include: warehouse, field & yard work. Some heavy lifting may be required. ** Bottomhole Tech Duties include: repairs, deliveries & pickups. Apply by faxing resume to 306-634-4659, e-mail to Norm.Mack@nov.com or Drop off at 314 Kensington Ave., Estevan **REFERENCES REQUIRED**

Progressive Oilfield Company looking for

EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY

JOURNEYMAN HEAVY DUTY/AUTOMOTIVE OR MILLWRIGHT Required for LLOYDMINSTER LOCATION

Experience on PD pumps, PC pumps, centrifugal pumps, air systems and mechanical seals would be preferred. May consider 3rd or 4th year level. Successful applicant must have H2S Alive, First Aid and provide current driver’s abstract. Apply to:

Semi Vac Operators Scheduled days off. Health Benefits.

Please fax resumé & abstract

to (780) 808-6393

WE’RE EXPANDING

Full Tilt Field Services is a growing, diverse company. Moving soon to a new shop with 23+ bays.

3rd and 4th Year Apprentice OR Journeyman Mechanics To work in-shop. Working on New Truck/Crane rig ups.

Box 11798, 5901 - 63 Avenue Lloydminster, AB T9V 3C1 PH (780) 875-0650 Fax: (780) 875-0645 Email: brett@wildrowspump.com We thank all applicants for their interest, however, only those selected for an interview will be contacted.

Class 1A Company Drivers Class 1A Owner/Operators Serving Saskatchewan, Alberta and BC

Full Time Position in our Parts Department.

Total Transfer is a fast-growing freight and light oilfield hauling service.

Looking for an energetic individual with excellent communication skills, positive attitude and an aptitude for paying attention to detail in a fast paced environment. Shipping/Receiving of parts, basic computer skills, local parts deliveries, may include other duties as assigned. OilÀeld experience is an asset but not necessary.

Low administration costs and much higher than industry average earnings.

BeneÀt package and competitive wage. Apply in person with resumé to Emile at 4003 - 52 Street, Lloydminster or send resumé to e-mail: ebourassa@cefranklin.com Fax: 306-825-6262

YOU CAN EXPECT

WE EXPECT A good work ethic and a dedication to safety and service that has been the key to our success. No matter where you live in AB or SK you are on one of our routes.

Talk to our people and our customers, then fax your resumé and abstract to (306) 825.4500.

C24

PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

TRICAN WELL SERVICE LTD. is one of Canada's fastest growing well service companies, providing a comprehensive array of specialized products, equipment and services utilized in drilling, completion, stimulation and reworking of oil and gas wells in theCanadian and International marketplace. At Trican, we base our recruitment practices on the belief that a company's greatest asset is its people. Trican provides services in Fracturing, Cementing, Acidizing, Coiled Tubing, Nitrogen and relalted services in our field bases ranging from Fort Nelson, BC to Estevan, Saskatchewan.

Career Opportunities

Trican offers a dynamic work environment and a competitive salary and benefit package. Please apply in person to any of Trican's field bases or forward your resume and references, in confidence to:

Trican Well Service Ltd. Box 849 Estevan, SK S4A 2A7 Fax: (306) 637-2065 â&#x20AC;˘ Email: vscott@trican.ca

Operators/Labourers

Required â&#x20AC;˘ full time â&#x20AC;˘ competitive wages â&#x20AC;˘ excellent benefits â&#x20AC;˘ Free RRSP Plan â&#x20AC;˘ Bonuses every 6 months Must have a valid drivers license. Fax resume to: 634-8025 or call Tony at 634-8085

Petroleum Delivery Sales Representative Girard Bulk Service Ltd. in Estevan requires a petroleum delivery sales representative. This person must have or obtain a Class 3A license with a clean driverâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s record, must be able to perform duties in a professional manner and be able to present a good public image.

Wages start at $20.00 per hour depending on experience and we offer a group beneĂ&#x20AC;t package and retirement plan.

WE ARE CURRENTLY HIRING FOR ALL LOCATIONS: â&#x20AC;˘ HEAVY DUTY MECHANIC (Journeyman) â&#x20AC;˘ CEMENT SUPERVISORS â&#x20AC;˘ CEMENT OPERATORS â&#x20AC;˘ FRACTURING SUPERVISORS â&#x20AC;˘ FRACTURING EQUIPMENT OPERATORS (for pumpers, data van, blender, crew cab, bulk sand) A valid Class 1 or Class 3A license is required as well as prior experience in the above pressure pumping operations. Will also consider Class 5.

Employment Opportunity

Apply to: Girard Bulk Service Ltd. Attention: Raymond Girard 134 - 4th Street Estevan, Sask. S4A 0T4 Fax: 306-634-5905 Email: raymond@girardbulk.ca

in BIGGAR, SK requires qualified people for the following positions:

EXPERIENCED WELDERS Tickets an asset. $18-$25/hour DOE.

SANDBLASTER AND/OR INDUSTRIAL PAINTER Experience in foaming and internal lining an asset. Send resumĂŠ (REFERENCES REQUIRED) to: info@envirotank.com or fax 306-948-5263

www.suretuf.com PLASMA TABLE OPERATORS EXPERIENCED LABOURER Will train qualified candidates. Applicants must have welding background. Driverâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s license required. Reliable, team player. Wages depend on experience. Benefits available. Performance bonuses. Only those to be interviewed will be contacted.

Apply in confidence to: Fax (780) 808-2689

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GLEN PETERSON CONSTRUCTION LTD. is currently accepting resumes for the following full time positions:

TRUCK DRIVERS â&#x20AC;˘ Clean driver's abstract required

CONSTRUCTION LABOURERS Interested applicants can contact Ken at 421-7119

CAREER OPPORTUNITY

Picker Operator Required Applicant holding valid safety & apprentice tickets are an asset. BeneĂ&#x20AC;t package available.

Fax or email resume to: Fax: 306-636-1537 Email: outlawoil@sasktel.net

Penta Completions requires a

Field Service Tech for our Estevan operation. Applicants should possess oil well operation knowledge, related industry service experience or technical certiĂ&#x20AC;cates and practical experience. You should possess good communication skills, organizational & problem-solving skills; as well as computer experience would be an asset. Duties to include dynamometer data collection, analysis, optimization, rod string design and sucker rod Ă&#x20AC;eld service tech. We offer a competitive salary plus Ă&#x20AC;eld bonus & service vehicle. Penta is an industry leader in all aspects of rod pumping sales, applications, analysis and automation. This is an opportunity for the right individual to acquire skills and knowledge to enhance their qualiĂ&#x20AC;cations in technical Ă&#x20AC;eld service. Please forward resumes via e-mail, fax or in person. QualiĂ&#x20AC;ed applicants will be contacted for interviews.

Penta Completions Supply & Services Ltd. 58 Devonian Street P.O. Box 667 Estevan, Sk. S4A 2A6 Attention: Jeremy Stewart Fax: 1-306-634-6989 Email: lhaukeness@pentarods.com

Employment Opportunity: Coordinator, Logistics and Materials The purpose of this position is to ensure the effective and efĂ&#x20AC;cient daily coordination of customer orders. The successful candidate must â&#x20AC;˘ have the ability to create strong customer relationships â&#x20AC;˘ work in a fast-paced environment, be a team player, and driven to meet or exceed performance requirements â&#x20AC;˘ have a good hands-on understanding of oilĂ&#x20AC;eld construction and transportation projects â&#x20AC;˘ be computer literate using Microsoft OfĂ&#x20AC;ce applications â&#x20AC;˘ be able to communicate effectively, both verbally & written â&#x20AC;˘ be attentive to detail This is a full time position with beneĂ&#x20AC;ts. Previous experience in dispatch and/or logistics positions would be preferred. Safety training will be provided. Please direct all inquiries to Paulette Cousins or Mike Winter at (306) 482-5107. Fax resume to (306) 482-5256 or e-mail your resume to info@gregcousinsconstruction.com

Greg Cousins Construction Ltd.

Serving the oilfield in SE Saskatchewan and SW Manitoba for over 30 years. Carnduff, SK

PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

C25

ELIAS SCALES

Resources Guide

No Electrics Required

Platform Sizes From 12" x 30" to 4' x 8' 3,000 to 50,000 lb. Truck, Bale and Hopper Scales Solid Welded Unit Livestock Units

www.pennwest.com 311 Kensington Avenue, Estevan â&#x20AC;˘ 634-1400

Ask about our Batch Plant Units

Phone (306) 445-2111

COIL COIL TUBING TUBING SERVICES SERVICES FLUSHBY FLUSHBY SERVICES SERVICES

North Battleford, Sask.

www.eliasscales.com

JUSTIN WAPPEL - Division Manager 401 Hwy. #4 S. Biggar, Saskatchewan PO Box 879 S0K 0M0 Ph (306) 948-5262 Fax (306) 948-5263 Cell (306) 441-4402 Toll Free 1-800-746-6646 Email: jwappel@envirotank.com www.envirotank.com

Serving Alberta, B.C. & Saskatchewan

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Toll Free

1-866-363-0011

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S.E. OPTIONS CONSULTING â&#x20AC;˘ Drug and alcohol testing and programs â&#x20AC;˘ Hearing testing and sound level survey â&#x20AC;˘ R.N. medicals â&#x20AC;˘ U.S. D.O.T. compliance services â&#x20AC;˘ Substance Abuse Professional

Lloyd Lavigne â&#x20AC;˘ Kirk Clarkson Specializing in well site and pipeline surveys

Owners/Managers

Yorkton 306.783.4100

Swift Current 306.773.7733

Edmonton 800.465.6233

6506 - 50th Avenue Lloydminster, AB

Weyburn 306.842.6060

Lloydminster 780.875.6130

Calgary 866.234.7599

Phone: (780) 875-6880

Regina 800.667.3546

Medicine Hat 403.528.4215

Grande Prairie 780.532.6793

5315 - 37th Street Provost, AB T0B 3S0

Phone: (780) 753-6449

1318B - 3rd St. Estevan, SK 634-9079 Email: options@sasktel.net

Fax: (780) 875-7076

24 Hour Service Specializing in Industrial & Oilfield Motors

Do laundry when its convenient for you!

Authorized Dealer

ArmorThane

Industrial & Commercial Sandblasting, Soda Blasting & Painting

â&#x20AC;˘ Heavy Equipment â&#x20AC;˘ Internal Tank & Pipe Linings â&#x20AC;˘ Plant Maintenance â&#x20AC;˘ 3 Portable Blast Units â&#x20AC;˘ Soda Blasting â&#x20AC;˘ 50â&#x20AC;&#x2122; Manlift â&#x20AC;˘ 2 - 80â&#x20AC;&#x2122; Paint Bays

FAST ACCURATE FRIENDLY SERVICE STAMPS & MARKING DEVICES Box 94 Lloydminster, SK/AB S9V 0X9 PH: 780-875-4878 FAX: 780-875-4809 EMAIL: rubberduck@telus.net

DEX BOISSON - Owner Lloydminster, Saskatchewan

STAMPS STAMPS STAMPS

Phone: (306) 825-0401 Cell: (306) 821-7721

Address stamps, Business Stamps, Corporate Seals, Oilfield Stamps, Specialty Crafting Stamps, French Stamps, Spanish Stamps and much much more...

Open 7 days a week 24 hours a day New washers, Staff on site from Monday-Saturday.

King Koin Laundry 134 - 1st Street Weyburn, Sask.

Dwight G. Blomander, CFP Box 1708, Provost, AB T0B 3S0 #1 25 Wheatland Cres.

(780) 753-6601 5801 63 Ave. Lloydminster, AB (780) 872-5635 24 Hrs

FOR ALL YOUR INDUSTRIAL HOSE NEEDS Water, Hydraulic, Vacuum, High Pressure, Specialty Hoses, Fittings & Hose Repairs CertiĂ&#x20AC;ed High Pressure Testing Distributor for BOWIE Pumps

Fax (780) 753-2004

Industrial Supply

â&#x20AC;˘ Downhole Tools

â&#x20AC;˘ Chain & Load Binders

â&#x20AC;˘ Wire Cable & Slings

â&#x20AC;˘ Nylon Slings

â&#x20AC;˘ Heavy Duty Truck Parts

â&#x20AC;˘ Ripper Teeth & Shanks

â&#x20AC;˘ Ag Supplies

â&#x20AC;˘ Cutting Edges

â&#x20AC;˘ Oilfield Clothing

â&#x20AC;˘ Filters

â&#x20AC;˘ â&#x20AC;˘ â&#x20AC;˘ â&#x20AC;˘

Life Insurance Disability Insurance Critical Illness Insurance Employee BeneĂ&#x20AC;t Plans Tel: (306) 761-7506 â&#x20AC;˘ Fax: (306) 352-9474 E-mail: dwight.blomander@gwl.ca Toll Free: 1-888-495-7275 Cellular: (306) 421-1935 THE

Great-West Life ASSURANCE COMPANY

600, 2010-11th Avenue, Regina, SK S4P 0J3

5801 63 Ave. Lloydminster, AB (780) 872-5635 24 Hrs

Sales - Supply - Service â&#x20AC;˘ SCOTT Breathing Apparatus Sales & Service â&#x20AC;˘ Hydrostatic Testing of Cylinders â&#x20AC;˘ Fire Extinguisher recharging and testing â&#x20AC;˘ Breathing air cylinder Ă&#x20AC;lling â&#x20AC;˘ Complete line of safety supplies Mobile Service Unit Available AUTHORIZED SERVICE CENTER

Gordon Harty Box 95 Marwayne, AB T0B 2X0

Bus. Phone

Fax No.

Res. Phone

(780) 875-9802 (780) 847-3633 (780) 847-2178 Fresh Water Hauling Custom Bailing & Hauling

SURFACE BIT RENTAL HOT SHOT SERVICE LIGHT OILFIELD HAULING 24 HR SERVICE CHAD FROESE

CELL: 306-421-3728 RES: 306-634-7538

C26

PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

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Cory Bjorndal District Manager Downhole Tools

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93 Panteluk Street Kensington Avenue N Estevan, Saskatchewan S4A 2A6 PHONE: 306-634-8828 CELL: 306-421-2893 FAX: 306-634-7747 cory.bjorndal@nov.com www.nov.com

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CLIFF NANKIVELL TRUCKING LTD.

WATER & CRUDE VACUUM TRUCK SERVICE â&#x20AC;˘ 24 Hour Service â&#x20AC;˘ Oil Hauling

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Estevan Trophy & Engraving Phone/Fax: 634-6005 Email: estevantrophy@sasktel.net

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* Acid * Coil Tubing *CO2 * Industrial

Well Service Highway 39 East, Estevan Phone: 637-2060 Fax: 637-2065

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Trucking Estevan LTD. 82 Devonion St. Estevan, SK Phone:634-4041 - 24 Hr. Fax: 306-634-4040

RESIDENTIAL â&#x20AC;˘ COMMERCIAL Meeting Your Year Round Needs for Rental Equipment, Sales & Service

SALES & SERVICE Construction Equipment

Bully Blast & Paint Services Ltd. â&#x20AC;˘ Shop & Field Service â&#x20AC;˘ Structural Steel â&#x20AC;˘ Tank Linings â&#x20AC;˘ and more

Randy: 634-5405 - Cellular 421-1293 Darcy: 634-5257 - Cellular 421-1425 â&#x20AC;˘ Fax: 634-4575

Your Sandblasting, Painting & Coating Specialists with over 20 yrs. experience in the industry

24 Hour Service - 634-8737

Dale (306) 861-3635 â&#x20AC;˘ Lee (306) 577-7042 Lampman, Sask.

Phone: 634-7922 â&#x20AC;˘ Fax: 634-3211 913 - 5th Street, Estevan

- OilĂ&#x20AC;eld Maintenance - Service Crews - Pressure Welding - Pipeline Construction - Battery Construction - Rent or Sell New & Used Equipment

LOCALLY OWNED & OPERATED BOX 843, ESTEVAN, SK.

â&#x20AC;˘ Pressure Vessels â&#x20AC;˘ Well Testers â&#x20AC;˘ Frac Recovery â&#x20AC;˘ Wellbore Bleedoff â&#x20AC;˘ Ball Catchers â&#x20AC;˘ 400 bbl Tanks â&#x20AC;˘ Bed Truck

Spool Coating now available Cell: (306) 461-9679

Bus.: (306) 457-2264

P.O. Box 54 â&#x20AC;˘ Benson, SK â&#x20AC;˘ SOC 0L0 bullyblasting@sasktel.net

4â&#x20AC;? Hevi Wate Drill Pipe Brad Lamontagne (306) 577-9818 or (306) 739-2263 smrltd@sasktel.net

PIPELINE NEWS August 2008

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NICKLE’S ENERGY GROUP PRODUCTS AND WEBSITES Daily Oil Bulletin Canadian Oil Register Rig Locator Nickle’s P.O.S.T. Report Energy Analects Energy Evolution DOB Magazine Oil and Gas Statistics Quarterly Petroleum Explorer Weekly Energy Bulletin New Technology Magazine

Nickle’s Energy Group Suite 300, 999 8 Street SW Calgary, Alberta, Canada T2R 1N7 Phone: (403) 209-3500 Toll Free: 1-800-387-2446 Fax: (403) 245-8666 E-mail: info@nickles.com www.nickles.com

Nickle’s Energy Group is owned by Business Information Group, a leading Canadian information company.

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PIPELINE NEWS August 2008