Pipeline News July 2009 by Pipeline News

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PIPELINE NEWS July 2009

News

Petrobank’s Greg Smith Sask. Oilman of Year Notes

Boyd picks up extra duties Energy and Resources Minister Bill Boyd picked up a few extra duties in the May 29 cabinet shuﬄe. Boyd is now Minister of Energy and Resources, Minister responsible for SaskPower, the Uranium Development Partnership (UDP), Innovation Saskatchewan, and the Saskatchewan Research Council (SRC). The cabinet shakeup saw individual Crown corporations handed out to individual ministers. Before they all fell under Ken Cheveldayoﬀ ’s purview as Crown Investments. Boyd’s responsibility for SaskPower comes at a time when the Crown has its checkbook out, seeking to invest heavily in power generation over the next several years.

Glamis successful with horizontal well Glamis Resources Ltd. says it recently drilled and completed its first of five separate oil exploration targets that are planned to be drilled in southeast Saskatchewan and southwest Manitoba throughout 2009. The 100% working interest horizontal well was drilled to a total measured depth of 1,770 metres and encountered an oil-bearing Tilston reservoir. An intensive open hole swabbing operation resulted in the recovery of nearly all the load fluid and established an oil cut ranging from 50% to 32% in various intervals. Additionally, based on the corporation's evaluation of inflow performance, management believes that the well is capable of producing up to 750 bbls of fluid per day. Initial production is estimated to average approximately 200 bbls of light oil (39 degrees API) per day. Glamis expects to drill its next exploratory target in southeast Saskatchewan by the end of July.

Premier Brad Wall, left, and selection committee co-chair Al Schreiner, right, present Greg Smith with the Saskatchewan Oilman of the Year award. Smith is a senior vice president and chief operations ofÀcer with Petrobank.

By Brian Zinchuk

Pipeline News Weyburn – Greg Smith, chief operations officer and a senior vice president with Petrobank Energy and Resources Ltd., was honoured on June 3 as Saskatchewan’s Oilman of the Year. A former Olympic canoeist, Smith graduated with an honours degee in geophysics in 1983. After working with a succession of companies, in 2003, he joined Petrobank, serving as senior geophysicist, exploration vice president and senior vice president of the business unit at the same time. He ended up focusing on the company’s business unit. Petrobank has become the second-largest Bakken producer in Saskatchewan, and in 2008 was the most active driller in the Bakken area. Smith spoke of StarPoint’s first successful Bakken horizontal well drilled on Petrobank land in 2004, 2005, and offered kudos to that team for getting the ball rolling. “Today, when people talk about the Bakken, you always hear about the multi-stage fraccing and, in particular, Packers Plus, but there are other companies out there. These contractors have figured out a way to build a better mousetrap, and it is working out very well for them.

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“The process of innovation in the oil and gas industry involves partnerships between the oil and gas companies, and their contractors.” He spoke of contractors becoming partners and contributing to their success. “The partnership with contractors is very crucial to us all, applying those technologies and doing it at reasonable prices.” “Application of technology is what has made Bakken reserves accessible to the industry. On behalf of Petrobank, I extend my thanks to all the contractors who have helped us make those little steps to ﬁgure out how to crack the nut of Bakken play.” “The innovation and activity occurs here because of the strength of the business environment.” Smith noted. “Petrobank is composed of a very strong team of individuals, of which there are no real heros, unless they are all heroes.” “Essentially we are paid to make mistakes. Our only condition is we learn from them.” He noted, “Our impact on the environment is not zero,” but added, “It can be minimized.” Smith spoke of the “Saskatchewan Advantage,” saying, “Saskatchewan is our province of choice for new business.”

PIPELINE NEWS July 2009

ENFORM becomes Sask.’s energy safety hard hat By Geoff Lee Pipeline News Regina – ENFORM held its official launch as the Saskatchewan Petroleum Industry Safety Association June 17 and quickly got to business with a networking lunch and safety training needs assessment workshop. The initial needs assessment will help ENFORM identify the province’s unique requirements and determine how its safety training products and services can be customized for use in Saskatchewan. Follow-up needs assessment workshops with the oil and gas industry will be held in Estevan, Swift Current, Kindersley and Lloydminster this fall. “We are doing all kinds of work with CO2 in the south end of the province and there are all kinds of inherent risks with that,” said Bob Ross, manager of the new petroleum industry safety association. “In the fall we will be hitting Swift Current, Estevan, Kindersley and Lloydminster. That will be an opportunity for industry to speak about specific needs in Saskatchewan.” A Saskatchewan Advisory Committee has also been set up to lead the workshops and address the needs of the province’s growing petroleum industry. The committee includes representatives from ENFORM’s six industry associations and the Saskatchewan Workers’ Compensation Board. “We are are open for business,” said Ross. “We are the newest industry safety association in Saskatchewan.” The WCB recognized ENFORM as the petroleum industry safety association for Saskatchewan on Jan. 1, 2009. ENFORM is also the petroleum industry safety association for Alberta and British Columbia and operates specialized training centres in Calgary, Nisku, Genesee in Alberta and Fort St. John in British Columbia. More than 150,000 students a year update their skills with ENFORM’s self-paced, online e-learning programs; industry-focused video conference classes and seminars; or hands-on instruction at the training centres. ENFORM has a strong presence already in Saskatchewan with the delivery of its health, safety and training programs delivered by regional colleges. There are more than 120 industry-leading courses offered by ENFORM covering safety, operations, technology, and environmental management. Courses are available at the campuses of Southeast Regional College in Estevan and Weyburn, Lakeland College in Lloydminster, Great Plains College in Swift Current, and Parkland College in Yorkton. Ross says Regina was chosen for the ENFORM head office in the province to “to ensure we are seen more as an independent and not just affiliated with one college or one area. We are also close to the airport. “There is also the benefit of deferred costs and time for some of the employers as well. Before today, they would have to send their people to Calgary or Nisku for specialized operations.”

Initially, the Regina outlet will be a two-person office staffed by Ross and office manager Susan Morris. “Eventually, we hope to have five staff,” said Ross. “We are running a leaner operation right now just because we’re predominantly running a computer online base right now. “Once we ramp up for classroom settings, our contract trainers come in to provide specialized training. We are looking at video communication as well. Hopefully, by 2010 we will have a venue large enough to accommodate that classroom setting.” Safety services in Saskatchewan will include the Certificate of Recognition (COR) program, Industry Recommended Practices and safety-related events like Safety Stand Down Week and the Petroleum Safety Conference. A COR designation is awarded to petroleum industry companies who have a Health and Safety program that meets approved standards. “This is an excellent program which is a requirement in a lot of cases to bid on work,” said Ross. “You have to have a health and safety program in place and an audit and there is a commitment by the employers and participants.” Ross says being based in Regina also gives ENFORM closer access to the government ministries and the type of agencies he is well connected with from his years of work with petroleum industry safety issues and legislation. “We have always worked very cooperatively with the petroleum sector here,” said Ross, who has more than 24 years of experience in the province’s petroleum industry and occupational health and safety program. He participated on the original Petroleum Safety Council and was a representative on both the ENFORM Training and Safety Councils. “I also worked in drilling in my youth so I appreciate the time and the investment industry is making to ensure their workers are trained,” said Ross. “They are making the industry more like a career now.” Ross anticipates working closely with the Energy and Resources and Saskatchewan Environment ministries and being an active member on the Saskatchewan Petroleum Industry Government/Environment Committee (SPIGEC). “Whenever there are health and safety issues associated with the worker or quasi health and safety and environmental issues, we also attend those meeting,” said Ross. “In my past jobs, I represented the needs on the health and safety side. Now with ENFORM we will be active participants on that too.” Ross says industry response to ENFORM being chosen to be Saskatchewan’s petroleum industry safety association has been positive and lots of calls have come in since the office opened in mid April. “We are actually getting calls from heavy oil people in the La Loche area,” he said. ”They are very interested in how their needs will be met with the oilsands sector they will be working in.”

News

Notes Heating a new shop?

The provincial government has introduced a rebate program to encourage the use of geothermal heating systems within Saskatchewan’s business sector. Eligible businesses can receive a 15 per cent rebate on the cost of installing a Canadian GeoExchange Coalition (CGC) certified geothermal heating and cooling system. The maximum rebate is $100,000. “Geothermal is an environmentally responsible alternative to many traditional sources of heating - especially electric heat,” Crown Corporations Minister Ken Cheveldayoff said. “Interest in geothermal is growing in our province and providing these financial incentives will make it feasible for even more people to install a geothermal system in their home or business.” The commercial rebate program is funded by SaskPower and administered by the Saskatchewan Research Council (SRC). To be eligible for the rebate, projects must be professionally designed and installed by a certified member of the Canadian GeoExchange Coalition (CGC).

In the boonies? SaskTel today announced June 9 the launch of SaskTel Satellite Internet powered by Xplornet providing coverage to all areas of Saskatchewan not able to receive SaskTel High Speed Internet. “Providing all Saskatchewan people and businesses with fair and equal access to the best information, entertainment, and communication technologies available has been a priority for the Government of Saskatchewan,” Minister responsible for SaskTel Don Morgan said. SaskTel Satellite Internet powered by Xplornet provides aﬀordable, fast, and easy Internet access packages with speeds of up to 1.0 Mbps or up to 1.5 Mbps starting from $56.95/month. “SaskTel is pleased to oﬀer high speed internet service to all its customers in Saskatchewan,” SaskTel President and CEO Robert Watson said. “This is a great accomplishment as Saskatchewan will be one of only two provinces in Canada that provides the service to 100% of the province.”

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EDITORIAL

PIPELINE NEWS July 2009

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Editorial Wall no wallÀower with oil and gas Attending two major oil conferences in Saskatchewan this spring, you’re sure to hear from the politicians. Their message has been consistent: a big “Thank you” to the Saskatchewan oil patch. Thank you for growing the economy, providing jobs, paying for social services and infrastructure. Energy and Resources Minister Bill Boyd brought that message to the Williston Basin Petroleum Conference in Regina in late April, noting that he had specific instructions from the premier to show gratitude to the oilpatch. The big guy himself delivered the same message to the Saskatchewan Oil and Gas Show in Weyburn on June 3, during the oilman of the year awards luncheon. He made the point that he’s the first premier to attend the show since 1999, and before that, it was 1991, when Grant Devine was still premier. Now, premiers are busy people who rarely have complete control of their schedules. If the prime minister calls a first minister meeting, you have to attend. When the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities has their annual convention, you better be there. The same goes for the Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association. But missing a decade worth of shows? That’s the entire duration of the Calvert Administration. It’s also only once for Roy Romanow. Wall was present at the Lloydminster Heavy Oil Show last fall, and said he plans on attending these shows as much as possible. People notice these things, which is precisely why Wall brought it up. It’s sure the industry took notice the heavy presence of both the top-end politicians and ministry officials at these events.

It’s odd, because former Premier Lorne Calvert brought in royalty regimes that have done Saskatchewan very well, in comparison to what the Alberta government has done in recent years. (i.e., loaded both barrels and shot off both feet.) Indeed, Wall credited the previous administration for that, if not actually naming Calvert by name. The province plans on leaving things alone in large part, saying, “We will not be increasing royalties.” Wall spoke of investing in infrastructure from where the money had come from. “You’re generating a lot of royalties. You deserve good roads to do that work,” Wall said That statement got applause. Anyone who has driven around Alida, for instance, realizes that heavy truck traffic associated with the oilpatch comes with a price in infrastructure. It’s even more noticeable in the heavy oil country around Lloydminster. While there have been efforts in recent years to assist rural municipalities in dealing with the issue, you’d have to look long and hard to find an RM that is satisfied with the level of assistance. With the collapse in energy prices over the past year, there’s not going to be a lot of extra money to throw into these things. However, with the recovery of oil prices since the winter, there’s hope. It wasn’t long ago current prices were considered astronomical. If they stay at this level or improve, perhaps the province will be able to put more into infrastructure. “We have to invest more in infrastructure.” Wall added. There’s an old saying in politics – dance with the one who brought you. In this case, Wall strode onto the dance floor, and made clear he’s here to dance. It’s probably a good thing the premier is not a wallflower with the oil and gas industry. They have this habit of paying the bills.

PIPELINE NEWS July 2009

Opinion

Time for the kids, and to make a living, too From the top of the pile Brian Zinchuk

The other day I hitched up the contraption meant to carry small children behind a bicycle, and, with some coaxing, got my daughter to ride her bike to the park. There Spencer and Katrina had great fun playing with the other kids, as a few parents watched. While watching our kids get soaked in the spray park, I struck up a conversation with one of the dads. I can’t remember what he does exactly, but it was some sort of well-site work, probably directional drilling. Inevitably, we started talking about the activity level in the patch, and I commented on the fact that things should be picking up shortly. Oil was, after all, around $72 a barrel on that day. His response was that he would like to see it stay

the same for a while. At the pace he was going over the last couple years, it was tough. Don’t get to see the kids much? I asked. More like didn’t want to see the kids, he said. He was too tired to spend time with them. I expect to hear more of that in the coming months. The last year has been brutal in many ways – the frenetic pace of 2008 coupled with the total collapse of prices by early 2009 has been hard on the system and families. Thankfully, the valley was shortlived, and much of it occurred during the slow season of spring breakup, anyhow. The Saudis said a while back that they would be happy with oil in the $75 range, right around where it is now. If the Saudis are happy, shouldn’t we all be happy? It wasn’t that many years ago I was asking the provincial minister of ﬁnance what he would do with all the money ﬂowing in with $60 oil. In February, I noted that governments would likely be saying, “The cupboard is bare” at some time in contract negotiations this year, followed by, “You can do a lot more with $75 oil than you can with $35 oil.” Well, we’re at that level now. There’s pretty good indication it will climb a bit higher towards the end of the year, which is going to help this province out

a fair bit. On the drilling side, it’s nowhere near 2008’s, or even 2007’s pace, but Saskatchewan is faring better than our neighbours. When you look at the rig counts, Saskatchewan is doing pretty well compared to Alberta and BC. As of June 12, Saskatchewan had 36 of 124 drilling rigs working, or 29 per cent. That’s not great, but look at Alberta. At the same time, they had 65 of 589 drilling rigs working – with a whopping 524 rigs down. Only 11 per cent of Alberta rigs were listed as active, likely due to poor gas prices. BC faired a little better, with 21 of 122 rigs working, or 17 per cent. Manitoba saw ﬁve of seven rigs active – pretty good for that province. In all, Saskatchewan is pulling through. For a lot of companies, the last eight months may have been tough sledding, but if they made it this far, they should probably be okay. The provincial budget won’t likely see billions in oil bounty, but it won’t be starved, either. And the guy with his kids at the park? He’ll probably have enough time to enjoy them, and still make a buck. Brian Zinchuk is editor of Pipeline News (www. pipelinenews.ca). He can be reached at brian.zinchuk@ sasktel.net

Hold the applause for oil rebound Imperial Oil’s decision to start work on the ﬁrst phase of its $8 billion Kearl oilsands development near Fort McMurray could signal the start of other major oil and gas projects that were put on hold when oil prices tumbled. Imperial estimates it will cost $4.50 per barrel of bitumen for an initial production run of 110,000 barrels starting as early as 2012. This investment is good economic news as oil heads to the $75 mark that many producers say is the level where investment in new production is most likely. The ironic point is that with no further investment in new production, oil is likely to zoom into the triple digits again due to a supply shortage. New production investment now will help to oﬀset another potentially damaging price spike just as the economy and oil prices gain momentum. Investment has been curtailed by low prices, low demand, high development costs and tight credit markets along with renewed policy emphasis on alternative green energies. Demand is due to rise again as the global economy improves but without new investment in production or a massive reduction in demand and con-

Lee Side of Lloyd Geoff Lee

servation, oil prices are bound to soar again to our detriment. It would seem from past experience that you can’t have high oil prices and a booming economy at the same time for any sustained period, especially for undeveloped countries. The price of gas, food and labour puts all consumers in the poor house. The solution would be to strive for a supply and demand balance where oil prices are high enough to spur investment and generate economic spinoffs while keeping the cost of living in check. To achieve this, leaders need to realize that oil supplies are finite and as reserves dwindle, government and industry need to fill the void with alterna-

tive energies so that by the time the last drop of oil has been consumed, the world no longer needs it. In a perfect world, this would be achieved but short-term thinking seems to rule the day along with the attitude that if we keep drilling everything will be okay. It’s the ostrich approach that gets politicians elected and causes economic volatility. What the world needs are localized energy sources and solutions that can be ramped up in proportion to the inevitable declining global oil and gas resources. If you live by a waterfall, use waterfall power. Energy independence may be the key to long-term survival. Sun, wind and tides are here for the long haul. We need to maximize these energy alternatives as much as possible so when the oil and gas taps run dry we are not left powerless. Where is the political will? Today oil and gas runs the world – and that’s okay – for while. Without a replacement source, we will be back to burning lumps of coal and eating dinner by ﬁrelight. Let’s use the next oil boom to purchase our security and keep the lights on so we see where we are going.

PIPELINE NEWS INVITES OPPOSING VIEW POINTS. EDITORIALS AND LETTERS TO THE EDITOR WELCOME. Email to: brian.zinchuk@sasktel.net

PIPELINE NEWS July 2009

Oil Chat with Bruce Penton

Bruce Penton, associate-editor with the Medicine Hat Daily News and syndicated columnist will be contributing a Q&A with inÁuential Canadian Petroleum personnel each month for Pipeline News.

Malcolm Wilson

Raised nearly all over the world, Malcolm Wilson, currently based at the University of Regina, is one of the world’s foremost authorities on climate change and CO2 capture. He was born in Egypt but raised in Britain and a number of other centres (Libya, Belgium, Bahrain, Jamaica) because his father was a member of the British military. He received a geology degree from a university in Nottingham, England, and then came to the U of R. A Calgary-based oil publication, Alberta Oil Magazine, said “Wilson is uniting researchers, industry and government under the banner of ‘Energy and the Environment.’ He is director of the International Test Centre for CO2 Capture and is co-founder of the Weyburn CO2 monitoring and storage project. Wilson said he loves the wide open spaces of the Prairies and doesn’t plan to leave. In mid-May, he chatted with Bruce Penton about a variety of things connected to climate change and other subjects, such as soccer and Melton Mowbray pork pies.

Pipeline News: This will take 15 to 20 minutes tops. I want to start by asking what would happen to the world in the next 100 years if all efforts to reduce CO2 emissions were stopped? Malcolm Wilson: You sure you want to keep it to 15 minutes? We can see significant impacts on our ability to produce food, for example. I’m most familiar with the Prairies, obviously. We look at some of the PFRA forecasts and significant areas of the Prairies could become sub-marginal for production of grain crops. So we could definitely be in quite a tight spot in terms of the American breadbasket being able to produce the level of crops we’re used to. Certainly you will get a northward movement, where you will be able to grow crops further north. It’s going to be pretty good for Alberta, because it has soil further north, but Saskatchewan and Manitoba . . . you run out of soil further north. You’re going to see more intense storms and with growing cities at the same time, the likelihood of major storms hitting cities increases, so property damage is going to increase. Sea level rises; that’s pretty much inevitable. We are going to see increased pressure on coastlines. PN: So the world has to step up its efforts in this regard. Wilson: And the second part of it is the acidification of the oceans. I’m certainly a long way from being an expert in that area, but it does raise concerns about the bottom end of the food chain and the oceans and what will happen. PN: How would you rate Canada’s efforts in this whole scenario? Wilson: On the whole, not very good. Canada has developed a lot of expertise and from the research end of things, I think you pat a lot of researchers on the back and say despite a lack of broad support, they’ve done a good job in getting Canada into a leadership position. In terms of taking the next steps, we’ve been lagging behind. We’re starting to see the flow of money into demonstration, but it’s been slow in coming. PN: Who’s leading the world in this area? Wilson: Up until a couple of years ago, I would say from the research perspective, the two leading countries were Canada and Norway. Since then we’ve seen huge efforts in the U.S. and Australia and growing efforts in the European Union. More broadly, Europe’s starting to take note of . . . like Germany. Australia’s certainly doing well with its efforts. PN: When and how did scientists discover that CO2 emissions were doing irreparable harm to the globe?

Wilson: First warnings were at the end of the 19th Century. Sort of a recognition of the role of CO2 in the atmosphere. It wasn’t leading to any warnings at the time, but it was a recognition that CO2 and other gasses were helping to keep the earth warm and at a liveable temperature. I guess it would probably be in the early 1980s we started to get some concern about what was happening and . . . and really brought climate change to the fore as an issue of concern. PN: How would you describe your relationship with Al Gore? Wilson: I don’t have a relationship with him. I don’t know him personally. Some of my colleagues that would have gone to the Nobel ceremonies may have met him, but I think Al Gore faces a lot of criticism. Anybody who steps out to the forefront faces criticism. I think personally he’s done a good job. PN: What might Al Gore have done in the area of global warming had he won that election for president in 2000? Wilson: I think we would have seen much more engagement at the international level by the United States. So with Al Gore, they would have signed the Kyoto Protocol and may actually have seen something happen. Under the Kyoto Protocol, with the way it was structured without the United States, it was, frankly, doomed to failure. We could have been a few years ahead of where we are today in terms of taking some serious action. PN: This has been a terribly cold winter and spring in most of the west. You won’t go out and say global warming’s just a myth, eh? Wilson: (Laughs) No. One year out of the last 15. PN: I just wanted to get an expert’s perspective on that. Wilson: You can expect this. You can expect extremes. Some of those extremes may be cold extremes. The reality is, we’re going to end up with more hot spells and longer hot spells. Absolute temperatures probably won’t change that much in terms of our maximums. PN: What brought you to Canada from England? Wilson: I did my undergraduate in geology at the University of Nottingham. One of the professors there had worked as a paleontologist, and I was interested in his studies, so I talked to him about doing graduate work. He said, ‘well, that works for me, but you’ll have to do it in Canada, because I’ve just taken a job at the University of Saskatchewan.’ PN: And you likely said, ‘where?’

Wilson: Yeah, so I checked my geography books and my atlas. Actually one other professor at Nottingham had spent a year in Canada, so I went and talked to him and he said ‘You’d be nuts not to take the job, the opportunity. Go for it.’ PN: At the time, did you think you’d stay here forever? Wilson: At the time, I think I fully expected to stay. The opportunities in the U.K. when I left were almost zero. The economy wasn’t doing well. I fully expected to stay somewhere else. PN: How did the Petroleum Technology Research Centre come to be? Wilson: Do you want the full legend? PN: The 150-word-or-less version. Wilson: Basically, at the time we had a (federal) Liberal government and an NDP government here. The Minister of Natural Resources, Ralph Goodale, and our minister of energy were both doing a tour of mine sites in, I believe, it was Kurdistan. And got talking about the need to do something in the oil and gas industry in Saskatchewan, recognizing we have a unique set of issues and opportunities here. They came back and said ‘we want to start up some sort of a research organization to meet the needs of the Saskatchewan oil and gas industry and that kind of landed on my desk and one of my colleagues with the federal government in Edmonton. So the two of us were tasked with pulling it together. PN: How successful has it been? Wilson: It’s been very successful. PN: How much of your work is done in Canada and how much in other parts of the world? Wilson: My role is mostly in the area of looking at funding opportunities, collaborative work, so most of my travel is to conferences, meetings, etc., to bring knowledge back to Canada, particularly Saskatchewan. Most of the work is actually done here, although projects like the research program on the Weyburn Oil Field had an extensive international component. PN: What Canadian politician is the best friend of the work you do? Wilson: Right now, I’d have to clearly say it’s Premier Wall. He’s a very active proponent. PN: Why won’t soccer catch on in Canada? Wilson: (Laughs). I think soccer is catching on in Canada. Everytime I drive down the street, I see kids out practising soccer. PN: It makes your heart feel good, eh? Wilson: It does indeed.

PIPELINE NEWS July 2009

Malcolm Wilson

Photo courtesy of U of R photography Department

PN: In 100 words or less, tell me about the Weyburn Monitoring and Storage Project that you just referred to. Wilson: Certainly phase one really thrust Canada and Saskatchewan into the world limelight when it came to geological storage and research. It’s there to really understand the integrity of storage and the sub-surface. It’s not trying to track in-house oil recovery. You can see what happens to CO2. And to be able to utilize that knowledge globally to ensure that there can be safe, long-term storage of CO2 and I think we’re doing a very good job of it.

PN: Is there anything from England — a pastime, a food, a tradition — that you wish you could import to Canada? Wilson: As much as my wife would object . . . I grew up in the Midlands, and I liked my Melton Mowbray pork pies. PN: You can’t get those in Canada, eh? Wilson: No. From a cholesterol perspective, they are gross, but they taste good. PN: What’s one thing the average Canadian could do, starting right now, to aid in the salvation of the planet?

Wilson: I can give you all conservation . . . energy efficiency, that’s all good. But I really think the Canadian citizen has to be willing to pay a little more on his or her electricity bill in order to allow a broad range of emissions reductions technology to be put in place. Whether it’s carbon capture storage, or whatever, there is a cost, and we have to be willing to bear it because the cost of doing nothing is going to exceed any cost we have to bear. PN: You’d never get elected as a politician if you said your electrical bills are going to rise. Wilson: (Laughs) I’m afraid not. PN: What do you like about Canada the best? Wilson: I really enjoy the lifestyle. I enjoy the open spaces of Saskatchewan. I don’t like crowded cities, so I have trouble seeing myself living in London or somewhere like that. PN: Your biography says you were born in Egypt and raised in Jamaica, Libya, the U.K., Belgium and Bahrain. Tell me a little bit about your youth. Wilson: My father was in the British army, so wherever he went, the family went along. He and my mother were in Egypt when I was born. That was a leadup to the Suez Crisis and shortly after I was born, families were evacuated and then it became a round of three years in England, three years abroad. Our times abroad included Jamaica, Libya — pre-Gaddafi days — but it was a great place. PN: Overall, are we making progress in the area of climate change, or are we fighting a losing battle? Wilson: I really think we’re on the verge of some serious action. Up to this point, I don’t think we have. We’ve talked but not acted. But I think that’s about to change.

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PIPELINE NEWS July 2009

Keystone pipeline expansion plan to be heard in September

There is a lot of excitement in Hardisty as crews work on TransCanada’s Keystone pipeline at the Hardisty Terminal.

By Geoﬀ Lee Calgary –TransCanada Corporation is one step closer to getting the green light to proceed with its proposed $7 billion (U.S.) Keystone XL crude oil pipeline from Hardisty to the U.S. Gulf Coast in Texas, passing through southwest Saskatchewan. The National Energy Board (NEB) will convene an oral hearing of the application for the Canadian section of the North American pipeline Sept. 15 at a location to be determined.

The Canadian part of the pipeline will extend from Hardisty, Alberta to the Canada/U.S. border at Monchy, Saskatchewan, and would involve constructing approximately 525 kilometres of pipeline and related facilities including pump stations, tanks and other related works and activities. Once approval is obtained, construction is expected to begin by mid2010 and will result in a total capital investment of approximately $12 billion (U.S.) when completed by 2012. The project is already being ap-

plauded in Provost which enjoyed the economic spinoffs from the last Keystone pipeline project in the Hardisty area. “We watch these approvals closely and we try to work with companies as closely as we can to foster the development,” said Bert Roach, Provost’s economic development officer. “Usually what happens with pipelines construction is we see an increase in activity when the workers are coming through and hopefully we see an increase in one or two jobs in the long term as well. “This project would work to increase the importance of the Hardisty Terminal area. It continues to establish the area as an important one for oil and gas. “It’s really exciting to see the developments happening at the Hardisty Terminal. It’s always been a major crossroads for pipelines. With the new pipelines that have gone in the last two or three years, it further increases the importance of that terminal.” The new XL pipeline offers a more direct route to the Gulf Coast than the 590,000 barrels per day Keystone pipeline which is scheduled to go into service in early 2010.

The entire 3,200 km 36-inch XL pipeline would incorporate a portion of the Keystone Pipeline to be constructed through Kansas to Cushing, Oklahoma, before continuing through Oklahoma to a delivery point near existing terminals in Nederland, Texas to serve the Port Arthur, Texas marketplace. Also proposed is an approximate 80-km pipeline to the Houston, Texas marketplace. The expansion project in Canada follows TransCanada’s success securing long-term contracts of additional oil that will expand the supply to 900,000 barrels of oil day with an initial volume of 700,000 barrels. The Keystone XL was announced last July by Hal Kvisle, TransCanada president and chief executive officer. “The Keystone expansion will be the first direct pipeline to connect a growing and reliable supply of Canadian crude oil with the largest refining market in North America,” he said at that time. “The Keystone Pipeline will be constructed and operated as an integrated system with delivery points in the U.S. Midwest and U.S. Gulf Coast.”

These signs provide instructions and point the way to the entrance of TransCanada’s new tank farm and construction site for the Keystone pipeline in Hardisty.

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Crime Stoppers reports numerous oil¿eld thefts Theft of oilﬁeld equipment in Saskatchewan is an ongoing problem. Saskatchewan Crime Stoppers reports dozens of recent and unsolved crimes of thefts in the oil patch including these outstanding crimes listed on the website www.saskcrimestoppers.com Theft of fuel Abbey –Between 7 p.m. on May 22 and 7 a.m. May 23, approximately 300 gallons of diesel fuel was stolen from a Cee Gee Construction Site along Highway 32 southeast of Abbey. Theft of tools Esterhazy – RCMP are asking for the public’s assistance regarding the theft of tools in the Bredenbury area during the early hours of Monday December 29, 2008. At approximately 12:30 a.m., three white

pickup trucks drove onto a drilling rig site and entered several storage sheds. Once inside the suspects stole several drills, grinders, impact tools, as well as a portable heater Break and enter Carrot River District – On the evening of May 2, 2009, a shop half a mile north of Zenon Park was broken into. Numerous items were taken including a quad, surveying equipment and various power tools. Theft of doghouse Coleville – Kindersley RCMP is investigating a theft of a trailer from an oil rig near Coleville which happened between the afternoon of May 29 and May 30th. The trailer is a triple axel 30- ft. by 10-ft oﬃce trailer, which was used as a workshop/ oﬃce, known as a dog-

house. It contained tools, computers, documents, clothing and safety equipment, total value upwards to $100,000. The Trailer is white with Phoenix Well Servicing decals on the sides with Alberta licence T55 675. Theft of crude oil Hillmond – Sometime around April 3, 2009 unknown person(s) entered an oil well site North East of Hillmond and stole 20 cubic meters of crude oil. Battery thefts Hillmond – Sometime between March 16 and March 27, 2009 unknown person(s) entered four separate oil well sites in the Hillmond area and stole an Optima Red Top battery from each one. Asphalt pump Warman – On November 13, 2007 an asphalt pump was stolen

High summer gas prices to take a vacation this year Calgary – Canadian consumers will enjoy lower energy prices this summer according to Canada’s national energy regulator. The National Energy Board (NEB) released its Summer Outlook May 28 in which it forecasted a significantly different energy picture from the one released last May. This time last year energy prices were on the rise, with crude oil hitting a record high of US $147 per barrel, while natural gas peaked at US $13/MMBtu in July. However the global economic downturn led to a dramatic drop in prices over the fall and winter. The current economic situation, combined with the high inventories of both oil and natural gas, will continue to put downward pressure on energy prices heading into summer. The NEB is predicting crude oil to trade in the US $50 to $60 per barrel range, with natural gas prices to average between US $3.20 and $4.20/MMBtu over the summer. “Canadians will find that the price of gas will not go as high as it did last summer,” said NEB chair Gaétan Caron. “At the same time,

however, companies may respond to the low prices by further cutting production, which would mean a tighter energy market in the medium to long term.” On the electricity side, new power generation came on-line in several jurisdictions and transmission capacity was expanded between Ontario and Quebec and between New Brunswick and the U.S. in 2008. As

a result, electricity supply is projected to be adequate to meet summer demand. Canadian-American electricity trade volumes reached record levels in the summer of 2008, and are expected to remain strong this summer. Weaker economic conditions, however, may mean less demand from the industrial sector in the U.S. and Canada.

oﬀ one of the oil storage tanks at an asphalt plant located on the south side of Highway 16 between the Dalmeny Grid and the weigh scales. The pump was a Viking LL120 and weighted

around 100 lbs. The pump was bolted to the oil storage tank and the bolts were taken oﬀ when the pump was stolen. To report crimes: Saskatchewan Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-

8477 (TIPS) SaskTel Mobility Network at *TIPS (8477) Text: CRIMES (274637) - TIP206 Submit a tip online at www.saskcrimestoppers. com

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PIPELINE NEWS July 2009

Ladies of the Patch scores with players, sponsors and a charity By Geoﬀ Lee Lloydminster – Dear Diary: The 4th annual Ladies of the Patch PWM Steel Petroleum Golf Classic was a wonderful expe-

rience for me. The sky was blue; the course was in great shape and I had a lot of fun golﬁng. I made some new friends and helped raise money for the Lloydminster Sexual Assault

Centre. No doubt these memories were personally shared, if not written down, by most of the 144 golfers who teamed up with other female work-

Dressed in blue are the nine members of the Ladies in the Patch organizing committee. Holding a cheque for $10,000 is Christy Wolanuk with Sherry Jeffery to her right both representing the Lloydminster Sexual Assault Centre.

ers from the oilpatch for a round of golf at the Lloydminster Golf & Country Club on May 22. “As women, we are in the oﬃce every day and don’t get a chance to meet each other,” said Margie Florence, a member of the organizing committee. “We just talk to each other on the phone. This is a chance to put some faces to the names that we deal with.” The Petroleum Golf Classic groups the players into foursomes for an 18-hole Texas scramble format where fun overrides score keeping. “This is the only event of its kind in our area that allows the women who work in the oilﬁeld to get together and net-

work, have a drink or two and shoot a few holes of golf,” said Debbie Horbach committee chair. When asked how the men they left behind at the office would survive their day, Horbach quipped, “Quite frankly we don’t care. We’ll worry about that on Monday.” Aside from fun, the event is a major annual fundraiser for the Lloydminster Sexual Assault Centre to the delight of the centre’s executive director, Muriel Ralston. “The fundraising is imperative to us as a ‘non-profit’ – and to have Deb and the Ladies of the Patch set this up to organize it – and for us to just come up and volunteer, it’s hugely important financially as well as for public awareness,”

said Ralston. “We have to fundraise a certain amount every year and Deb’s committee does a good part of that by running the Ladies of the Patch.” The assault centre has received over $50,000 from tournament proceeds with the 2009 contribution to help support ﬁve frontline crisis interventionists who work with male and female children, youth and adult victims of sexual violence. “We accompany them to court and prepare them for court and follow up with them for up to a year,” explained Ralston. The Lloydminster centre is one of 17 sexual assault centres in Alberta and Saskatchewan that focus strictly on frontline crisis intervention with sexual assault victims. ɸ Page A11

Jen Keach from Mike’s OilÀeld intended to send her golf ball Áying down the fairway.

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A hole lot of fun at the 4th annual Ladies of the Patch ɺ Page 10 “In our position, any money is wonderful,” said Raltson. Some of the fundraising dollars come from a lengthy list of event sponsors such as Ulmer Chevrolet that donates a package for Temple Gardens Mineral Spa in Moose Jaw that the committee sells draw tickets for. “Sponsorships have been wonderful over the past three years,” said Horbach. “This year, it was a bit slower and we think it’s mainly due to the economy but any of those that could gave willingly. “All golfers get a gift bag with wind shirts, golf balls and other trinkets and we have over 100 door prizes,” said Horbach. PWM Steel has been the Platinum event sponsor each year. Aluma Systems, the gold sponsor donated the top draw prize of a pair of diamond earrings won by Bev Willick from

CNRL. Anna Dumont from E2 Consulting won a fridge. Aside from silver and bronze sponsors, the program lists an array of bronze sponsors, breakfast sponsors, KP and hole-in-one sponsors, signage and printing sponsors and refreshment hole sponsors. Tournament chair Debbie Horbach presented a diamond earring to Bev WilGolfer Rachel Horbach attributed lick, winner of a closest-to-the- hole draw prize from Aluma Systems. her poor back nine to a stop at one of the sponsored liquid refreshment stations on the course. “It was really good the ﬁrst nine and the second nine was a whole lot of fun,” she joked about her game. “The stop at the KUDU tent may have had a diﬀerence in my last nine holes. “The event was excellent. It was a great day. It was sunny. Our team was excellent and everybody was having fun.” P.S. Diary: “I plan to come back in Member of 2010. This beats work any day but I ISN • LOI won’t tell my boss that.”

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PIPELINE NEWS July 2009

Husky updates its service rig automation trials By Geoﬀ Lee

Petroleum Society lunch host Dale Luedtke invites members to the 16th annual Heavy Oil Symposium Sept. 16-17 in Lloydminster.

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needed to get better at what we did. We needed Lloydminster – Heavy to get more efficient and oil service rigs used by be able to service wells for Husky Energy are enter- less money and be able to ing the world of the Jet- operate in low cost envisons with lots of futuris- ronments. We wanted to tic sensors and monitors use automation to help us to cut costs and improve with monitoring different functions of the rig.” safety and efficiency. Other projects goals That’s the forward direction Husky has been were using sensors to taking since 2006 and the boost rig safety with company has automated alarms and improve rig seven of the 20 operating management and effirigs it contracts from lo- ciency “Rig efficiency was a cal companies. Service rig superin- big one,” said Staniforth. tendent Howie Stani- “Waiting time is a real forth brought the Petro- killer for service rig work. leum Society’s June lunch The dollars go up fairly audience up to speed on fast. “Along with rig efrig modifications and the status of a related contin- ficiency, we wanted to uous rod project launched track our different activities and benchmark in 2003. “I think down the ourselves by breaking it road we will have some down to different activisort of automation on ties and see how we could just about every service improve.” Some of those activirig out there,” said Stanities are pulling tube and forth. “My vision for Hus- rods out of a hole, fishing ky is to have a control and tubing inspections. Automation was used room environment where we have guys supervising to measure such things as service rigs from a com- tubing pressure, casing pressure and foot pounds mand centre.” Staniforth began of torque when crews are the presentation with a going through the tubing photo of a pole rig taken makeup process. “Torque oil pressure in 1954 and he noted today’s rigs have telescopic is important in making derricks and high torque sure you don’t torque diesel engines that are your pipe too much or not enough so you don’t very mobile. “We have come a damage the threads and long way since 1954,” the connections,” exsaid Staniforth. “We are plained Staniforth. “We also looked at at a point now where we need to look at what can hook load which is how much weight we are take us to the next level. “We could see we pulling up. You have to

be careful you don’t pull over the yield strength of the pipe or the rated capacity of your rig to pull. We monitored the things that we thought would give us the best information. “All of the data is fed to a server connected to a laptop and printer so the rig manager can view and print out the data. The consultant can also view the data from a laptop in his truck.” Beneﬁts for Husky are a projected saving of $500 for a well servicing job and the opportunity for rig contractor to monitor their power outputs and use data for preventive rig maintenance. “There are also some good capabilities on the rig monitoring system to help us eliminate paper work,” added Staniforth. “The big one is getting the tower sheet (work ticket) to download directly to well-view so the rig operator gets paid quickly.” Staniforth told the audience that data collection has been the easy part “but we are not good at making use of it.” Husky is working with a third party company to quantify up to nine benchmarks such as rig wait time, safety and rig down/up stats. Benchmarks are compared to control numbers which are historical data from rigs doing similar work to determine the rig eﬃciency. ɸ Page A13

PIPELINE NEWS July 2009

A13

Husky updates rigs

Howie Staniforth envisions a world of futuristic service rigs.

ɺ Page A12 “You can’t improve on something unless you measure it,” said Staniforth. “It’s a tool to help us to do our job better.” The other tool Staniforth came to talk about was the X-celerator that dates back to 2003 when

Husky began using continuous rods. The initial study resulted in savings of $25,000 over an eightyear life of a well that required two rod and tubing changes. “Conventional rods are in 25-foot lengths so you have to screw them

together as they are going into the well,” said Staniforth. “We have gone to continuous rods because it’s on a spool so there are no connections. You have less wear on the inside of the tubing and less back pressure on the pump. “The continuous rod helps our run time be longer on the well. The less you have to service a well the easier it is to keep operating in tougher times. “What kept scaring us away was how to service it without needing a rod rig and a tubing rig. We wanted to have a one rig system. We worked with industry to develop the X-celerator.” The X-celerator is designed to ﬁt on the service rig and pull the continuous rod out of the well and put it on a spool and run it back in the well when Husky is ready to put the well back on a pump. Husky and its industry partners developed three working rig

models. The latter has a tube handling system that eliminates the need to hang the rods in the derrick. It is mounted on the derrick and it is half the weight of the initial version. “We are going one step further and using a tubing handling system to lay the tubing down so we have nobody up high in the derrick,” said

Staniforth. “We’ve been testing this on one rig.” In other news, the Petroleum Society monthly lunch ‘n learn sessions will break for the summer. The next event is the 16th annual Heavy Oil Technical Symposium on new technology to be held Sept. 16-17. Lunch host Dale Luedtke told the June audience that curler Kevin

Martin has been lined up as the guest presenter. “I strongly urge you to come out and see Kevin Martin and you can ask him why he did what he did. I know I might,” joked Luedtke, in reference to Martin throwing away his ﬁrst stone in the 10th end of the 2009 world championship match in losing 8-6 to Scotland.

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PIPELINE NEWS July 2009

TransCanada Truck Wash grand opening By Geoff Lee Lloydminster – Daryl Watt, Deputy Reeve for the County of Vermilion River ended his remarks at the grand opening of TransCanada Automatic Truck Wash hoping for rain as that would create mud. Mud is good for truck washing and so is marketing. A community barbecue, draw prizes, speeches, a discount car wash for charity and a tour of the truck wash in operation, worked to win over new customers. “This is a chance for everyone to come and see the wash and how it works,” said company president Trevor Nysetvold. “It’s unique in the world. Everything is controlled electronically. We have different washing recipes for different types of trucks.” The dignitaries included MLA Lloyd Snelgrove and Justin Young from Bexson Construction Ltd. to Peggy Bosch, president of the Lloydminster Chamber of Commerce. They were among those who brought their own vehicle for $5 car wash in support of the Big Brothers Big Sisters.

“We have a light vehicle wash that a lot of people don’t know about so we are hoping to gain some exposure for that and introduce everyone to this exciting product,” said Nysetvold . The truck wash is located off Range Road 14, two kilometers west of Lloydminster adjacent to Highway 16 and bills itself as the “home of the eight minute truck wash.” Highway directional signage is in the works. “The key is to the system is convenience,” added Nysetvold. “Washing is a staple. Drivers need to wash their trucks. Image is everything to these guys to have a clean truck on the road from a maintenance standpoint, a weight standpoint and a corporate image standpoint. “They don’t need to spend one to two hours and the amount of money it costs to hand wash. They can come here and have it done in eight minutes.” Aside from convenience, another selling point of the TransCanada wash is the way it washes using a high volume of recycled water – up to 20,000 gallons for a B-Train – applied with a low 300 psi pressure. “The high volume and low pressure is good for getting into all of the angles and the undercarriage,” said manager Morten Merrild. “Low pressure doesn’t harm anything and it allows us to use a high water volume which gets into places on the truck where you usually don’t get to. You’ve got water running in all direction and it takes out sand and mud and road salt.” The speedy truck wash system cleans a truck in stages starting with a soap application and a “mega wash” stage with 1,000 gallons of water per minute for mud removal. The next stage is a high pressure wash of 1,000 gallons a minute at 300 psi. Then there’s a two-stage rinse with a final rinse of pure water for a spotfree finish. ɸ Page A15

A big crowd turned out for the grand opening hosted by truck wash president Trevor Nysetvold at the microphone.

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First time truck wash user Shane Henry is guided through the 200-ft long wash bay by an onboard staff member. It can be hard to see with the huge volume of water sprayed in the eight minute wash and rinse process.

With mud on their mind ɺ Page A14 The truck wash ranges in cost from $60 for a no-soap maintenance wash for a semi to $140 for full soap, wash and rinse for a B-train. A full wash for a semi comes to $110 and Merrild says that’s a lot cheaper and quicker for drivers than hand washes. “They don’t have to spend hours doing it themselves,” he said. “They can be on the road and get their stuff done that makes them money hauling. The main thing is the time they save. They can pull off the highway and be back on the highway in 10 to 15 minutes if there’s no line up.” The TransCanada Truck Wash opened in December but management held off the grand opening to tweak the system, train staff, build up a customer base and wait for hot dog weather. “In the beginning, we had to let everyone know we were open. That has taken some time,” said Merrild. “After winter started to pull back and there was mud on the road during the spring, a lot of business has come our way. “Our main customers are oil hauling trucks and service trucks like vac trucks and flushbys. We’ve had a couple of service rigs come in here. We can also wash buses. “In this area, there are a lot of gravel roads and oil hauling. So that means a lot of trucks. Hauling on gravel roads makes them dirty and muddy. In the oil business, when it’s busy the

trucks are moving 24/7. With the time they can save washing their trucks, it makes this business perfect for the area. “Other than that there are some highway guys who go through Lloyd, see the sign and come in for a wash. There are a lot of grain haulers as well who haul grain to the canola plant in town.” Unlike the car wash bay which pulls the vehicle through wash stages on a conveyor system, the truck wash is set up for a driver to run his own vehicle through at a slow one foot per second pace after a meet and greet with staﬀ. “A lot of this is taking care of the customer,” said Merrild. “We make sure drivers are well informed and know what’s going to happen. We ride with every new driver and make sure they go the right speed and get the right wash.” TransCanada Truck Wash is owned by seven family groups in Lloydminster who Nysetvold said invested on the belief this is a better way to wash trucks. “In the research that we did, given we are all local, we know there is demand here and we had availability of land and we decided to go forward with it. “We are extremely excited about it. We are going through some tough times with the economy but we can see the light and it’s working well. “There are a number of manual hand wash lo-

cations in town but what we are selling is a special type of service. We’re selling a good quality wash and time convenience. That’s the big thing. With a lot of these heavy haulers, time is money. “Our wash is a fixed cost. With a manual wash it’s time dependent. Depending on the amount of time they spend is what they get charged. Whereas here, you are in and out in eight minutes and you have a fixed cost and you are gone.” TransCanada has a full range of payment options from fleet accounts and VIP cards to credit cards. No coins or bills are needed.

MLA Lloyd Snelgrove congratulated the group owners of the TransCanada Truck Wash during the grand opening June 6.

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PIPELINE NEWS July 2009

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PIPELINE NEWS July 2009

Imperial recruiting for its $8 By Geoff Lee Calgary – Imperial Oil Limited has been steadily hiring new employees to work on the first phase of its Kearl oilsands project long before it was approved by the company’s board of directors on May 25. That fact was revealed by Imperial spokesperson, Pius Rolheiser who said considerable site preparation has been going on since June 2008 where the project received regulatory approval. “As we were preparing to make an investment decision for Kearl, we were continuing to do the work necessary,” said Rolheiser. “We have been hiring on a pretty consistent basis to fill critical needs for the Kearl project. “There has been a fairly high level of activity over the fall, winter and into the spring,” said Rolheiser. “We have more than 1,000 people working on the

site at present.” An initial site ditching and drainage program was completed in the first half of 2008. Work in the second half of 2008 included clearing and draining surface water from the initial mining and plant site areas. Muskeg and topsoil is being removed and stockpiled for use in future reclamation. Imperial plans to develop and the operator Kearl in three phases with its 30 per cent partner ExxonMobil Canada. The first phase is expected to begin production in 2012 with an output of 110,000 barrels of bitumen per day. Full project production is expected to top 300,000 barrels a day of bitumen, Kearl’s total recoverable bitumen resource is estimated to be 4.6 billion barrels. The announcement from Imperial to go ahead with the first phase of Kearl follows a year-long process to reduce development costs now estimated at $8 billion or $4.50 per barrel. “We took the time to work every aspect of costs with our contractors and our planning people to make sure when we made the investment decision that we were confident we had a project that could be executed in a quality fashion at the lowest possible cost,” said Rolheiser. “We took our time as we do with all major projects. We continue to believe it’s the right decision.” In 2005, Imperial had estimated construction costs to be $5.5 billion as part of its regulatory filing including estimated annual expenditures of about $1 billion to operate the facility at full capacity. The Kearl oil sands project is a mining and extraction project located about 75 kilometres northeast of Fort McMurray on Crown land leases. The project lands are not suitable for recovery using in-situ techniques. “There will be a mine pit and a central extraction/separation plant where the oil will be processed,” said Rolheiser, “We have are plans to build an upgrader as part of the initial phase. We have not yet made a decision on whether an upgrader would be part of the subsequent phase of the Kearl.” The Kearl project will be developed using technology similar to what’s currently being used at existing oil sands mines in the Fort McMurray area with a commitment to limit the environmental impact. ɸ Page A19

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PIPELINE NEWS July 2009

A19

billion Kearl oilsands startup

“

There has been a fairly high level of activity over the fall, winter and into the spring. We have more than 1,000 people working on the site at present. - Pius Rolheiser

”

Imperial Oil began site clearing and muskeg drainage in 2008 to mine its Kearl oil sands site 75 km northeast of Fort McMurray. Photos courtesy of Imperial Oil

ɺ Page A18 “We have a plan for the Kearl project we call progressive reclamation,” said Rolheiser. “Our reclamation work will be going on at the same time as mining operations. “The initial mine pit will operate for a couple of decades and once that initial mine is complete and a new mine pit is operating, reclamation work on the initial mined pit will be taking place. “Our design plan for Kearl is geared to implement the very best technology to minimize the environmental impact speciﬁcally with issues like the amount of water we withdraw and the amount of land we disturb and how we handle tailings.” Imperial has plans to develop one external tailings area that will be emptied and reclaimed after space is available to process and return the remaining tailings into mined-out areas of the pit. There are also plans to compensate for disturbance of ﬁsh habit and reclaim the development site with a mix of native plants, forest cover and lakes over the 50 year life of the proj-

ect. Kearl could generate about 2,700 person years annually of ongoing employment and provide opportunities for local and aboriginal businesses during construction and operation. Imperial has also has oilsands projects in Cold Lake and owns a 25 per cent stake in Syncrude.

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A20

PIPELINE NEWS July 2009

Kenilworth’s new burner helps to shrink carbon footprints that installs the system in the field doesn’t get a box of parts. They get a system By Geoff Lee Lloydminster – Heine Westergaard, president of Kenilworth Combustion that’s completely put together. “It’s engineer stamped. It’s been wired and fired before it leaves our facility Advanced Thermal Solutions, hopes every customer he meets is as fired up about so we know everything is working. his company’s burners as he is. It minimizes the installation time. The hot seller that Westergaard A 500,000 BTU system can be inpromoted at the Weyburn Oil and stalled in four hours or less.” Gas show is a burner called a comBurners are used in the oil and bustion process heater module that is gas industry to burn off any hyCSA compliant with a small carbon drates produced in the oil and gas. footprint. The burner provides the heat to get “We have the cleanest burning rid of that moisture. burner out there with the lowest emis“The way that our burner works sions and the highest efficiency,” said is quite unique because we have Westergaard at his shop 30 minutes a recycle tube on the front of our west of Lloydminster. burner which is pulling hot flu gas Heat produced from a one million back into the mixing chamber,” said BTU demo burner at Kenilworth’s yard Westergaard. warms all of the buildings by burning “If you are dealing with using with 88 per cent efficiency. This comwet casing gas on site, we can take pares with 40 to 50 per cent for old that wet casing gas and run that burner systems that Kenilworth has through a burner and we don’t have improved upon. freeze off problems in our burner “We are 100 per cent CSA 149.3 systems. It’s absolutely wonderful compliant which means we meet or exfor cold weather.” ceed all of the safety requirements that Kenilworth also manufactures are set by governmental standards,” This cutaway of a 1.6 M BTU burner with an exhaust recycle system is used as and sells burner components insaid Westergaard. “We can reduce your cluding the valve train, the burner, overall liability when it comes to safety used as a marketing tool. the fire box and the burner manageand reduce your emissions.” Kenilworth has sold between 500 and 750 of these burners in the past four ment system made by Titan Logix Corporation. In fact, Kenilworth shared booth space with Titan in Weyburn that enabled years including 300 last year. More sales are pending once customers realize the Westergaard to show customers how the complete system works from a working burner performs as advertised with no parts to assemble. “We’ve taken a different approach to the burner system,” says Westergaard. model towed in a demonstration trailer. “We take and pre- assemble everything. The customer or the service company ɸ Page A21

PIPELINE NEWS July 2009

A21

New burner garnering attention at trade shows ɺ Page 20 “The trade shows have been phenomenal this year,” said Westergaard. “We’ve covered the ISA show in Calgary and had a tremendous response there from different companies. We also went to the Williston Basin Petroleum Conference in Regina dealing with the Bakken formation. The contacts we made there were amazing. “From there, we went to Grande Prairie. That was another great show. We had a good response there.” Kenilworth has also been teaming up with instrumentation and electrical companies including Syntech Enerflex in Brooks and Nomad Electrical Contractors Ltd. in Peace River to provide local installation and servicing of the CSA approved burners. They also plan to train service specialists at the Kenilworth plant. “We have started to train the electrical and instrumentation companies to do the installation for us,” said Westergaard. “It gives us the avenue of having these companies out there that are going to be doing the troubleshooting in a local area. It saves us from having to drive to Grand Prairie for a service job. “Most of our systems we can troubleshoot over the phone if the person has a bit of a background on it. “We’ve done all the work on the system here. We have put them together and set them up and ran them before they left. When they get installed onsite, we know exactly what’s missing or is going wrong with each alarm that comes up.” Kenilworth has sold more than 8,000 burners for applications from 100,000 to 20 million BTU since 1989 after Westergaard and his father started the business as a welding company saw a need. “It was getting into facilities and seeing the different processes and being on a lot of fire tube repairs that sparked us to get on to the burners,” said Westergaard. “There was a need for something better in the combustion field. Our goal is to make it an easy operation for the guys out in the field.” The Kenilworth burner cuts noise by up to 50 per cent and nitrogen oxide emissions by the same amount. The burner can also run off any kind of casing gas or solution gases available on site for fuel savings. “Any produced gas coming off the annulus is basically a waste gas,” said

Heine Westergaard uses heat from this 1M BTU demo burner to heat his manufacturing buildings.

Westergaard. “Traditionally it’s been ﬂared but we are doing is bringing that low pressure casing gas back into the burners and reusing it. “We can also run a dual fuel system. We can set up with casing gas as a primary fuel and we can have propane as a backup. If you lose your casing gas, propane will blend in and run the burner for the time that it’s needed and when the casing gas comes back with the appropriate pressure, it just overrides the system.” The system he says is “a win-win for everyone. We can reduce operating costs and service costs.”

June land sale revenues in lockstep with rising oil prices Regina – As oil prices rise, so do revenues from land sales. That is the case for the third time this year with the latest June land sale of Crown petroleum and natural gas rights that generated $18.1 million for the province. The June sale doubled the year-to-date total for 2009 as oil prices have reached the $70 U.S. per barrel mark. The year began with oil lifting oﬀ a $30.28 per barrel low on Dec. 23, 2008. Land sale revenues began the year with a benchmark of $6.3 million in February and rose to $11.7 million in April along with the increase in the price of oil. Energy and Resources Minister Bill Boyd noted there has been a fairly steady increase in oil prices since the price bottomed out at $30.28 (U.S.) per barrel on December 23, 2008. Total sales for the year are $36.1 million. “There has been a steady upward progression in revenue raised over the ﬁrst three sales of the year,” said Boyd. “We remain cautiously optimistic that this upward trend will

continue through the second half of 2009. “Current prices are around the $70 (U.S.) per barrel mark, so it is more than doubled since December. Over time, growing strength in markets will be reﬂected in increased activity in Saskatchewan’s oil patch.” The Weyburn-Estevan area received the most bids with sales of $11 million. The Swift Current area was next at $2.9 million, followed by the Kindersley-Kerrobert area with bonus bids totaling $2.2 million and the Lloydminster area at $1.9 million. The June sale included two petroleum and natural gas exploration licences that sold for $986,000 and 221 lease parcels that attracted $17.1 million in bonus bids. Both the highest price bid for a single parcel and the highest price paid on a per-hectare basis go to LandSolutions Inc. The company bid $1.5 million for a 129.5-hectare lease, and paid $17,529 per hectare for each of two separate 64.75-ha leases, all three of which are located

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A22

PIPELINE NEWS July 2009

Maidstone golf tourney one day this year

Ken Drury from Weatherford in Lloydminster putts his stuff.

Story and photos by Geoﬀ Lee Maidstone – Weather topped the news at this year’s Maidstone Oilmen’s Golf Tournament held at the Silver Lake Golf Club under a rare blue sky and light winds on June 10. “We picked a good day. We’ve had worse,” said organizer Ross Donald. “We’ve had snow, we’ve had rain. We’ve had frost. Not too often do you get sun and no wind.” The overriding economic chill, however; limited the roster to 72 players and cut the tournament to one day in the usual match play format. “Last we ran two days and had 128 players,” said Donald who is also the treasurer of the Maidstone Oilmen’s Association and the person in charge of fundraising. “We do get a lot of sponsorships from oil and gas supply companies, service companies and individuals. Donations are down this year because of low oil activity but we pulled it oﬀ. I am not sure if we are

going to make any money this year.” The oilmen’s web site has a lengthy list of donators and sponsors of the 18 flights, food and refreshments and hidden holes. Over the years, the organizing committee has invested extra profits from the tournament for improvements at the golf course and the regional park. Projects have included a large shelter on the fifth hole, a gas barbeque for the clubhouse deck and a registration and storage building at the first hole tee. The oilmen’s association also uses some of the proceeds to sponsor a $1,000 bursary and two $500 bursaries for Maidstone High School graduates seeking post secondary education in an oilfield related program. Money was on the minds of 10 lucky golfers whose names were drawn to compete for $500 in a closest to the pin chip in on the ninth hole from 100 yards. The cash was pocketed by Lance Wakefield who was eager to recall how it happened. “It was on ninth hole from 100 yards and it ended up just outside of eight feet – the first bounce – it was about a foot from the cup,” he said. “It’s a good way to start the weekend. I used a 54 degree wedge. I was thinking driver to run it up but I think wedge is a better play.” Asked if it were luck or skill, Wakefield offered that it was both. “You have to be good to be lucky and lucky to be good,” he said. Luck was all it took for Walher Kohuch to win

Organizer Ross Donald and his cousin and event volunteer, Shelley Wichman.

Walter Bateson from Redhead and Dennis Noble from Canwest Propane.

the grand draw prize for a day of golf for four at the Northern Meadows 18-hole course in Goodsoil. That prize was donated by Darryl Garrison from Lloydminster. No one won the hole-in-one fishing trip for four sponsored by Investors Group but many were motivated to try. Perhaps the most coveted prize is the Ernold Priest Memorial trophy awarded this year to Bob Kenyon chosen the most sportsmanlike player by a secret ballot vote. The trophy was donated by Wesco Services in Maidstone in 2001 in honor of Priest who was a long-time oilfield worker in the area. Donald works for Midfield Supply Ltd. in town and has played in 10 previous Oilmen’s but skipped this year’s for his son’s graduation. When he does play the game, he says he’s in it for the fun and entertainment. “I am not a good golfer. I enjoy the whole course. The guys that are taking it seriously play in the championship flight,” he said. Prizes were also awarded to all 18 flight winners including top flight winner Robin Moroziuk. The other flight winners are Al Cote, a man with one name called Boone, Kevin Hegseth, Walter Kohuch, Doug Tuplin, Ron Falcon, Nathan Litchfield, Trent Graham, Cal Smith, Tim Oman, Paul Lawrence, Ron Spence, Mick Armstrong, Carter Makin, Bruce Slade and Dennis Noble. All of the golfers went home with a prize.

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PIPELINE NEWS July 2009

A23

Encana adopts CSI technology to deter theft of oil¿eld assets

A corporate security kit includes a vial of microdots and an applicator to apply tiny microdot identiÀers to valuable assets. Photo submitted

mark oilfield assets using a specially formulated, clear drying, ultra violet reactant adhesive that makes them hard to detect. The identifier includes a serial number and a web site that can only be read under a magnifying glass using a UV black light. “The technology is easy to apply but we see it as a system to track property whereas By Geoff Lee the other measures we are taking are preventive with alarms and Calgary – Oil and gas giant camera systems,” Encana thinks public awareness is one said Neville. of the most effective tools to reduce theft “ W e of its oilfield equipment. started with Rich Neville, security advisor for Encana’s CSI markFoothills division wants the public to know his coming solar pany has recently adopted the microdot technology but we of Certified Secure Identification Corp in Red Deer panels also saw a n to mark its oilfield assets. “Our company and many of the other energy opportunity companies out there are experiencing an increase in to mark our general thefts in remote or isolated sites from ev- other assets with erything from valves and solar panels to equipment,” it. We were already in the process of upgrading said Neville. “CSI had done a presentation on their product our security on major gas sites a while back. Because we were starting to experience anyway, so it just kind of worked toan increase in theft, and we were at a dilemma how gether. “We have also implemented some other security we were going to mark our existing assets, we saw measures in the past few years. The CSI marking is that as a possible solution. “We are marking everything from tools to heavy only one component of it. We protect our assets with equipment. It’s more for retrieval so we can identify everything from fences to alarm and camera systems. We have a pretty strong and diligent security system these assets for court purposes.” CSI’s microdots are microscopic identifiers as in place.” Encana has six full time security advisors on the small as a grain of sand. They can be easily applied to

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payroll they contract out a lot of security work as well. They are on the lookout for random thieves who steal equipment in return for cash and for organized thieves who have networks of sellers who can move stolen assets around quickly. “Theft has always has been a problem but it seems to have increased whether it’s related to the economy or other factors,” said Neville. “We want to be proactive in preventing it. Most of the theft is external theft but there is always a certain amount of internal theft going on with any organization. “Public awareness helps and we hope with this article, we get the word out that we are increasing our security at our gas sites. It’s important to get the word out that there are proactive enhancements to try to prevent this. “As a security group, we communicate back and forth with other companies and we are all aware of what is happening to each other. Other companies are experiencing the same problems we are.” Neville says the police are familiar with the CSI marking technology and if they suspect something is stolen, they can use the black light to identify the property owner. “There are a number of products that are similar to CSI but we found that CSI suited our purposes,” said Neville. “It’s low cost and it’s not labour intensive to apply. It helps our staﬀ in accepting the system. Encana is also aﬃxing the CSI warning labels to some of it remote assets to alert would-be thieves that the assets have been marked. “As the word spreads that most of Encana’s equipment is marked people thieves will be aware of that,” said Neville.

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A24

PIPELINE NEWS July 2009

Gibson adds four oil storage tanks at the Hardisty Terminal By Geoff Lee Hardisty – Kevin Hayes, area manager of Gibson Energy’s Hardisty Terminal. knows the value of engineer’s drawings. The one is his office helps him keep track of his company’s ever growing terminal assets that includes 13 crude oil storage tanks with four new tanks in the finishing stages at the adjacent Battle River Terminal. Down the road from their tank farm is Gibson’s fractionation plant where natural gas liquids (NGL) are separated into ethane, butane, propane and condensate. The plant has the capacity to process 5,000 barrels per day of NGL. “The oil is shipped here by truck or pipeline and we store it and if it requires blending we will mix it with condensate and ship it out the door to meet viscosity and density specs,” said Hayes. The new storage tank construction raises Gibson’s storage capacity in Hardisty to over three million barrels of crude delivered to the site by pipelines and Gibsons’ yellow trucks. “We just built four tanks and we are just bringing them online now,” said Hayes. “We will be connected to the Keystone pipeline. That’s not done yet but we are making our connections here before the fall.” Gibson receives about 30,000 cubic metres of crude oil each day by truck and pipeline including its own 150-kilometre Bellshill Lake pipeline network that brings oil in from Forestberg and its 300-km Provost pipeline system. The trucks come from as far away as Fort McMurray with heavy bitumen and as far south as Lethbridge and unload at crude oil terminals operated by Gibson’s, Husky Energy and Flint Hills Resources. Trucks deliveries are coordinated by Gibson’s truck transportation division in the town of Hardisty. “We also accept oil from the Athabasca pipeline and the Inter Pipeline Fund (IPF) and we store it and mix it, blend it and ship it out on two of Enbridge’s pipelines, the Kinder Morgan Express pipeline, the IPF southbound and TransCanada pipelines.” Work is under way in Hardisty on TransCanada’s 3,2000-km Keystone pipeline expansion that Gibson will tap into to ship it products to the U.S. market.

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Kevin Hayes climbs down the stairs of one of four new tanks being Ànished at the Battle River Terminal in Hardisty.

“The economic impact of these projects is huge,” said Hayes. “There are about eight companies in this complex. The majority of people who live in Hardisty are employed here. “It’s going to get bigger. Companies keep buying land. We have 300 acres still left that we could build on and Enbridge has at least that. TransCanada has bought two and a quarter sections of land and Husky has bought another quarter of land so it could be huge.” What’s driving the growth in Hardisty says Hayes is Fort McMurray and the U.S. demand for energy. “All of the pipelines go south or southeast. It’s exciting but it’s been like that for the past three or four years. It’s been busy around here,” he said. “We haven’t seen a slowdown here. When oil was down to $40 per barrel, producers – if they had a well that was marginal, they might not have brought it on line if they had trouble – so that brought down production. “Right now, unless oil takes a big jump, people are going to finish their projects and that will be it until other funding comes along.” Hayes says Gibson has no plans for further expansion at Hardisty which might lighten his managerial responsibilities at the plant until the next project comes along. “Basically I oversee all of the operations here,” said Hayes. “I make sure all of the oil meets ‘spec’ when we deliver it. I am in charge of people development and make sure our operators are happy and all of the employees are happy. If they have concerns they come to me. “Staffing is a problem but we have some long-term employees who are 10 years plus. A lot of them have grown up in the community and they are happy the way Gibson treats them so we don’t have a high turnover. “That is a challenge though when you bring people in. We built a lab year about eight years ago and we wanted to staff that with lab techs. “In order to able to attract qualified people, it was a challenge to get them out of the city. We did get three qualified people. I think a lot of the problem is Hardisty doesn’t have the facilities to attract people here.” There is also the realization that a large workforce is required to construct new tanks and facilities but once they are operational, the system can be controlled remotely with a skeleton staff. Gibson has what it calls a Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition system in Hardisty to remotely monitor all of its key pipeline and terminal functions on a 24/7 basis. Hayes gets asked a lot if Hardisty could use a refinery and he always replies by saying he doesn’t think Hardisty would be able to attract enough qualified people to run it but admits he could be wrong. “If you look at what Fort McMurray started out with and what it’s developed into, it’s all a matter of infrastructure plans and getting together to develop a major plan for Hardisty,” he said. The MD of Provost is doing just that with their proposed Rosyth Area Structure Plan to create municipal policy and regulatory framework to allow for longterm terminal expansion. The plan covers 24 sections of land identified for potential terminal expansion. A public hearing was held on the area plan in Provost June 11.

PIPELINE NEWS July 2009

A25

Reliance cuts hose pressure test time

Foreman Randy Doull pressure tests hoses for companies with a mobile trailer service. Photo by Geoff Lee

By Geoﬀ Lee Lloydminster – Reliance Industrial Products Ltd. in Lloydminster is using

a mobile service trailer to pressure test oilﬁeld and industrial hoses on location saving customers time and money.

Tests are conducted annually on hoses connected to vacuum trucks, oil hauling trucks, pressure trucks, coil tubing vehicles and service trucks. One of their latest customers was Conex Rentals in Lashburn who called out the mobile unit in late June to pressure test and certify their pressure truck and vacuum truck hoses and iron couplings at their shop. “It worked out real good for them,” said Reliance foreman Randy Doull. “They seemed to be real happy. They didn’t have to do a lot of this through the week because we could do all through the weekend for them. They didn’t experience any down time.” Oilfield hoses are required by law to be inspected, pressure tested with water and certified safe once a year. A hose blowout can cause the hose to whip around and damage property or injure or even kill a worker with the right amount of pressure. For some companies, setting aside the time to bring their hoses to the Reliance shop can be like making a dental appointment. They know they need it but don’t want to take time off work. “For companies that want pressure testing at their site, we are ready to do it,” said Doull. “It saves them the down time and they don’t have to do the travelling. We do the travelling for them.” The mobile trailer is self contained with a water tank, two pumps, pressure gauges, a computer and printer and a generator to supply all of the power. “We start with a physical inspection of each hose to make sure there are no scars or exposed wires and then we apply pressure to make sure there is no pressure drop-off,” said Doull. “We fill up the hoses with water and make sure there are no air bubbles in there because the air will compress and make it dangerous if it were to let go. “Hoses are made out of rubber so there is a bit of expansion but you want the pressure to be steady all the way across the test for holding and maintaining the same pressure.” Reliance usually pressure tests hoses from 10 to 50 feet in length at their working pressure for a full 15 minutes or longer. “Every hose has a working pressure,” explained Doull. “Basically with

every product that comes out of our shop we will apply 1.5 times the working pressure but in most cases the working pressure and the testing pressure are the same.” “If the test passes, the operator is presented with a paper certificate to keep in his vehicle and a metal band with an engraved invoice number, test date and working pressure is affixed to the hose. If a hose fails, Reliance can repair it in the trailer or make a new one or leave it failed if it’s beyond fixing. Reliance specializes in hose assemblies and repairs for hydraulic air, industrial, composite, thermoplastic and BOP hose assemblies and can pressure test hoses with up to 20,000 psi in the shop. “The testing is important for safety and it’s important for companies keeping their equipment up to date,” said Doull who notes there is also an environment incentive. “If you have any oil leaks or hydraulic leaks, you are going to get a mess,” he said. “The government is sticky on how clean your well sites have to be now. “Trucks that take oil to the tanks have to have their hoses pressure tested so they don’t have any spills. If they have a spill, it’s usually going to be fairly big if a hose lets go.”

Hoses and irons that are certiÀed safe are afÀxed with a metal band with an engraving of the test date, invoice number and test pressure.

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A26

PIPELINE NEWS July 2009

Nexen retiree ready to Ày south with like-minded snowbirds By Geoff Lee Lloydminster– Shivers will be a thing in the past for 63-year-old Arnie Lund, who plans to spend every winter of his retirement with his wife Bernie baking under the hot Arizona sun. “I never want to be cold. I hope never to spend a winter again in northern Canada,” said Lund, who retires on July 31 after 41 years with Nexen and its various predecessors. “Once the weather turns cold, I am going to be like a bird and going south. We bought a house in Mesa, Arizona. It backs on to the 14th hole of the Arizona Golf Resort “Hopefully, as long as my health keeps me there, that’s where I am going to be. We will live there for six months in the winter and come back here in the summer.” But first things first. The day after Lund retires from Nexen as an area materials coordinator, he will be heading to Muenster, Saskatchewan, to coach the Lloydminster Twins baseball team in the Mosquito AA provincials. “After that I will go up to my cottage at Loon Lake and go fishing and golf and enjoy the sunshine,” he said. The couple sold their house in Lloydminster last year to become snowbirds. Warmth is important to Lund who gets a chill recalling his six and half years as roughneck in the Arctic. He worked on an Imperial oil rig at Atkinson Point in the NWT where the company made Canada’s first Arctic oil discovery in 1970. His start date with Imperial was Sept 20, 1968, at Rainbow Lake north of Edmonton on a rig number

Arnie Lund, middle, was featured in Imperial Oil’s Annual Report of 1968. Arnie spent more than six years on drilling rigs in the high Arctic. Photos submitted

4 that was torn down that fall and barged from Hay River to Inuvik and on to Tuktoyaktuk. Lund and two other men flew in from Inuvik on a single engine Beechcraft to set up the camp for the rest of the crew. The trio arrived Dec. 11, four days after the Arctic plunged into total darkness with a welcoming wind chill of -94 on both temperature scales. “We just had flashlights to get the lights working and heat the camp,” said Lund. “It took six to seven hours to heat the camp. My first night in the Arctic was the worst. “There were some days with the wind chill that were -70 to -90. There were some ferocious winds. There is nothing to slow it down. “The rigs were prefabs from the south. We had some modifications we had to do fairly fast to get our rigs more adapted to the weather up there.”

Lund said he didn’t like the cold but stayed on because there was little or no oil exploration happening in his home province of Manitoba at the time. He was born in Elkhorn, Man. “The rigs were slow and I was young and didn’t know any better,” he said. “I just stayed for the money. After six years they shut down the operation. The price of oil was too low. They shut it down and contracted out rigs.” Lund was transferred to Imperial’s Steelman oilfield near Estevan as a battery operator in charge of three batteries and 49 producing wells. He worked there for a variety of Nexen predecessors until transferring to Lloydminster in 1996. He says in those early days in Estevan there was no way to get oil of the Bakken. “Back when I started, waterflooding was just getting underway. There were no enhanced recovery techniques in the 60’s. “They were all pilot projects at the time. Now, there’s all this new technology with CO2 and propane. It’s gone crazy as far as technology goes. People are getting smarter with it,” he said. The Bakken oilfield was familiar territory as Lund started at age 18 working rigs in Virden, Man., and Carnduff. It was during a holiday to Edmonton when he applied to Imperial and launched his Arctic adventures. Lund says when people hear he worked in the Arctic, the first thing they ask is "how cold was it and how did you manage?" ɸ Page A27

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PIPELINE NEWS July 2009

A27

After 41 years he is ready to retire ɺ Page A26 “The Arctic can kick up some pretty good storms,” he said. “You have to walk from the camp to the rigs. You can hear the motor but you can’t see it. We had ropes to walk from the camp to the rigs.” His overriding memory of drilling in the Arctic was the reckless way the environment was treated compared with today. “There were lots of things we did in the Arctic that we would never get away with today environmentally,” Lund said. “If people were to read about them all, I would probably be in jail. What was fine to do 20 years ago, you don’t even talk about today.” Lund has never been back to the Arctic and he likes his nice warm office. Being a materials coordinator is his favourite job. “The majority of my work is here in heavy oil,” he said. “I price material when they move it around and I make monthly or quarterly visits to our shallow gas operations in Medicine Hat, our coalbed methane offices in Leduc and the Dilly Creek shale gas project in B.C.” Lund is known for this sense of humour and will be missed by those who know him well, like adminstrative coordinator Elaine Hewson. “He makes every day unique,” said Hewson. “He’s always happy and joking and writing ‘nasty’ funny little e-mails. I’ve enjoyed working with him that way. You can tell when he’s not here.” As Lund counts down the days and hours on a company whiteboard, facilities construction manager Joe Mills is on a mission to shame Lund into abandoning his beloved green Riders in favour of the Eskimos. “Riders is what he wears on the outside but in his heart he’s Eskimo,” quipped Mills who popped into Lund’s office to get his licks in. Ironically, Lund was wearing green during the interview and says it’s because but there are “a couple of Eskimo fans down the hall. Every now and then I have to remind them who the best football team is.” Lund is proud to state he rode in a company Grey Cup parade float in Regina when the Riders won the cup in 1989. Lund also likes fishing and golf and says he chose to retire early to enjoy life. “A lot of my friends that I grew up with – a lot of them are not around and many of them are sick. That’s what made my mind up about retiring,” he said. “I don’t want to lose the camaraderie. I will do my best to keep in contact with buddies and that.”

Ernie Lund tracks the hours and days to retirement. By now he has less than three weeks to go.

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A28

PIPELINE NEWS July 2009

Whole community turns up to party with Hardy Excavating By GeoďŹ&#x20AC; Lee Paradise Hill â&#x20AC;&#x201C; In a small town like Paradise Hill, the grand opening of Hardy Excavating Ltd.â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s new shop turned out to be a big deal. It seemed like the entire community showed up for a tour of the building and a barbecue party with activities for kids, mule-powered wagon rides, draw prizes and a backhoe rodeo. The only thing that was missing from the festivities until the supper hour was the celebrity owner John Hardes who was called out early in the day for company business â&#x20AC;&#x201C; cleaning up an oil spill. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Our main business is oilďŹ eld construction and maintenance,â&#x20AC;? said Hardy who owns the business with his wife Rosemary. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We do pretty much whatever oil companies

Backhoe supervisor Grant McLelland helps 10 year-old Brett Brassard manipulate the bucket in a game of backhoe rodeo.

need. We do lease set ups and spill cleanups and ďŹ&#x201A;ow lines. We work with crews like L & L OilďŹ eld Construction and Granite OilďŹ eld to set up for wells. We do gravel leases and help the crews to set up equipment.â&#x20AC;? Hardy Excavating also operates Wesco Services Ltd., a redi-mix concrete company acquired in 2005 followed by the opening of a second redi-mix plant in St. Walburg. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s been going really good,â&#x20AC;? said Wesco manager Blaine Fowler. People in the patch are busy and working hard and building cabins and new houses and shops. We have 10 redi-mix trucks. We mix the concrete and deliver it.â&#x20AC;? While business was brisk at the grand opening barbecue pit, Hardes jumps at every chance to earn a buck excavating as the slowdown in the oipatch leasing continues. â&#x20AC;&#x153;About 80 per cent of our work is oilďŹ eld,â&#x20AC;? said Hardes. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Things are slow. Drilling helps. When drilling is going everything gets going. We will sometimes get involved in oil cleanups and reclamation.â&#x20AC;? Hardy Excavation is currently working with a paving crew to complete a two mile stretch of highway near Onion Lake and is also prepared to take on more seasonal water and sewer work for farmers. â&#x20AC;&#x153;In the winter, we do snowplowing and sanding roads for oil companies,â&#x20AC;? said Hardes. â&#x20AC;&#x153;That lets us keep our staďŹ&#x20AC; through the winter when itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s normally slower.â&#x20AC;? The new 9,000 square foot shop with an additional 7,200 sq. ft. of oďŹ&#x192;ce space is the result of the most recent boom time that prompted Hardy to expand and relocate operations from the family farm north of Paradise Hill. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We outgrew our location and we had no privacy here,â&#x20AC;? explained Hardes. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We had all that equipment coming in to where we live. We wanted to separate our personal life from work a little bit.â&#x20AC;? Back in 1981 when Hardes got his start â&#x20AC;&#x201C; with one backhoe â&#x20AC;&#x201C; privacy and expansion were non-issues. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I did whatever I could,â&#x20AC;? he said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I starved to death. I ran it by myself for quite awhile and then

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for a long while there was just two or three of us. We grew a lot in 1995 and in 2005, we bought Wesco Services and grew some more.â&#x20AC;? Hardy Excavating moved its equipment including dump trucks, tractor trailers, backhoes and snowplows into the shop before last Christmas but held oďŹ&#x20AC; the grand opening until oďŹ&#x192;ce staďŹ&#x20AC; settled in and warmer weather arrived. â&#x20AC;&#x153;When you are based out of a small town people are interested in what going on around them and we wanted to give everybody a chance to look around,â&#x20AC;? said Hardes. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We had a little bit better turnout than we expected. We are not sure how many turned up since not everyone signed the registry. Judging by the food that went, we had about 500 to 600 hundred. It was a good turnout.â&#x20AC;?

Maxine and Jerry Hougham, an equipment operator, gave mule rides in their wagon pulled by Lefty and Di.

PIPELINE NEWS July 2009

A29

Truck and oil¿eld engines drive Cummins’ growth in Lloydminster Lloydminster– The Cummins Western Canada dealership in Lloydminster that sells and distributes diesel and natural gas engines and power generation products avoided a food riot by limiting invitations to its customer appreciation day to the local market. Cummins engines are found under the hood of every type of vehicle on earth from emergency vehicles and 18-wheelers to 360-ton mining haul trucks. Hundreds of their natural gas engines and power generators have been sold to oilﬁeld customers and recreational consumers in the Lloydminster area. Had all these customers turned up for a smokie or a burger on May 29, things might have turned out scary for manager Myron Basset and his employees who served about 100 guests. Some were drawn to the feast after hearing Cummins would match all donations for the Lloydminster Health Foundation. Others dropped by to pick up a product brochure. “We appreciate every customer,” said Basset. “It doesn’t matter whether they are a gas engine user or a diesel engine user. Anybody who does business with us or is a potential customer is

welcome to come. Customers are our business. They are our bread and butter.” New diesel engine customers are expected once word gets out the dealership has installed a new a new Diesel Particulate Filter Cleaning System to service the nitrogen oxide emission filters regulated for on-highway trucks since 2007. “When the diesel particulate filter (DPF) is ready for cleaning at 200,000 mile intervals, we can take it off the truck and give it a blast cleaning and it will be good for another 200,000 miles,” said Basset. “We are the only company in Lloyd that has that unit. We just received it here and finished our set up procedure on it. It is ready for operation.” The addition of the DPF service unit is part of an ongoing plan by Cummins to add new products and services that will give the company a competitive edge. “Our business is very diversified,” said Basset. “Prior to 2000, our business was 100 percent highway truck or agricultural and industrial. “In the last couple of years, most of our growth has been from the oilfield. Our business today in Lloydminster is around 60 per cent oil-

field. “We have made quite a turnaround in the oilfield with our 5.9 and 8. 3- litre natural gas engines. We have about 900 to 1,000 engines currently running in the oilfield. “It was just a product that was made available to use in 2000 that we didn’t have prior to that. It fit a horsepower niche that the oilpatch needed and it worked. They needed between 75 and 100 horsepower and that’s exactly where those two engine platforms meet in this area.” A good crowd turned out for Cummins’ customer appreciation day. In the ɸ Page A30 background is the Cummins Western Canada community event RV.

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A30

PIPELINE NEWS July 2009

Journeyman mechanic Kyle Severin works on a gas engine for Husky Energy. Photo by Geoff Lee

Customer appreciation day the Cummins Onan brand of generators for recreational vehicle, marine, commercial mobile, residential and portable applications. Basset no longer honks at every Peterbilt, Kenworth or Volvo transport truck driver on the highway because sooner or later a lot of them are waved into his shop for service on their Cummins engines. “We have 14 locations in western Canada and distributors all across North America,” said Basset. “Plus we have a dealer service network with Peterbilt, Kenworth, and Volvo – lots of places where they can get service and parts. “The engine performs well,” said Basset. It’s one of the top engines in fuel eﬃciency. “As far as our shop goes, we will service those engines whether it’s a rebuild at time of wear out or a replacement it if it’s more cost eﬀective to the customer – with an exchange product that is made and designed by Cummins. We will stand behind that.” Basset says Cummins has a one-year unlimited hour warranty on its natural gas engines that he says is the best warranty in the industry. The engines themselves have been designed on the diesel since the 1980s. “We have millions of those engines out there,” said Basset. “We have so much design money into those engines and we stand behind them. They produce great horsepower versus anybody else and we have the support in parts and services right here.” Lloydminster branch manager Myron Basset displayed this 8.3- litre natural gas engine on customer appreciation day.

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ɺ Page A29 Natural gas engines are commonly used by oil producers to power pump jacks to lift their product or to power a flow line gas compressor. “They have to siphon fuel gas off the wellheads on so what they’ll do it collect that fuel gas and run a small gas compressor to push it down line,” said Basset. “The first couple of years in the oilfield is always a trial time because they want to know if your product is a good as you say it is. We are seeing upward of 40,000 hours on our engines. Our competitors typically aren’t that high.” The Cummins dealership is also a distributor of Cummins Power Generation brand products including diesel and natural gas generators for industrial and commercial purposes. They also sell

PIPELINE NEWS July 2009

206 - 14 Ave., Wainwright, AB T9W 1L5

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A31

A32

PIPELINE NEWS July 2009

PIPELINE NEWS Saskatchewan’s Petroleum Monthly

B-Section July 2009

The 2009 Saskatchewan Oil and Gas Show committee. In the back row from left to right are Trevor Pandachuk, Doug Dammann, Darryl Ward, Jim Kopec, Jim Hutt and Cal LaCoste. In the second row are Ron Jeffrey, Laurence Woodard, Yvette Delanoy, Johnny Johnston and Don Sealy. In the third row are Don Struthers, Dennis Krainyk, Darcy Cretin, Morley Forsgren, Stan Runne, secretary Sandy Alexander, Darren Woodard and Mark Schneider. In the front row from left are Del Mondor, Larry Heggs, Mayor Debra Button, chairman Ron Carson, Energy Minister Bill Boyd, Ray Frehlick and Jim York.

Oil Show tops 4,000 attendees By Brian Zinchuk Weyburn – Organizers of the Saskatchewan Oil and Gas Show in Weyburn had about 4000 name tag lanyards for exhibitors and guests of the show. They ran out. With beautiful weather and sold out exhibition space, the show, also known as the Weyburn Oil Show, was a hit. Tuesday, June 2 was setup day and featured a golf tournament for exhibitors. That was followed by a sold-out steak or lobster supper with about 1,300 people attending. The gates opened on Wednesday, June 3. Pre-

mier Brad Wall was on hand for inductions into the Saskatchewan Oil Industry Hall of Fame and and the awarding of Oilman of the Year to Greg Smith, COO of Petrobank. These awards are selected by a somewhat informal selection committee who meet in Calgary one to two months ahead of the show. “We already have a fair list of people developed for two years down the road,” notes Al Schreiner, co-chair of the selection committee and master of ceremonies. To qualify, a person must have a Saskatchewan birth rite and have made a signiﬁcant contribution to the oil and gas industry somewhere in the world.

All Parts & Service For Makes and Models!

Later on the Wednesday, Energy and Resources Minister cut the chain, oﬃcially opening the event. Two more stalwarts of the industry, Dale Fox and John Kmita, were honoured as the Southeast Oilmen of the Year. Radio talkshow host John Gormley spoke at the luncheon on Thursday, June 4. His address focused on the improvement of the Saskatchewan attitude, being on the right track economically, and strong prospects for the province. Interior displays ranged from large engines at the Cummins booth to several laboratories who specialize in analysis at the molecular level. ɸ Page B2

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PIPELINE NEWS July 2009

Sask. Oil and Gas Show a great success ɺ Page B1 Outside, the largest display was the brand new Rig 6 for Eagle Drilling Services, which picked up one of the four awards for displays. There were plenty of barbecues to keep you fed. SaskPower cooked several wieners, not on a barbecue like everyone else, but with their high voltage display. It showed what happened if you hit or even get too close to a power line. “It’s a great opportunity for the industry to get together with key suppliers,” Energy and Resources Deputy Minister Kent Campbell told Pipeline News. “It’s an indication the industry is looking favourably on Saskatchewan. Especially in the southeast, people are optimistic. That’s good news for us. With oil prices in the mid-60’s, the southeast oilfield is becoming very economic.” It’s a vast improvement over two years ago,” says Annette Woodroffe of ALS Laboratory Group, who noted the weather did not co-operate in 2007. “It’s such a well-managed show.” “We got a couple leads here. It’s definitely new exposure for us in southeast Saskatchewan,” said aid n Derek Gardner ke of Hawkeye Industries IInc., one of the exhibitors.

The outdoor displays were full of shiny gear, big iron and good cooking.

Mclaren Keslering, left and his brother Marek, enjoy the treats at the Weyburn Oil Show.

South Sask Rathole had one of their rigs on display.

NATCO Canada’s booth matched the red carpet.

PIPELINE NEWS July 2009

Saskatchewan Oil and Gas Show Golf Snapshots

Barry Bachorcik, a Àeld operator with Apache Canada at Midale, Àres off a putt. He was playing in the exhibitor golf tournament as part of the Saskatchewan Oil and Gas Show in Weyburn. All Photos by Brian Zinchuk

Harold Ross acts as controller for both Millennium Directional Service and Eagle Drilling Services, when he’s not teeing off on the links.

Terry Chapelsky of MNP Weyburn lines up a shot in the exhibitors golf tournament.

Trent Jordens of Southeast Regional College takes a swing at the hole in one competition, of which the college and Energy Training Institute sponsored.

Prairie Mud Service “Serving Western Canada With 24 Hour Drilling Mud Service” Head OfÀce:

Estevan, Sask. Tel: 634-3411 Fax: 634-6694 Ray Frehlick, Manager Cell: 421-1880 Ken Harder Warehouse Manager Cell: 421-0101

Calgary Sales OfÀce: Tel: 403-237-7323 Fax: 403-263-7355 Chuck Haines, Technical Sales Cell: 403-860-4660

Swift Current Warehouse: Derek Klassen - Cell: 306-741-2447

Environmental Division Darwin Frehlick - Cell: 421-0491

Lacombe Warehouse: Darcy Day Day - Cell: 403-597-6694

Kindersley Warehouse: Len Jupe - Cell: 306-463-7632

Mud Technicians JAMIE HANNA Cell: 421-2435

JIM MERKLEY Cell: 483-7633

WAYNE HEIN Estevan, Sask. Cell: 421-9555

IAN SCOTT Oxbow, Sask. Cell: 421-6662

JASON LING Carlyle, Sask. Cell: 421-2683

GERALD SMITH Cell: 421-2408

CHAD STEWART Cell: 421-5198

PIPELINE NEWS July 2009

High Steaks at the Oil Show...

There were two methods of steak pit cooking used during the Saskatchewan Oil and Gas Show – the Weyburn way and the Estevan way. Here we see the Weyburn method, used during the steak or lobster night after the exhibits were set up, but before the show began. Volunteers in support of the Weyburn Red Wings were doing the cooking. Steaks are sandwiched between two racks of expanded steel, and the racks are then wired together. Fax: 306-634-0071 Office: 306-634-0070

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The rack is then carried over to the coal steak pits, where the steel acts as a grill that stays with the steak. Instead of Áipping individual steaks, a whole rack of steaks is Áipped at once.

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PIPELINE NEWS July 2009

Eagle Drilling Services Rig 6 initial client backed oďŹ&#x20AC; on their drilling program. â&#x20AC;&#x153;It was quite a struggle to get it out again,â&#x20AC;? says Big Eagle. They had three other clients committed, but each backed oďŹ&#x20AC;. Finally, one chose June 7 to go to work, which meant Rig 6 could make an appearance at the oil show while still shiny and new. The company got its ďŹ rst rig going in June, 2005, and had been on a track of building a new rig every six to eight months. With that schedule, Rig 7 would have been ready for the oil show. The decision to hold oďŹ&#x20AC; on proceeding with Rig 7 was made in Oct., 2008. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re a small company, and donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want a big debt load,â&#x20AC;? Big Eagle says. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The drop was so steady, it wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t a wise decision to go.â&#x20AC;? Alberta spill over â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Alberta government didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t realize it would aďŹ&#x20AC;ect that many people in Alberta,â&#x20AC;? Big Eagle says of changes to that provinceâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s royalty regime. The result was rigs

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moved to southeast Saskatchewan. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The crash of Alberta aďŹ&#x20AC;ected what happened down here. It ďŹ&#x201A;ooded our market here for rigs,â&#x20AC;? he says, noting rig rates dropped to levels not seen since the late 1970s and early 1980s. The company had good rigs and still had them working, though, according to Big Eagle. Their slowest time was from Christmas to the road bans, when one or two of ďŹ ve rigs were shut down at a time, resulting in a utilization rate of 60 to 80 per cent. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Before that, it was 100 per cent, and weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re back to that now.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;We have a few windows in the summer weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re in the process of ďŹ lling. In a nutshell, all six rigs are booked up until Christmas time and beyond.â&#x20AC;? É¸ Page B6

Big or Small we Do All

Â&#x201E; Story and photos by Brian Zinchuk Carlyle â&#x20AC;&#x201C; You couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t miss it â&#x20AC;&#x201C; gleaming yellow against the skyline, spotless. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not often the public get to crawl all over a brand spanking new drilling rig, but they had that opportunity at the Weyburn Saskatchewan Oil and Gas Show in early June. Eagle Drilling Services Rig 6 was ready to go, and at the conclusion of the show, went straight to work on its ďŹ rst hole, near Antler. The journey to that ďŹ rst hole is a little more complicated, however. Initially, it was supposed to be Rig 7, not Rig 6, at the oil show. However, the precipitous drop in oil prices meant Rig 7 would have to wait. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We started building Rig 6 about July â&#x20AC;&#x2122;08,â&#x20AC;? says Derrick Big Eagle, president and general manager. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Our clients had requested to pick up an additional rig.â&#x20AC;? That rig would be commissioned to go to work right away, but the

Winner of one of the outdoor display awards, Eagle Drilling Services Rig 6 was a hit a the Saskatchewan Oil and Gas Show in Weyburn, June 3-4.

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ɺ Page B5 Because there is more choice for rigs now, their efficient reputation is what leads to work, he explains. “We draw in the good people, by being the local boy and a local company our people come first sort attitude.” Big Eagle says they draw the elite of rig workers. “Our safety record is second to none. We have over 700,000 hours without a lost-time accident. Rig 2 is closely approaching the 1,000 day milestone with zero lost-time accidents.” Rig design Rig 6 is a cookie cutter of the previous five rigs run by Eagle Drilling Services. It’s a telescopic

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double, and features innovations meant to improve safety, reduce fatigue, and make the whole rig more efficient. By staying with the same design, it makes planning and staffing easier. The rigs are built to be efficient, but to get the efficiency, the people have to have a good working atmosphere, explains Big Eagle. “The weather elements are the biggest negative fact for the rig. Either cold or soaking wet, your decisions are blurred,” he says. To that end, they have made efforts to keep workers out of the elements. The doghouse has a slide-out for the driller. It puts the driller right next to the drilling floor, but enclosed in a controlled, heated or air conditioned

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environment. It’s a concept similar to camper slide outs. Derrickhands have the beneﬁt of an enclosed, heated mud tank system with a roof. Roughnecks catching samples are also inside. Motormen have an enclosure at the end of the hands-oﬀ hydraulic catwalk. “I think the hydraulic catwalk is the best piece of drilling technology in the 21st century,” says Big Eagle. One addition to this rig that has not been seen on previous incarnations is a closed-circuit video system. The driller can choose between four cameras – derrick, pump, shaker and catwalk. “Its angles of the rig you can’t really see,” Big Eagle says. ɸ Page B7

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then straight to work ɺ Page B6 Construction The fabrication work was done by DoAll Metal Fabricating in Estevan, with some mechanical work done at Glenburn, North Dakota. Assembly took place at the Eagle Drilling Service’s Carlyle yard, where they have a rat hole and mouse hole on site. “When they go to the field, they’re finished,” Big Eagle says. “Only one rig in southeast Saskatchewan is rated deeper than ours. We’re capable of drilling any well southeast Saskatchewan has to offer. “They were built to drill south of Regina in our deeper zones out there.” Vertically, the rig can handle 3,500 m Total Vertical Depth with 4.5 in. drill pipe. The racking capacity is 4,500 m. “If you were to go buy one of ours, it would be $8 million,” says Big Eagle. “I don’t pay $8 million.”

On site Pipeline News visited the new rig as it wrapped up its ﬁrst hole. The well was for Fairborne Energy Ltd., just across the Manitoba border and along Manitoba Highway 2. Kim Gavelin is the rig manager. He’s been with the company for a year. Asked how the ﬁrst

hole went, he says, “Pretty good. Harvey’s got most of the bugs worked out before we even leave [the yard]. Harvey Turcotte is the ﬁeld superintendent for Eagle Drilling Services. Ken Jacobi is Fairborne’s consultant. He says the rig will be doing a 10 hole program

at about 10 to 12 days a hole, roughly four months work. The wells are all cookie-cutter, horizontal multi-stage frac. The ﬁrst hole, “went good,” he says. “We fought the mud a little bit. It’s all part of the game.” Jacobi adds the rig is “well thought out.”

Roughneck Jared Chicoine just joined the company. He says, “The catwalk’s awesome. Never had that before.” Roughneck Dustin Luther plays oﬀensive line for the Regina Rams when he’s not on the rigs. “I really like it. The last one I came oﬀ, the derrick was built in 1955.” Driller Jerrad Stad-

nick has been with Eagle for 8 months, and has been on rigs for 6 years. “Way better,” he says when asked to compare this rig to others he’s worked on. “Loving it, especially the slide out. Notice I’m dry and everyone else is wet?” he points out, after a cloudburst drenched everyone outside.

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PIPELINE NEWS July 2009

This cowboy is roping in Bakken oil

Marius Ericksen is the real deal, with scars to match, team roping when he’s not wrangling wells for TriStar. He owns the building behind him, which houses ofÀces for several companies.

Redvers – He wears a belt buckle the size of a Buick hubcap – which makes sense, since that’s what real cowboys wear.

The proof is in the cast on his arm, which was attained while team roping a few weeks ago. Marius Ericksen

is the ﬁeld foreman for TriStar Oil and Gas in Redvers, and has been since the company began. His responsibilities in-

clude 12 batteries, three single-well batteries, and 180 wells. That includes a number of properties acquired in the recent purchase of Talisman purchase. The acquisition meant a shifting of some responsibilities, but looking after a similar amount of properties. Ericksen does this work through his own firm, P & M Oilfield Consulting. It includes having four operators and one admin person directly working for him, and the rest working working for TriStar. Others are contractors. “Main office is in Estevan now. It used to be here, but now it expanded,” Ericksen explains about TriStar. “We originally

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started in a small office in Redvers.” In the fall of 2007, the office was moved to Estevan. Ericksen spent 17 years as a mainline pipeline welder, before finding a job with Placid Oil of Houston. “I was at home. I could stay at home,” he says. In 1999, he went on his own and started P & M Oilfield Consulting, working for some independent oilfield companies. In December, 2005, TriStar fired up. Asked about the secret behind TriStar, Ericksen says, “It’s the people you put in place. The knowledge and experience and the direction from Calgary.” The takeover of Talisman assets was a major one, he notes, but one of several. “You just go with the flow and pick the pace up. You have to.” Ericksen was born and raised in Redvers. It was his home base even while pipelining. He’s an ardent supporter of the community, playing

a role on the Redvers & District Oil Showcase. At 58 years old, he rides regularly. In addition to that broken wrist, he earned 5 stitches above his eye. “Looked like I had been in a fight,” he says with a smile. “I have five rope horses, and my daughter has 20. She bought the quarter next to me.” Ericksen’s home is five miles west of Redvers, where he has an indoor/outdoor arena. “We rope twice a week there. Four-H’ers use it,” he says. Erickson donates the use of the riding arena to the local 4-H club, and he teaches younger people how to rope. The western theme carries through with the building in which he’s based. It was once home to Williston Wildcatters, in Arcola. Ericksen had it moved down the road to Redvers, where it is now offices for several companies. Fittingly, the building is called, “Country Corral.”

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PIPELINE NEWS July 2009

Taking pride in your lease: Pride Upkeep Â&#x201E; Story and photos by Brian Zinchuk Estevan â&#x20AC;&#x201C; It was some tough slogging at ďŹ rst, and eventually a decision needed to be made â&#x20AC;&#x201C; go big or go home. Nathan and Barb Dunford decided to go big. Now their lease weed spraying company is a dominant player in the ďŹ eld, with Nathan explaining, â&#x20AC;&#x153;We spray over 6,000 every summer for over two dozen major companies.â&#x20AC;? Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s over half the market, he asserts. Each lease is typically visited twice a year, starting in June and going into September. Why spray? Leases are to be kept clean of noxious weeds, according to provincial legislation. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Our job is to pave the way to make sure the mowers can get in and out with no problems,â&#x20AC;? says Nathan. He adds that controlling weeds reduces ďŹ re hazard and improves cosmetics. The company uses a special blend of non-selective chemicals. When done, any weeds end up brown.

The company now operates four trucks, but started with much more humble beginnings in 2002. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I had weed sprayed for my dadâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s company for years,â&#x20AC;? he says, adding he also did plenty of mowing. That mowing experience has become an important factor, because Dunford sees things from the eyes of a guy who has to mow the lease. He looks for places where a mower canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t easily reach, if at all. The ďŹ rst sprayer had a two-inch pump and garden hose, a home built unit. Since then, theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve been progressively upgrading. The phone kept ringing, he says. â&#x20AC;&#x153;They all want to hire local contractors as much as possible, Nathan explains. But when youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re local, you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t always have the same, high level equipment. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We had to go big or shut it down.â&#x20AC;? The early years were like many a small business, with a second job, in this case, working the service rigs, to help keep the lights on during the oďŹ&#x20AC;-season. É¸ Page B10

Barb Dunford of Pride Upkeep shows the conĂ&#x20AC;guration of a custom-built chassis for weed spraying. The cabinets store waste, and the tanks, reels and pumps on the back handle the spraying. In the front is a storage area for a quad. Whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not seen is the on-board portapotty.

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PIPELINE NEWS July 2009

Its a family affair over at Pride Upkeep ɺ Page B9 Locked in office If there is one constant is business, it’s paperwork. The paperwork challenges can be daunting to work in the oilfield. Pride Upkeep now holds a SECOR – Small Employer Certificate of Recognition. It wasn’t easy, because it was either hire someone and spend $50,000 for the certification, or do it themselves. “Because I’m a small company, I basically locked myself in an office for the winter,” Nathan says. “It’s what it took to keep my doors open. A lot of companies won’t hire you unless you have it.” Barb was working in accounting for a company out of Lampman. Eventually, she decided to quit her job and join Nathan in the company full time. “I couldn’t stand see him. He was just stressed out,” she recalls. Nathan acknowledges that making sure quality assurance was there was killing him. “As the business expanded, we needed to count on reliable people.” No dead cylinders The problem is, the nature of the business is a new batch of employees comes on each year. It meant doing some recruiting under the same roof. The pair married in 2004 and have a blended family. Brittany, 22, now has a diploma in petroleum engineering and works with PennWest. However, she ran a truck for four years, and even this past June, when she had some time off her regular job, she was out in the field, helping. Their second daughter, Amber, 18, started working this summer. Before, she was helping run the household, or looking after her two brothers.

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Their two twin boys, Jesse and Wyatt, 12, act as a pit crew. When the trucks come in each day, they’re out there, eager to offer a hand. “We we drive in the yard, they come out, asking, ‘What do you need?’” Barb says. It might mean hooking up hoses, restocking the trucks with chemical, or cleaning them out. The two say they’ve been doing it for about four years now. “No slackers. We have no dead cylinders. It’s a team effort,” says Nathan. Barb herself runs a truck on top of doing the books, after having quit her previous job in 2006. “This is my fourth season running a truck,” she says. “I was coming home from my job, helping him spray until 9 o’clock, then doing books.” She saw potential for the business, and wanted to be a part of it. Each truck runs with two people, a foreman and swamper. As for their other staff, Nathan says it’s an ideal job for university students, with crazy hours, lots of money, and lots of overtime. Scott, for instance, is a University of Regina engineering student. But the job is highly demanding, he explains. “Their day off is the next windy or rainy day.” The job starts at 5 a.m. and runs until sundown. Yet his staff stay motivated, according to Nathan. “What’s your secret, Nathan?” he says others ask him. “I pay them very well,” is the reply. That includes safety and performance bonuses, plus lots of overtime. Driving up to their yard, it’s hard to miss the white pumpjack in the centre of a go-cart race track. More than just a fun distraction, the track had a real purpose – keeping staff on board. At a time when labour has been a real crunch, Pride Upkeep couldn’t afford to lose anyone. The track became a make-work project, because there are only so many times you can sweep the floor of the shop. It might be a week of rain or wind during the summer, and they didn’t want staff to quit. “I need them. I need them to the end of the season,” he says. ɸ Page B11

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B11

Keeping busy is not a problem for local business Éş Page B10 Youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll ďŹ nd Nathan on a truck as well. â&#x20AC;&#x153;This is not a business you can run at arms length. You have to be there in the trenches with your employees every day.â&#x20AC;? Wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t run dry Speaking of arms length, a hose can get heavy over the course of the day, so theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve progressed to high-end hoses and reels. The hoses these days are no longer garden hoses, but lightweight models that mud doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t stick to. Each worker carries a wireless remote control, allowing the hose reel to pay out or pull in hose as needed â&#x20AC;&#x201C; as much as 500 feet. â&#x20AC;&#x153;[With] these new Australian units, our productivity has doubled,â&#x20AC;? Nathan says. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Our job out there is all hand application â&#x20AC;&#x201C; hoses and guns.â&#x20AC;? That length means they can reach anywhere on a lease, including muddy areas. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The best weed spraying equipment is a human being with 500 feet of hose,â&#x20AC;? he says, noting you canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t get around with a quad and boom into tight places. On foot, you can walk in

and walk out. A substantial competitive advantage for the company took eight years to complete â&#x20AC;&#x201C; a mammoth dugout. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 100-ft. wide, 25-feet deep and runs the length of the quarter section. They picked up an ancient four-stick excavator for cheap, and dug each winter. That water supply is a real ace in the hole when water can become pretty scarce. While they retain the ability to scavenge surface water as needed, or access wells, the vast majority of their water is sourced from home base. The third and fourth units have custom built packages with a lot of thought involved. They each have portapotties in vertical tool cabinets, a consideration for the women who can make up over half their staďŹ&#x20AC;. (Barb canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t say enough about them.) The third unit, a Ford cab-over, incorporated a quad storage space with integrated ramps. Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s special storage compartments for empty chemical bottles. A special frontmounted sprayer can

cover widths up to 50 ft., either to the front or either side for ditches. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s similar in concept to the front mounted water cannons installed on ďŹ re trucks for ďŹ ghting grass ďŹ res. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a recent innovation that hasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t seen a lot of use yet. The fourth unit is a little smaller, but has a crew cab and four-wheel drive. GPS? No thanks Despite all this advanced gear, keeping track of leases is a lesson in the KISS principle â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Keep It Simple, Stupid. No GPS units here. Instead, they keep detailed map books, hand drawn, illustrating each leaseâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s location and any notes. Part of the oďŹ&#x20AC;-season is spent updating those books. Organic land is highlighted, because spraying on that land makes for a real bad day. Barb says she spent a month, starting in April, contacting rural municipalities to ďŹ nd out who now has organic land. It changes every year. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Farmers have to phone in and register with the RMs to let them know what is going on,â&#x20AC;? says Nathan.

Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s all hands on deck for the Dunford family, all of whom are part of Pride Upkeep. From left are Nathan, Barb, Wyatt, Jesse Dunford and Amber Pouloit. Missing is Brittany Pouliot. The open tool box is the famed portapotty stall.

The company usually works the same area together, similar to custom combiners, or, as Nathan puts it, â&#x20AC;&#x153;A band of locusts.â&#x20AC;?

â&#x20AC;&#x153;In this business, volume is the name of the game. It dictates how much you can cover in a day,â&#x20AC;? Nathan says. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We leave the

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B12

PIPELINE NEWS July 2009

In-house engineering, to the ¿nish Second in a two-part series on engineering a skid package By Brian Zinchuk Estevan – It’s now several weeks since Pipeline News last visited Waterﬂood Service & Sales. The company is

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of the kickoﬀ meeting, Reid takes items raised and incorporates them into the plans. “I’ll do updated drawings of any changes that came about in the meeting,” Reid explains. “They’re normally small things.” “We’ll note any equipment that may take a long time to get here, and how to work around that. In this case, there were questions about instrumentation – brand and the like,” he says. With these alterations, it’s now time to put out the “issued for construction” drawings, essentially, the ﬁnal blueprints the tradesmen will build the project from. The days of rooms full of draftsmen are long gone, however. Since they use three-dimensional

modelling of mostly standardized parts, these plans can be put together relatively swiftly. Pulling up ﬁles on each part, with a few mouse clicks, orthographic line drawings or rendered isographic views can be put on the plans. Dimensioning takes only a few clicks more. But the sweet thing is that if something changes in one portion, say the length of a certain section of pipe, all the other plans, and their accompanying bills of materials, are updated automatically. “There’s really no time in building these parts,” Reid says of the design end. “The time is in putting them together.” In this case, there

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was one pump that required 3-D modelling to be inserted in the plans. “You have to pay a lot of attention when you are building the initial part, but you save a lot of time in the end,” Reid says. Before they leave the engineering department, plans are checked by another person, in this case, by Johan Landman, a fellow engineer. If there is a specific request for professional engineer certification, the on-staff P. Eng will sign off with their stamp. That was the case with the base of this package. Brent Blackburn is the professional engineer on staff with Waterflood. Issued for construction drawings go to the shop and customer. The engineer is required to document the documentation has been transmitted. If that sounds like a lot of paperwork, it is. A large portion of his work is ensuring there is a paper trail. “Everything is documented, it’s all part of our ISO 9001 quality control program” Reid notes. Copies go into the job book, which stays with the engineer, and the “traveller,” a similar book which includes copies of things like the welder’s certification, Xray maps, hydro testing, gauge calibration, and materials testing from the metals supplier. A lot of the work with the traveller is done by Ryan Mittelholtz. Dan Amundrud is in charge of quality control inspections, and has checklists he fills out, checking things like welding, and ensuring dimensions on the assembly are correct. Plenty of trees go into this documentation, with the thickness of a couple reams of paper by the time all is said and done. Reid makes periodic checks on the skid package, but his role at this point is gradually diminishing. “At this stage, I am keeping on top of these outstanding items,” he says of delayed components. “A lot of the work is in the design at the start.” ɸ Page B13

PIPELINE NEWS July 2009

B13

Engineering of skid package nearing completion ɺ Page B12 “Once the drawings are issued, my work is to ensure it stays on schedule, making sure the parts are here. “When it’s getting this close to completion, I’ll arrange shipping and when to pick it up.” It’s part of the schedule management that falls to the engineer. Paperwork is finalized for quality assurance. “I have checkoffs to do as well, i.e. I followed a piping specification,” he says. “The job is always mine, even when it’s in the field,” Reid says. “They’ll do commissioning on it, which might not be for months,” he adds, noting field mechanics go out for start up. “They check that studs are tight, and that [the package] arrived in good condition.” One final note: “There’s no expiry date, we keep the documentation for the life of the package.” Reid says.

Engineer John Reid with a skid package he designed, nearing completion.

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PIPELINE NEWS July 2009

Spreading it around By Brian Zinchuk Redvers – Perhaps it’s fitting the company is named after a fastgrowing tree, because Poplar Services Ltd. set up shop in a growing community, Redvers. “We specialize in drilling waste disposal,” says Brian LeNouail, president and general manager. Their main service is land spreading while drilling. “We offer environmental service in the oilfield.” “We acquire land for disposal, make the agreements with the land owners, and then we test all the drilling fluids before anything

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is spread. We also complete any necessary government documentation as well.” The old method of disposing of drilling mud was to dig a sump and fill it up. However, sumps take a long time to clean up. The accepted practice now, according to LeNouail, is land spreading while drilling. LeNouail is originally from Redvers, which he calls a great place to live and raise his kids. “I worked in Alberta for three years, then was in Estevan, working for two different companies.” He moved back from Estevan in 1999. He figured he could start his own company and offer better service. The result was Poplar Services Ltd., which was incorporated in 2006. Land spreading is accomplished by using a vac truck or a tractor pulling a vac unit. It sucks up the material at the drill site, and then blows it out on the designated land, using a spreader plate to evenly disperse the material. “The vac driver stays at the rig. He lives there,” LeNouail explains. As for his staff, “They’re at the rig, testing mud when it needs to be spread. If the rig needs to spread mud at 3 in the morning, they are there.” The samples are taken off the shaker ta-

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ble. Full tests are done on site with test kits. They’re looking for major ions, pH, salt and oil. If it passes, “We tell the vac driver to suck up this mud we tested, and it can be applied to the field at a specific rate.” “The portion of the farmer’s field is GPS mapped.” That information is sent to the oil company and government. If the test is negative, the mud can be treated before spread, diluted if too salty, or, barring that, sent to a disposal facility. Diesel-based muds, for instance, are sent to disposal facilities. Accepting the drilling mud means another revenue stream for the farmer, at about $800 to $1,000 per well. Drilling mud from one well will cover about 20 to 30 acres. In summer, it usually goes on summer fallow. In the winter, snow will be bladed to make way for the spreader. Sometimes a farmer might leave one quarter fallow if he knows there are multiple wells. Other than a little moisture and a little bit of nitrogen, LeNouail says it “does nothing, really,” for the farmland. “A lot of our work is in Manitoba and eastern Saskatchewan, so Redvers was an easy fit for us.” LeNouail says the cost of business in Redvers is an important advantage, noting it’s a lot cheaper to operate in Redvers than a larger community. “Everyone around here is very big on the community,” he says. Indeed, he’s one of the organizers of the Redvers & District Oil Showcase, which will be held again in May, 2010. His wife, MarieFrance, helps in the books, while Brian does the day to day operations. They have three full-time staff, and always bring on a summer student. “We engage independent consultants from time-to-time,” he notes. “This year, again, we have a consultant,” LeNouail says, noting it’s better than the alternative of not needing one. “We’re quite busy.”

PIPELINE NEWS July 2009

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Estevan oil¿eld worker bowls on TSN and has done it oﬀ and on throughout his life. He also plays some ball, pitching the weekend before Pipeline News spoke to him. Currently he’s on the lanes once a week in a rec league, “bowling for pizza.” During the winter he tries to bowl twice a week, in a competitive and rec league. “Last year I had to quit Mondays. That’s how busy I was.” He says. That’s not the case now, however. The 50-year-old is engaged. Asked if his ﬁancé bowls with him, he Carter replies, "She tried it a couple times - not interested."

By Brian Zinchuk Estevan – If you were watching TSN bowling this past spring, you just may have seen Estevan oilfield worker Jaime Carter. Carter, an operator/supervisor with Guardian Oilfield Inspections for 13 years, took part in the TSN Classic. The thing is, while it aired this spring, it took place last year. Carter competed at the provincial level in May of ‘08, winning and moving on to the Pins competition in Calgary in September, 2008. “We bowl all in one day,” Carter explained, while bowling in a pizza league in Estevan. The broadcast of that event was spread over many weeks this past spring. He took a shot at it again in May, 2009, in Regina, but qualified around sixth or seventh. You have to be in the top two to qualify for the next level. Therefore, he won’t be on the tube next spring, when the event airs. He won $500 at the 2008 event, but did not make it to the end in the tournament. Carter’s been bowling in Estevan for eleven years,

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Tammy and Randy McCannell built a new shop in Redvers after winning a lot in a draw at last year’s Redvers & District Oil Showcase.

Redvers – They weren’t planning on building a shop in Redvers, but a community promotion scheme ended up giving the McCanells enough incentive to go ahead and do it. In the 2008 Redvers Oil Showcase, the top level sponsors’ names

were thrown into a lottery, with the winner being given a serviced lot, free, in Redvers. The one caveat – the winner had to act on it within a year. The draw was made in May of last year, with the winning company was Classic Vacuum Truck Ltd. “I guess I was lucky

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to win the lot,” says Randy McCannell, who owns Classic Vacuum with his wife Tammy. They’re based on the east side of Alida, where their picturesque yard and prominent sign also serves as home to their trucking ﬂeet. The deck provide a nice place to go over the mammoth scheduling book that is with Randy wherever he goes. “We were running out of parking area, so we needed parking space,” explains Tammy. This is after they had recently built a 60 x 80 ft. shop at their Alida base. “We were renting shops in other towns.” The result was an

80 x 152 ft. shop with six bays, ﬁnished this winter. TS & M Supply, based in Estevan, had expressed interest in setting up a Redvers location. “They were looking to set up shop. When they found out I was going to build a shop, they approached me and we went from there.” TS & M now leases the front of the building, which bears the TS & M logo. The ﬁnal location was not where the winning lot was, however. A few snafus meant they ended up going with another lot, and picked up a few more. But the end result was the same – the promotion had success-

fully snagged not one, but two businesses, for Redvers. New fire truck “We do a lot of battery site turnarounds, cleaning treaters, tanks and spills,” Randy says, adding they also landspread drilling mud. Classic Vacuum Truck operates six vac trucks, three fresh water trucks, two steamers, and a fire foam truck. The steamers run under the name Classic Steamers. The fire truck is based in Weyburn. It’s a new red fire truck. “We just got it in February,” Randy says. “There’s not one around like it.” The truck has a

pumper unit, decontamination showers, and pulls a trailer with tankbased air supply breathing apparatus. “We’ll go out to a battery site. If they’re going to clean tanks, we’ll spray foam that takes away all the H2S.” Classic Vacuum Truck company got its start in 1998. Randy had been driving truck for Alida-based Three Star Trucking when the owner, Jim Boettcher, approached him to buy a vac truck. The company has grown since then. They have two children. One is invested in the business, with his own water truck as part of the ﬂeet.

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PIPELINE NEWS July 2009

TS & M sets up Redvers shop Redvers – Oilfield supply store TS & M Supply, an affiliate of NOV, has opened up a new store in Redvers. “We were open May 1, and will sometime this summer be holding a grand opening,” says Marc Wolensky, manager of the new facility. The stock will include a complete line of pipe valves and fittings, in steel and fibreglass, according to Wolensky. They also carry fire and safety lines. The store has two people – Wolensky and Gary Halls. Halls drives in from Tilston, Man. He’s farmed most of his life, and started working in the oilpatch four years ago. Wolensky is a journeyman bodyman, and was a shop foreman before deciding he needed a change. “I had done autobody for 16 years,” he says. “I was looking to get into the oilpatch. I go talking to a gentle-

Gary Walls, left, and Marc Wolensky are TS & M Supply’s presence in Redvers now. Marc’s not missing a hand here, he’s just moving faster than the speed of light, Àlling those orders.

man in town, and he forwarded my resume.” While the doors opened in May, Wolensky actually started with TS & M in October of 2008. He began learning the trade in Este-

van, and would end up laying the groundwork for the store well before the opening day. Halls similarly came on board at the beginning of the year. “We started once

the cement dry. We started fabricating stands and racks,” Wolensky says. Both handle inside and outside sales. “In construction, you get to know quite a few peo-

ple,” halls says. “Everyone’s glad we have an oilfield supply store in Redvers,” Wolensky says. The common response, according to the pair, is “Oh thank God

we don’t have to drive 25 miles to Carlyle.” They’re finding their niche, asking customers what they would like to see. “We’re asking them all the questions – firing back as many questions as they ask,” Wolensky says. The location came about in a roundabout way. At last year’s Redvers & District Oil Showcase, the community gave away a developed commercial lot to a lucky winner of a draw for top level sponsors. Classic Vacuum Truck of Alida won, and they built a shop. TS & M joined the action, leasing the front part of the building. TS & M is leasing the front 40 x80 ft. section of the shop, plus a yard that will eventually stock rods, steel and fibreglass pipe. “Ultimately, I would not have this job if it wasn’t for the oil show to begin with,” says Wolensky.

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PIPELINE NEWS July 2009

B19

CSI’s microdot identi¿ers:

The microdot identiÀers include a serial number and the web address of the manufacturer CertiÀed Secure IdentiÀcation Corp. Photos submitted

Red Deer –This story is for oilfield thieves and energy companies in search of a cost efficient tool to reduce or prevent theft of valuable assets. Certified Secure Identification Corp (CSI) in Red Deer is offering the industry a proven solution to scare off thieves with its patented I-DOT Microdot Asset Theft Deterrent Technology. Microdot technology has proven to be an effective deterrent for the vehicle, power sport and home asset protection industry globally. Liard McLeod, CSI’s vice president of sales and marketing is now pitching the technology solution to energy companies who want to crack down on crime.

“Thieves will steal anything from hand tools to service equipment, electric motors, solar panels and welders,” said McLeod. “Basically, it’s any assets you have.” Crime Stoppers in Saskatchewan and Alberta reports dozens of recent thefts in the oilpatch including loss of diesel fuel from construction sites to vehicles, tools, heaters and generators stolen from drilling rigs. “We were contacted a month ago by EnCana to explore how our globally successful microdot theft deterrent technology might to help them curb their problem of asset theft,” said McLeod. “After a short pilot project that saw the application of our microdot

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technology applied to a few hundred solar panels, a more comprehensive protection program started. “It was then suggested to us that CSI should initiate an oilfield asset protection program that would bring together all sectors of the oil and gas industry, in a common effort to reduce the escalating rate of asset theft in the oil and gas industry. “This is something we are keen on working on and introducing to the industry this summer.” CSI’s microdots are microscopic identifiers as small as a grain of sand. They can be easily applied to mark oilfield assets using a specially formulated, clear drying, ultra violet reactant adhesive that makes them hard to detect. The identifier is basically a serial number that can only be read under a magnifying glass using a UV black light. “For the most part, authorities including police are equipped with black lights,” said McLeod. “We are glad to work with any of the authorities, the pawn shops and the oilfield surplus stores that are required to have this equipment to participate in this initiative.” Since thieves can own black lights too, McLeod says CSI encourages oil and gas companies to mark their property in many different places with many different dots. “A thief needs to have the peace of mind that he has not only found most of them but he’s found all of them,” said McLeod. “The police only have to find one to prove stolen property and who the offender is.” The “I-DOT™ Protected” warning labels that come with the product also act as a deterrent when placed at the entry points of a compound, lease or vehicle or shop window. Microdot technology been used since the Second World War by the U.S. military but its development as a theft deterrent device with clear drying adhesive started in Australia in 2001 to address auto theft. ɸ Page B20

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PIPELINE NEWS July 2009

deter theft in the oil patch ɺ Page B19 Australian police report that the number of stolen microdot marked vehicles fell by as much as 86 per cent over vehicles that were not protected by microdots. “That success prompted the use of microdot technology to expand into other countries,” said McLeod. “It’s only been the last few months that signiﬁcant awareness has been made here.” CSI is a Canadian owned manufacturer launched in 2007 to address the growing need to solve the worldwide problem of vehicle theft and identiﬁcation and asset management. “What we’ve found over the last two years is that are basically two types of thieves. There is your internal thief and the professional thief. “The introduction of the microdot marking almost immediately reduces the internal theft. The internal thief only steals because he thinks the company doesn’t care or that nobody is watching. “He is deterred because he is immediately made aware that the company does care and is looking to address the theft.

McLeod says the career thief preys on the oilfield because of the remoteness of many assets and the ability of the thief to sell those assets easily. He thinks there is a general consensus that oil companies have lots of money and nobody cares and they not going to miss stolen property. “It was almost like it was the cost of doing business,” he said “This is where we believe an oilfield initiative needs to come in. We would like to see the entire industry get together and utilize an effective and costefficient technology like microdots to protect all the assets. “It won’t take long for the professional thief to become aware that the oil patch has become too difficult and risky to practice his craft. They will simply move on to easier and more unprotected targets.” McLeod took his product to the Weyburn Oil and Gas show in June and found there was a lot of interest in CSI’s technology from large companies to small rental firms and construction contractors concerned about securing tools and equipment. “One thing I did find was they were

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Liard McLeod applies the tiny microdot identiÀcation marker to the rims of a truck. Photos submitted

surprised how cost-eﬀective the technology is,” said McLeod. “Depending on many times you want to mark an asset you could get it down to as little as $2 to $3 per asset to mark.” A corporate kit with up 1,000 microdots with a set of protected entry decals and window warning labels retails for $59.95 and can be order online. “Along with being very cost effective, it is very simple to use,” said McLeod. “You could go through a shop and mark all the assets in a day with very little money. “Some companies have utilized other identiﬁcation systems like engraving but it’s a much more intensive program than painting dots in dozens

of places on every asset. Our system is as simple as painting by numbers.” A vial of microdots comes with a do-it-yourself applicator. CSI manufactures vials of microdots for residential, automotive, schools and RV, power sports and agricultural and industrial markets. The company also manufactures information protection systems with computer tracking technology that can be applied to the oil and gas industry where information sensitivity is becoming more important every day.” CSI’s Laptop Cop tracking technology enables the owner of lost or stolen laptop to retrieve or delete ﬁles remotely.

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B21

New venture for Redvers Redvers – There’s a shining new truck based in Redvers, armed with technology to tackle paraffin in a non-toxic manner. Mike Murphy of ParaSolve is getting things rolling in Redvers. It’s the town where he grew up, where he can point to the house near the highway where he used to live, and the farm he used to work on. Now, at 53, he’s come back, with not one, but two ventures. The first is MJM Production Services, a well testing company of which he is president. With locations in Grande Prairie and Redvers, the company now has six people working out of Redvers, having set up shop in 2008. He had two crews working near Alida the day Pipeline News visited. The other venture is ParaSolve, a company that deals with paraffin and asphaltene buildup. Their new truck arrived in Redvers in early June, establishing a Saskatchewan presence. They also have a location in Grande Prairie, and head office in Calgary. “It’s a blend of allnatural, non-toxic, biodegradable, plant-based material,” Murphy explains. “The basic explanation is the ParaSolve product encapsulated the paraffin and keeps it in a liquid, oil soluble state permanently,” Murphy says. According to the company website, “ParaSolve's proprietary formula works to emulsify and suspend deposits enhancing well performance and production. ParaSolve's treatment service incorporates the use of a specialized all natural, plant based, biodegradable solution. ParaSolve's proprietary formula works to emulsify and suspend deposits, enhancing well performance and production. “Unlike chemical products which partially dissolve or disperse paraffin only to

have it recrystallize further down the line, ParaSolve's product alters the molecular structure of the paraffin with dramatic results. The existing paraffin is restructured so it re-enters the crude and will not precipitate out again - remaining suspended. It will not drop out in another area of the well or the flow line.” The new truck is a cube unit, with multiple tanks in the back, pumps, and two boilers. It might be a little warm in there in the summer. “We heat it, and it’s pumped down the annulus or tubing. It can be done if there’s a pig stuck in a flowline. If a pump isn’t pumping properly, we can do a flushby.” “We can put enough on the truck to do about

10 wells under normal circumstances.” The product is mixed with fresh water prior to application. Murphy says they haven’t yet found the limits to what it can do in dealing with paraffin. “We haven’t failed yet on any attempt to remove, or any request asked of us.” One Alberta field reported an 18 per cent increase in production, Murphy says. “We don’t know everything it can do, but we do know it hasn’t failed us yet.” According to the ParaSolve website, “The company was started in 2004 by Robert Woodward, a veteran of the oil industry with years of experience solving paraffin and other oil production problems through legacy techniques. The founder

was later joined by a second partner Tyler Gobin, also with years of experience in the industry.” The company is looking forward to working in Saskatchewan. Gobin says they have lots of value to add for clients with paraffin, Asphaltene and hydrocarbon based restrictions, with an environmentally safe solution that is safe to handle that works better then chemicals.

Mike Murphy is setting up his second venture in Redvers – Parasolve, a company that tackles parafÀn issues. His other venture is MJM Production Services. His dog is with him all the time.

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B22

PIPELINE NEWS July 2009

Prep underway for Redvers Oil Showcase Redvers â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Hot oďŹ&#x20AC; the heels of the Weyburn Saskatchewan Oil and

Gas Show, preparation is already underway for the Redvers & District Oil

Showcase. The event started in 2007, was held again in

3-D Enterprises 1996 Ltd. Gerard Dauvin The 2008 incarnation of the Redvers & District Oil Showcase had prominent outdoor displays. Photo submitted

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2008, took a breather for 2009, and will be held again May 7-8, 2010. The showcase is put on by local oil businesses, in conjunction with Rural Economic Development. The Town of Redvers, RM of Antler No. 61, Redvers Regional Agricultural Commercial Endeavours (RRACE) are part of the program. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We highlight local business in our area,â&#x20AC;? says Brian LeNouail, one of the organizers. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Just to show you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have to go to Chicago,â&#x20AC;? adds Marius Ericksen, another organizer. They also want to promote the idea of setting up businesses in Redvers. A promotional scheme tried in 2008 was a smashing success. Top level sponsors of the oil showcase were entered

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into a draw, with the prize of a serviced lot in Redvers. To keep it, though, the winner had to begin development within a year. â&#x20AC;&#x153;And it happened,â&#x20AC;? says Erickson. Classic Vacuum Truck or Alida won, and ended up building a shop in the community. It wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t on the exact lot initially planned, but it all worked out in the end. An added bonus was TS & M Supply setting up a store in the new shop, bringing not one, but two businesses to the community. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We moved into it,â&#x20AC;? says Marc Wolensky, manager of the new TS & M location and a recent addition to the showcase organization. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The focus was building up the town,â&#x20AC;? he adds. Will they do it

again? â&#x20AC;&#x153;DeďŹ nitely,â&#x20AC;? says LeNouail. The last show had 52 displays, including about 20 outdoor displays. This time there will be more room for outside displays, with no real limit as to how much room a company takes for its outdoor display. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a low cost show, and weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re not restricting the size outside,â&#x20AC;? says LeNeouail. It takes a year of planning to get the show together, plus three or four days of â&#x20AC;&#x153;mad madness.â&#x20AC;? One of the key points of the Redvers showcase is that people in the booths are mostly the people on the ground, working in the area. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Talking to people you know,â&#x20AC;? LeNeouail says.

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PIPELINE NEWS July 2009

B23

B24

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PIPELINE NEWS Saskatchewan’s Petroleum Monthly

C-Section July 2009

Estevan Oilmen’s Golf 2009

Clockwise from top left: Ryan Drilling Technology and Solutions brought in the 620 CKRM Rider Cheerleaders to their sponsored hole at the 52nd Annual Estevan OTS Golf Tournament. The cheerleaders are Lindsey P., Stephanie D. and Sarah O. Jeff Mosley, left, presents Nolan Rohatyn of Carson Energy Services with the Estevan OTS golf trophy, coming in tops in 36 holes. Graham Bell, of Estevan, powering out. Todd Shirley of Bert Baxter Transport Ltd. connects while seeking out a hole in one during the Estevan OTS Golf Tournament.

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PIPELINE NEWS July 2009

Estevan OTS 52nd annual golf tourney attracts hundreds Estevan – The Estevan Oilfield Technical Society 52nd Annual Golf Tournament took place at Estevan Woodlawn Golf Club June 5-7. Approximately 375 golfers took part, mostly from southeast Saskatchewan. Three events took place – 18 holes, 36 holes, and a masters competition. Eldon Rondeau, one of the organizers, noted that 18 holes is growing in popularity. “Who can get away for three days?” he asks. The tournament highlight was the steak or lobster supper, held at the curling rink. Wonderland, a Regina cover band specializing in onehit-wonders, was the entertainment. 18 holes There were 17 flights playing 18 holes. In the 18 hole event championship flight, Warren Waldegger came in first, with a 74. He was followed by Mike Verity, 75, Jason Fenick, 75, and

You had your choice of smokies at the Ryan Drilling Technology and Solutions sponsored hole during the Estevan OTS Golf Tournament. Randy Mitchell, doing the cooking is a technical sales engineer with Ryan.

Dan Isley, 77. The first flight went to Kurtis Kish, 83, Doug Moberg, 83, Greg Latimer, 83 and Brent Gusikoski, 84. In the second flight,

Craig Lane, Bob Speers, Leonard Brock and Kevin Lounitsen all had 86, with tie-breakers deciding the outcome. The third ﬂight must have been a tough one

to figure out, because everyone except one scored 88, meaning the tie-breaking had to go back several holes. Devin Carrington at came out on top, followed by Paul Ross, Garrett Fleck and Rob Weatherall. 36 holes Eleven flights took two rounds around the course. The first round is for placement, the second round counts as to who wins. Nolan Rohatyn came out tops in the 36-hole Bill Stanley of Sherwood, North Dakota, won the masters competition at the Estevan OTS golf tournament. He had a 75.

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event. He scored a 72. Mike Ross came in next at 74, then Pat Messer

at 76 and Blaine Chrest, 76. The first flight went to Brett Blackstock, 73. Next was Mark Spencer, 76, Chad Farr, 77, and Jim Ehrmantraut, 78. Coming in first in the second flight was Ron Dunville, 82. Brendon Grube was next, also at 82, followed by Cody Balon, 84 and Bill Halkyard The third flight saw Kristian Kallis, 81, Jon Decker, 83, Clark Driedger, 86, and Chad Leslie, 86. “I eagled No. 3 today, and triple-bogeyed No. 6,” said Rohatyn. There were a bunch of pars, an odd bogey, an odd birdie for Rohatyn. After a bogey on 17, he says he ahd a good drive, a six-iron to 10-ft., two putts and a birdie. “It was cold, windy and rainy,” he noted.

PIPELINE NEWS July 2009

Prairie Lobstermen By Brian Zinchuk Weyburn, Estevan – There’s nothing like good food to get people together, and there’s a crew in the southeast that has been providing stick-toyour-ribs grub for nearly four decades. You could find them in both Weyburn and Estevan in the same week, cooking up steak and lobster at the Saskatchewan Oil and Gas Show in Weyburn, followed by a similar meal for the Estevan Oilfield Technical Society’s 52 Annual Golf Tournament. Mike LaCoste is the strawboss of the crew of volunteers. “We usually do eight to ten functions,” he says between the lobster prep area and the steak pit during the Weyburn Oil Show. The most of the core of the group work with Prairie Petro-Chem or Prairie Mud in Estevan. Ray Frehlick, head of the two firms, says the whole idea started up 38 years ago, when the late George Blades with Suncor Resources “gathered a bunch of oilfield guys up.” “My feeling’s always

been, if the community’s good to you, you should be good to the community, or communities,” Frehlick told Pipeline News. For the Estevan OTS golf tournament, he says, “We cooked there for 35 years, and we still do.” Speaking of the importance of community service, Frehlick says it is important to give back, raising money for cancer and the like. “It’s all volunteer,” he says. The workers donate their time and eﬀorts, and the proceeds go to the organization that brought them in. Chuck Haines is one of the current crew, following in the footsteps of his dad, Bob Haines. “They’ve done it enough, so they’re passing the torch to the younger guys,” he says. “They all started in the early sixties. Before them, there was another crew.” The current core group is made of up Brent Frehlick, Prairie Petro Chem; Wayne Hein, Prairie Mud; Dean Gilliss, Gilliss Power Tongs; Darrin Leptich, Prairie Petro Chem; Chuck Haines, Prairie

Mud; Dale Whitﬁeld, BJ Services; Perry Wenham, Do-All Fabricators; Kirk Haines, Trican; Mike LaCoste, Prairie Petro Chem, Barry Bridges and Jack Meesham. Others come in and help, especially for bigger events. Some longtimers come back to help when needed. “My dad came and helped us with the beans,” It’s all smiles when a lobster is put on your plate, as seen here at the Sassays Chuck Haines. katchewan Oil and Gas Show in Weyburn. “It’s a secret recipe, like Col. Sanders,” says LaCoste. UN ALLEY AND TD “We get called a lot of things, I don’t think you can print it,” LaCoste says with a laugh. “They call us ‘Ray Frehlick’s Cooking Crew.” LaCoste has been on the crew for 13 years, Chuck Haines for about 10. LaCoste says they’ve never been forced to do it, but have been encouraged by Ray. “You get to see a lot of customers there, Owned & Operated by Keith & Janice Hanson and they see us doing it,” #306 Wicklow Centre - 1133-4th Street, Estevan, SK he says, noting it’s good P.R. “We’re local, independent companies.” www.sunvalleyland.ca • land@sunvalleyland.ca ɸ Page C4

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PIPELINE NEWS July 2009

One fancy dinner

Dale WhitĂ&#x20AC;eld holds up a monster lobster to be auctioned off.

Éş Page C3 â&#x20AC;&#x153;This is where you see all the customers,â&#x20AC;? says Gilliss. The crew took care of the Spectra Credit Union event and then Oxbow in the weeks after the oil show and Estevan OTS golf tournament. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We also do a cancer one in Lampman in September,â&#x20AC;? LaCoste says. Division of labour While the men typically do the cooking, there are a number of women who help out in the serving. Elaine Shykitka and Yvonne Sheane can be found getting the serving tables just so. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re originals, arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t we?â&#x20AC;? says Sheane to Shykitka.

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â&#x20AC;&#x153;It keeps getting bigger and bigger,â&#x20AC;? Shykitka replies. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The guys do the cooking, and the ladies do the serving. Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re always looking for help,â&#x20AC;? Sheane adds. â&#x20AC;&#x153;My husband used to work at Prairie Petro Chem. Heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s retired,â&#x20AC;? she says, noting he was a regular on the cooking crew. On the female side, it is also multi-generational, with one of the ladies pointing out her daughter helping. Big meal, industrial cooking When youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re feeding hundreds of hungry people in a short period of time, you have to scale up. You donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t ďŹ nd a couple little barbecues in the back. Rather, they have a special steak pit and a pair of lobster boilers. The process of the steak pit is that of an

assembly line. The pit is fuelled by Kingsford charcoal, originating from the Bienfait mine. The steaks progress from left to right. First they are seared on ďŹ&#x201A;at grills. As soon as the searing grill lets go of the steak, they are ďŹ&#x201A;ipped to the right. The second stage sees basting with a paint brush. A few more ďŹ&#x201A;ips, and they reach the end of the line. It takes about ďŹ ve to six minutes for a god medium steak. A trailer barbecue can be used to ďŹ nish them oďŹ&#x20AC; if needed. For roast beef, they have a portable roaster. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a big steel box, which draws air in through trays of coals on the ends and up through the middle, where the chimney is. Cooked at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for ďŹ ve hours, they are ďŹ&#x201A;ipped once an hour. É¸ Page C5

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PIPELINE NEWS July 2009

A nice break from work ɺ Page C4 “We baste them with a new mop. It keeps your hand out of the fire, too,” says LaCoste. The steaks, in the case 12 oz. New York strips, were purchased through a local restaurant, whom they’ve been working with for two years. Lobster made large The lobster boilers are a sight to see in and of themselves. “We saw them in Brooks,” LaCoste says. First they used to have the boilers shipped down, but eventually built two for themselves. One belongs to Spectra Credit Union. “Our welder, Eugene Hagel, built them,” he says. The boilers are steel boxes with a tube running down the middle of the bottom. At one end of the tube is a tiger torch, shooting flames into the tube. At the other end of the tube is a chimney. Along the tube are baffles to deflect the heat, similar to a hot water tank. Each boiler can take two baskets that are each built to fill half the boiler. Each basket can take two cases of lobster, 48 in total. That means a full boiler will have 96 crus-

taceans turning bright red at one time. It takes 15 minutes in the boiler before they are done. Before they get to the boiler, however, the lobsters are flown in by courier to Regina. At the Sask. Oil and Gas Show, it filled the better part of a small trailer. They usually come from one main supplier in St. John, New Brunswick. Usually in each batch there is one big one, which can be used for promo purposes. Coming out of the trailer, the crew tackles the lobsters with a methodical vengeance. Don’t get too close, as they use banana knives to cut off the rubber bands on each lobster’s claws. Heavy gloves are worn, for good reason. Bands removed, it’s into the baskets and then the boiler. At the other end of the boiler, workers split the lobsters. The crew recently picked up several hundred lobster crackers, paid for by a number of local companies. They had used pliers before, but purpose-built crackers are much more useful. Artery cloggers The usual menu is steak and/or lobster, either a 12 oz New York

steak or a one to one-anda-half pound lobster. The beans are a secret recipe. There’s baked potatoes, cole slaw, and buns. “If we’re not doing lobster, we’ll do corn,” LaCoste says. “We’ll go to local stores and run up a tab, take back what we don’t need, and the group will settle up,” he says. There’s a lot of cleanup involved with the boilers and lobster crackers.

Chuck Haines, turns steaks over the coals.

If there are any lobster left over, they are sold at the end of the event. “It’s just a bunch of

volunteers. It’s fun to see people out of work. We get along, joke. It’s good to socialize away from

work,” LaCoste says. “It’s a lot of volunteer time, but we have fun doing it,” says Whitﬁeld.

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Weyburn â&#x20AC;&#x201C; The Tierra Alta Production Systems team may have been wearing football jerseys at the Weyburn Oil Show, but it was the post play into the southwest that earns the headline. The company has transferred a Truck-Mounted X-cclerator (TMX) truck for servicing coiled rod to Swift Current from Lloydminster. It gives the company a presence in the southwest. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re working closely with Diamond Energy, a service rig company,â&#x20AC;? says JeďŹ&#x20AC; Taylor, ďŹ eld services manager. He notes there are probably 600 wells in the southwest that have continuous rod, and thus there is a real

need for service there. Randyl Syverson will be the Swift Current rep, coming from Bonnyville. The company is looking to service southeast Saskatchewan as well. New plant â&#x20AC;&#x153;Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re going to build a manufacturing facility in Edmonton,â&#x20AC;? notes Rick Joyes, who handles sales and marketing. It will bring manufacturing of progressing cavity pumps all under one roof, including chroming their own rotors. The plan is to have it in operation in 2009. The facility will be a mirror of the companyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Venezeulan production facility.

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renew SaskPower’s aging infrastructure.The largest capital expenditures will be on developing new generation for the province, while SaskPower will also be investing heavily in existing infrastructure.

billion to meet the growing demand for power in the province. With many of the corporation’s facilities built in the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s, this investment in the provincial electrical system is required to

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SaskPower is looking for a new one of these – a steam turbine and generator for its clean coal project at Boundary Dam. This turbine is at Shand Power Station. Photo by Brian Zinchuk

Regina - SaskPower is taking another important step towards developing one of the world’s first and largest clean coal projects. The corporation has issued a request-forproposals on June 9 to select a qualified vendor to supply a steam turbine and generator for the Boundary Dam Integrated Carbon Capture and Sequestration Demonstration Project. “This RFP is another major milestone as we continue to develop our business case for the demonstration project,” said Mike Monea, vicepresident, Integrated Carbon Capture and Sequestration. “It is also an important development within the emerging clean coal industry, as this is expected to be the first steam turbine in the world designed from the outset to fully integrate a coal-fired power plant with carbon capture.” Seven vendors from around the world have been invited to participate in the two-stage procurement process. The first stage will be used to identify the most promising proposals, with more detailed proposals developed during the second stage. The

successful vendor is expected to be selected by the end of 2009. SaskPower previously issued a RFP in July 2008 for carbon capture technology for the demonstration project. Three companies have been shortlisted, with the ﬁnal selection also due by the end of the year. The Boundary Dam Integrated Carbon Capture and Sequestration Demonstration Project

will transform the aging Unit 3 at Boundary Dam Power Station near Estevan into a reliable, long-term producer of clean baseload electricity, while enhancing provincial oil production and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. SaskPower notes the project is also good for the Saskatchewan economy – it will result in capital investment, increased royalty revenues

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PIPELINE NEWS July 2009

Kmita, Fox SE Oilmen of Year By Brian Zinchuk Weyburn – John Kmita and Dale Fox were both honoured as Southeast Saskatchewan Oilmen of the Year during the Saskatchewan Oil and Gas Show in Weyburn on June 3. Minister of Energy and Resources Bill Boyd was on hand to make the presentations. John Kmita Kmita started his own service rig company, John Kmita Ltd., in 1972. It’s still in operation as a family business at Weyburn. “Be nice to your

roughneck. He might become your boss one day,” Kmita told the crowd in accepting the award. After thanking his wife, Sandra, he noted, “All these ups and downs in the oil prices are my fault.” Each time he bought a rig, prices plummeted. “I built a new shop last year, and oil plummeted $100 a barrel.” Dale Fox Started to work in the oil patch in 1959, and ended up as a partner in TS & M Supply. He retired in 1999 when the business was Minister of Energy and Resources Bill Boyd, left, and Ray Frehlick, right, present Dale Fox with his plaque for Southeast Oilman of the Year.

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supply stores are important to the industry. He had planned on going to university after a year of work, but never did get there. While at work one day as a young man he observed others playing cards. He felt they should be looking for business, not playing cards. “Back then [in 1959], they told me the oilpatch would be done in 20 years.” ɸ Page C9

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John Kmita, centre, is presented with his plaque for Southeast Oilman of the Year. On the left is Minister of Energy and Resources Bill Boyd.

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C10

PIPELINE NEWS July 2009

Ron Carson of Carson Energy Services says the company’s name change reÁects their broader range of services. Carson acted as chair for the Saskatchewan Oil and Gas Show in Weyburn, as seen here.

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New stickers show off a new name for Carson, now known as Carson Energy Services.

New name for Carson By Brian Zinchuk Weyburn – If you looked closely at the deep blue trucks in

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the middle of the Saskatchewan Oil and Gas show’s outdoor displays, you might have noticed something a little different. Instead of the familiar “Carson Welding & Maintenance” stickers on their doors, the trucks now displayed “Carson Energy Services Ltd.” Carson Energy Services is one of the largest players in the oilﬁeld service sector for southeast Saskatchewan, with headquarters in Lampman and another 10 oﬃces in Saskatchewan and Alberta. The company

works throughout the prairies. It was incorporated in 1974 “We’ve been wanting to do it for a while,” Ron Carson, head of the company, told Pipeline News between his duties as chair of the oil show. The new name is more appropriate, he said. “We do so much more now.” “Now we have lots of diﬀerent tasks – pipeline, lease building, environmental sales and service, safety.” The name change was eﬀective Mar. 1, 2009. Internally, a lot of things have to change – paperwork, manuals, etc. “Maybe more than we thought,” he said. On the web: Check out Pipeline News’ prof ile on Ron Carson in the March, 2009, edition, B section. To f ind it, go to our website at www. pipelinenews.ca, go to the past editions section, and download March, 2009 B section.

PIPELINE NEWS July 2009

Just where did that water come from? Edmonton - There’s a lot of talk about isotopes in the news these days, particularly in the shortage of nuclear isotopes for medical diagnostic testing. Did you know that isotope testing is also used in the oilﬁeld? In this case it is naturally occurring isotopes. Analyzing naturally occurring isotopes from production water can tell you a lot, enough for them to refer to it as isotope ﬁngerprinting. That’s what Isobrine Solutions of Edmonton is doing. They were one of the display participants in the Williston Basin Petroleum Conference in Regina in April. “We do a lot of work in the plays throughout Saskatchewan and the Williston Basin,” says Greg Rose of Isobrine, noting they have isotope data from many formations throughout the Basin.

People had asked for help in identifying where formation water was coming from. Rose teamed up with Ben Rostron, Ph.D., an associate professor at the University of Alberta, who had been developing on isotope database since 1996 to form Isobrine Solutions in 2003. The duo later approached Serguey Arkadakskiy, Ph.D., to bring his expertise in ﬁngerprinting natural gases. Speciﬁcally, Isobrine uses naturally occurring isotopes of oxygen and hydrogen and other isotopes to trace the underground path of formation waters. “We also measure alkalinity, metals in water and halogens. It depends on the clients,” Rose explains. How is this used? Is there an overfrac’d well breaking into zones above or below a target formation, for instance? In the Bakken

formation, “overfracturing can lead to large production of out-of-zone water, but how do you know where your water is coming from?” Rose says. “By using isotopes, we can provide clear evidence of the presence of out of zone water, and identify which zone the water is from,” Rose says. “We don’t solve the problem for them, but we tell them where it’s coming from. Companies have used the information to adjust how heavy the frac jobs are.” The samples are collected as Drill Stem Tests (DST) or normal production tests “and used to validate DST’s or deal with production allocation,” Rose explains. “We also use it for baseline studies.” It that case, they will look at a number of wells in an area to determine what the water looks like regionally. “Client’s submit one litre samples to us. We split the sample, do our tests, and report our ﬁndings.” Samples are typically shipped by courier

to Isobrine. A fast turnaround can be done in 24 to 48 hours, normal service is three to ﬁve business days. “Differentiating production waters using chemistry may not provide clear answers, using isotopes and our database provides much more clarity," he says.

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PIPELINE NEWS July 2009

Adjusting the mix By Brian Zinchuk

This assortment of stainless steel products is just a sampling of what Atom-Jet Industries is capable of. The Brandon company is seeking to diversify into the oilpatch. In the background is Barry LaRocque, co-owner.

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Weyburn – Brandon, Manitoba, machine shop and manufacturer Atom-Jet Industries is seeking to make the oilpatch a much bigger part of its business. “For this industry, we’re a manufacturer of finished parts,” says Barry LaRocque, co-owner, at his booth during the Saskatchewan Oil and Gas Show in Weyburn. “We do custom carbide applications, with support systems like Parkerizing.” Some examples he provides include packer parts and drill stem adapters. Stefan Venzky, who handles business development, adds, “We’re heavy into valve sub-assemblies.” That includes different valve parts, flanges, and lots of stainless steel work. “We started in the oilpatch two and half, three years ago,” says LaRocque. The company started as a small machine shop, doing local repairs. “We now have our own products in agriculture around the

world.” LaRoque says. They have full time staff in Saskatoon, Regina, Winnipeg, North Dakota and Russia. Currently, about five to 10 per cent of their business is oilpatch, but they are aiming to make that sliver a much larger slice of the pie. This is Atom-Jet’s second appearance at the Saskatchewan Oil and Gas Show, and they’ve been to Calgary and Lloydminster. “We want to get that number to 30 per cent,” says LaRocque, citing a desire to diversify. They would like to see a more even split between agriculture, oil and gas, mining, and manufacturing. “Everyone knows oil and gas is up and down. When it is up, we want to be a part of it. When it is down, we have other segments we go after,” he says. They are taking a tact that is not often seen – promising to deduct penalties off their invoice if an order is late. Those penalties accrue daily. “It’s about us being on time,” says Venzky. “We put our money where our mouth is.”

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PIPELINE NEWS July 2009

C13

Jason Nicolay, left, and John Casella show an oil-sampling vial for AGAT Laboratories. The company is considering a southeast Saskatchewan location.

Perhaps some day Estevan? Weyburn – One of the companies with an indoor display at the Saskatchewan Oil and Gas Show in Weyburn is thinking about indoors in another context – specifically, a location in Estevan. AGAT Laboratories is considering an Estevan location, according to company representatives at the oil show. “We’re thinking of building one in Estevan,” says Jason Nicolay. “It’s really serious. It’s been talked about for a couple years.” The company’s work includes oil and gas testing, but they also do soil, air and water testing. It can be sampling at gas plant compressors, oil sampling for engines, or benzene emissions on site. They have locations across Canada, including 10 depots in Saskatchewan. However, they are principally

located on the west side of the province. “We do a lot of

work in Saskatchewan. We travel from Red Deer,” notes Nicolay.

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C14

PIPELINE NEWS July 2009

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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

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PIPELINE NEWS July 2009

C15

Charity ¿nds itself in hotdog heaven at GoExpo By Geoﬀ Lee Calgary – Some of

the 20,296 visitors who attended the GoExpo Gas and Oil Exposition held last month at Stampede Park in Calgary relished their time lingering at the outdoor booth of TOMCO Group of Companies. The oilﬁeld services and rentals company

used the opportunity to meet new customers and hold a charity barbecue in support of the Calgary Homeless Foundation. TOMCO provided all of the supplies for the barbeque and oﬀered a free hot dog and cold drink to all and encouraged people to make a donation to show their support.

TOMCO themed the BBQ as “hot dogs for a good cause” and it worked to ﬁll empty stomachs and spread good cheer. When the last tube steak was served, TOMCO president and CEO Rod Tomyn presented Fred Prior from the homeless foundation with the proceeds jar ﬁlled with more than $2,000.

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Fred Prior from the Calgary Homeless Foundation receives a jar Àlled with $2,000 in donations collected from the TOMCO barbecue. Pictured are Daren Anderson, Doug Stickley, Fred Prior, Rod Tomyn, West Tomyn, Robert Cunningham and Tammy L’Heureux. Photo submitted

In a news release, Tomyn said he was pleased with the turnout at this year’s event and with the

positive response TOMCO received from visitors to their booth. Corporate repre-

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Lyle Leclair - Cell: 306-421-7060 Larry - Cell: 306-421-7131 General Oilfield Hauling

Office: 306-538-4487

sentatives were on hand to answer questions and demonstrate equipment – including some of the largest high-pressure test plugs in the industry. Tomyn believes when times are tough, as they have been for many in the oil and gas industry this past year, that it is all the more important to stay visible to your customers. TOMCO’s giant blue barbeque was hard to miss or resist with the mouth-watering pheromone of grilled wieners drawing a crowd.

Box 278, Kennedy, SK S0G 2R0 Cell: 577-7694

Serving Southeast Saskatchewan’s well servicing needs since 1972 “EXPERIENCE, SERVICE & SAFETY YOU CAN TRUST.”

Tel (306) 634•5522 • Fax (306) 634-3238 Box 549, Estevan, Sk., S4A 2A5

www.ensignenergy.com

634-3009

Estevan

DENNIS TROBERT 20 & 30 Ton Pickers Owner - 421-3807 Winch Trucks Norm Meyers Bed Trucks Sales - 421-8640 Low Boy & High Boy Trailers Les McLenehan General OilÀeld Hauling Dispatcher/Sales - 421-8810

Vacuum Truck Services • Steam Cleaning Septic Tank Service Portable Bathroom Rentals Pressure Washing • Dry Steam Boiler

634-3144

67 Devonian Street, Estevan, Saskatchewan

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PIPELINE NEWS July 2009

a division of:

DIAL BEFORE YOU DIG!

Discover what other major energy companies already have. If you’ve buried it, we will Ànd it! • Western Canada’s largest and premier provider of pipeline and utility locate services • Established in 1990 • All crews: CertiÀed Damage Prevention Technicians • CCA Gold Seal approved Health and Safety Program • Members of: - PSAC - ADPC - CAPULC - ORCGA - ISNetworld - Canada HSE Registry - NULCA • Proven leader in the development and implementation of underground facility locating standards across Canada

24/7 SERVICE AT

1-888-899-7500 www.red-alta.ca

PIPELINE NEWS July 2009

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Estevan Weyburn tops the province in June land sales revenue Regina – The June land sale of Crown petroleum and natural gas rights generated $18.1 million for the province with the Weyburn-Estevan area leading the way. Weyburn-Estevan area The total bonus received in the area was $11 million, an average of $451 per hectare. This compares to $9.6 million, an average of $482 per hectare at the last sale. The top purchaser of acreage in this area was LandSolutions Inc. that spent $4.2 million to acquire four lease parcels. The top price paid for a single lease in this area was $1.5 million paid by LandSolutions Inc. for a 130 hectare parcel situated within the Lost Horse Hill Frobisher-Alida Beds Pool, 15-km north of Stoughton. The top price paid for a single licence in this area was $609,879 paid by The Soo Line Resource Group Ltd. for an 8,859-hectare block situated 10km southwest of the Minton Winnipegosis Oil Pool, 18 km southwest of the village of Minton. The highest dollar per hectare in this area was received from LandSolutions Inc. that paid $17,529 per hectare for each of two separate 65-hectare parcels located within the Lost Horse Hill FrobisherAlida Beds Pool, 15-km of Stoughton. Swift Current area The total bonus received in the area was $2.9 million, an average of $145 per hectare. This compares to $509,012, an average of $100.83 per hectare at the previous sale. The top purchaser of acreage in this area was Standard Land Company Inc. that spent $1,393,671 million, to acquire 15 lease parcels. The top price paid for a single lease in this area was $187,759 paid by Standard Land Company Inc. for each of four separate 259-hectare parcels situated adjacent to the Illerbrun Upper Shaunavon Oil Pool, 13-km southeast of the town of Gull Lake. The highest dollar per hectare in this area was received from Canadian Coastal Resources Ltd. who paid $3,483 per hectare for a 32-hectare parcel located within the Whitemud Shaunavon Oil Pool, 17km southeast of Eastend. Kindersley-Kerrobert area The total bonus received in the area was $2.2 million, an average of $283 per hectare. This compares with $970,917, an average of $125 per hectare at the April sale. The top purchaser of acreage in this area was O & G Resource Group Ltd. that spent $672,914 to acquire four lease parcels. The top price paid for a single lease in this area was $313,100 paid by Standard Land Company Inc. for a 259-hectare parcel situated adjacent to the Plenty Viking Sand Oil Pool, nine km east of Dodsland. This is the highest dollar per hectare in this area at $1,209 per hectare. Lloydminster area The total bonus received in the area was $1.9 million, an average of $475per hectare. This compares to $602,533 an average of $438 per hectare at the last sale. The top purchaser of acreage in this area was Windfall Resources Ltd. that spent $563,168 to acquire one lease parcel. The top price paid for a single lease in this area was $563,168 by Windfall Resources Ltd. for a 241-hectare parcel situated adjacent to the Big Gully North Mannville Sands Oil Pools, 15-km northwest of Lloydminster. This is the highest dollar per hectare in this area at $2,334 per hectare.

Wonderland Regina band Wonderland specializes in one-hit wonders. They were the entertainment for the Estevan OTS golf tournament steak or lobster supper on June 6. Here, they are warming up in preparation for the show. Photo by Brian Zinchuk

ENVIROTRAP SYSTEMS Secondary Wellhead Containment This is what the industry is saying... The Envirotrap Containment System is the most economical, user friendly secondary containment system on the market. It has proven to be the best product in the ﬁeld to contain leaks from wellheads, chemical pumps, and chemical barrels. These units are being praised by oil companies and environmental agencies alike!

Saskatchewan Oil & Gas Show I am pleased to say the operators are ecstatic about the new version of covers on this last round of containments. We tried some of your competitors containments and I surely wish we had not. In any case we will be putting in an order later in the fall and you will be our only supplier from now on.

Bruce Miners enerPLUS RESOURCES Pembina Lead Operator

THE PROBLEM

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

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 360º installation

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 P P P P P

EASY TO INSTALL, EASY TO USE

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

360º INSTALLATION WELLHEAD CONTAINMENT UNIT

NEW CHEMICAL PUMP BOX

_ unit cost is less than clean-up cost from one packing failure _ minimal or no installation cost _ minimal maintenance requirements - parts and service readily available if needed

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

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PIPELINE NEWS July 2009

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JUSTIN WAPPEL - Division Manager Sandy DeBusschere 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

Drilling Management Consulting & Wellsite Supervision Box 275 Cell: Carlye, SK OfĂ&#x20AC;ce: S0C 0R0 Fax: Email:

(306) 421-9000 (306) 453-6405 (306) 453-6433 admin@artisanltd.com

WK 6WUHHW (VWHYDQ Â&#x2021; a l t u s g e o m a t i c s . c o m

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;˘ Rig Matting â&#x20AC;˘ Complete Trucking Services

Specializing in well site and pipeline surveys Yorkton 306.783.4100

Swift Current 306.773.7733

Edmonton 800.465.6233

Weyburn 306.842.6060

Lloydminster 780.875.6130

Calgary 866.234.7599

Regina 800.667.3546

Medicine Hat 403.528.4215

Grande Prairie 780.532.6793

Dale (306) 861-3635 â&#x20AC;˘ Lee (306) 577-7042 Lampman, Sask. 24 HOUR DISPATCH

780-205-7666 Lloydminster, AB

100, 200 and 400 BBL Tanks Please call us with your Custom Fabrication Requirements!

Proudly Serving Alberta & Saskatchewan

4â&#x20AC;? Hevi Wate Drill Pipe

â&#x20AC;˘ Full Hydrovac Services

Brad Lamontagne (306) 577-9818 or (306) 739-2263 smrltd@sasktel.net

â&#x20AC;˘ Capable of Steam

www.westeel.com

Peter Koopman - Industrial Tank Sales, Southern Saskatchewan Ph. 306-525-5481 ext. 311

www.silverbackhydrovac.com â&#x20AC;˘ geoff@silverbackhydrovac.com

www.northern-steel.com

Cell 306-596-8137

Serving the Saskatchewan Petroleum Upstream from our facilities in Regina & Tisdale.

SONAR INSPECTION LTD. Head OfĂ&#x20AC;ce 1292 Veterans Crescent Estevan, Sk. S4A 2E1 E: sonarinsp@sasktel.net

P: 306-634-5285 F: 306-634-5649

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Serving All Your Inspection Needsâ&#x20AC;? UT - LPI - MPI Wayne Naka Taylor Gardiner Cory Rougeau

306-421-3177 306-421-2883 306-421-1076

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

COIL COIL TUBING TUBING SERVICES SERVICES FLUSHBY FLUSHBY SERVICES SERVICES

Lloyd Lavigne â&#x20AC;˘ Kirk Clarkson Owners/Managers

Serving Alberta, B.C. & Saskatchewan Toll Free

1-866-363-0011

6506 - 50th Avenue Lloydminster, AB

Phone: (780) 875-6880

5315 - 37th Street Provost, AB T0B 3S0

Phone: (780) 753-6449

Fax: (780) 875-7076

24 Hour Service www.tazwellservicing.com

Specializing in Industrial & Oilfield Motors

Cory Bjorndal District Manager Downhole Tools

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

PIPELINE NEWS July 2009

C19

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Career

Crew Foreman

OILFIELD SERVICE LTD.

CONSULTING & CONSTRUCTION

www.suretuf.com

CNC Plasma / Oxyacetylene Operators

Only those to be interviewed will be contacted. Apply in conďŹ dence to: Fax (780) 808-2689

ilĂ&#x20AC;eld For Sale

Heated & Insulated c/w Hawkeye guageboard assembly Phone Paul (403)664-0604

Oyen, AB.

Responsibilities: â&#x20AC;˘ Manage Oilfield Trucking Company â&#x20AC;˘ Supervise drivers, shop and yard â&#x20AC;˘ Call on clients to ensure high standard of customer satisfaction â&#x20AC;˘ Client/Company/Driver liaison Qualifications: â&#x20AC;˘ Management and Oilfield experience an asset â&#x20AC;˘ Professional interpersonal and communication skills â&#x20AC;˘ Thorough knowledge of company policies and procedures â&#x20AC;˘ Positive and professional attitude and etiquette Interested and qualified applicants should forward resumes:

Applicants must have welding background. Driverâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s license required. Reliable, team player. Wages depend on experience. BeneďŹ ts available. Performance bonuses.

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

Reconditioned 750 BBL Tanks

fff \X[[T]]Xd\SXaTRcX^]P[ R^\ 7^aXi^]cP[ Â&#x2019; 3XaTRcX^]P[ Â&#x2019; FT[[ <^]Xc^aX]V

Location: Carlyle, Sask.

Experienced FOR LLOYDMINSTER AREA

DUTIES: â&#x20AC;˘ Daily Operation Of A Light Picker Truck â&#x20AC;˘ Pipe-fitting & Construction

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Career Opportunity Manager/Field Supervisor

Opportunities MUST: â&#x20AC;˘ Have Valid Drivers License & Be A Team Player â&#x20AC;˘ Safety Tickets â&#x20AC;˘ Picker & Bobcat Experience An Asset Câ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s OFFERS: â&#x20AC;˘ Top Wages â&#x20AC;˘ Benefits Package â&#x20AC;˘ Performance Bonuses â&#x20AC;˘ Scheduled Days Off â&#x20AC;˘ Opportunity For Advancement â&#x20AC;˘ C.O.R. Safety Program â&#x20AC;˘ AB & SK B31.3 Q.C. â&#x20AC;˘ Premium Equipment

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Box 83, Oxbow, SK S0C 2B0 Fax: 306-483-2910 â&#x20AC;˘ Email: ssl@sasktel.net

CHANGE BUY SELL TRADE

Truck For Sale 2007 Doepker 50 ton, Scissorneck 48000km, 10 wide, ďŹ&#x201A;ip roll, center roll, neck extension

$55,000 1995 - Western Star - winch 3406E, 18 & 2, 46â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s, 4way, Proheat, 30 ton Braden, 180â&#x20AC;&#x2122; - 1â&#x20AC;?cable never used.

$22,000 Ed, 780-205-2993 or 306-825-9669 Lloydminster

FOR SALE

Nearly 3,000 sq. ft. of living space in this well kept bi-level. Five bedrooms, three baths, fridge, stove, dishwasher, washer, dryer, water softener, central air, underground sprinklers, and attached double garage. $369,900. For more details see MLSÂŽ 338750. Lynn Chipley C21 Border Real Estate Service 1339 Fourth Street Estevan, SK S4A 0X1 Phone: 306-634-1020

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PIPELINE NEWS July 2009

SALES AND RENTALS OF NEW AND RECONDITIONED OILFIELD EQUIPMENT • • • • • • • • •

100 thru 1000bbl API 12F Cert. Steel Tanks 400/500bbl API 12P Cert. Fibreglass Tanks New!! 750bbl & 1000bbl 100% Coated Tanks 28” x 60” 500psi Portable Test Separators 6’ x 20’ Vert. 75lb treaters 8’ x 30’ 75 lb FWKO’s Flarestacks Tubing Wellhead Equipment

TRUCKING

• • • • • • •

37.5 Ton Picker with Dual Winch 22 Ton Picker (3) 20 Ton Texas Bed Trucks (2) Tri-Axle 51’ Oilﬁeld Floats c/w Centre Roll Tandem and Tri-Axle Hiboys One Ton Trailers Sandblaster & Painter

View our website for a complete listing of services and equipment!!

Ph. 306-455-2705 Fax 306-455-2250 codygrimes@eagleoilﬁeldservices.com www.eagleoilﬁeldservices.com

Box 330 Arcola, SK S0C 0G0