Pipeline News January 2010

FOCUS EDITION: Instrumentation, Telemetry & Communications

PIPELINE NEWS Saskatchewan’s Petroleum Monthly

January 2010

FREE

Volume 2 Issue 8

Paradise Hill’s Growth Tied To O&G Page A26

Encana Becomes Cenovus

Page B1

The Pioneers!

50 Years: Industrial Communications Page B2

You won’t Ànd him in a suit often, but you might Ànd him on a tower at times. Aaron Grohn is the founder and CEO of Comtech Ltd. The company is now a leading provider of wireless solutions in Saskatchewan, and has a close working relationship with SaskTel. Story on Page C1.

Photo by Brian Zinchuk

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PIPELINE NEWS January 2010

News

Notes

December drilling outpaces last two years The number of active drilling rigs in Saskatchewan in early December outpaced both December 2007 and December 2008’s drilling pace.

According to Nickle’s Rig Locator, official publisher of CAODC rig data, the first two weeks of December saw the active drilling rig count in Saskatchewan hover around the 80 mark. At the same time over the last two years, that number was around 60. Traditionally, many rigs shut down in the latter half of the month so crews can get a break for Christmas.

Of the four western provinces, Saskatchewan was the only one to see its December drilling outpace the same month for the last two years.

In comparison, Alberta drilling picked up in November and December to the point where it caught up to the 2008 level of drilling at the end of the year, but not quite the 2007 pace. Alberta has seen an incredibly flat level of drilling since spring breakup, with the inflection point coming in late October. As of Dec. 15, its fleet had reached an activity level of 49 per cent, after spending much of the year in the 25 – 35 per cent doldrums.

Government folds 82 committees, leaves energy untouched Are there areas in the Minister of Energy and Resources the government feels it can do without? Apparently not.

On Dec. 9, the provincial government announced it was formally folding 82 provincial agencies, boards and commissions. None of them were in the Ministry of Energy and Resources.

A substantial number of the organizations had not met in several years, had completed their mandate, or had their functions absorbed by other areas.

Briefs courtesy Nickle’s Daily Oil Bulletin

Revised environmental laws to add certainty to energy projects vironment and keep up with the pace of economic

By Geoff Lee development,” said Environment Minister Nancy Pipeline News Regina – In with the new and out with the old. Heppner.

“Results-based environmental regulation will alThat New Year adage also applies to Saskatchewan’s low us to do both by focusing on the use of effective, new Environmental Management and Protection Act along with amendments to two other acts to keep up custom-designed environmental safeguards, rather than one-size-fits-all approachwith the pace of economic dees.” velopment.

The legislative amendments The new 2009 environmeninclude establishing the authortal act, along with proposed ity to create a Saskatchewan changes to the Environmental Environmental Code, which Assessment Act and the Foris comparable to the National est Resources Act, will help to Building Code, in that it will bring approvals certainty for provide guidance to regulated project developers including persons on the design of enviproposed oil and natural gas ronmental systems and faciliprojects. ties.

Currently all seismic projEnvironment Minister The Code will include ects, whether on Crown or priNancy Heppner chapters that describe the acvate land, all drilling and proceptable results and standards posed projects such as flowline/ for particular activities associpipeline construction, access routes and production facilities are subject to an en- ated with development.

The amendments follow two rounds of public vironmental review by the Ministry of Environment. consultation with a variety of stakeholders in the The ministry can determine if an environment protection plan or an environmental impact assess- province.

“We have engaged industry, communities, nonment is required under the Environmental Assessgovernmental organizations and First Nations and ment Act. Amendments to that act will end the need for Métis organizations in discussions over the past 16 the Minister to seek a court order to block a project months," Heppner said.

“The overall commitment to a results-based that could have environment impacts and require it model is high and we will continue to seek feedback to undergo an environmental assessment.

It is potentially costly for proponents to wait un- and advice from them as we move forward.”

The Environment Ministry is also working totil they are proceeding with a project to learn if the ward the development of an electronic system for Minister will seek to require an assessment.

Project developers must include extensive and environmental information and program delivery repotentially costly information for review including quired to support the new results-based model.

These changes may include web-based environa complete project description with maps, details of route and site selection, legal surveys and potential mental applications, a streamlined electronic application process and provision of on-line compliance environment impacts and mitigation measures.

Details are also required on waste management reporting to facilitate transparency in the ministry's practices, environmental monitoring and a reclama- reporting and collaborative decision-making processes. tion plan.

The amendments are designed to provide the The amendments to environmental assessment minister with the ability to conduct class assessments provisions will lead to greater certainly for energy project developers who would be prefer not to be the where multiple projects have common characteristics. subject of a government court order.

This could lead to reduced costs for project develThe changes will also promote greater efficiencies in environmental assessment processes and update opers by providing greater certainty about information requirements, desired outcomes and even stanoffence and penalty provisions.

“Throughout our consultations, we heard that dard mitigation measures.

The new Environmental Management and Proenvironmental regulation in Saskatchewan needs to better reflect best practices in protection of the en- tection Act updates the previous act passed in 2002.

The overall commitment to a results-based model is high and we will continue to seek feedback and advice from them as we move forward

PIPELINE NEWS January 2010

News

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Notes

Potash, Bakken for Norex During the first nine months of 2009, seismic company Norex Exploration Services Inc. said it continued to build on its presence in the resource plays in North America and has expanded its geographic diversification. The company was active in the oilsands of Alberta, potash industry in Saskatchewan, the Marcellus shale in northeastern United States, Bakken oil play in Saskatchewan and North Dakota, and the Utica shale gas play in Quebec.

Cannington MLA Dan D’Autremont moves a little dirt at the sod turning for the new Energy Training Institute in Estevan on Nov. 20. From left are: Estevan city councillor Roy Ludwig, Estevan MLA Doreen Eagles, Souris-Moose Mountain MP Ed Komarnicki, Minister of Advanced Education, Employment and Labour Rob Norris, D’Autremont, Southeast Regional College President and CEO Craig Brown, and Southeast Regional College Board of Governors representative Sheila Sterling.

New ETI breaks ground

By Brian Zinchuk Pipeline News Estevan – The shovels were golden, but the end result will be black gold.

Sod was turned for Estevan’s new Energy Training Institute, part of the Southeast Regional College, on Nov. 20. The facility will be built in the new Glen Peterson Industrial Park, on the city’s east side.

A + K Architects are contracted for the project.

Partners Alton Tangedal and Kurt Dietrich were both present for the sod turning.

“Part of the whole design is to have the labs adjacent to the classrooms,” Dietrich said.

“Certain groups can be in the lab, while others are in the classrooms,” Tangedal said.

The facility is designed to serve multiple functions, and can be used from community space as well as by the industry for events like trade shows. “It’s open for use, really,” according to Dietrich.

The labs will have bay doors to the outside, allowing large items to be brought in and out. The labs themselves are two-and-a-half stories tall.

“The whole concept is you’re moving things in and out,” Tangedal explained.

The facility will total approximately 44,000 square-feet.

Pipeline News asked Craig Brown, president and CEO of Southeast Regional College if the target

completion date of March, 2011 was realistic, given the delays that have hampered nearly all other construction projects in the southeast. Brown said, “That’s the target we’re still working towards.

“We’ll still be in the design stages until Christmas and releasing the tender documents early spring.”

He adds, “It’s going to be a large contractor, with lots of horsepower. You’ll see upwards of 200 to 250 tradespeople over the course of the project, up to a hundred at a time.”

Bob Ross of Enform notes the safety organization has assisted in a consultation form. “We had engineers and architects in our facility in Nisku,” he said.

Addressing the gathered crowd, Sheila Sterling, of the Southeast Regional College board of governors, said, “We’re going to break ground and get ’er rolling.

“We are very excited about the partnership with the provincial and federal governments.”

Rob Norris, Minister of Advanced Education, Employment and Labour, said, “This is about creating jobs today and creating opportunity in the knowledge economy.”

He added there will be new training and employment opportunities. ɸ Page A6

Husky completes Penn West deal An agreement by Penn West Energy Trust to sell its heavy oil properties in the Lloydminster area of Alberta and Saskatchewan to Husky Energy Inc. has closed.

The purchase price for the properties within Husky’s Lloydminster area of operations was not disclosed.

The asset acquisition provides Husky with more than 6,000 barrels of oil production per day along with 12 million bbls of proven oil reserves and 8.5 million bbls of probable reserves. The reserve estimates are as of Nov. 1.

“This is a strategic acquisition in a region that is a very profitable and highly productive business segment,” John Lau, Husky president and chief executive officer, said in a news release. “We will capitalize on our technical expertise and take advantage of operational synergies by integrating these assets into the company's extensive heavy oil operations.”

Husky also has acquired 16,700 acres (26 sections) of undeveloped land with the purchase. “This will compliment the company's extensive heavy oil resource base by adding approximately one billion bbls of discovered petroleum initially in place,” he said.

The Lloydminster area is a core area for Husky business, where the company's heavy oil assets are concentrated in a producing region covering more than 8,000 square kilometres.

Briefs courtesy Nickle’s Daily Oil Bulletin

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EDITORIAL

PIPELINE NEWS January 2010

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

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

Editorial Contributions: SOUTHEAST Brian Zinchuk - Estevan 1.306.634.1015 SOUTHWEST Swift Current 1.306.634.1015 NORTHWEST Geoff Lee - Lloydminster 1.780.875.6685

10 0 2

Associate Advertising Consultants: SOUTHEAST • Estevan 1.306.634.2654 Jan Boyle - Sales Manager Cindy Beaulieu Glenys Dorwart Kristen O’Handley Deanna Tarnes

Happy New Year!

SOUTHWEST • Swift Current 1.306.773.8260 Doug Evjen Stacey Powell NORTHWEST • Lloydminster Daniela Tobler 1.780.875.6685 MANITOBA • Virden - Gail Longmuir 1.204.748.3931 • Estevan - Jan Boyle 1.306.634.2654

2009

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Here’s to 2010 kicking the snot out of 2009!

Editorial

We got no money, honey After a hellish 2009 economically speaking, Saskatchewan is going to have to pay up in 2010 for spending our way out of recession.

In early December, Finance Minister Rod Gantefoer indicated he would be seeking a zero increase in spending budget.

It feels good to shove money out the door when the times are good, but it’s not the smartest thing to do, even if you think you can afford it. The problem is expectations get built up in the good times and are unsustainable in the lean times.

Spending loads of money you don’t have when times are bad isn’t the saviour it’s cracked up to be, either.

The idea of spending your way out of a recession is a dubious one. Global leaders wanted each country to spend about two per cent of its GDP on stimulus to fix the 2009 recession. The Government of Canada bought into this, as did the province of Saskatchewan. Together, the countryside is littered with federal and provincial logos on signs proclaiming stimulus spending projects.

The new infrastructure projects were supposed to keep people working and the wheels of the economy turning.

The problem is, for most of Canada, this entire stimulus was done out of deficit spending. It’s going to have to be paid back some time. One year of pain may mean years of payback to make up for the stimulus.

Saskatchewan was in a better cash position than most going into the recession. We had money gushing in the previous year from resource revenue – particularly potash and oil. Considering the billion dollars in crown land sales equalled about a 10th of the provincial

budget, that’s a lot of extra coin. If potash sales hadn’t collapsed into the abyss, we’d still be just fine.

The problem is, we’re not.

Kudos to Gantefoer for letting people know now that the party’s over – there will no longer be wanton spending.

However, he probably should have been more restrictive with his spending in the previous years, and paid down more debt. Did we really need an increase of 24 per cent in government spending since the Saskatchewan Party took power, as reported by the Leader Post? What did we get for it?

Maybe Gantefoer should have been stingier then, because he’s going to have to be Scrooge now.

Expect to see labour unrest this year. The biggest line item on the provincial budget is health (over 40 per cent), and the majority of that spending is on salaries. The only way to have a zero increase in spending overall is to chop other areas in favour of health, or hold back any salary increases this year. To do that would likely require legislation to break current contracts, and a real hard nose at the bargaining table for new negotiations.

If all the health care workers expect salary increases this year, we had better drill a lot of oil wells to pay for it.

With oil prices at a decent level now, black gold may end up being the white knight coming to Gantefoer’s aid.

But he can’t be sure of that, since the pink potash knight left him at the altar. Once bitten, twice shy. If oil does beef up provincial coffers this year, take that money and run to the bank with it, Mr. Finance Minister. Don’t build it into systemic spending.

After two years of saying “Yes,” Gantefoer will spend the next two saying “No.”

PIPELINE NEWS January 2010

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Opinion Cavemen chew the global warming fat (of mammoth) From the top of the pile Brian Zinchuk

Setting: 12,000 B.C. Caveman Ug, and his buddy, Thug, are chewing the fat (of mammoth) around a campfire, discussing global warming. Ug has recently been visited by a time traveller, who has told him about the 21st century.

Ug: So this guy from the future says the world looks a lot different in his time.

Thug: Do tell.

Ug: Well, for one thing, the glaciers to the north of us are going to be gone. Just gone.

Thug: How? Ug: Well, the world is going to warm up and it’s all going to melt.

Thug: Where’s it going to go?

Ug: The sea level is going to rise something like 120 metres. You know that beachfront property cousin Bug has down south? It’s going to be under water.

All that’s going to be left of that area is the top of the hill behind his place. They’re going to call it Florida.

Thug: Wow. Ug: What’s got me really worried is the disappearing permafrost in Wisconsin.

Thug: That land has been frozen for thousands of years.

Ug: I know. But the 4-km thick glacier just to the north is going to disappear and when it’s gone, so will the permafrost next to it.

Thug: What are they going to do with that land now?

Ug: I dunno. Grow corn and raise cows, I guess.

Oh, and that land bridge between Alaska and Siberia? Gone. Covered in water.

There’s even going to be some new lakes not far from here. They’re going to call them Michigan, Superior, Huron, Ontario and Erie. Something about melting glaciers again.

You know what’s really weird? He said that there’s going to be a whole country where all the glaciers are.

They’re going to call it Canada, and over 30 million people will live there.

Thug: You’re full of mammoth crap. There’s no way people are going to live in that frozen wasteland.

Ug: Oh, it will still be frozen, but just in the winter, not year-round. They’re even going to do things like grow crops and trees and stuff!

Thug: Trees will never grow there!

Ug: Seriously! Half the country will be covered in trees once the ice melts.

Thug: So what’s causing all this?

Ug: I dunno. All I know is mankind just figured out how to master fire, and now my wife, Ug-Lee, wants us to reduce our carbon footprint.

Thug: How? Ug: This fire thing we figured out a few years ago?

It turns out it’s bad for the planet. Burn less wood, she says.

Thug: That sucks. It’s nice not freezing at night anymore.

Ug: You know who I blame for this global warming thing? Mammoths and bison.

Thug: Why would you say that?

Ug: Ever see how much gas comes out of mammoth when it farts? Do you have any idea how much methane a herd of a million bison belches?

Thug: Good point.

Ug: It’s not like we have cars or oilsands to blame for the end of the ice age a few thousand years from now. The oilsands are all under ice, too.

Thug: I heard a bunch of people want to gather to protest this climate change thing. They’re supposed to meet at this place called Copenhagen.

Ug: Sorry, no can do.

Thug: Why is that?

Ug: It’s under a mile of ice for the next two or three thousand years.

Brian Zinchuk is editor of Pipeline News. He can be reached at brian.zinchuk@sasktel.net.

World ends in 2012, but enjoy 2010 Happy New Year and enjoy it while you can. According to an ancient Mayan calendar, the world will come to an end on Dec. 21, 2012.

Until then, make the most of 2010 as Canada’s leading forecasters (none of whom are Mayan) are projecting Saskatchewan’s economy will be on the upswing again after shrinking approximately 2.6 per cent in 2009.

The Conference Board of Canada posted one of the most optimistic forecasts calling for a growth rate for Saskatchewan of 3.7 per cent.

The only caveat is the future of potash – low sales were the main cause of the provincial recession in 2009. The industry may not recover sufficiently to turn the economy around in 2010, noted the Ottawabased economic forecaster.

A group of forecasters that includes the Conference Board, Global Insight, C4SE, TD, RBC, BMO, CIBC, Scotiabank and Laurentian – is projecting an economic growth rate for Saskatchewan of 2.8 per cent in 2010, tied with BC for the best in Canada.

What that means, of course, is that we can all buy a truckload of furniture and appliances with no payments beginning until Dec. 22, 2012.

Predicting the price of oil could be a lot trickier

Lee Side of Lloyd Geoff Lee

as so much depends on supply and demand, the U.S. economic recovery and those inevitable international surprises such as wars and whims of dictators in countries awash in oil.

It’s always nicer to suggest the price will be higher as that incites optimism, so that’s where this Mayan scribe is putting his money for 2010 with price adjustments due after Dec. 21, 2012.

Back in August 2009, a Reuters poll of 30 analysts predicted oil would average more than $73 a barrel in 2010 but what do they know that your average forward-looking Mayan doesn’t?

There is also likely to be a lot more research and

development and launches of new oil recovery technologies and devices as companies seek to maximize their return on investment on their existing assets.

No doubt, the Bakken play in southwestern Saskatchewan will continue to be the oil producing hotspot in the province and there will be further consolidations as the larger companies get even larger.

We could also see a rush of new drilling if the deep Torquay zone proves to be as oil rich in Saskatchewan as it is in North Dakota where it’s called the Three Forks-Sanish formation.

On the downside, exports of crude and petroleum products are expected to be depressed, with reduced output of heavy oil offsetting higher production of light crude according to crystal ball readers at Economic Development Canada.

The EDC forecast growth in export values of 4 percent in 2010 will be led by a modest increase in the price of oil.

It will take 365 days to prove which economic pundit is correct about 2010 but only a few months to prove what we all know will happen – the Toronto Maple Leafs will not win the Stanley Cup. It says so in the Mayan calendar – but after Dec 21, 2012, all bets are off.

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

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PIPELINE NEWS January 2010

An investment in Estevan’s future ɺ Page A3 Souris-Moose Mountain MP Ed Komarnicki recounted, “This project took place on a hurry-up basis.”

Pointing out that Estevan, the Energy City, has oil, coal, and CO2 projects in the area, he said, “We need governments to get behind that.”

“The best prospect for anyone is a job, and we have invested those funds in education and training.”

He said it took last minute negotiations both the federal and provincial governments to make the project happen.

“We want to be sure we build on the infrastructure of the future. What’s going to happen in the building? It’s going to create growth. It’s going to create potential.”

Estevan MLA Doreen Eagles said, “This facility will position Estevan as a centre of excellence.

“We will see great things develop from this facility.

“I’ve been in their face for so long, sometimes I think it was done to get me out of their hair,” she said with a smile, recounting efforts to make the new ETI a reality.

Estevan city councillor Roy Ludwig said, “This is a proud day for the city of

Estevan and our community.”

He added the RM of Estevan has been a true partner. The facility will be built on land that was recently annexed from the rural municipality.

Answering questions, Trent Jordens, general manager of the college, said during spring breakup there could be between 200 and 400 or more people taking classes at the new facility.

Implementing green technologies, like solar and wind power, would likely be later developments. “We can introduce that in stages,” he said.

“This is an excellent opportunity. It shows the faith and development in the oilpatch, and a need for safety and proper training,” said Cannington MLA Dan D’Autremont after the ceremonies.

Warren Waldegger, general manager for T. Bird Oil, told Pipeline News, “It means not having to ship our guys around the country to get training.

“Estevan has been an exporter of talent to around the world. We have to replace those individuals.”

Kelly Lafrentz of Kelly Lafrentz Trucking called it, “Fantastic – the greatest thing that can happen for this industry in Estevan.”

He hoped it could lead to training for crane operators.

Energy Training Institute - Safety Classes • All classes begin at 8:30 am unless otherwise stated Confined Space Estevan – Jan 13 or 26 Weyburn – Jan 18

H2S Alive Estevan – Jan 7 or 20 Weyburn – Jan 5 or 12 or 22 H2S Alive Challenge Weyburn – Jan 28

Construction Safety Training System (CSTS) Assiniboia, Estevan, Weyburn, and Whitewood First Aid and CPR (Standard) and AED Estevan – Jan 5 & 6 or 18 & 19 Weyburn – Jan 6 & 7 or 13 & 14 or 26 & 27 Assiniboia – Jan 19 & 20 Carlyle – Jan 27 & 28 Moosomin – Jan 28 & 29

Heavy Equipment Operator Program - 200 hours Indian Head – Spring 2010 Weyburn – Spring 2010 Assiniboia - Spring 2010 Petroleum Safety Training (PST) Assiniboia, Estevan, Weyburn & Whitewood TDG or WHMIS On-line

First Aid and CPR Refresher and AED (must have a current certificate) Estevan – Jan 12 Weyburn – Jan 19 Assiniboia – Jan 23 Forklift Assessment Contact your local campus for more information

Transportation of Dangerous Goods (TDG) Weyburn – Jan 13 Estevan – Jan 13 Truck Driver Training Contact your local campus for dates and current tuition prices

General Oilfield Driver Improvement (GODI) Estevan – Jan 21

Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System (WHMIS) Weyburn – Jan 13 Estevan – Jan 13

Ground Disturbance, Global Estevan – Jan 27 Weyburn – Jan 27

For more info or to register call toll free:

1-866-999-7372 Visit our website: www.southeastcollege.org

Souris-Moose Mountain MP Ed Komarnicki addresses the crowd at the sod turning ceremonies for the new Energy Training Institute in Estevan.

Troy Illingworth Cell: (780) 808-3183 Tim Sharp Cell: (780) 871-1276

Office: (780) 847-4666 Fax: (780) 847-4661

Box 82 Marwayne, AB Welders, Service Crews, Lease Mowing & Bobcat Service

! e r Winter is he

PIPELINE NEWS January 2010

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OnStar a feature-rich option Lloydminster – Life happens when you’re driving. less cellular connection and satellite GPS navigation. Sound is transmitted through That’s GM’s marketing slogan for its OnStar vehicle communication system vehicle stereo speakers. that could offer oil companies and employees the best value-added solution to Sas“For those who are in their vehicles – people in the oil patch who spend a lot of katchewan’s new hands-free cellphone law for drivers that comes into effect Jan 1. their time in their trucks – it is a great feature.”

“There’s been a few phone calls about that,” Lacey Hauck, marketing coordinaOnStar can also help drivers stay connected in other provinces that have banned tor at Ulmer Chevrolet in Lloyhand-held cellphones while dminster. driving including Nova Scotia, The new law in SaskatchNewfoundland and Labrador, ewan prohibits people from Quebec and Ontario. B.C. has using hand-held cellphones to introduced legislation to impletalk, text, e-mail or surf the Inment a ban. ternet while driving, prompting In Saskatchewan, experioil companies and employees to enced drivers are allowed to use shop for alternatives such as Onhands-free devices while drivStar. ing but new drivers are prohib“I really don’t think people ited from using cellphones of are aware of all of the features any type. The fine will be $280. that OnStar provides,” said GM’s OnStar hands-free Hauck. “I think there needs to calling service comes with a free be some building of awareness of three-month trial package. New how great the system really is.” pre-paid minute packages can OnStar’s three button system be purchased by speaking with on the rear view mirror provides an OnStar advisor. Select the drivers with access to automatic phone button to make a call. crash response, emergency and “It is very comparable to security services, turn-by-turn the minutes that you would be navigation, hands-free calling purchasing with a cellphone,” and vehicle diagnostics 24/7. said Hauck. “There are differLacey Hauck, a marketing coordinator with Ulmer Chevrolet in Lloydminster shows how The catch is OnStar is only easy it is easy to access GM’s three button OnStar communication system on a new Sil- ent minute packages and service available on GM vehicles start- verado. features. ing with most 2008 models and “The amount of services is standard equipment on all that come with OnStar makes it 2009 and 2010 vehicles that also have available Bluetooth technology. worthwhile.

“You can make and receive phone calls with OnStar just as easily as with Blu“There’s the turn-by-turn navigation. That’s another great feature that comes etooth,” said Hauck. “Not all cellphones are Bluetooth compatible and with OnStar with it – especially for the people in the oil patch with all of the lease roads. It’s you don’t need a cellphone.” definitely worthwhile to check out.”

OnStar features hands-free calling with voice-activated dialing with a wireɸ Page A8

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PIPELINE NEWS January 2010

New options for hands-free communication ɺ Page A7 The navigation system works by pushing the OnStar button and telling the advisor where you want to go to receive voice-guided directions to your destination.

“The directions show up on the radio display panel. It’s all done on satellite and by computer,” said Hauck.

“The hands free calling and turn-by-turn navigation are the two best features that OnStar will provide oilpatch workers.”

Oil companies with fleets will also like OnStar’s monthly e-mail report on vehicle diagnostics on hundreds of checks of the engine, transmission, brakes, air bags and other key operating systems.

“Companies are given the web site they can log onto with all of the diagnostic information,” said Hauck. “You have better control because you can see your oil life and when your vehicle needs to be serviced.

“With all of the diagnostics, it gives you peace of mind driving. It monitors all of the fluids, tire pressure and electronics.”

With the push of the red emergency button, drivers can alert the advisor to contact fire, police or emergency medical services personnel and use GPS to guide them to the scene.

OnStar’s security services range from reporting stolen vehicles that are tracked by GPS to sending a remote signal to slow a suspected stolen vehicle to idle speed. Roadside assistance services are also available.

Despite the slowdown in the economy, Ulmer Chev reported strong sales of trucks in October as oil patch activity and consumer confidence regained a measure of strength.

“Because other dealerships closed down we are getting stock from them and they have been going

quickly,” said Hauck. “ “The best seller is the Silverado truck. Pretty much everybody wants the heavy duty models.

Everybody has different needs especially in the oil patch. You have everything from welding to crew

trucks.

“It’s looking optimistic for 2010. We have some pretty good events coming up in the year. We will be bringing awareness about a lot of great features such as OnStar and go from there.”

Packers Plus feted as top national entrepreneur Vancouver – Packers Plus Energy Services Inc. is basking in the glow of being named Canada’s Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2009.

“By challenging traditional thinking, Packers Plus has developed and proven brilliant new technology that is profoundly changing Canada’s energy sector,” said Colleen McMorrow, national director of the Entrepreneur of the Year Awards held in Vancouver Nov. 25.

“As this year’s winners, they showed a remarkable level of entrepreneurial spirit and have established what’s sure to be a lasting impact on their industry.”

The national award was presented to Dan Themig, Ken Paltzat and Peter Krabben, who founded the company in 2000 and developed their revolutionary multi-stage fracturing StackFRAC technology used worldwide.

Their technology has led to a dramatic increase in the amount of recoverable oil and natural gas from wells requiring fracturing. It was introduced to the U.S. market in 2001 and is credited with igniting the productive Bakken play for oil exploration in 2006.

Their invention has simplified pressure-pumping operations and improved completion time. The system also reaches large natural gas and oil resources that can’t be tapped through conventional

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The national award follows the company’s selection as Ernst & Young top Entrepreneur of the year for the Prairie Region in October.

A recent Ernst & Young survey, Lessons from change – Future market leaders, revealed that leading entrepreneurs, like Packers Plus, have successfully made pursuing growth opportunities their number one priority despite a tough economy.

“Entrepreneurs see the world differently from most people, and Packers Plus is no exception,” said McMorrow in a news release.

“They seek out opportunity in the unlikeliest of economic conditions and take calculated risks to grow despite the challenging environment.”

Packers Plus continues to develop innovative products including its proprietary RapidMATRIX, Titanium XV and new StackFRAC HD technologies that boost production in tight rock and shale gas formations.

Packers Plus has seven locations in Canada including its corporate head office in Calgary, its manufacturing and technology centers in Edmonton, and three service centers throughout Alberta and Saskatchewan including a busy shop in Estevan.

The company also has 10 offices internationally.

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PIPELINE NEWS January 2010

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PIPELINE NEWS January 2010

Ferbey second takes lead in marketing partnership

By Geoff Lee Lloydminster – Newco Tank Corp. of Lloydminster has drawn to the button in promoting it's environmentally friendly production tanks.

Elite curler Scott Pfeifer, a member of Randy Ferbey’s team that missed a shot at an Olympic berth at the Roar of the Rings in Edmonton last month, has been hired to skip the sales and marketing team for the green Newco tank.

Newco Tank recently formed a partnership with Ventures North Financial Group Inc. and named Pfeifer as president of a new sales division called Newco

Ryan Clark, Scott Pfeifer, Kevin Clarke, Fred North and Aaron Davison celebrated a new marketing and Ànancing partnership with Newco Tank Corp. in December.

Capital Corp.

“I have done a lot of work with Ventures North in the past with equipment financing in the oilpatch and they thought it would be a great idea to bring me on board and help market the Newco tank,” said Pfeifer.

“It will be my full time job. Curling has taken quite a toll on me the last few months but I look forward to starting this new venture.

“With my previous business experience and support of the other guys, we will be able to get this product on the market and have a successful business.”

Newco Capital Corp. will be based at Ventures North head office in Sherwood Park, with a satellite sales and leasing office at TNT Tank & Trailer in Lloydminster.

TNT partners with Ventures North on lease financing of its trailers as well as property investments and all types of equipment for oilfield, construction and industrial purposes.

“We have a signed into a deal that we are going to be marketing it for them worldwide,” said TNT general manager Fred North, who hosted the official partnership launch ceremony at his yard on Dec 3.

“We definitely think the tank is a good idea and it has potential. It’s a big environmental advantage,” said North. “It makes the lease smaller and there is big cash savings when you are not using propane to heat the tank.

“It’s going to be a sell like everything else that is new, but I think it’s going to be really big.”

Newco Capital Corp. will offer three to 10-year term leases and along with sales of the 1,000 barrel tank.

“For a smaller company that’s just getting started drilling wells, they can do it by the month,” said North. “That way, they don’t have to lay out a whole bunch of capital at the beginning.”

Three Newco tanks have already been sold including a pair to Husky Energy and to Nordic Oil and Gas that recognized the potential last summer when it leased its first tank.

In addition, 10 new tanks are currently being manufactured by Universal Industries in Lloydminster and TNT will keep a demo tank on its site as a sales and showpiece tool. ɸ Page A11

PIPELINE NEWS January 2010

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Spreading the word ɺ Page A10 The Newco Tank is the brainchild of Kevin Clarke, who designed an energy efficient heavy oil production tank that generates engine heat to heat the fluid utilizing exhaust, glycol, hydraulic, and compartment heat.

His design eliminates the old style of the flame arrestor/burner tube system and the need for a shack. The tank is engineered to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 75 per cent.

“The main selling points are the propane savings, the reduced CO2 emissions and noise pollution,” said Clarke. “The tank is quieter and it runs more efficiently.”

Clarke is already working on the development of a new two-tank system and says the partnership with Newco Capital will allow him more time for research and development. His sons Ryan and Colin will also join the project team.

“I am wearing many hats and with these guys on board, it will give me the freedom to concentrate on what I am good at.

“It’s going to be a good partnership,” he said.

“They will look after all of the sales and marketing and leasing.

“I was running this as a one-man show for quite a while and I needed some help. We are establishing a better team and getting some good people on board.”

“It’s getting exciting. Things are going to be good. The Saskatchewan government wants to look at our business profile to see if they can adapt some of our technology to the oilpatch.”

The idea to partner and market the Newco tank came about following a fall meeting between Clarke and Ventures North associates North and Aaron Davison who liked they saw.

“We like the product because it’s good for the environment,” said Davison. “We like products that mean something to us and this one certainly does.

“It’s most environmentally friendly and we want to be proactive in the industry. It has applications wherever there is heavy oil throughout the world.

“You have to crawl before you run and that’s the stage we’re at – marketing locally.

“A lot of energy companies are concerned about the environment and reducing their emissions. This tank is certainly a beneficial application. The propane savings are significant enough to pay for the tank.”

Davison is also sure that having a high profile athlete like Pfeifer heading Newco Capital will boost sales and marketing of the tank.

“We think he’s the right person for our product,” said Davison. “He has a background in energy and business and he is concerned about the environment.

“He is very interested in the project and is a really good poster boy for it. He was with Alberta Energy before.”

From his perspective, Pfeifer is anxious to release his grip on his curling broom in what has been a busy Olympic qualifying season year and get to work spreading the word about the Newco tank.

“I think it’s fantastic. I wish I had thought of the idea,” he said. “Obviously, Kevin had a lot of foresight five or six years ago to find a solution to a problem and reduce your biggest operating cost on a heavy oil tank.

“I think operationally and environmentally, it’s a superior product. Anything that cleans up the environment and provides the oilpatch with a more efficient way of doing business is a plus in my books.”

Pfeifer has been a member of three world championship curling teams and has captured four Brier tankards in his career. Alberta’s Ferbey has four world championships and eight Brief titles to his credit.

Fred North, Scott Pfeifer, Kevin Clarke, Ryan Clarke and Aaron Davison launched a marketing and Ànance partnership with Newco Tank Corp. in December.

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PIPELINE NEWS January 2010

Diaz hopes for ‘happy’ returns from Lloydminster in 2010 Lloydminster – A decision by Diaz Resources Ltd. to sell off some promising oil and gas assets in Saskatchewan and the United States in 2009 to invest in heavy oil drilling in Lloydminster is beginning to pay off heading into 2010.

The Calgary-based oil and gas explorer reported production from its first two of four horizontal wells drilled in late 2009 at 37 and 130 barrels of oil a day, respectively, and is expecting its third and fourth wells to also strike pay zones.

“The second well we drilled is doing 130 barrels of oil a day so that’s a very nice well,” said Robert Lamond, Diaz chairman in a phone interview from Calgary, when a drilling rig was just being moved to the fourth well site.

“The good thing is we can drill a lot of offset wells if the first few hold up. We will get the rest of the production results at the end of 2009 and in the first two weeks of 2010.

“This should ramp up our cash flow at a rapid rate,” he said. “With a lot of luck, we will have a much more expanded program in the new year and if we are lucky, 15 or more additional wells in Lloydminster.

“A lot of it should be able to be developed out of cash flow. The wells come on 10 days after we drill. It’s a big advantage from gas.”

Prior to 2009, Diaz had been focused on exploration and marketing of natural gas in Alberta and Texas but all that changed when natural gas prices dropped and oil rebounded.

“Like many companies, we had our balance sheet a little bit stretched,” said Lamond. “We thought we would sell some assets and one of the oil pools we developed in Saskatchewan.”

The company sold its Parkman oil property in Saskatchewan for a total of $2.5 million to help fund the well program in Lloydminster.

Diaz raised a total of $5.2 million from the sale of non-core assets in 2009 including some undeveloped property in Texas.

The company plans to sell its remaining U.S. producing assets when natural gas prices recover.

The 2009 sales helped Diaz to reduce its net debt from $8.5 million in January 2009 to approximately $3.9 million by the end of October, 2009.

Diaz has also acquired approximately 2,000 acres of freehold and Crown land

south and west of Lloydminster with a 50 to 80 per cent working interest.

“We’ve been in natural gas for a long time and with the advent of shale gas in Canada and the United States, we think it’s more prudent in the intermediate term to invest more of our money in oil,” said Lamond.

“We’ve had this property in Lloydminster for some time. Now that the oil price has gone up and the differentials are low, it’s a really good time for Diaz to develop it.

“We think the Lloyd area has a lot of potential. We are quite aware of the oil price and the differential but right now, it would appear that we are just into a general economic recovery. We think oil prices, with occasional dips, will steadily firm up.

“We also have a large gas holding too and we are optimistic about gas but we are just a little bit uncertain.

“There are so many shale oil fields being actively developed. We are concerned people might over drill them or bring a lot of gas onto the market at a not very appropriate time.

“I have always liked gas because of its steady production and the low operating costs.

“Since gas has been so volatile lately our focus is on drilling these wells in Lloydminster and getting them on as fast as we can.”

Diaz also owns about 3,000 acres of land in the Birdbear horizontal play in west central Saskatchewan where the company plans to drill a horizontal well in the first quarter of 2010.

In addition they own about 5,000 acres in the Shaunavon play and have a block of land in the Viking play.

“We are on the edge of a number of successful Saskatchewan plays,” said Lamond. “We are really in some of the popular names like the Viking down at Dodsland, the Birdbear and Shaunavon formations. Those are just land plays at the moment.

“Those will be developed later in 2010 as we get Lloydminster up and running.

“Lloydminster is a very oily area and there are some pretty good companies who have been there a long time, like Husky with very large land holdings.

PIPELINE NEWS January 2010

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Pason products must-haves for ef¿cient operations Calgary – Pason Systems Inc. has become the world’s largest provider of rental oilfield instrumentation systems for use on land-based drilling and service rigs.

The company’s data acquisition, well site reporting software, remote communications, and internet information management tools have helped the Calgarybased company capture a 90 per cent market share in Canada and 50 per cent in the U.S. At least two reasons for its success are the popularity of its core Electronic Drilling Recorder (EDR) and newer products such as a Remote Directional System that both bridge the gap between remote leases and offices.

The EDR, for example, when combined with a self-aiming satellite dish generates real-time data to the rig manager and rig crew, operator, geologist, mud logger, underbalanced drilling (UBD) technician, directional hand or any other rig site user on a data computer network.

“A drilling recorder is a must-have on a drilling rig and we do our best to show ours is the best one to have,” said Lars Olesen, Pason’s sales manager for Canada.

“It provides reliable information; it’s easy to use and is well featured.

It stands up to a hostile environment.

“The rig moves all the time. There are extreme temperatures and shaking and vibrations and all sort of things.

Making sure you can get reliable data every day is the key.”

The recorder tracks and logs the basic operational parameters of the rig including the rate of penetration, hookload/ weight on bit, depth, the rpm of the rig floor, torque and tank volumes.

“On the rig, the information is spread around to the consultant’s and geologist’s shack and the rig manager’s shack so when they are not on the rig floor they are not blind. They can see what is going on with the rig,” said Olesen.

The EDR provides the base for Pason’s other instrumentation including the remote drilling Choke Actuator, Pit Volume Totalizer, Sidekick, AutoDriller, Mud Analyzer, Total Gas System and Hazardous Gas Alarm.

“The EDR clearly saves immense amounts of time,” said Olesen.

“You have more people

doing the engineering and understanding what’s going on in the rig and what wells are performing and getting that data back to town so bit manufacturers or any authorized service provider can see it.”

Data is also sent to servers in Calgary and backed up at a couple of locations in North America. Clients access their encrypted data with a user name and password.

“The main business of Pason is service,” said Olesen. “That’s why we have 65 people in the field in western Canada.

We are trying to keep networks of computers and electronics and sensors running in a hostile environment.”

Pason has expanded its market share of the rig rental base in the U.S. with the recent acquisition of Petron Industries Inc., a designer and

manufacturer of drilling rig instrumentation systems based in Houston, Texas.

“The last couple of years, our growth has leveled off a bit but we have had pretty explosive growth in the U.S. with the number of rigs installed with systems last

year before the slowdown hit,” said Olesen.

“We do really well in the western hemisphere, in South America and Mexico and we are doing really well in Australia. We are working on getting a little more aggressive this year on the Middle East, Asia and

other places.

“We excel at volume.

There are about 1,500 rigs in North America and about 1,000 rigs drilling in the rest of the world. We are tied to rig counts so when the rig count slows down we slow down.” ɸ Page A14

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PIPELINE NEWS January 2010

That dish on the rig

A pason satellite dish sits near a Panther Drilling rig west of Stoughton last fall.

Photo by Brian Zinchuk

ɺ Page A13 Pason has built solid business niche renting equipment and systems, a business platform that Olesen says, “suits the service model where people want the latest and greatest.

“The main reason for rentals is customer satisfaction. What you are dealing with is a lot of technology and a lot of software. Customers want upgrades.

“We produce up to four upgrades a year of our software. It’s also reasonably service intensive and customers don’t necessarily want that sort of capital costs.”

Parson’s latest Remote Directional System is bound to find lots of rental use on drilling rigs everywhere.

It’s marketed as enabling a directional driller to remotely monitor and manage multiple wells with tools to communicate with the driller on the rig floor and the in the doghouse.

The system replaces the existing MWD surface system by decoding the mud pulse tools using Pason’s pressure sensor and displays toolface, survey, gamma and diagnostic information on the rosebud (MWD display).

It helps directional drillers, and MWD technicians work together.

The system works in conjunction

with the EDR and can save directional companies money by eliminating their surface equipment.

“What we are exploring is: can the electronics in the drilling recorder that is already there take over the responsibility and decode the mud pulse and send that back and in the same way?” said Olesen.

“We feel there is efficiency there.”

Pason’s forte is designing and manufacturing innovative and easyto-use technology that is deployed to the field simply.

They accomplish that mission by streamlining internal processes, and by using their integrated support services team to deploy products and provide assistance to maximize rig uptime, improve the efficiency of rig operations, and minimize operating costs.

“What we do is not so much cutting edge technology,” said Olesen.

“The heart of innovation is making technology usable by the people that need it.

“Where I think we are good is in taking a lot of technology and deploying it for any rig that can use it.”

Pason systems serve unconventional, conventional or coiled tubing rigs.

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PIPELINE NEWS January 2010

NEW STATION IN WEYBURN

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PIPELINE NEWS January 2010

PIPELINE NEWS January 2010

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Lloyd Company adapts to tighter regulations on burner systems Lloydminster – Tightening regulations for burner systems in recent years has meant companies who make the systems have had to adapt. Heating Solutions International Inc. of Lloydminster has two products that work towards tackling the issue, with one improving burner instrumentation.

The two products are a natural draft flamearrested burner system and an integrated burner management system with full instrumentation.

The driving force behind Heating Solutions’ technology is a Canadian Standards Association standard known as B149.3. That CSA standard affects burners of all different types, according to Todd Frieser, owner of Heating Solutions. The regulation has been implemented in Saskatchewan and Alberta, and is a commercial, industrial and residential code. Brought in for safety purposes, it requires specific safety features. However, the Code doesn’t really recognize the realities of the oilpatch, and as a result, Frieser explains, “There isn’t a burner out there in the industry that has a CSA approved assembly, yet.”

Frieser says the regulations were not tailored for the oil and gas industry.

The key is to get an engineering variance approved by the “authority having jurisdiction,” or AHJ. In Saskatchewan, the authority is SaskPower.

In 2007, SaskPower began putting burners up to a higher standard.

“The intent of the variance is to ensure the continuity and viability of operations within the applicable law. The primary objective is to apply, as much as possible, the intent of the Code and cer-

tified components while maintaining the liability and safety process,” Frieser explains. It’s a line he’s used many times while training operators in the systems.

To address B149.3, Frieser says Heating Solu-

Emerge closes Lloydminster purchase Emerge Oil & Gas Inc. has completed the acquisition of certain oil and natural gas assets in the company's core operating and producing area of Lloydminster around the Saskatchewan and Alberta border and in Provost, Alberta.

The total consideration for the assets acquired from Provident Energy Trust was approximately $85 million, following closing adjustments. The payment consisted of $17 million in common shares of Emerge, comprised of 8.5 million common shares priced at $2 per common share, and approximately $68 million in cash which was primarily funded from the net proceeds of a $65.55 million receipt financing, which was completed Nov. 19.

tions has two different approaches. The first is a natural draft flame-arrested burner system.

“We’re always utilizing raw casing gas,” he states, expressing it is a cost savings measure. As such, the goal is to get the maximum amount of heat with the least amount of fuel. We also focus on emission reductions, he says.

The second is the Burner Management System, and that’s where things get interesting.

That’s because this system is much smarter than old, non-compliant systems. “Without having to use SCADA, we can integrate temperature control, high temperature shutdown, flame failure shutdown, automatic ignition, low level and high level shutdown in one unit, utilizing one level transmitter,” he says.

That transmitter registers head pressure in the tank.

With a SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) link, it can report back to a control room.

The application can be for anything that has a fire tube, with examples ranging from 1,000 barrel storage tanks, to line heaters, reboilers, treaters, and free water knockouts.

The Burner Management System has been around in various incarnations for several years, according to Frieser, with the current version being six months old. “Our system in its entirety has evolved to this state,” Frieser says. With the new burner management system, all of the items that were present before are now integrated into one unit, without external devices.”

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PIPELINE NEWS January 2010

Strong December land sale bodes well for 2010 Regina – Saskatchewan experienced what could be called a Santa Claus rally in December with the final sale of Crown petroleum and natural gas rights in 2009 generating a generous $34.9 million in revenue for the province.

The sales boosted the year-end total to $111.9 million and leads Energy and Resources Ministry Bill Boyd to anticipate a “January effect” similar to the stock market that often rises on optimism in the New Year.

“The industry continues to build momentum in this sale and the one that preceded it in October,” said Energy and Resources Minister Bill Boyd in a news release.

At $34.9 million, the December land sale was the fourth largest year-end sale.

“We’re seeing increased industry activity over the last half of 2009 as a result of the strengthening in oil prices,” added Boyd.

“Some companies have announced ambitious drilling programs for 2010 and this sale would indicate that others may be drilling more aggressively next year.”

The previous year, 2008, ended with a record setting $1.12 billion in revenue from land sales including a $47 million take from the December, 2008 sales.

Sales plummeted to just $6.3 million in February 2009 – the first sale of the year – as the economy went into a freefall for the first half of the year.

The 2009 December sale included 14 petroleum and natural gas exploration licences that sold for $14.7 million and 257 lease parcels that attracted $20.2 million in bonus bids.

Again, the Lloydminster region bested the southeast in sales. The Lloydminster area received the most bids with sales of $22.5 million.

The Weyburn-Estevan area was next at $6.9 million, followed by the Kindersley-Kerrobert area at $4.4 million and the Swift Current area at $1.1 million.

The highest price paid for a single parcel was $3.5 million. Canadian Coastal Resources Ltd. acquired this 2,290-hectare exploration licence near Unity.

The next sale of Crown petroleum and natural gas dispositions will be held on February 8, 2010.

The following is a summary of the December sale with revenue and hectares rounded off.

Lloydminster ($22.3 million total) The top purchaser of acreage in this area was Canadian Coastal Resources Ltd. who spent $8.7 million, to acquire five lease parcels and five licences.

The highest price paid for a single lease in this area was $531,488 by Canadian Coastal Resources for a 518 hectare parcel situated 1.5 kilometers northeast of the Reward Waseca (Oil) Pool, 19km southwest of Unity.

The top price paid for a single licence in the area was $3.5 million by Canadian Coastal Resources for a 2,289-ha block offering deeper rights adjacent to the Reward Waseca (Oil) Pool, 21-km southwest of Unity.

The highest dollar per hectare in this area was received from Scott Land and Lease Ltd., who paid $3,982/ha for a 129.5-ha parcel located within the Maidstone-Mannville Sands (Oil) Pools, 5-km west of Maidstone.

Weyburn-Estevan ($6.9 million total) The top purchaser of acreage in this area was Openfield Resources Ltd., who spent $1.7 million

to acquire 23 lease parcels.

The highest price paid for a single lease in this area was $402,000 by Villanova Resources Inc. for a 130-ha parcel situated within the Lightning Tilston Beds Pool, 7-km northwest of Redvers.

This is the highest dollar per hectare in this area at $3,105/ha.

The top price paid for a single licence in this area was $287,971 by LandSolutions Inc. for a 1,291-ha block offering split rights partially within the Freda Lake Ratcliff Beds Pool, 14-km southeast of Ceylon.

Kindersley-Kerrobert ($4.3 million total) The top purchaser of acreage in this area was Lane Land Services Ltd., who spent $1.48 million to acquire 12 lease parcels.

The best price paid for a single lease in this area was $348,489; paid LandSolutions for a 259ha parcel situated partially within the Avon Hill Viking (Oil) Pool, 13-km northeast of Kindersley.

This is the highest dollar per hectare in this area at $1,345/ha.

Swift Current ($1.58 million total) The top purchaser of acreage in this area was Lane Land Services, who spent $404,131 to acquire three lease parcels.

The highest price paid for a single lease in this area was $161,289 by Lane Land Services for a 260-ha parcel situated 2-km east of the Bench Shaunavon (Oil) Pool, 24-km southeast of Gull Lake.

The highest dollar per hectare in this area was received from Lane Land Services. They paid $1,286/ha for 64-ha parcel within the Notukeu Upper Shaunavon (Oil) Pool, 28-km southeast of Gull Lake.

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PIPELINE NEWS January 2010

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Land surveyors to mark their 100th year AGM is the 100th anniversary,” said Clarke, who is manager of Altus Geomatics in Lloydminster.

“It’s going to be a celebration. It should help the public become more aware of us and what we do.

“Certainly landowners get to know what we Jim Clarke and other do when there is a lease members of the Saskatchewan Land Sur- on their land.

“Everyone has a piece veyors’ Association will celebrate their of property they own or 100th anniversary in rent and surveyors have Regina in 2010. been involved in estabLloydminster – The lishing those boundar2010 annual general ies. We can be involved meeting of the Saskatch- in re-establishing them ewan Land Surveyors’ for fencing purposes or Association (SLSA) in boundary disputes.

“There is pressure on Regina, March 26-27, will mark the associa- us to get it right all the time, because that’s our tion’s 100th anniversary.

The Province is ex- mandate.”

As a self-regulated pected to declare the enprofession, the SLSA adtire week of March 22 to ministers the profession 27 Saskatchewan Land Surveyors’ Week, as re- and regulates the practice quested in a letter sent by of land surveying for the former SLSA president protection of the public.

The members of the Jim Clarke to Justice Minister Don Morgan association are engaged in the determination, last July.

Clarke is spearhead- measurement and estabing the anniversary pub- lishment of boundaries of land and related aclic relations campaign.

“The theme of the tivities.

The 100th anniversary business meeting follows on the news that the sale of Crown petroleum and natural gas rights picked up pace in the latter half of 2009 bringing the total for the 2009-10 fiscal year to $119 million.

Energy and Resources Minster Bill Boyd’s statement that some oil and gas companies “have announced ambitious drilling programs for 2010” adds a note of optimism for companies such as Altus Geomatics that rely heavily on lease surveys.

“Saskatchewan is going to do well in 2010,” said Clarke. “We had a pretty good fall. We mostly did lease surveys.”

The Calgary-based company has fully equipped survey crews in all area of Alberta and Saskatchewan, with local offices in Regina, Weyburn, Swift Current and Yorkton.

The company specializes in many aspects of geomatics, especially in oilfield surveys, 3D Laser Scanning, GIS de-

velopment and all types of mapping products.

Holding an annual AGM is a legal requirement for the SLSA and its members that are governed by the The Land Surveyors and Professional Surveyors Act. “The conferences are always very enjoyable,” said Clarke. “Last year it was held in Elk Ridge resort north of Prince Albert.

“We have 70 active members and most

of them show up. With this year being the 100th, more people are expected.

“People who have retired or have moved on to other jobs would take this opportunity to come back and help us celebrate.

“We have visiting presidents from other provincial land surveyors associations who attend our AGMs as well.

“The business meeting won’t be much dif-

ferent than meetings in the past. We have all of our financial stuff to be looked after.

“We always have issues with declining membership and things like that. There could be motions for changes in some of our bylaws.”

The AGM will be based at the Radisson Plaza Hotel and will include the election of new officers. An official agenda has yet to be published.

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

A20

PIPELINE NEWS January 2010

Paradise Oil¿eld’s truck Àeet busy Paradise Hill – Water and oil hauling-that’s the specialty of Paradise Oilfield Services Ltd., with its fleet of about 31 owner-operator trucks on the go as oilfield activity picks up heading into 2010.

“We are busy. It’s picked up in the last month,” said manager Glenn Koberlin at the company’s base Paradise Hill north of Lloydminster.

“Most of our activity is in the Lashburn area and north of Lloydminster in the Tangleflags area. We also go over to the Edam, Mervin and Turtleford areas.

“I’m not sure why it’s busy, because oil prices have dropped a little. I know some of these oil companies want to get the fluid levels down on their wells so they speed wells up and things like that which make us busy.

It’s good for us.”

Paradise Oilfield’s biggest heavy oil clients are Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. and Baytex Energy.

“The biggest part of our work is hauling produced water,” said Koberlin.”

We will haul a load of water out and another company will come along and get the oil out. We haul the water to a water injection dis-

Glenn Koberlin, manager, stores and repairs spare trailers in his shop especially during the winter to keep his owner-operators mobile.

posal facility.”

Paradise Oilfield also hauls heavy crude oil from well sites to batteries, but lately their focus is hauling produced water or condensate in tractor trailers.

“The water has to come out first before you can get to the oil,” said Koberlin. “With a lot of the wells we will take water every day and with some of the wells we will take two to five loads off of water.”

Paradise Oilfield owns two trucks and can assign up to 40 owneroperator trailers to various job sites. Some of the trailers are parked overnight at the company’s shop and used as spares for drivers during cold snaps, when repairs accelerate.

“The operators will bring their trailer in and hook up to a spare one and away they go again,” said Koberlin.

“In this cold weather, we run into problems.

Travelling on a lot of the roads, the trailers take a beating. Air bags have to be replaced and there’s brake jobs. In the winter and the cold, there are lots of air problems and everything freezes up.”

Paradise Oilfield has two mechanics and a staff of 59 employees counting office workers and owner operators.

When Koberlin is not working, he can usually be found at the local hockey rink helping to look after ice. This past year was the first in many that he hasn’t coached minor hockey, but that’s understandable. ɸ Page A21

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shipping oil and produced water Mechanic Colton Gervais works on changing an air balancer for a water hauling trailer.

ɺ Page A20 The entire company is coming off a tough year following the death of owner, Lyle Winder, in the fall of 2008, and the transfer of ownership to Winder’s wife Dianne.

“It’s been on everybody’s mind for sure,” said Koberlin. “Lyle started the business in 1979 with one pressure truck. I started in 1983 and he taught me a lot.”

One of those lessons was to stick with water and oil hauling.

The company sold off its pressure truck and vacuum truck assets a few years ago to focus on fluid hauling.

“We are pretty happy with the way things are,” said Koberlin. “I don’t feel a need to get into pres-

sure trucks or steam trucks. There are lots of companies that do that kind of work. Fluid hauling is pretty steady throughout the year.

“Sometimes you can get too big and more headaches. This way, we are still on a personal level with everybody.

“People choose us because we are a smaller company, so maybe we are a little more personal. We have some good men working with us.

We try to give good service.

“We have guys spread all over.

We have trucks in the Lashburn area where most of the drivers live.

The guys who operate in Turtleford and Mervin come out of St. Walburg.”

Paradise Oilfield has experienced steady growth since 2000, when they relocated and built a new shop along the Highway 3 commercial strip in Paradise Hill.

A new office was built in 2002 and the number of trucks in operation has grown f rom 21 in 2000 to 31 in 2009.

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A22

PIPELINE NEWS January 2010

Tarpon Energy's SCADA solutions are customizable for oil, gas and water Story and photos by Geoff Lee Lloydminster – Tarpon Energy Services Ltd.’s electrical and instrumentation division is keeping busy in Lloydminster with the installation and servicing of SCADA systems that deliver data from the wellhead to production accounting.

The Lloydminster hub is also fielding steady calls for its combustion optimization and maintenance services and is expanding its customer base for SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) into municipal water and gas facilities.

Area branch offices are located in Cold Lake and Provost.

“SCADA is a growth part of the industry,” said Adrian Bast, manager of electrical services.

“Over the last few years it’s proven to be reliable.

“Most companies are finding it to be a very useful tool. It allows you to monitor the status of equipment onsite such as an engine, a tank, flow rates, pressures and temperatures.”

SCADA A SCADA system uses a combination of telemetry and data acquisition to collect and trans-

Tarpon also has a growing burner combustion optimization section. Adrian Bast added some drama to this photo by Àring up a burner at the Lloydminster shop.

mit oil and gas or water measurement information.

The system can be used to monitor and control a plant or facility remotely.

“It’s basically a processor and a radio transmitter,” said Bast. “It requires programming like a PLC (Programmable Logic Controller).

It deciphers the input information and sends it as an output signal across a radio or a hard line.

“Anywhere you can get a cellphone signal you can get on a laptop and have a look at what your plant is doing.”

Tarpon uses various full-featured programmable software programs that can provide process monitoring, visualization and control, data collection, historical and real-time trending, alarming and data archiving and reporting.

“If we are monitoring a facility, there would be end devices that connect to the RTU (Remote Terminal Unit) which in turn, would transmit back to the SCADA host system,” explained Bast.

“It’s like an alarm system. There is a downstream device like a float switch or a limit switch receiving input and converting that signal.”

The data is displayed on a number of operator screens including an HMI (Human Machine Interface) on the SCADA control panel. ɸ Page A23

PIPELINE NEWS January 2010

A23

Customizing to Âżt the clients needs Éş Page A22 “The HMI allows the operator to interact with the system,â€? said Bast. “We do the complete SCADA installation including the onsite programming with the HMI.â€?

Supported by intelligent ďŹ eld devices, expanded communication networks, and improved compatibility with information technology, SCADA can provide a wealth of information and knowledge to help users modify their business processes.

SCADA applications can be found in upstream areas such as well monitoring, downstream in areas such as pipeline operations and for ďŹ scal metering and inventory management of tank storage facilities. “We work with the client and we tailor it their needs and what they want to monitor and control. It’s totally customizable,â€? said Bast. “Some people just want the bare minimum and others want the full deal.â€?

The market for SCADA was nearly $850 million in 2007 and is forecasted to be over $1.3 billion in 2012, according to a new ARC Advisory Group study published in the U.S. ARC energy sector researchers report the worldwide SCADA

market for the oil and gas industry is expanding as upstream development and new production occurs in remote and newly developed regions and companies learn how SCADA can improve their core business processes.

Less running around “It’s vital,� said Bast. “It eliminates the needs to have an operator physically going to check and monitor their facilities continuously.

Just the sheer number of sites operators have to look at – they can concentrate on the problem areas and reduce travel time. “One person can look after a greater number of sites because they don’t have to be continually manned.

Maintenance costs are down. “Instead of having operators running around monitoring sites, they can apply their resources to where they’re most needed. “In a town or village, for example, we would install SCADA on ow lines and tanks at the water facilities.

In any town you have a water facility that is ďŹ lling a cistern or a tank that manages a number of pumps or for a distribution system. “Most of these facilities, in a matter of hours, could be out of water without monitoring the sites.

"We would install a

system that they could monitor whatever they want to monitor including chlorine levels along with distribution, tank levels and ow rates."

Despite the popularity of SCADA systems, Bast says demand is budget driven and sales have been slower with the recession. “We have been experiencing growth up until now,� he said. “Over the last year, we have been holding our own. I do think it will turnaround. “In light of the recession, we have been trying to diversify into other areas outside of our core electrical and controls business.�

Bast says what makes Tarpon stand out in Lloydminster is service. “I know everybody probably says that but I truly do believe we offer a high quality service with our qualiďŹ ed personnel responding to calls in a timely manner. “Customer relations are very important to us.

We do repair, replacements and troubleshooting – anything that our customers require. “I’d like to think we

oer a high quality that sets up apart from our competition. I think we have a great sta here,â€? said Bast. “We employ a bunch of individuals who are highly skilled at what they do.â€?

Tarpon has a sta of 20 employees in Lloydminster led by area manager Greg Johnston, with six employees assigned to a growing burner combustion division.

Tarpon oers clients a complete combustion preventative maintenance program and burner installations.

“We do burner optimization and all kinds of installs,â€? said Bast. “We will also come out to your site and do preventative maintenance on your burner systems and optimize them. We will tune them to maximize your savings if you are purchasing propane or natural gas and minimize the impact on the environment. “It’s like your vehicle. If it’s not running eďŹƒciently, a burner emits speciďŹ c gases that are harmful to the environment and equip-

ment. Making burners clean burning is the goal.�

The Lloydminster branch also recently acquired a “Proverâ€? to repair and test ow transmitters.

Tarpon has oďŹƒces or shops in 29 locations across Alberta, British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Colorado and Wyoming providing electrical controls, power and leasing, process systems and structural engineering products and services to the oil and gas market in Canada and internationally.

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PIPELINE NEWS January 2010

Entegra’s controls keeps

Blake Hunter tries to maintain a working level of parts inventory in Lloydminster.

Lloydminster – An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

That’s the approach Entegra Controls and Energy Services takes to the maintenance of oil production facility and gas compressor switching and process controls for clients in the Lloydminster area.

It’s also the approach the company is taking to grow its business locally after establishing a foothold in the competitive Lloydminster market in June, 2007.

“There’s a ton of competition in Lloyd,” said Blake Hunter instrument coordinator and branch manager. “We are

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“Our employees make the difference and it shows in our technical experience and knowledge, caring for the customer and being proud of what we do.

“If they phone here, they know who they are getting a hold of. If they need an instrument hand, chances are it’s me going to do the work.

“For the people I work for, I want to be very tight knit with them so I can have that loy-

alty.”

Hunter’s focus as an instrument journeyman is repairing switching devices that operate processes and controls on batteries and compressors. He also wears a sales cap to promote preventative maintenance programs.

If just one shutdown device fails on a compressor, compression on that site will stop. With oil batteries, the failure of a key device like an interface probe that controls the oil and water

interface in a treater can disrupt the flow of saleable oil to the market.

“Maintenance is very important,” said Hunter.

“If it prevents a crash, it saves a client a lot of money and time.

“In some cases, people who insure their facilities require a certain amount of maintenance such as emergency shutdown push button that will shut down the facility, kill everything and isolate it with shut down valves. ɸ Page A25

Abandoned wells conference to focus on compliance Calgary – The legal, financial and environmental consequences of abandoned wells and inactive pipelines will be the focus of a two-day conference being hosted

by The Canadian Institute in Calgary on Feb. 9-10.

Inactive wells and pipelines are not only a major financial liability to provinces such as Alberta but can pose serious health risks and cause environmental damage.

The Canadian Institute’s Well & Pipeline

Abandonment, Suspension and Reclamation Conference will feature presentations from leading professionals on ways to properly and costeffectively manage abandonment, suspension and reclamation activities.

Over the last five years, changes to accounting guidelines and government regulations, most notably in Alberta, have added to the financial burden created by inactive wells.

Leaving well inactive to avoid the costs of abandonment and reclamation is no longer a viable practice.

Inactive wells result in negative cash flow, reduced earnings, increased capital expenditures, a decrease in reserve bookings and risk non compliance penalties and environmental liabilities.

Many old wells have issues with vent flow leaks including sour gas, cement plugs crumbling, and pressure build up in old fields and surface contamination clean up.

These issues combined with a more active oversight from Alberta’s Energy Resources Conservation Board (ERCB) and less tolerant land owners mean companies are dealing with abandoned well issues more often.

The Calgary conference will provide information to attendees about new regulatory updates, in B.C., Alberta

and Saskatchewan, government incentives, innovative gas migration tools, cost effective remediation methods and the best practices in facility abandonment and decommissioning.

The conference is marketed to a wide range of professionals from executives and managers to production, engineering, drilling, completions, and cementing personnel.

The event will appeal to those professional representing industries such as oil and gas producers, pipeline and processing companies, drilling and completions service providers and government regulators.

Speakers have been lined up from organizations such as the ERCB, Shell Canada Products, Imperial Oil Limited, Schlumberger and Lionhead Engineering.

The Calgary conference is one of more than 200 events organized each year by The Canadian Institute that operates as a think tank, monitoring trends and developments in all major industry sectors, the law, and public policy, with a view to providing information on the leading edge.

The well abandonment conference will follows a Carbon Capture and Storage Conference also being organized by The Canadian Institute in Calgary on Jan. 2627.

PIPELINE NEWS January 2010

the oil and gas Àowing ɺ Page A25 “The other part of it, is at certain intervals, while a guy is there, if you can catch a switch that is partially flakey or intermittent and replace it, they don’t have to shut down in the middle of the night. That’s a part of good maintenance.

“We have a few companies set up with a preventative maintenance program. I will phone them and let them know they are due again. There could be nothing wrong but you are there to do the PMs and check devices.

“With a switch, let’s say, it’s set at 100 psi rising to trip. You might find it at 110 six months later.

From vibration and wear and tear, the set point on the switch can move.”

Any device that requires higher voltage installation or repair is handled by Hunter’s field counterpart, Donny Miller, a journeyman electrician.

Entegra currently has a staff of four employees in Lloydminster and hopes to grow by tapping into work with municipalities and institutions.

“I am trying to get into some different fields as well with the slowdown such as water facilities or institutions like a hospital just to keep people busy and carry that on in the future,” said Hunter.

“We have one guy who is busy in Provost who does quite a bit of work for a company that makes pavement for highways, and I travel quite a bit to Pierceland and Bonnyville for business.

“The recession has affected us. Corporately, we have had to make some adjustments to our business due to the economics of the industry and modify our expectations but we did that in early 2009. We are optimistic about our future.”

The Lloydminster office can also count on leveraging its strength as a member of the Maverick group of companies. The group provides a full range of products and services to the energy market including burner and dehydration optimization.

Global Flow includes a fabricating group that builds production units such as separator and metering packages; a technical services group providing SCADA services and an optimization group focused on providing plunger lift equipment.

Southern Plains Energy, another Maverick company, provides measuring testing services while Marcon is a glycol refrigeration service company.

Entegra has 10 offices across British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan.

“Even though we are separate companies, each with its own management and business focus, we work together to provide quality solutions to our customers,” said Hunter. “It allows us to provide multi-disciplinary solutions to our clients.

“I am qualified to run the equipment that they use at Southern Plains. “I can also program and calibrate the device that speaks with SCADA. The switching device is my end of things in Lloydminster.

“We maintain the instrumentation that is part of process and control. Such variables may be fluid levels, fluid pressure, flows and temperature.

“There might be a device that can tell you what your level is on a tank and it could shut down a process. I will set that device up and tell it what level it should be set for if it’s a transmitter. If it’s just a switch, we make sure it functions properly.

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“Every six months, we will pull it out and make sure it activates properly and is switching properly.

We also do a lot of troubleshooting calls.

“The field work is not too demanding physically, but mentally, there can be a lot of thinking with troubleshooting. There can be longer days because of the amount of work.

“While you are on site, a lot of clients want to save money on travel so they will put everything into one or two days work.”

Entegra also repairs pumps and switches from the field at its Lloydminster shop and can order a new switch or control from a variety of suppliers within a day.

A25

A26

PIPELINE NEWS January 2010

Paradise Hill hitches its wagon to the oil and gas sector

By Geoff Lee

The Husky Oil Steam Plant and the CNRL Battery are all located within 16 kilometres of the village.

Paradise Hill – An oversized Red River cart and Nexen Inc. and Baytex Energy are other major oil ox ornament at the entrance to Paradise Hill symbol- and gas players in the area.

In the last five or six years, a strong local economy izes the historic roots of this vibrant community of has prompted several new or existing businesses to 500, back when it was a stop on the Carlton Trail.

Today, drilling and service rigs, oilfield construc- locate or expand along the Highway 3 commercial tion equipment, heavy duty oil vehicles and agricul- strip, including Turtleford & District Co-op card tural combines represent the future path of the village lock and a Shell gas station.

Paradise Hill Farm Supply just completed an exnear the intersection of Highway 3 and 21. pansion that quadrupled its retail space.

“I think one of the biggest influences of the oil Novlan Bros. Sales, a local business since 1929, sector is providing employment for young people,” added a wing to their Ford dealership for heavy haul said Marion Hougham, village administrator.

“The other major industry in this area is agricul- oil trucks and farm equipment a few years ago following the construction of a new 30,000 sq.-ft. buildture, and for various factors, that’s been a struggle.

“The majority of people on the farm also have ing in 1998 on the entrance strip.

Last May, Hardy’s Excavating Ltd. opened a new some sort of employment that’s related to oil – even 16,000 sq.-ft. shop and office complex for its oilfield if it’s snow plowing leases or cutting grass.”

Administrator Marion Hougham stands by a $1 million fundraising “thermometer’” for a new community hall and multi-use rooms at the K-12 school.

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“These companies obviously have confidence in the economy and their ability to run a business here,” said Hougham.

“Even companies that are not oilfield-related, like auto body shops, right down to the grocery stores, are busy because there are people around who work in oil and gas. There are lots of guys who have bought trucks and they run their own businesses.”

Larry Harland, the newly acclaimed Mayor of Paradise Hill, works as an automotive service manager for Novlan’s. He says, “seventy-five per cent of the vehicles in the area that I am in charge of would be oilpatch related – some directly or indirectly.

“Hardes Fencing Ltd. is a spinoff to the oil business. He does fencing for the oilpatch and he has four super duty trucks from our business to do that work.

It certainly impacts our town and our business.” ɸ Page A27

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PIPELINE NEWS January 2010

A27

Paradise Hill servicing more lots

Newly-acclaimed Mayor Larry Harland, an automotive service manager at Novlan Bros. Sales, checks some online information with his service writer, Melanie Fischer.

ɺ Page A26 With Paradise Hill just 65 kilometres northeast of Lloydminster, the population has remained steady for many years as many workers commute to oilfield jobs in both directions.

A stronger demand for housing in the past few years is pressuring the village to create new housing lots. That’s topped Harland’s list of priorities for 2010.

“At one time, in town we couldn’t sell a lot and lots would stay that way for six to eight years,” he said.

“In an attempt to lure some growth into town, we tried to sell lots for $1 but that wasn’t successful.

“All of a sudden in the last five years, we started to see people coming to town looking for places to live. In the last few years, there have been eight to 10 new houses built.

“Just since the fall there are four new houses and vacancy rates are zero. We only have three lots left.

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“We don’t want to chase residents away because we don’t have lots. The priority is to have some lots and have them serviced. If the oilpatch continues to bring people into our community we won’t have to turn them away.

“We have property that we own and we have an engineering group working on that right now.”

The cement has been poured for a new two unit condo at the west end of town where a four-plex residence is being renovated.

“If you drive around, you will see a couple of new houses under construction,” said Hougham.”

We had three RTM homes set up in the last four months.”

Paradise Hill has raised $250,000 toward a $1 million community goal to help fund an ambitious new community hall and multi-purpose rooms.

“Our dream is to add a facility to the K-12 school that would serve as a hall and second gym,” said Hougham.

“There would also be a kitchen for the hall and an industrial arts room where we would like to run adult education out of. There would also be some conference room and a piano room for the school.”

The fundraising committee will apply for government funds and solicit donations from residents and local businesses in 2010 to cover construction costs that are roughly estimated at $4 million.

“We haven’t gone to the oil and gas industry yet.

The timing wasn’t great this year,” said Hougham.

“This is something they’ll be able to benefit from as well. They will be able to use the conference rooms for meetings and training sessions.”

Raising money to build facilities is something Paradise Hill has done many times, including fundraising for a new arena in 1985 and the addition of artificial ice in 1992.

The village history book notes, ‘It’s not very often that an arena is paid for before its doors are opened - Ours was!’

“We are pretty typical of small town Saskatchewan,” said Hougham. “We are very communityminded group. The drive for the hall – people are willing to support it. In small towns, people are used to doing things for themselves.”

Paradise Hill’s recreational facilities include a four lane bowling alley, a two sheet curling rink, outdoor tennis courts and baseball diamonds.

Other amenities include a 12-suite Paradise Hill Care Home for seniors in the former hospital and tourism attractions such as paintings inside the historic Our Lady of Sorrows Roman Catholic Church.

Last June, marked the grand opening of a new $1.3 million reverse osmosis water treatment facility thanks to a $500,000 contribution from the federal and provincial Municipal Rural Infrastructure Fund.

“It’s huge,” said Hougham. “We always had lots of water but it was very hard on taps and toilets. It’s made a lot of people happy.”

The village also installed a standby power system for its sewer lift station in the event of power outages.

Harland hopes new commercial and industrial developments and new residents will find Paradise Hill an attractive place to be.

“Judging by interest in lots and the traffic through the town, I think we will continue to grow,” said Harland.

“With the rules, regulations and laws for infrastructure sewer and water projects, the cost of existing as a small town continually rises. It’s nice to see the tax base rising to accommodate that.

“That takes away the need to raise everyone’s taxes to cover the increasing cost of doing business.”

A28

PIPELINE NEWS January 2010

Hardy’s warms to cold weather to plow, sand and steam Paradise Hill – No doubt, the Weather Channel is John Hardes’ favorite television program, especially news of impending cold fronts and snow storms.

Hardes is the owner of Hardy Excavating Ltd. in Paradise Hill, north of Lloydminster. Blizzards and cold snaps create work for his lease plowing and sanding crews and steady calls for his new steam and pressure washer service.

“We have been relatively quiet because the fall was mild, but the colder weather is seeing that end of the business pick up,” said Hardes on a crisp December day when it reached a high of -24 C. “Most times, what other people don’t like to see weather-wise is good for our business.

“We just got into steam and pressure washing. We had an older truck that we have been more or less been using for our own use the last three years. Now, we have two new wash units and three steam

and wash units available.

“This is the time of year when they work to thaw out frozen lines and cleaning equipment in the oilfield primarily.”

The steam and pressure service is all part of Hardes’ plan to diversify and keep his employees busy 12 months a year until the normally busy oilfield construction and maintenance side of his business picks up.

“We are still feeling effects of the slowdown in the oilfield,” said Hardes. “We are trying to pick up other kinds of work in addition to the oilfield work.

“We have held on to quite a few of our staff. We are down a couple of guys who left to get more hours but we still about 30 employees.

“The plowing, steaming and sanding – that’s winter work and a lot of the other work is primarily summer work.

“In the summer, we do excavating for water and sewer construction and we do graveling and lease work.

In the winter, we will still do that, but there is less of it.

“We do this to get our core group of men some hours.

“Snowfall is also good for our business as well. We do an awful lot of snow plowing on oil leases.

“We put extra large tires on our wheel loaders with a big angle dozer blade. When they have the blades on they look pretty impressive.”

The decision to purchase winter steam and pressure trucks follows the successCory Riguidel, shop foreman, steers a wheel loader with a dozer blade for ful grand opening of snow plowing leases.

Photo by Geoff Lee

Hardes’ new 9,000 sq.-ft. shop and an additional 7,200 sq.-ft. office last May. Hundreds of people from community turned up for the grand opening barbecue and the chance to check out the Hardy fleet of dump trucks, tractor trailers, backhoes and snowplows.

Back then Hardes was already talking about diversification as the opening was timed for the worst of the slowdown with little lease construction work available.

Hardes actually missed most of his own grand opening as he was busy cleaning up an oil spill to help pay the bills.

“We do pretty much whatever oil companies need,” he said at the time. “We will sometimes get involved in oil cleanups and reclamation.”

Looking ahead to this summer Hardes says, “We are cautiously optimistic. We are still cutting back on what we are spending and we are optimistic for things to happen. We don’t see any major increases in lease work until May or June.”

Hardes specializes in putting in culverts and Texas gates and graveling lease access roads after they are built. They work in conjunction with larger excavating companies that handle site lease preparation.

“A lot of our work comes after the drilling rig is on site,” said Hardes.

“We are looking a little bit extra hard at taking on commercial and residential jobs for site preparation, basements and graveling and more seasonal water and sewer excavation.”

Hardes also owns Wesco Services Ltd., a redimix concrete company with locations in St. Walburg and Maidstone.

Wesco has 10 redi-mix trucks that deliver product to residential and commercial construction sites.

“That side of the business has been steady. We’ve had a decent year there,” reported Hardes.

PIPELINE NEWS January 2010

A29

Cellphone law increases calls to cellphone solution providers

Aunna Benkendorf displays some of the most popular hands-free devices sold by MidWest Communications in Lloydminster.

Lloydminster – Look ma, no hands.

That popular saying of young kids will be spoken soon by all motorists in Saskatchewan about cellphone handling when a new law banning the use of hand-held cellphones while driving goes into effect Jan. 1.

The law bans the use of handheld cellphones to talk, text, e-mail or browse the internet while driving.

The law was passed in December following legislation introduced in November by June Draude, minister responsible for Saskatchewan Government Insurance.

“Using a cellphone to talk or text is a dangerous distraction,” said Druade in a November news release.

“Recent research found that a person who is texting while driving is 23 times more likely to be involved in a collision than a non-distracted driver.”

In Lloydminster, where many oilfield employees work on both sides of the border, it was no surprise to hear that inquiries and sales of hands-free devices are up at retailers such as MidWest Communications and T.B. System Solutions.

“Now that the law is going into effect, everything is starting to move a little bit faster,” said Aunna Benkendorf, sales consultant at MidWest.

“It’s becoming something a lot of big companies are looking into.”

The most common type of handsfree device is the headset, but there are also hands-free devices that operate like a speakerphone, which may or may not include a corded microphone to enhance outgoing audio quality.

“We have anything from headsets to devices that clip on to your visor to systems that are installed into the dash,” said Benkendorf. “Most of the devices we have are produced with Bluetooth.”

Bluetooth wireless technology is a commonly used network standard with a range of 10 to 15-metres. It allows mobile phones to communicate with peripheral devices, such as headsets, or hands-free car kits.

Headset sizes range from a small, single ear bud to a full-over the head device resembling a pair of headphones with a microphone extending towards the mouth.

“So far the ear bud headsets have been the most popular system,” said Benkendorf. “They are just more convenient. They are quite small and clip onto your ear. You can get in and out of your vehicle with the clips on. ɸ Page A30

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PIPELINE NEWS January 2010

New laws mean new opportunity ɺ Page A29 “With the in-vehicle devices, you have to stay in the vehicle for the call.”

Midwest carries a full range of Bluetooth devices from the Jawbone ear bud and BlueAnt headset to the Motorola Bluetooth portable car kit. They also have the BlueAnt supertooth speaker-phone car kit with voice prompts.

The BlueParrott Roadwarrior Bluetooth over the head headset is popular with truckers with its noise cancelling technology.

Prices for MidWest hands-free products range from approximately $150 for the Jawbone to over $250 depending on the type, model and features.

Buyers should be aware that it’s important to ensure your cellphone is compat-

ible with your hands-free device because there is no one standard that cellphones follow. MidWest, for example, is a distributor of Telus cellphones.

The new law leading to the increased sales of hands-free devices locally follows in the footsteps of Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador, Quebec and Ontario that already have bans in place. B.C. has introduced legislation to implement a ban.

Experienced drivers in Saskatchewan would be allowed to use hands-free devices while driving. New drivers, however; would be prohibited from using cellphones of any type. The fine would be $280.

The new law is expected to be a sales boon for T.B. System Solutions, a new SaskTel dealership that is beginning to stock its shelves with hand-free devices.

“Oil and gas customers are buying Bluetooth systems,” said Shyla Roberts, communications analyst. “I used to work at MidWest and we sold them like hotcakes.

“They are for guys in their trucks. Because they tie up their hands with their phones, the Bluetooth is popular.

“We’re going to carry a few models from different companies. There’s a difference in price and looks and service.”

T.B. which stands for “The Best” will stock Bluetooth products from SmoothTalker, NovAtel, BlueParrott and Motorola among others, at prices starting as low as $30.

“I think they make great gifts,” said Roberts. “You can buy them all set up.

If you bring in the person’s phone it can be matched to the device in a few easy steps.

“We are a SaskTel dealer so we can set you up with everything you need including phone contracts. We sell laptops and desktops, cellphones and scanners and satellite Internet.”

The new hands-free law exempts, emergency services personnel performing their duties along with drivers using a hand-held cellphone to make a 9-1-1 call to report an emergency.

Shyla Roberts is Àelding calls about hands-free systems at the new T.B. System Solutions’ Sasktel dealership in Lloydminster.

Jessie Ford, a sales consultant at a Bell distribution shop in the Lloyd Mall shows off an array of hands-free devices.

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PIPELINE NEWS January 2010

PIPELINE NEWS Saskatchewan’s Petroleum Monthly

B-Section January 2010

Cenovus Weyburn superintendent Darcy Cretin points out the formation targeted by the carbon dioxide Áood. Cretin was speaking to a group of journalists from the European Union on a cross-country tour of “green business.”

EnCana in Saskatchewan becomes Cenovus

By Brian Zinchuk

wall shows the first discovery well at Ralph.

As part of EnCana, the 28,000 barrels of oil per Weyburn – They’re going to have to change a lot day Weyburn unit was essentially a small fish in a big of pamphlets and signs, now that EnCana has split pond. But in the new company, it moved into the top into separate oil and gas companies. The gas side, four production units, gaining importance and focus.

Cenovus also has major heavy oil/bitumen oproughly two thirds of the assets, will remain EnCana, while Cenovus Energy will now carry the oil banner, erating units at Christina Lake, Foster Creek and Pelican Lake, all in northeastern Alberta. They use as well as shallow gas.

“You are the very first person to get a Cenovus Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD) at Foster folder,” says Rhona DelFrari, media relations person Creek and Christina Lake, while Pelican Lake uses for Cenovus, at their Weyburn plant on Dec. 2. It was a polymer flood. SAGD was pioneered at the Senlac location southeast of Lloydminster. That unit was reonly their second day operating as Cenovus.

The Weyburn unit has become known all over cently sold to Southern Pacific.

The company also has half-shares in two Conothe globe for its world-leading carbon dioxide storcoPhillips refineries, one in Texas, the other in Ilage project, partnered with the International Energy Agency. On this day, a group of 11 journalists from linois. The refineries came about in a deal that saw throughout the European Union is being guided ConocoPhillips take a 50 per cent interest in the around the facility, part of a green business tour paid Foster Creek and Christina Lake enhanced oil operations. for by the federal government.

While shallow gas operations in Alberta have “As of yesterday, all of us are Cenovus Energy,” fallen into the Cenovus realm, Encana will be focusDelFrari says.

In seeking a new name, they contracted a spe- ing on unconventional gas.

“EnCana will no longer have a presence in Sascialty company that provides naming services. The new company wanted it to imply “forward thinking, katchewan now,” she explains, while Cenovus will be innovative, approachable,” DelFrari elaborates. The operating in Alberta and Saskatchewan, with the exroot of the name comes from cen – for ‘century’ and ception of the refineries.

Cenovus also has fledgling operations in the novus, meaning ‘new’ in Latin. DelFrari characterizes it as, “a new company with a new way of thinking for Shaunavon area and is just getting into the Bakken in southeast Saskatchewan. a new century.”

“At Cenovus, technology is the key. We have Now a bigger fish “Weyburn is our largest operation in Saskatch- about 50 different research and development projects ewan, and by far, the most established,” she explains. on the go at any one time,” DelFrari explains. “We’re The unit started in the mid-1950s. A poster on the always looking at new ways of doing production bet-

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ter and decreasing our impact on the environment.”

Indeed, each of their four major oil projects is focused on enhanced oil recovery.

At Christina Lake, they are testing the SolventAided Process (SAP), which adds butane to steam.

“We’re finding the butane helps release the oil. We’re able to use less steam. By being able to use less steam, we use less natural gas, and have fewer emissions.

This is our third pilot of it.” says DelFrari.

The first pilot, a successful one, was done at Senlac several years ago. “We used Senlac to pilot SAGD before we used it in northern Alberta, and we used it to pilot SAP.” Not EnCana, but still prominent During a planned power outage while SaskPower works on a nearby station, a group of workers prepares candy canes in the boardroom for the upcoming Weyburn Chamber of Commerce Christmas Lights Parade. The candy cane workers’ normal responsibilities include safety, well servicing, maintenance, construction and community relations.

“What’s important to the community is Cenovus will honour all commitments that EnCana made,” DelFrari assures. “The tradition of having strong relationships in the communities will definitely continue.”

She notes some people might be concerned, but wants to put those concerns at ease. “Cenovus will still be a very good neighbour,” she says As for jobs, DelFrari says, “You hear about cutbacks these days. Both companies are hiring. The idea of the split was so that both companies can grow and become stronger.”

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PIPELINE NEWS January 2010

The radio backbone in the southeast Story and photos by Brian Zinchuk

The Dougherty family has provided wireless communications in southeast Saskatchewan for 50 years.

The people behind Industrial Communications Systems are, from left: Helen Dougherty, Joanne Cote, Art Dougherty, Eldon Cote, Alan Dougherty and Elroy Dougherty. Elroy is holding a vintage hand-built radio, with two vacuum tubes, built on a bread board.

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Estevan – If you’re an oil producer in the southeast, your product at some time has likely relied on the communications backbone provided

by Industrial Communications Systems Ltd. in Estevan. It may have been the trucking company hauling in drilling pipe, or the water hauler taking away your produced brine. Your field staff might even use their radios in their trucks. One way or another, your product was likely talked about on their airwaves.

Industrial Communications Systems is a tightknit, family business that has been around for just over 50 years.

First off: an explanation of the players. Industrial Communications is a family business, and its entire staff are part of the Dougherty family. Elroy Dougherty is president and founder, while his wife Helen is vice-president, and has headed up administration over the years. Sons Art and Alan Dougherty act as service technician and sales representative. Daughter Joanne Cote takes care of the office, while her husband, Eldon Cote is the installer technician.

Radio on a bread board It started with Elroy Dougherty, the founder, taking an interest in radios at a young age. He tells of building a radio on a bread board.

“I was on the farm, and after 1945, the war was over. A neighbour came back from the air force.

He was in the wireless end of it, and was in communications.”

The winter of 1947 was a hard one, he notes.

“He called me over to help with the chores. He was alone, and the wife was having a baby. I rode over on horseback, and he said, ‘We’ll build a radio.’

“He hauled out a bunch of parts onto the table.

We built a one-tube radio. I took it home with me in a gunny sack.”

It didn’t work. ɸ Page B3

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From one tower to a dozen throughout SE

This very early radio was hand built, on a bread board, by Industrial Communications founder Elroy Dougherty.

ɺ Page B2 Elroy called him up, and took it over to the neighbour’s again. At about 11 p.m. or midnight, he got in and hooked it up to one 2-volt cell and a 45-volt battery, the first to heat the tube, the second to provide plate voltage.

“I could hear with earphones. I hooked up the aerial antenna onto the telephone lines. I’m tuning it and adjusting the coil, and my God, a signal came in.”

“He said, ‘WGM Chicago, servicing the Midwest.”

Elroy was hooked.

He ended up taking a radio and TV course by correspondence.

Mines “I came here in 1953, working with Government Telephones (the previous name of SaskTel),” recounts Elroy, now 78. He worked as a lineman, climbing lots of poles, rewiring, and changing phones over to automatic. He was 24 at the time.

You could count on one hand the number of FM-UHF radios in the area, he says. “The main ones were the mine – M&S Mines and Utility Coals. I left Telephones and started at Utility Coals.”

He began moonlighting with radios in 1959, working with a couple cabs in town, then established Elroy’s TwoWay Radio company in 1960. In 1966, Industrial Communications was founded.

“My break to get into

the business was when SaskPower said they were going to farm out the radios and get someone to service them,” he says.

The company put up its first tower in Arcola, “on the bench,” the rise north of the community, in 1969.

You had to be a limited corporation to be a restricted radio common carrier according to government regulations.

They were incorporated in 1968.

“I was contracting with the coal mines then.

I put in all new radios and rented to them.

SaskPower’s southeast Saskatchewan operations were another important client at the time.

The mines have continued to this day to be long term clients.

Towers The network kept expanding throughout the southeast, with towers in Radville, Avonlea and more. The count is now about a dozen, including Regina, Moosomin, Moose Jaw and Assiniboia. More recent additions include Virden and Waskada in southwest Manitoba.

It was early in this tower-building phase that the sons came into the business. “I was responsible for building it,” Art says of the 300-ft. Avonlea tower, their third. “I was younger back then, 16.”

In 1983, an ice storm took the tower down, so it had to be rebuilt.

Alan started with sales and installation, and

gradually shifted to primarily sales. “Just worked into it, I guess,” he says.

Elroy goes into the shop and shows an old, hand-carved wooden propeller. It goes on a 1960’s era car generator, which is used to power a relay site at locations like the mines About 25 years ago, they started setting up portable repeaters at the lip of the local mines, allowing communications into the mine pits. “It was a big thing,” Elroy recalls.

Similarly, a number of their towers also functions off the grid, with solar, wind and batteries keeping them online.

Overall, their radio repeater network covers approximately 96 per cent of southeast Saskatchewan. Correspondingly, a substantial number of oilpatch trucking firms use their equipment. Some of the largest fleets of water haulers or general oilfield hauling use Industrial Communications radios.

“We’ve had them for many, many years,” says Art. “We’ve looked after them, and they’ve looked after us,” Elroy adds.

“The vast majority of business away from the mines is oilfield related,” Art says. “We also do radio alarms for oil production through the towers.”

The system is what’s called half-duplex – talk and listen. “We provide enough channels so we don’t get into overloading,” he adds. They have enough to provide private channels as well.

Cellular flirtation In the early days of cellular in Saskatchewan, the company was a leading SaskTel Mobility dealer. However, SaskTel’s Fleetnet 800 product would end up in direct competition with their bread-and-butter radio communications, and after a while, the relationship fell apart.

Indeed Fleetnet, which is on its way out, turned out to be a reverse benefit to Industrial Communications. “It helped us big time,” Art says, explaining that clients saw Fleetnet’s limitations, and decided to go with their network instead. “We have our niche.”

Rentals The company’s business model is built on rentals of radio equipment. You don’t buy 60 radios for your trucking fleet, you rent them. The company services and supports them. This was evidenced by a semi pulling up for an antenna change one day, a taxi cab coming for an install another day.

What do clients want?

“Every person has a different application,” says Alan. They have to determine needs and find a product that fits.

An example he gives is a call received that day.

“A guy called today on a rig. I put a booster on to make the cellphone work on the rig site. I could sell him another booster, but I could use a splitter for half the price and he can bring it into another rig shack to make it work.

“They really don’t know what they want when they call you. They do and they don’t. I have to go to the site and figure out what works for them.”

Alan says he treats each one like they are the only customer they deal with. Some spend more, some less. “We want to keep them all happy,” he explains. “The main thing is to be honest.

Agriculture “We do a lot of agriculture, too,” Alan adds.

Farmers often want their own radio systems to op-

erate within 35 to 45-km of their farm. This can often be accomplished with a 13-m to 18-m tall base station.

When cellphones came out in 1989, a lot of people thought they were the way to go. But for group activities, cells are too expensive, he says.

An example he gives: the crew truck guy will call the boss, saying they have a problem with a certain pumpjack. Crew truck number two will call in and say, “This is how I dealt with it last week.”

While cellphones have their applications, he acknowledges, the group conversations do too. For larger companies, twoway radio is more efficient for dispatch, he contends.

Their radio system is also capable of being patched into the phone system, albeit with simplex communications.

While some think satellite is the wave of the future, it needs a clear view of the sky. Drive under a carport or building, and it doesn’t work. ɸ Page B4

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PIPELINE NEWS January 2010

Testing digital radio systems ɺ Page B3 “One communication system is not the answer for everything,” Alan explains.

Digital is coming Their system is still analog, but they are on the path to digital. They are currently testing digital radios in their own company vehicles. “We’re going to start implementing a test run to see how

it performs next year,” Art says. Next, they will be testing digital repeaters.

Digital offers the advantage of being able to handle more signals with the same amount of radio frequency spectrum.

You can space the channels closer together, Art explains.

Industry Canada regulates Canadian airwaves, but the American FCC is

also important to them, due to their operations so close to the border.

The US, for instance, is migrating to tighter frequency spacing between channels.

“Eventually, we’ll see all radios digital, or software defined radio,” Art forecasts.

“That’s evolving, and we’re evolving with it,” Alan says.

Art Dougherty works on a radio in a semi.

Service rig collapse claims life

By Brian Zinchuk Kisbey – A service rig toppled over on Dec. 14 just west of Kisbey, claiming the life of a 39-year old Estevan man.

The accident happened at around 2:30 p.m. on a lease site approximately 4 km northwest of Kisbey, less than a kilometre north of Highway 13.

The area has been the centre of intense drilling activity this past fall, with numerous drilling and service rigs active in the area. The incident happened at a PetroBakken Energy wellsite.

“The way the rig fell down, it fell on the guy wires,” explained RCMP Staff Sergeant Phil Harrison, commander of the Carlyle RCMP detachment.

“There’s a whole pile of casing that fell down,” he told Pipeline News on Dec. 15.

“It fell to the side, and the whole truck fell on its side,” he said, referring to the rig’s chassis.

Four workers escaped injury, but the fifth, who was on the derrick’s monkeyboard at the time, died. “As far as I’m aware, no one else required medical attention,” Harrison explained.

The victim’s co-workers took him to the highway, from where he was taken to hospital in Weyburn by an ambulance from Carlyle. He was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital.

Harrison, who attended the scene, said it was “extremely cold.” Environment Canada’s weather station at Carlyle reported a daytime high of -22.6 C, and a low of -29.5 C that day. Estevan reported a wind chill of -36 C at the time of the accident.

Saskatchewan Occupational Health and Safety and the Carlyle RCMP are investigating the accident.

The rig was an Eagle Well Servicing unit. According to the company, seven service rigs are based out of Estevan. Eagle Well Servicing is a division of IROC

Energy Services Partnership, based in Red Deer, Alberta. They did not provide further details.

PetroBakken Energy extended its sympathies in a statement released the following day, with president Gregg Smith saying, “We are deeply saddened by this tragic loss of life and our hearts go out to the family.

We are co-operating fully with the official investigators.”

At the time, PetroBakken said “the cause of the incident is unknown,” and in its release the company said it can’t provide more details until Occupational Health and Safety has concluded its review.

PetroBakken Energy shut down its operations at the well in response to the incident.

The company implemented its crisis response plan which includes shutting down operations, securing the location and providing lights for first responders and investigators.

PIPELINE NEWS January 2010

Gas in lieu of royalties: Lingenfelter

NDP Leader Dwain Lingenfelter

By Brian Zinchuk Regina – Saskatchewan NDP Leader and Leader of the Official Opposition Dwain Lingenfelter thinks this province should take something out of the Alberta playbook when it comes to getting paid for royalties.

Lingenfelter feels the province should consider

taking gas in lieu of royalties, in the manner the Government of Alberta does with bitumen.

Lingenfelter brought this up when asked in a year-end interview Dec. 6 about his notion of the government getting into gas production.

Doing so allows the government to use gas to promote development in the province, he said.

In Alberta, there’s been talk of using bitumen as feedstock for a merchant upgrader, for instance.

For sure, he doesn’t want the Government of Saskatchewan to own drilling rigs, or be a drilling company, Lingenfelter told Pipeline News.

But he says we can try to figure out how to use that gas in province, perhaps for processing or manufacturing. The idea is to add value in-province.

“I’d like to do that with the royalty or gas in lieu of royalty,” Lingenfelter explained.

It’s not official NDP policy yet, and will be going to the party for review.

He says you have to separate oil and gas into two separate worlds.

While the oil price is up around $75 per barrel at the time of the interview with drilling picking up, he notes gas is around $4.50 per GJ. Looking at the energy per GJ, he notes that with oil at that level, gas should be more around $10 per GJ. Unlike most politi-

cians, Lingenfelter has direct experience at the executive level in the patch. He was vicepresident of government relations international with Nexen Inc. until he was elected leader of the NDP in mid-2009.

He resigned that position effective July 1, after having been on a leave of absence during the leadership campaign.

Lingenfelter says there is usually a seven to one ratio of the oil price to gas price. Right now, it is way out of sync, he says.

Asked if there’s anything the province can

do to help out the gas sector such as drilling incentives, he responds that an incentive is likely not the way to go. “Having watched gas for many years, there will be a day sometime when we’ll be on the other side of the curve,” he says, referring to the cyclical nature of gas pricing.

The province can make sure regulatory structures are as simple and straightforward as possible, but not weaker, according to Lingenfelter. They are good now, but could always be better, he adds.

Lingenfelter points

B5

out “the erroneous thoughts that all the oil companies would drill more wells under a Brad Wall government than the NDP.” He says drilling has more to do with price, and little to do with Brad Wall’s Saskatchewan Party government.

Royalty policies put in by the previous Lorne Calvert NDP administration are close to where we want them, he says. “I wouldn’t see any changes coming if the government changes in 2011,” he forecasts. “I don’t know of any areas where we’re not competitive.”

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PIPELINE NEWS January 2010

Nearly all tied in: Cenovus’s Weyburn unit Weyburn – The Weyburn unit of Cenovus, formerly Encana, is one of the highest profile oilfield facilities in Canada. That’s because they have been pumping carbon dioxide into the ground at Weyburn before it became the in-thing to do. What may not be known is that the Weyburn unit also has one of the most intense SCADA systems in southeast Saskatchewan.

SCADA stands for Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition. In layman’s terms, for Cenovus it’s the ability to oversee and control a complex oilfield that covers approximately 22,000 hectares (55,000 acres). Its implementation is more reminiscent of the bridge on the Starship Enterprise. Push a button in the control room, and things happen in the field. And like the Enterprise, there are sensors everywhere.

The control centre for the Weyburn unit is in the northwest corner of the main office building, overlooking the plant. There are several banks of computer screens. One focuses on the field wireless SCADA system, and another is designated for the Distributed Control System (DCS), a dedicated control system for the plant facility.

Such a system is necessary, because the field is entirely integrated, and the carbon dioxide injection adds a level of complexity.

“We have a significant amount of oil well control and surveillance,” comments Dan Fradette, the instrument and electrical coordinator for the Cenovus Weyburn unit. Fradette has been involved with the system since it was first implemented around 1990. All the CO2 injectors are on the system, as are about 92 per

Control centre operator Shaun Fraser watches a bank of monitors in the control centre for the Cenovus (formerly EnCana) Weyburn unit.

cent of the production from the producing wells.

Beginnings “We started with a few Pump Off Controllers (POC) on oil wells, and went from there.

“A POC enables accurate control and monitoring of rod-pumping wells.

They also enable efficient use of energy, maximize production and minimize well maintenance costs.”

“Most of our oil and injection satellites are equipped with SCADA surveillance and our CO2 satellites are fully automated.”

One of the key pieces of SCADA infrastructure is the antenna tower beside the operations centre. All wireless data from the field is transmitted to it. The lay of the land, flat like a pancake, allows for line-of-site radio communications from field locations to the base antenna. No repeaters are used. ɸ Page B7

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Integrating one of the most prominent ¿elds in Sask. ɺ Page B6 “We use fibre optics in the plant for communication, but all data from the field is wireless.” Fradette says.

They use a mixture of licensed frequencies and spread spectrum technology for the well site data communications and a secured wireless connection from satellite battery locations in the field.

The system works like this: individual wells, producers, injectors, and field battery sites send their requested data through radio waves to the control room via the communication tower.

You can typically tell if a facility is tied into SCADA by the antenna on it.

In some ways, it’s like a home wireless Ethernet network, but on a much grander scale. The whole system is essentially on a secured private network.

“With the CO2 flood, we have a fair amount of automation which basically allows 24/7 surveillance on the entire system. It allows us to monitor the field which includes H2S leak detection, pressures, temperatures and status of equipment.

Safety is an important consideration. “We have the ability to shut in the majority of the field production right here from the control room,” Fradette illustrates.

More efficient staffing The SCADA system allows for more efficient use of manpower. “Less windshield time for operators,” he says. “Before the SCADA system was put into place, field personnel spent a lot more time driving from well to well.”

“It enables 24 hours surveillance versus eight hour operator days.

“We’ve drilled quite a few wells in the last half dozen years. We didn’t need a lot more staff to cover it.”

Before the CO2 flood was implemented, Fradette says the plant staff basically looked after the plant, and the field personnel looked after the field. With the CO2 flood, the interaction between the control room and the field is constant.

Field operators log into the system with laptops in their trucks. Laptops are equipped with wire-

less cards.

“The role of the field operator has changed,” he adds. They do more well testing from the office, look after optimization, and special projects.

“The SCADA system allows us to find out immediately if there’s a problem at a specific location, and allows us to react if required.”

The field has a few characteristics that stand out. All production is pipelined to the central plant. Except for new wells, pretty much everything is connected to the electrical grid. (There are the odd portable solarpowered controller.)

The control room has a backup generator to keep the system running, should power be lost. A planned power outage for SaskPower upgrades does not shut down the

operations centre.

Sitting at one of the computer screens on the field SCADA system, Fradette pulls up a well map. Picking a well at random, all of its telemetry comes up on the screen. A graphic representation shows this particular well incorporates a Rotaflex style jack, sometimes called a “strap jack.” He can see all the parameters for the pump on the screen, including speed, pressure, and downhole information.

A digital “pump card” can be interpreted to reveal items like a leaking pump valve or broken rod string.

“In the old days, before SCADA, we never had this technology, even at the well.”

If there was a deep well break, the jack might have kept running with-

out being noticed. “It may take days to find out your well’s not producing. With SCADA, you know right away. Loss of production can be kept to a minimum.”

Local support The company has a strong working relationship with Industrial Electric (Weyburn) Ltd. and its sister company Comtech, sister companies that handles the electrical and wireless functions of the system.

“Comtech has been with us since the beginning,” Fradette says.

Fradette himself has been there for 29 years, spending his early days as a field operator. “When I was operating and the first POC came in the field, I took quite an interest in them,” he says.

New tech “We’re always look-

ing for new technology,” Fradette declares, saying they utilize three different pump off controllers, quite a few electric submersible pumps, and experiment with different variable frequency drives.

Asked what it would be like to operate the Weyburn unit without the SCADA system, Fradette responds, “I can’t imagine that, really.

Those days are long gone with a field of this size. It would mean a totally different operating strategy using many more people and still not have the efficiency we have now.

“Safety is the number one aspect, optimization is secondary.”

The company relies on SCADA and staff working together to do the day-to-day job, he explains.

This tower, bristling with antennas, is the spinal cord of the Cenovus Weyburn unit. It allows controllers in the room below and Àeld operators in their trucks to keep a constant watch on hundreds of producer and injection wells.

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B8

PIPELINE NEWS January 2010

Fleet management system improves safety Greg Cousins, his senior managers and logistics team know exactly where the entire Áeet of about 75 licensed units are at any given time, thanks to a GPS/cellular Áeet management system.

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Carnduff – Installation of GPS tracking and telemetry units into each of approximately 75 road units Greg Cousins Construction Ltd. has not only saved money, it’s saved some does, too.

Since the system was installed around six years ago, the company has not had a serious deer strike. That’s down from 12 the year before the system went into operation, according to Greg Cousins, owner.

Greg Cousins Construction Ltd. (GCCL) is an oilfield maintenance, pipeline contractor and fluids hauler operating in the extreme southeast corner of Saskatchewan and in southwest Manitoba.

That last year of serious deer strikes, six vehicles had to be taken out of service, requiring spare vehicles to be kept in the fleet. While there have been minor hits since then, GCCL has not had to take a vehicle out of service due to a deer strike.

The application is web based, meaning you can view it at the office, or in a truck if you have a laptop equipped with an aircard cellular modem. On the screen, each vehicle is identified by a four digit unit number. Colour codes indicate if the vehicle is stopped or moving, loading or unloading. Clicking on a unit, you can pull up all of its historical data back to day one. If there was a complaint that one of their trucks did something a farmer didn’t like, you can pull up the data and see if he was there or not on that particular day. ɸ Page B9

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B9

Global positioning system does wonders ɺ Page B8 Each unit has a GPS linked to a cellular telemetry sending unit.

The system GCCL uses is made and operated by Global Fleet Information Systems Inc., based in Red Deer.

“We’ve had it in excess of five years,” Cousins says.

Indeed, while on a course in Edmonton several years ago, he was able to open up his laptop in his truck and see where his entire fleet was at the time and who was

doing what.

“It’s been positive in accident investigations. It helps with work-alone,” he explains.

“The logistics team has it on all the time,” Cousins says. He personally keeps a unit in his truck, and the management team has access to the system.

The system is helpful for giving drivers directions. A land location can be entered in, and it will show up on the map, allows dispatch to direct the driver to where they need to go. “From where

A close up of the screen shows the position of all Greg Cousins Construction Ltd.’s units on the map.

you are right now, this is where you need to go,” Cousins provides as an example.

The employees have accepted the system well, according to Cousins.

There’s a daily fee for each unit paid to the service provider, and it’s not exactly cheap when you add up 75 units, but for Cousins, it’s well worth it.

He pulls up a recent trip taken by a driver into the US. A mouse few clicks, and he can recount the entire trip. “I can already tell he didn’t speed,” Cousins says, pointing out the colour indicators.

“We can put geographic limits. For instance, a truck shouldn’t go to Manitoba due to licensing.”

Highway 18 in the town of Carnduff has a 60 km speed limit, which is monitored by the system.

While the system has always been able to track speeds, recently

it added the ability to graph exactly how much time a driver spends operating at certain speeds.

When that option came up, the number of drivers who might go over a bit dropped from a few to

almost none.

If an operator’s habits become an issue, it can be time for a factual sit down chat. “Once you show people the graph, they get it.”

“It’s my money. I

wouldn’t be spending it if I didn’t think it was working,” Cousins asserts. “All of our vehicles have my name on it. The way they’re operated is a reflection on me. This isn’t XYZ Construction.”

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B10

PIPELINE NEWS January 2010

Novlan thrives on servicing customers Paradise Hill – Customer relations and vehicle servicing are the driving forces behind the success of Novlan Brothers Sales, a full service Ford, Sterling truck and New Holland farm equipment dealer in Paradise Hill.

Principle owner Randy Novlan, along with his brother Doug, also bank on a strong agriculture and heavy oil economy to draw customers in. “In a small business, it’s tough to get new customers because you have a small pool,� said Novlan, who is also the auto and heavy truck sales manager. “When you get a customer, you like to keep them for life. That’s our motto.�

It’s been that way since 1929, when Frank Novlan, Sr. started ďŹ ve businesses from one location.

In 1935, Novlan, Sr. reportedly sold 75 farm binders for $200 each and no money down on a promise from customers to pay the full price with their ďŹ rst grain delivery to the elevator.

Every binder was paid for and the customer service reputation stuck through succeeding generations of the family.

In 2003, the dealership was presented with the President Prestige Award from New Holland, rating Novlan Bros the top four dealerships in North America.

Randy notes that his father Clem, the agricultural sales manager, added the New Holland franchise to business in 1976, the same year he and Doug joined the company.

“Our agricultural division was really strong this year,� he said. “That helped bring our numbers in line where we have been the last few years. A few years ago, the oil industry was carrying the dealership. I think it will come around.�

OilďŹ eld jobs also help to drive automotive and agriculture equipment sales, especially for young farmers looking to support their acreage. “It’s a dual income for them,â€? said Novlan. “It helps to bring more money into the farm. “With the agriculture equipment they have now, a month in the spring to put the crop in and a month in the fall to harvest it, pretty much does the job. That gives them about 10 months of the year to work in the oilďŹ eld. “The oil and gas has contributed a lot to our business. We sell Ford automotive, so we get a lot of light duty, heavy duty and service trucks in for service. “The oilďŹ eld is high maintenance. The over-thehighway trucks don’t get as much severe maintenance as o highway vehicles.â€?

The Sterling truck division was added to the company’s product line in 1991 and steadily grew as oilďŹ eld exploration and production picked up over the years.

In 1998, the company built a new 30,000 square foot showroom and service complex at the junction of Highway 3 and 1st Ave. and expanded again to meet the growing demand for their product divisions and servicing. “Demand for heavy trucks is coming from the oilďŹ eld,â€? said Novlan. “We sell everything from delivery trucks all the way up to pressure and vacuum trucks – you name it. ɸ Page B11

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B11

Outstanding customer service is key ɺ Page B10

and we have some good managers.

“The oil sector has “Also we have been allowed me to get into around a long time and a heavy truck franchise we have good relations and do well at it.” with customers. Looking Novlan’s is in the after their interests has market however, to re- been our success both in place its Sterling heavy the agriculture and heavy truck franchise since oil field vehicles.”

Daimler AG stopped Novlan Bros has producing Sterling been recognized as a Blue trucks in St. Thomas, Oval Certified dealerOntario, in March, ship for outstanding 2009. customer satisfaction.

“We still have some Automotive service vehicle supply here and manager Larry Harland we are still into the parts says his division is also and service part of it,” busy with strong sales said Novlan of Sterling. and servicing of every“We are looking thing from passenger at picking up another cars to the F-550 Super brand some day. The Duty trucks popular in service side of the busi- the oilpatch. ness drives our business.

“Just about every veA lot of people drive the hicle in our shop can be extra mile to experience traced to the oilpatch,” our service.” he said. “The vehicle The company is li- could be owned by a censed to do the war- farmer but if you really ranty on all major truck look into it, you will find engines including Cum- that farmer has a partmins, Mercedes, Cater- time job pumping wells pillar and Detroit. They or he may have wells on also repair and maintain his property.

Meritor transmissions “He might even and rear ends. have a heavy oil truck in “I think we have the oilpatch hauling oil. some really good techs. It’s business in sales we We are well trained make that wouldn’t be

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Heavy duty truck service tech Noel Geollegue repairs some interior wiring components on a heavy duty truck.

there if it weren’t for the oil.”

The slowdown in the economy and in the oilpatch in 2009, slowed sales earlier in the year at the dealership but Novlan says “service has been strong all along.

“We added some new techs this year.

That’s a good indication that around this area business stayed pretty consistent.”

Novlan’s has more than 50 employees on the payroll in Paradise Hill and is looking to hire two or three new employees for its Kubota Sales and Service Shop in Lloydminster, where they also sell small trailers and provide heavy duty truck servicing.

“Sales are looking better. Everybody has a better feel for expansion and getting things rolling again in the oilpatch in 2010,” he said.

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B12

PIPELINE NEWS January 2010

Make sure it doesn’t overÀow Lampman – Having a tank or a trailer overflow makes for a really bad day.

Titan Logix Corp. has numerous solutions to make sure it doesn’t happen, based on accurate fluid level gauging and methods of making sure that measurement information is communicated.

Titan Logix has two locations – Edmonton and Lampman. Lampman is not the most obvious choice for a second location, when your primary is a major city.

The company used to be called Titan Technologies, and has had roots in Lampman since the late 1980s.

Dean Sargent has been with the firm for just about 13 years. You can often find him at the test bench or in the field. Jason Hugo handles sales.

“We do level gauging, telemetry, flow products, (i.e.) flow meters, and a little bit of burner control,” Sargent says at the Lampman shop.

The level gauging is on both stationary and mobile tanks, such as transport trucks.

The truck system is radar based. If you see a little blue head on the top of a tanker, that’s likely a Titan Logix gauge.

Its radio wave signals are transmitted down a probe, and bounce back. About 40 per cent of the Lampman division’s business is the truck gauges, Sargent says.

Its primary purpose is overfill detection and prevention.

“Usually, the owner-operator is the end user that wants it on there,” he says.

There is a display unit that provides a continual readout, accurate to a few millimetres. It has three alarm settings, to be used to activate a horn, lights, or it can be tied into the pump to shut it down. The audible alert is the preferred.

Major haulers in the region have equipped most of their fleets with the gauges, according to Sargent.

Indeed, it’s now optional equipment from tank manufacturers. “The TD80 is available from a wide range of tank manufacturers,” says Jason Hugo, Lampman sales rep.

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Dean Sargent of Titan Logix Corp works away at the Lampman test bench.

The other 60 per cent of the business for the Lampman location is level gauging in stationary tanks and telemetry.

The company sells cellular-based telemetry systems that allow operators to call into a battery. Punching in a few codes, and the battery tells you what is going on. “You can phone in and interrogate it,” Sargent explains.

These units generally need DC power, but they have battery backups. They’ll even phone if the power goes out, raising the alarm.

“We’ve got systems where we can control up to 200 wells from the battery,” Hugo says.

While not a SCADA system, the company has a system that allows for interaction between tank storage and wells.

The system works like this: gauges on tanks, in this case, brine water, send signals to a level controller. The level controller then sends signals to individual wells – stay on, turn off.

A high level tank condition at the gauge is detected by the controller, which then calls the operator, in a sense saying, “I’m full,” or “I’m near full.”

The operator then calls the trucking company and says, “Empty tank four.”

ɸ Page B13

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PIPELINE NEWS January 2010

Baytex bullish on exploration in a transition year Calgary – Baytex Energy Trust will literally pick up steam in 2010 as the conventional oil and gas income trust coverts to a corporation.

The Calgary-based company is boosting its exploration and development budget by 40 per cent to $235 million from an estimated expenditure of $165 million in 2009.

Approximately 60 per cent of the capital program will go towards its heavy oil operations with the focus on investing in horizontal cold well developments at Seal in the Peace River oilsands of Alberta.

Baytex will continue to invest in the design and planning of its first commercial Seal thermal project in 2010 with a projected installation and start-up in 2011.

The company is also stepping up its cold horizontal well drilling program in the Lloydminster area in 2010.

In Kerrobert, plans call for the drilling of a new steam assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) well pair in one of seven sections of land where Baytex has a 100 per cent working interest.

The company also holds a 75 per cent average working interest in 12 sections in the Kerrobert Viking pool.

Baytex acquired its Kerrobert properties in 2009 where primary production is from SAGD in the Waseca pool. In fact, six SAGD well pairs were developed in the area between 2000 and 2007.

The balance of Baytex’s capital program will be directed towards its light oil and natural gas operations in the United States and Canada, with the largest project the Bakken/Three Forks light oil development in North Dakota.

Other significant development projects include light oil development in the Viking and Cardium formations, and conventional development of light oil and natural gas in the Pembina area.

The 2010 budget is designed to generate an average production rate of 43,500 barrels of oil equivalent per day, up from approximately 41,300 boe/d in 2009.

The forecast production mix is approximate-

Titan Logix ɺ Page B12 The trucking company has the radar sensors on their tankers.

While filling, the sensor tells the truck driver, “I’m full.”

He then takes his load to Rotex Energy’s new waste water disposal site east of Lampman, where Titan Logix has recently installed radar level gauges. Rotex then disposes of the water. At each stage, Titan Logix equipment has been monitoring fluid levels.

It’s less expensive than a full-on SCADA system, according to Hugo. “If you want just a simple system, this is all you need.”

“We got into this because it ties into our gauging products,” Sargent adds.

The company also handles tank gauge boards and electro-mechanical float gauges.

ly 63 per cent heavy oil, 17 per cent light oil and natural gas liquids, and 20 per cent natural gas.

In a news release, Baytex said it sees 2010 as a transition year as it makes the shift from an income-focused trust model to a growth-andincome model corporation.

As a result, it projects production to be basically flat at fourth quarter 2009 levels of approximately 42,500 to 43,000 boe/d during the early part of the year, rising to approximately 44,500 boe/d at the end of 2010.

A higher production growth rate higher than four percent projected for 2010 is anticipated beyond 2010 as the trust fully implements its long-term growth-andincome corporate model.

B13

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B14

PIPELINE NEWS January 2010

HSPA coming in mid-2010 Regina – Some time in the middle of 2010, SaskTel will be activating its new third generation cellular coverage, a system referred to as HSPA, or High Speed Packet Access. It’s a new cellular technology that will allow for even higher bandwidth than the current cellular service SaskTel provides.

In optimal conditions, it means having the equivalent of the high speed connection you have in your house with you in the field.

“That’s the big thing happening right now.

We’re concentrating most of our efforts on next-generation technology,” explains Kevin Shatkowski, who is one of the individuals overseeing the project for SaskTel. He’s the system design engineering and support manager for TD & E – wireless.

Over the past year, SaskTel has been putting out numerous press releases announcing new EV-DO Rev A upgrades to its existing digital CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) cellular network.

EV-DO allowed for improved bandwidth, and has been incorporated in key urban centres, on major corridors, and in the oilpatch. However, the company is already working on rolling out its new system.

There’s actually two terms for the new network, according to Shatkowski. UMTS is the voice portion of the signal, while HSPA is the data portion. For simplicity’s sake, the remainder of the article will refer to HSPA, which is the commonly used term to refer to the technology.

For data, the theoretical maximum is 21 megabits per second, in optimal conditions. That would mean near the tower, with a clear line of site, outside of a building or vehicle, and being the only guy using it at the time. Reality, of course, is less.

With higher throughputs, additional services using the network are envisioned, such as streaming video.

For the oilpatch, he says, it’s a lot of “yet to be de-

termined.”

“It opens up opportunities to services we don’t have today,” he says.

Oilpatch heavy users “When we selected our EV-DO strategy, we did an analysis of the highest 1X data usage sites. Sites in the oilpatch were some of our highest 1X usage sites, and obvious targets for the EVDO Rev A rollout.”

While the press releases keep coming out regarding EV-DO Rev A, Shatkowsi explains the rest of the world is jumping tracks to UMTS/HSPA. SaskTel will not be going much further with EV-DO, and instead is focusing on UMTS/HSPA. “It is the line we have drawn.”

While that might sound like a lot of technical gobbledegook, think of it this way: Most North American providers have been using CDMA, while the rest of the world has been using GSM (Global System for Mobile Communiciations.)

Think of CDMA as PC computers, and GSM as Mac. In this case, the world is switching to the Mac equivalent, and SaskTel is going along with it. “Most of the world is going that way, with the exception of Verizon and Sprint,” Shatkowski says.

HSPA has a migration path that allows SaskTel to eventually end up at LTE, where the world is going. That means that eventually everything will be compatible, i.e. the world will be Mac, to use the previous analogy.

“We will ultimately all meet up at LTE and make one big group hug,” Shatkowski says.

LTE stand for Long Term evolution. It is sometimes referred to as the fourth generation of cellular technology, but not quite. “Some people call it fourth generation, some call it 3.9. Most often it is called 4G,” he says.

So why not simply skip a grade, as it were, and go straight to LTE? “LTE will not be ready in time to allow use to survive as a viable service provider for the province of Saskatch-

ewan. Telus and Bell would be forced to overlay (their coverage) in Saskatchewan to meets the needs of their customers.”

CDMA phones will eventually dry up, and there also isn’t a critical mass of LTE phones yet, he adds.

What does the oilpatch use?

“The oilpatch is different than a city. In the oilpatch, you see large file transfers.”

The ratio of data to voice usage is different, he explains. In urban areas, you see high data usage, high voice usage. In typical rural areas, there is low voice and low data.

But in oilpatch regions, there is medium voice usage, and high data usage.

“An oilpatch site can often process as much data as a busy city site.”

Rollout There’s a lot of technical work that needs to be done to roll out HSPA. For instance, new antennas need to be installed on each and every site that will have it. The towers need to be analyzed to see if they can handle the additional weight, and in some cases, upgraded.

Comtech of Weyburn is doing much of the work on that end of the project, engaged in assisting with the engineering design and structural analysis.

The date hasn’t been announced yet, but Sasktel Chief Technology Officer Kym Wittal says service should start in mid-2010, and if all goes according to plan, be in place throughout the province within six months.

Analog With all this talk of new technology, SaskTel is still supporting its analog network, at least for now.

In some ways, analog had its advantages over digital. The physics of signal strength, wavelength and propagation meant that SaskTel needed 365 sites with 65 repeaters to provide digital coverage to essentially the same area it covers with only 133 sites and 14 extenders on the analog system.

Overlaying the new HSPA network across Saskatchewan is one of the major focuses of Kevin Shatkowski’s work with SaskTel right now.

“The HSPA overlay will use all the same sites as our CDMA,” Shatkowski reports. There will be some technical differences, but they should be

able to broadcast slightly further than the current digital network.

Like any wireless technology, bandwidth is inversely proportional

with the distance from the tower. In rural situations, the question of “Can I make a call or not?” will have a slightly better response.

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PIPELINE NEWS January 2010

B15

Bandwidth, bandwidth, bandwidth

Kym Wittal is SaskTel’s chief technology ofÀcer.

What do people in the oilpatch want? Bandwidth, he says.

Regina – “It’s all about bandwidth,â€? says Kym Wittal, SaskTel’s chief technology oďŹƒcer, when asked about what the oilpatch wants for wireless solutions. “It enables people to do what they want to do. Everyone wants more information.â€?

The question for the Crown corporation, becomes, “How do we set up for bandwidth in remote areas?â€? “How do you get high quality, high speed bandwidth in rural areas? It is truly a ďŹ rst mile/last mile question.â€?

That “last mileâ€? Wittal refers to is the last stretch it takes to reach out to a customer and get them onto the communications network. However, he prefers to refer to it as the â€œďŹ rst mile,â€? because from the customer’s point of view, they need to overcome the allegorical ďŹ rst mile to the network.

With more bandwidth in the ďŹ eld, things like video surveillance become easier. Seismic blasting creates huge amounts of data, and they need to get the information back to head oďŹƒce as soon as possible.

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There are also ties to head oďŹƒce. “We can put that information that was in your corporate oďŹƒces and put it in your BlackBerry or laptop,â€? Wittal says.

A service technician might be able to have access to a virtual library of repair manuals, instead of ďŹ lling a back seat with a library of hardcopy manuals. “If it’s online, it’s always up to date,â€? he illustrates.

Geographic Information System (GIS) maps showing pipelines, telephone lines or First Nations burial grounds are another application.

SaskTel is in beginning the transition to a new cellular technology – High Speed Packet Access (HSPA), with plans to begin ďŹ elding it in the middle of this year. It comes fast of the heels of the recent EVDO Rev A upgrade. EVDO has seen implementation in the high population areas, major corridors and in particular, the oilďŹ eld, but has not and will not be spread out throughout the province.

HSPA promises faster connection speeds. (See related story page B14) Bell and Telus began rolling out HSPA late last year, and SaskTel will beneďŹ t from their experience, according to Wittal.

Major centres and road corridors will be the ďŹ rst to see HSPA, and the oilpatch will also be part of the early groupings, Wittal adds. However, the whole province should be covered by HSPA within approximately six months, if everything goes to plan.

SaskTel already knows the next step after that –

LTE, or Long Term Evolution, the purported fourth generation of cell phone technology, but the market isn’t ready for it yet. “LTE is not ready for prime time right now,� Wittal says, noting the market is waiting for Verizon.

Bell and Telus use SaskTel’s network in the province. Telus in particular has a foothold in the Lloydminster area of the oilpatch, where companies typically work on both sides of the border. SaskTel needs to beat them on services, bundling and functionality, Wittal says. “We have a healthy market share across Saskatchewan.�

The reality is, if you are using a cellular product in the oilďŹ eld in Saskatchewan, your signal is almost always going to be running through a SaskTel tower, either as a SaskTel client or as a Telus or Bell client roaming on the network.

Rogers, the other major player in the cellular market, is eectively out of game when it comes to Saskatchewan’s oilpatch. Their coverage in rural areas is spotty or non-existent. There are huge gaping holes where most of the Saskatchewan oilpatch works. In southeast Saskatchewan, for instance, their coverage map shows Highways 39 and 1 covered, and that’s about it. It’s not much dierent in the southwest, or Kindersley regions. The map is only marginally better in the northwest, near Lloydminster.

Asked about the coverage advantage, Wittal says, “We want to serve our customers the best way possible. We are going to have the best network in Saskatchewan, bar none.�

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B16

PIPELINE NEWS January 2010

European journalists tour Cenovus Weyburn unit Story and photos by Brian Zinchuk Weyburn – A mini-bus full of European journalists pulls up to the Weyburn Cenovus Energy facility, discharging them onto the frosty, windy plain before they enter under a large sign that says “Visitors.”

It’s not common for oilfield facilities to have such signs, but in this case, it’s necessary. That’s because there are a lot of visitors to the Cenovus, formerly EnCana, Weyburn unit.

It’s a short stop for the 11 journalists from the European Union, including Dutch, Germans, Belgians and French. They spent the morning meeting with Malcolm Wilson, PhD, with the International Test Centre for CO2 at the University of Regina. The ITC is a research partner with the Weyburn project.

Now, the tour gets to see carbon storage in action.

They’re told how the carbon dioxide originates at a coal gasification plant in North Dakota, and is pipelined to the field south of Weyburn. There, it is used as a miscible flood to push crude oil out of the ground, nearly a mile below. Some of the carbon dioxide comes back up with the produced oil, and is recycled for further flooding use. A net of two million tonnes of CO2 remains underground each year.

“We try our best to accommodate tours,” says

Twila Walkeden, whose job is community relations with Cenovus. “We get requests from all over the word.”

In this case, the Canadian Embassy in France put the tour together. Normand Smith, a media relations person with the embassy, is guiding the group across the country, with stops in Montreal, Vancouver, Edmonton, Okotoks, Regina and Weyburn. The next day, the group was scheduled to visit Manitoba Hydro in Winnipeg, before flying back to their homes in Europe. The idea behind the tours is to encourage investment in Canada. A similar visit was recently done highlighting Canadian banking, he explains.

The group is made up of senior journalists – there are no young faces in the bunch. One has been a French correspondent in Montreal for 20 years. Another, Charles De Vre, is editor of a national daily newspaper in Holland.

“It’s an amazing project, isn’t it?” he says after a brief tour of the field. While one of his German colleagues writing for an engineering publication is more interested in the technical side, De Vre is looking at the Weyburn unit from the political and environmental side, in particular, with the Copenhagen conference on climate scheduled a few days after their visit. ɸ Page B17

These journalists from Europe closely study core samples of the Midale-Marley formation.

Cenovus Superintendent Darcy Cretin points out various units in the Weyburn unit to a European journalist. Behind them is the main plant.

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PIPELINE NEWS January 2010

B17

Cenovus’ Weyburn unit part of EU green business tour It’s all in the yellow pipes, visitors are told, when they want to see the carbon dioxide Áood at the Cenovus Weyburn unit in action. Here a group of European Union journalists are given the explanation.

ɺ Page B16 He explains Royal Dutch-Shell has a huge refinery near Rotterdam. There are lots of empty gas fields nearby, but the people of the town fiercely oppose the idea of putting carbon dioxide in those reservoirs, even if they have held natural gas for millions of years. “What’s the big deal? Still there’s a big discussion going on,” he says.

His questions for the Cenovus tour leaders focus on community relations, and how many people live in the area of the CO2 storage unit. Two to three hundred, he’s told, mostly farmers, and two small villages.

In the boardroom, the group is shown a brief video presentation. Samples of core from the Midale-Marly and Vuggy formations are passed around. “It’s amazing, the oil is in those rocks,” one reporter says.

“There’s still a billion barrels of oil to recover,” Darcy Cretin, Cenovus superintendent, tells them as part of the presentation.

“We’ve currently stored 15 million tonnes,” he says. Ears perk up when he explains the project, as planned, will eventually take the equivalent of the CO2 production of 6.7 million cars off the road for a year.

Rhona DelFrari, Cenovus media relations, points out, “We do not receive any credit for storing CO2 at all. We’re doing it for the enhanced oil recovery.”

She tells the journalists it’s great for the environment, but being done for oil.

“Right now, we’re at a 35-year high in terms of production,” Cretin elaborates.

While on the outdoor portion of the tour, there’s really not a lot to look at.

Every above-ground pipe that’s painted yellow contains CO2. They’re taken to a nearby header with numerous pipes coming out. A carbon dioxide injection well has a small fibreglass hut over it. Cretin explains that the injection well looks like any other, really.

A short drive shows an electric submersible pump at work. There’s not a lot to see, they’re told, because the carbon dioxide is all in the pipes, and underground.

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B18

PIPELINE NEWS January 2010

Oilsands Quest on track for commercial pilot project Calgary – Oilsands Quest Inc. will have another busy operating year in 2010 establishing Saskatchewan’s oilsands industry.

The company plans to continue to advance the development and exploration of its oilsands discoveries at Axe Lake in northern Saskatchewan and its Raven Ridge, Wallace Creek and Eagles

Nest areas in Alberta.

Laboratory studies and numerical reservoir simulations to date point to the use of a modified steam assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) production method to recover oil from bitumen resources at Axe Lake.

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duce bitumen starting from the bottom of the reservoir could be the method of choice.

“Over the next 12 months, we plan to continue the activities necessary to increase our resource base and to demonstrate the recoverability of our oil sands resources,” stated Christopher H. Hopkins, president and chief executive officer in a news release.

“Subject to our financial resources, we will continue to pursue exploration programs on our permit and license lands.”

Oilsands Quest Inc. is exploring over 730,598 acres of contiguous oil sands permits and licences located in Saskatchewan and Alberta with total discovered resource estimates of 3.2 billion barrels of oil.

The company also has more 1.2 million acres of shale oil land in the Pasquia Hills area of eastern Saskatchewan where a lot of exploration drilling took place in 2009.

Topping the list of

priorities for 2010 is a plan to submit an application for a commercial pilot project at Axe Lake using a low pressure steam-based bitumen recovery process.

That process is currently being researched and tested at Axe Lake at one of three test sites as reported in the company’s operations review news release on Dec. 7 Phase one testing at Test Site 1 at Axe Lake was anticipated to start in mid December involving the injection of cold water followed by the injection of hot water and steam into the reservoir.

The test purpose is to measure heat and fluid movement under specific operating conditions.

The first phase of testing will be conducted using six vertical wells.

Measurements of pressure, temperature and micro-seismic response will be used to record and model reservoir behavior.

The company has also drilled and completed observation wells in preparation for Phase 2

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testing at that site. Water and steam will be injected into three horizontal wells previously drilled.

Water injection tests at Test Site 3 wrapped up Nov. 5 and concluded all testing at that location.

The final test was a water circulation test between two wells 3.5 meters apart to measure initial fluid mobility using cold, then hot water.

Field activities could get underway soon at Test Site 2 where researchers are evaluating the testing of other energy efficient and environmentally neutral recovery processes.

The company also has plans to scout seismic and exploration drilling targets at Axe Lake and its other oil sands and shale oil properties in 2010.

The application for the Axe Lake pilot project could be submitted by the end of December or early in 2010 and will trigger an environmental assessment impact.

Baseline environmental programs were also expanded in the Axe

Lake and Raven Ridge areas in 2009 and initiated in the Wallace Creek and Eagles Nest properties in anticipation of the assessment report.

Oilsands Quest also launched a 15-hole program in Oct. 2009 to characterize the overburden overlaying the bitumen deposit at Axe Lake.

For 2010, the company has outlined the need to study various pipeline solutions for gas and liquids transport and scout possible routes for access roads and power lines.

More research is expected in 2010 on shale oil recovery methods for the company’s Pasquia Hills shale oil discovery in eastern Saskatchewan.

In September and October of 2009, the company logged 12 exploration test holes with 10 of those holes intercepting sizable oil shale deposits up to 37 metres thick.

The core samples are being studied to measure recovery factors and potential recovery methods.

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PIPELINE NEWS January 2010

B19

Connecting remote locations via satellite

Field service tech Shaun Johnson inspects a large electronics cabinet inside the Acutec Systems Ltd. shop, in Lampman.

Staying close to home Shaun Johnson, an instrumentation technologist who graduated from SIAST Palliser in 2007, can be found working on various instrumentation boxes. In the Acutec Systems shop on the Main Street of Lampman.

Johnson, originally from Carlyle, moved to Lampman in 2007. “I didn’t want to go to Alberta. I wanted to stay close to home.

His girlfriend works at Lampman-based Carson Energy Services, in their environmental division.

He likes to ride sleds and motorcycles, when he’s not drag racing. “I’m building an ’82 GMC S-15,” he says with a smile.

Lampman – Oil wells aren’t always in the most convenient places. Indeed, most are quite remote, where there are no phone lines, and cellular coverage may be spotty, or totally unavailable. So how do you gather telemetry data from the wellhead?

Look up – waaaaay up.

Acutec Systems Ltd. of Lampman has developed a low cost simplex satellite communications system for monitoring.

Duane Freeden, sales manager with Acutec, explains, “If there’s an alarm at a site, i.e. high tank or pump failure, it sends a message. It can be a SMS (text) message or email.

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senger” product has been around for over three years. It’s an important focus for Acutec right now, “because it’s our own,” he says.

John Grimes heads up the company. “There’s going to be huge growth on the satellite,” he predicts. “The real growth potential for this company is the satellite side.”

They use the Globalstar satellite communications system. It means Acutec can install satellite systems throughout much of the world. (The coverage map includes most of North and South America, Europe, northern Africa, northern Asia, and Australia.)

“We have over 800 units on the system now,” according to Grimes.

“There’s some of our products in Texas and Mexico. Mexico is an emerging market,” he says.

“It is good for eight alarms, four readings. If you need level, temperature, pressure, flow, we can tie into that or supply it,” Freeden illustrates, referring to the instrumentation. “It can be timed or event driven, i.e. an alarm or change in status.”

A lot of clients have their Messengers report twice a day, such as 7 a.m. and 7 p.m., to let them know things are all right. ɸ Page B20

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B20

PIPELINE NEWS January 2010

New gauge goes through bolt hole ɺ Page B19

ium batteries should last several years, Grimes says.

“There’s a huge market out there for the 400-bbl.

New gauge On the instrumentation side, the company is a test tanks” he says of the gauges. He should know, as reseller for Foxboro and Siemens, but they also have part owner of a tank rental company, Ener-Test. “It’ll their own products, something Freeden says you al- cover that application,” he says. “We’re equipping ways want to work towards. Currently they are work- over 300 tanks with these gauges right away.

The gauges can be moved without being dismaning on a “low maintenance/no maintenance” oilfield tled. tank level gauge. It hasn’t been released yet.

Other gauges “This new gauge will have features others don’t,” Grimes notes.

For tank level gauging, there are several different “We just got CSA electrical inspection approval options. There’s the old fashioned float-based system, on Monday,” Grimes says, when interviewed in late with a board on the side of the tank. Then there are pressure- and radar-based systems.

November.

The product is being manufactured in Saskatoon In the building next door, technicians can be and Calgary. found working on radar sensors. They look like the It will have a very low cost of ownership, he says, bullhorn style of public address speakers.

“On the same site, we may have three different and will have the option to be linked to a satellite.

“What’s unique about this gauge is it’s self-pow- types of gauges,” Freeden says. ered, with a small battery pack. Installation costs can Each type of gauge has its benefits and drawbacks, according to Freeden. Pressure gauges are cheap and be more than the equipment. This eliminates that.”

The new gauge has a radio link from the tank to simple, but if the product is changing, there is a conprocess displays. No drilling on the tank is required. stant need for calibration.

It simply goes through an existing bolt hole. The lithThe float-based system contacts the fluid. It’s old, but easy and understandable.

“We start at the most simple, a float and pul-

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ley and board,” he says. There are also electronic versions.

Radar units have a sensor at the top of the tank, aimed downward.

While level gauges are probably half their business, Freeden says they also get into flow meters, pressure and temperature gauges.

For the most part, they’re electronic, and can all be tied into a main controller, made by Acutec.

These systems can be found at batteries. While a form of SCADA, (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition), Freeden says most batteries aren’t a full-blown SCADA, with complete control. These are more focused on data acquisition, as opposed to remote control.

“In Saskatchewan, firms are more thrifty on installations,” he says.

Video The company also handles video surveillance, useful for finding out why fuel is going missing from gen sets, for instance. “There seems to be a lot of fuel theft and vandalism.”

Acutec units have recorded people filling up their slip tanks at night. They’ve been caught, Freeden adds.

“Sometimes you get operators or rig crews, sometimes farmers.”

Tools also can walk away. Other times, it’s simple vandalism. ɸ Page B21

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PIPELINE NEWS January 2010

Short hop, cellular or satellite ɺ Page B20 Depending on the motivation of the operators, the cameras may be visible as a deterrent, or hidden. “Sometimes, they want a great big sign. Sometimes, they want to catch the guy.”

Signals Acutec’s various products use a number of different methods to transmit their signals.

In some cases, it’s shorthop radio, with no tow-

ers, with antennas high enough to reach each other. This is usually done under a range of 16 km.

There are cellularbased systems, which allow the operator to call into the site. The computer answers and provides a response.

The company is a SaskTel Mobility subdealer, primarily so it can do activations on its cellular-based telemetry units. They also provide cellular dealership service

to the local community.

Then there’s the satellite. For one thing, it’s not obvious, with a big dish. “You wouldn’t even know it’s there,” he says.

“Cellular coverage improves every day, but cellular companies are never going to put towers where there are no people,” Freeden relates.

The satellite signal in this particular application only goes one way – out.

But for a lot of applications, that’s sufficient.

Over the past year, the company has been expanding in the building next door to its main office, on the Main Street of Lampman. In this building, the Acutec Controller is assembled.

It takes a good day to build a controller, Freeden says. Techs will build and install the units. Shaun Johnson, instrumentation tech, notes, “We wire the whole thing. We test it in the shop. We have a really good knowledge of what we build.”

B21

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Construction Ltd. Lease Construction Lease Restoration • Mulching L&C Trucking in the Christmas spirit Some people just string a few Christmas lights. L & C Trucking of Estevan goes a wee bit further. They have a whole Christmas truck lit up. But if that wasn’t enough, they use two of their picker units to place it on top of a sea container, at the front of their yard. The task was accomplished on a frigid Dec. 8 morning.

Photo by Brian Zinchuk

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PIPELINE NEWS January 2010

Alberta’s 240-km CO2 pipeline to stimulate wells Edmonton –Carbon dioxide (CO2) will play a bigger role in the Alberta’s energy future with plans to build a 240-kilometer CO2 pipeline for new carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects in the province.

The Alberta Carbon Trunk Line (ACTL) will connect the Industrial Heartland near Fort Saskatchewan south to producing fields near Clive,

north of Red Deer creating the world’s largest CCS system.

The initial supplies of CO2 will come from the Agrium Redwater complex and the planned North West Upgrader that will upgrade bitumen from the oilsands in the Fort McMurray area.

Captured CO2 from these companies will be piped to depleting conventional oilfields near

Clive and used as an enhanced oil recovery (EOR) tool.

Construction is scheduled to begin in 2011, with operations to start in late 2012. The project is supported by a $495 million contribution from the province over a 15-year period as part of the government’s $2 billion CCS fund.

The federal government is also contributing

$30 million through its $1 billion Clean Energy Fund, a program created in Canada’s Economic Action Plan, in addition to $33 million from the ecoENERGY Technology Initiative.

Some payback for Alberta will be generated from increased royalties from EOR using CO2.

“This new pipeline will significantly advance Alberta’s capacity for future carbon capture and storage projects,” said Premier Ed Stelmach during the project launch Nov. 24.

“The Alberta Carbon Trunk Line will be the backbone of CO2 transportation for Alberta. It will be built with longterm capacity in mind so as more companies capture CO2, they will be able connect to the line.”

The ACTL will be designed to carry about 40,000 tonnes of CO2 per day or 14 million tonnes per year with an initial throughput of 5,100 tonnes per day.

The development

of the ACTL will be spearheaded by Enhance Energy and North West Upgrading that have both signed a Letter of Intent with Alberta to complete the project that has been on the drawing board for a number of years.

“The ACTL will enable the sustainable development of Alberta’s vast oil reserves while increasing production from existing reservoirs and helping to store 14 million tonnes of CO2 annually,” said Susan Cole, president of Enhance Energy.

Enhance is an Alberta-based company that specializes in polymer flooding and enhanced oil recovery involving the permanent, secure storage of CO2 in mature oil and gas reservoirs.

CO2 from the ACTL will be injected into existing conventional reservoirs as an EOR tool.

Injected CO2 creates pressure in the reservoir which pushes the oil into the downhole pipe and up

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to the surface more easily.

EOR from CO2 is also environmentally efficient as existing infrastructure such as roads and wells can be used and it maximizes oil production from existing reservoirs.

Near Weyburn Cenovus, formerly, Encana operates the world’s largest carbon sequestration project.

By injecting CO2 into the Midale beds, the company has boosted production there to approximately 30,000 barrels of oil a day – an 18,000 barrel a day increase over what would be produced without the CO2 flood.

According to the Canada–Alberta ecoENERGY CCS Task Force report released in 2008, CCS technology could allow Canada to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 600 million tonnes a year by 2050 — an amount equal to almost three-quarters of Canada’s current annual emissions.

The ACTL project follows funding commitment from the provincial and federal government to support (CCS) projects from Shell Canada Limited and TransAlta Corporation announced earlier in the fall of 2009.

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PIPELINE NEWS January 2010

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PIPELINE NEWS Saskatchewanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Petroleum Monthly

C-Section January 2010

Weyburnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Comtech: masters of wireless Company integral to SaskTelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s current wireless upgrade

Views donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t get much better than this.

Photo submitted

Â&#x201E; By Brian Zinchuk Weyburn â&#x20AC;&#x201C; From one man who got into business with his dad 16 years ago, Weyburnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Comtech (Communications Technologies) Ltd. has grown to play an important part in Saskatchewan and indeed, a number of Canadianâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s everyday lives.

Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s because when you turn on your new HSPA cellphone obtained later in 2010, Comtech will have had a part in making sure your signal gets from the phone to the network. If youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve been travelling through other parts of Canada, you would have already beneďŹ tted from their handiwork. In the oilpatch, Comtechâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s various wireless products and services can and do provide much of the backbone for the voice and data communications from the ďŹ eld to head oďŹ&#x192;ce, especially for clients like Cenovus.

HSPA rollout When Pipeline News ďŹ rst stopped at Comtech in November there were blueprints spread across CEO Aaron Grohnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s desk, showing antenna arrays for cellular towers. The company is contracted as project manager for rollout of High Speed Packet Access, or HSPA, for SaskTel. The contract includes design work for parts of the new system, such as improvements to towers and installation of the required hardware.

The company is also vetted as one of several approved contractors to work on the physical installa-

tion of the system. The work will involve new antennas, cabling, and remote radio units. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We did that in PEI, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec, and Ontario for Bell,â&#x20AC;? Grohn says. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We wrapped up out there to support SaskTel.â&#x20AC;?

They began work on the project in February of 2009. It will result in about one third of the ďŹ rmâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s business for the next two to three years. Grohn explains that Comtech is â&#x20AC;&#x153;in a valuable partnership with SaskTel.â&#x20AC;?

While there are other companies that do parts of their business, â&#x20AC;&#x153;If they want it done under one roof, they come to us,â&#x20AC;? Grohn says, listing design, tower work, engineering, project management, installation and integration.

Beginnings In 1994, Aaron Grohn was working in Alberta for a small communications shop, about the time the automation industry was being borne in the oilpatch.

He had completed a diploma as an avionics engineering technologist, a ďŹ eld he says is very similar to what he does today. An airplane is like a city in the sky, he explains, it has to be self suďŹ&#x192;cient and everything has to be held to a higher standard. He says autopilot was one of the earliest forms of automation.

While working for the communications company, Grohn saw that there was potential in dealing

with the challenges of integrating components from diďŹ&#x20AC;erent companies. He brought it forward to his boss. The boss wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t interested. â&#x20AC;&#x153;He said â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Nah,â&#x20AC;&#x2122; so it took me about two days to ďŹ gure out I should be doing it on my own,â&#x20AC;? Grohn recalls.

He spoke to his father, Terry Grohn, who had run an electrical business, Industrial Electric (Weyburn) Ltd., for 20 years, and a co-worker, Kevin Allen, about the idea. Terry and Aaron got the ball rolling in 1994, and Allen joined as a partner in 1999, giving them an Alberta base.

Ironically, when he decided to strike out on his own, the ďŹ rst direction he took was back home, straight to Weyburn. He had linked up with Kelly Woolsey right away, a man Grohn says is a leader in the industry. At the time, Woolsey owned Delta-X Automation, handling rodpump controllers. Woolsey told Grohn he had to introduce him to someone.

That someone was Grohnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own father.

He went home with some instrumentation and furniture, and set up shop. â&#x20AC;&#x153;To be honest, from that Saturday, there hasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t been a day where I have had to wonder about the business,â&#x20AC;?he says.

The work started with Suncor, then PanCanadian Petroleum. A lot of his work at PanCanadian Petroleum (then EnCana, now Cenovus, as of Nov. 30) has been with Dan Fradette, who heads up their Weyburn SCADA operations.

Grohn says he was married by destiny to be working alongside his dad. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Everything happened for a reason.â&#x20AC;? ɸ Page C2

You had better not be afraid of heights if you want to work for Comtech.

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PIPELINE NEWS January 2010

Comtech’s handiwork already scattered throughout parts of Canada

For him to look up, you have to look down. Don’t look down. Those trees get pretty tiny.

Photo submitted

ɺ Page C1 Both Fradette and Woolsey have been in-

tegral to the business’s success. “We wouldn’t be much of anything

without their support,” he says of Fradette and Woolsey.

They now have operations in Weyburn, Saskatoon, Calgary, Medicine Hat, and Nisku and are looking to expand into Manitoba in 2010.

“We have a lot of business growth in Manitoba in the next two years,” Grohn says.

Kevin Allen runs all the operations as chief operations officer. Aaron Grohn acts as CEO and chief financial officer.

Over 70 people work with Comtech, and approximately 40 are with Industrial Electric (Weyburn).

Terry Grohn passed away in 2007. Aaron now heads up both companies, Industrial Electric (Weyburn) and Comtech. They operate out of the same head office in Weyburn, but are separate entities, each with their own focus.

Grohn wants to keep it that way, he explains, when asked why he hasn’t integrated the two sister companies. Both Comtech and Industrial Electric (Weyburn) are owned by Aaron Grohn, Kevin Allen, and Marie Grohn, Aaron’s mother.

Began with controllers Comtech’s business was originally 100

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per cent built around the SAM, a wellhead controller unit. Now it’s around 20 per cent, primarily because of the growth in other fields.

“A lot of what we do within Comtech is wireless,” he explains. That includes automation within markets, such as agriculture, oil and gas, utility and water waste management. From this work a requirement for accessing this data remotely was born, and Comtech grew with change to design and develop wide area networks. “We’re experts in wireless and designing network systems.”

“We work in oil and gas – electrical, instruments such as SCADA, voice, fibre optics, wide area networking, management services for networks.”

Grohn calls it “last mile communications,” as in bridging the final gap between the telephone utility’s network and units in the field.

For years, they have been building SCADA (Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition) systems. It allows operators to use their staffing more effectively.

Other areas they focus on include wide area

networks used in the agriculture and oil and gas sectors. Their biggest client in this area is Viterra.

“We do a lot of utilities,” according to Grohn, who lists SaskTel, GlobalLive, Bell Mobility, SaskPower, Altalink and Atco Electric. A lot of this work involves microwave systems in support of switching stations. It’s the guts of their communications systems.

SaskTel, he says, is their best telecom partner relationship. Indeed, the SaskTel managers who work with Comtech speak of the company and Grohn personally, in glowing terms. However, he’s not known for wearing a suit. That might have to do with the sleeve tattoos he bears on his arms.

“We own a network operations centre,” Grohn says. It’s at the Calgary office.”

Not afraid of heights Nearly everyone in the company at some time ends up high. Very high.

“We work on cellular towers on behalf of the carriers themselves,” Grohn says. They typically don’t build the tower, but they do a little bit of that work, too. Comtech’s focus is more on the cabling, the stuff inside the communication building, and antennas. “Almost every employee, including myself and Kevin Allen, have climbed. It’s definitely brought up in an interview,” Grohn says. Explaining that his employees are enthusiastic, he says, “They’re not scared to climb a tower if that’s what their job is.”

PIPELINE NEWS January 2010

C3

Tundra makes substanial donation to Virden

An artist’s rendition of the proposed Virden multipurpose recreational facility.

Virden, Man. – Tundra Oil & Gas Partnership made a huge $1.5 million donation in November to the town of Virden, Man., for its new multi-purpose recreational facility.

Tundra is by far Manitoba’s most prolific oil and gas producer, with its field office in Virden.

Tundra has been one of the leading producers in the Sinclair field, which has proved to be a boon for the province’s rela-

tively small oilpatch. The company also operates in Saskatchewan.

Tundra Oil & Gas Partnership is part of the James Richardson & Sons, Limited, group of companies. The Richardson Foundation made the actual donation.

The facility will have a 1,300 seat arena, walking track, fitness centre, change rooms, banquet hall and curling rink.

The donation was a major boost to the $16.5 million project. An additional $5.45 million is coming from the federal and Manitoba governments, under the Building Canada Fund.

Bob Puchniak, chairman of Tundra Oil & Gas

Partnership and a trustee of the Richardson Foundation, said, “On behalf of the trustees of the Richardson Foundation, we are grateful for the opportunity to participate. We are

pleased to help kick start this initiative, and we wish you every success in your campaign to fund this much-needed asset.”

-With files from the Virden Empire-Advance

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Tundra Oil & Gas Partnership, whose Cromer terminal can be seen here, made a recent $1.5 million donation to the town of Virden for its new multipurpose recreational facility. The donation was made by the Richardson Foundation.

Lifetime achievement banquet Jan. 19 Estevan – The Estevan Oilfield Technical Society (OTS) will be holding its annual lifetime achievement awards banquet on Tuesday, Jan. 19.

The event will take place at the Beefeater Plaza, in Estevan.

Cocktails are at 6 p.m., with supper to follow at 7 p.m.

Three people are being honoured for their lifetime achievements.

They include Les Avery, Art Wrubleski, and Jim Morgan. Morgan’s honours are posthumous, however.

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C4

PIPELINE NEWS January 2010

New waste disposal site goes online

An aerial view of the new Rotex Energy facility, east of Lampman, at Willmar.

Lampman - About 25 kilometres east of Lampman and a similar distance south of Arcola, Rotex Energy Ltd. is setting up a new oilfield waste management facility to service southeast Saskatchewan. The approximately 10-acre complex will not only

take liquid and solid oilfield waste from the oilfield, but also provide frac water from its own source well.

The map reference location is known as Rotex Willmar 11-365-4-W2.

Kevin Baumann is the man behind the proj-

ect as president of Rotex. The majority shareholder, he can be found at the site overseeing construction. He’s considering moving to the area some day.

“We’re a new startup.

We’ve got four projects on the go, we are raising private capital and

we have a great team,” he says. Those projects include the Lampman site, another in the Northwest Territories, and a third in the Horn River area of northeastern British Columbia.

The company is also evaluating other waste disposal opportunities in Saskatchewan, which Rotex feels are ripe for the development of facilities with multiple service offerings that are efficient, safe and compliant.

During a visit on Nov. 27, the site was a hive of welders, electricians and labourers. At one end, electricians were busy at work near the frac water pumps, while at the other, numerous welding trucks were backed in as final fabrication work took

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place. “This facility is planned to be in operation prior to January 1, 2010,” he explains.

“We’re licensed as a waste processing facility with disposal and source water supply.”

The Lampman location, on the southern edge of the Bakken fairway and centrally located, puts it very close to the centre of the action.

For instance, a string of drilling and service rigs could be seen operating near Kisbey later the same weekend, just 44 km away. “We feel we’re in a pretty good area,” Baumann affirms.

The operation will employ about eight to 10 people, operating around the clock.

Water well There were three key elements to site location: being central, having suitable disposal well geology and a source water well, all in the same immediate area. “We know there’s a growing market in southeast Saskatchewan. We see the market for frac water supply, waste processing and disposal as very encouraging,” says Baumann.

“We have a really good Mannville disposal.” Baumann won’t reveal the source water well formation but says, “We scoured this area to find a suitable water source.”

The result was a well that was originally drilled for oil, but never panned out. “We proved up a zone in that well

that would give us large volumes of water suitable for fracturing which has been confirmed by independent labs and fracturing companies,” he says.

On the east side of the facility is the source water well. To accommodate its production, Rotex has a Saskatchewan environment ministry approved lined storage cell providing a cushion for surges in demand.

“We want to be able not only to produce a large volume, but we want to be able to store it in the event we need it in a hurry,” Baumann explains.

Baumann reports they will have close to 50,000 barrels of frac water storage capacity.

There are large two boilers on site meant to heat the water to suitable temperatures which in some cases will result in heating costs savings for on-lease frac water heating. The large boilers, with approximately 15 million BTU of heating power will allow the company to send suitable frac water out the gate at 190 degrees F (87.7 C) if needed.

Baumann speaks of taking the pressure off other water resources, including surface and ground water, for supplying thirsty frac operations. Water use restrictions are already coming into effect in certain parts of Canada and the United States. ɸ Page C5

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C5

New waste disposal for many years and has owned or managed a few companies over that time.

“It’s risky, very risky,” Baumann confirms.

“There’s a saying in the waste business, ‘build it and they will come.’

Well, we’re hoping they come.” The proof he feels will be in Rotex’s competitive service offerings, the facility’s design and

its ability to maintain ongoing compliance.

“The proof is in the visit,” he offers.

In total, the facility services include waste processing, disposal of production, drilling and completion products, source water, and tank washouts and steaming.

Dynamic Projects Ltd. and Supreme Oilfield Construction Ltd.

of Estevan are doing the installation work.

A visitor notices numerous piping bridges.

With the exception of the natural gas entering the site, there are no buried pipes. “If we have a leak, it is easily detected without an impact,” says Baumann.

The facility is considered a closed system with proper vapour re-

covery. “We at Rotex are proud of this facility” he says. “There is not a threaded pipe on this site and it is constructed properly.”

“There are a lot of opportunities in this province,” Baumann says. “Rotex will be a part of Saskatchewan and will be involved in supporting the areas it operates in.”

Kevin Baumann, head of Rotex Energy, among the boilers for frac water.

ɺ Page C4 The Willmar facility has unique unloading stations. All unload stations are overhead and are connected through a series of piped bridges. This gives Rotex no buried lines. The system also has its own pumps to draw on the 8-inch truck unload lines, allowing for 12 cubic meters per minute of water truck unload, and enabling the company to give a guarantee of no waiting time.

The frac water component of the facility has the ability to load four trucks at the same time without using the trucks’ pumps. There is also a receiving pad for the unloading of two vacuum trucks at a time as well as several vessels for waste handling and oil storage.

Rotex’s holding pond, combined with a source well, is the first type of setup like that Baumann’s seen in Canada, and he’s been working in the waste business

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C6

PIPELINE NEWS January 2010

Harnessing electrons and EM signals: IEW

Instrumentation technician Tyson Hahn accesses a monitor screen for wells in northern Alberta on his laptop in Weyburn.

Weyburn – If it in involves an electron running down a wire, or an electromagnetic signal travelling through the air in the oilfield, the instrumentation techs and electricians at Industrial Electric (Weyburn) Ltd. have probably done it.

Tyson Hahn is an instrumentation journeyman with Industrial Electric. He’s been working on a Distributed Control System, or DCS. “DCS is plant-wide, where PLC (Programmable Logic Controller) is individual,” he explains.

Cenovus, formerly EnCana, is in the midst of a major DCS installation. They are one of Industrial Electric’s biggest

clients. “EnCana’s the most complex system in the oilpatch right now,” Hahn adds.

Carbon dioxide injection is a lot more regulated and critical process compared to water flood, Hahn explains.

“I would say about 70 per cent of our work is with EnCana. I guess it’s Cenovus now. They’re the big player in the area.

We do a lot of work for smaller companies in the area, too.”

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The key feature is the ability of units like Pump Off Controllers (POC) to communicate to the brains of the system. The older style incorporated Programmable Logic Controllers, or PLCs, but there is a move to the new DCS. “They talk to each other,” Hahn says of PLCs, “but DCS is one big controller, controlling the whole plant.”

The system controls valves, pumps and motors.

If a plant were a human body, those would be the muscles and organs, while the DCS is the brains and nervous system. The sensory inputs of the system, the touch, sight and hearing, as it were, are sensory packages that monitor parameters like pressure, temperature and level flow.

“That’s what controls the actual opening and closing, speeding up and slowing down,” explains Hahn.

Cenovus’ system used wireless communications between the individual sites and the main control station. Operators can access it via computers in the field. “It’s all a wireless system, through laptop,” Hahn says.

“We use a program called XSPOC, site specific for each location.

“They use it for a lot of trouble shooting, as well as how much fluid is flowing from each jack.”

In the Cenovus Weyburn field, the company’s systems typically use licensed and unlicensed radio frequencies to transmit data. However, the company has units that are also capable to tying into the cellular system.

“We put a cellular modem at the pumpjack.

It has its own IP (Internet Protocol) address. We link that to our server, which give the client the ability to view that specific jack.”

Hahn says a company can pull up a schematic showing water tanks, booster pumps, injection pumps and oil storage, as examples.

The system typically is set up like this: each well, be it producers or injectors, sends a wireless signal to the local battery. The battery in turn is connected to the main plant. ɸ Page C7

PIPELINE NEWS January 2010

C7

“We pretty much do it all” ɺ Page C6 Greg Lasko is an apprentice instrumentation tech. He just commissioned two SAM well manager rod pump contol units in northern Alberta. As Hahn pulls it up on his laptop, Lasko explains, “I can see that from here.”

“We do all the power, communications, the instruments themselves, commission, and overall maintenance,” Hahn says.

“We pretty much do it all,” Lasko adds, noting a company is able to source all their needs from one team.

The test bench is a key part of setting up instrumentation. There’s a SAM on the wall to run simulations. Soon SIAST co-op student Jared Cowie rebuilds a pump off controller. there will be a pumpjack simulator. “We test everything to make sure it links, optimized for the best field performance,” Lasko explains.

They use attenuators to simulate the use of antennas between units.

“Usually we like to let them run for a week, to make sure no problems come up. We test everything before it goes out the door,” he adds.

“On average, I would say about 80 per cent of the the time is spent in the field, the rest in the shop, either wiring or testing equipment.”

Tower climbing falls to employees of Comtech, Industrial Electric’s sister company. “We’re ground guys,” says Lasko. “We look after the installation, the construction, making sure our device on the ground is communicating the proper values.”

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C8

PIPELINE NEWS January 2010

From grain elevators to oil¿elds Weyburn – The company started out as an outgrowth of the founder’s work at Weyburn Inland Terminal.

While Industrial Electric (Weyburn) Ltd. still

does a lot of work for the terminal, its major focus is in the oilpatch.

“Oilfield overtook everything,” explains Geoff White, superintendent. “We still have

our roots in grain handling facilities.”

Industrial Electric is a sister company of Comtech, a wireless communications specialist company. How-

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ever, the relationship is more like a parentchild, because that was the relationship of the founders of the two companies.

Terry Grohn was an electrician who founded Industrial Electric. His son Aaron Grohn, with the assistance of his father, founded Comtech.

Aaron now heads both companies, after Terry passed away in 2007.

(See related story on page C1).

Explaining the relationship of the two companies, White says, “If it’s got wires, we hook it up. If it’s wireless, it’s Comtech.”

A large portion of the business is Pump Off Controllers (POC).

Instrumentaiton is gaining more focus, with White pointing out they have gotten serious about expanding their efforts in that area. “We’re an electrical company with an instru-

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mentation department.

“The instrumentation side has certainly opened a lot of doors for us,” he says.

Most of their approximately 40 employees are journeyman and apprentice electricians, with a few instrumentation techs and office staff thrown into the mix.

“Typically, we’ll have some kind of large project on the go, six to 15 guys on the job site,”says White.

An example is the Digital Control System (DCS) changeover at the Cenovus (formerly EnCana) operation south of Weyburn.

Industrial Electric is working on the commissioning process. The company provides much of Cenovus’s SCADA system at the Weyburn unit. They do the bulk of the field installations.

“There’s lots of maintenance, lots of updating,” White says.

“This whole thing with DCS is likely going to expand. Likely other companies will look at it.”

Having redundancy

and a failsafe the system provides is important, White says.

The company also deals with a number of other operators in the area, including Crescent Point, Penn West and NAL, along with some smaller juniors.

There doesn’t seem to be a shortage of work, White explains, adding, “We’re not strictly oilfield.”

They work basically any place where they’ve got heavy electrical and automation.

When you drive into Weyburn, you can’t help but notice the large grain terminals on either side of the community. Those are some of the major clients. They also do larger commercial jobs.

For Weyburn Inland Terminal, White says, “We were with those guys when they first automated with full on PLC (Programmable Logic Controller) control.”

For each of the terminals several annexes, Industrial Electric was along for the ride.

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PIPELINE NEWS January 2010

C9

Solutions for your solutions Regina – Out in the boondocks, getting through for that important call can be trying at times. But instead of standing on the roof of your truck, there are solutions that can make life easier, according to Debbie Dulle, SaskTel sales associate for wireless solutions.

Sometimes, the fix is a simple as an external antenna or booster.

A vehicle booster can be indispensible.

Working out in the oilpatch, visiting customers, she personally uses one all the time.

“I didn’t realize how much I relied on it until I changed vehicles.”

“I’ve got winter tires and a booster in my car,” she says regarding driving in rural areas.

Covering the southern half of the province, Dulle spends a lot of her time working with oilfield clients.

They may be producers setting up SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) based on cellular modems, air card modems for cell phones, directional antennas or boosters for specific sites, or fleets of handheld smartphones.

Specifically, the request may be “I need to be able to do our SCADA,” as an example. Questions from that include how many ports are needed, do they need a static IP (Internet Protocol) address?

“We sell the hardware and network. They use to run their software applications,” she says. “We provide an internet connection.”

That may be through a Virtual Private Network, or VPN, allowing for a connection to head office in Calgary. “It’s a secure, private network. It’s as if you’re sitting in your office,” she says.

EV-DO modems can be used for SCADA type applications.

Essentially, they can work as a wireless router on site, providing an

internet connection.

Think of it as a wireless hotspot on the bald prairie.

“These modems are ruggedized to 40 below,” she says.

The EV-DO modems are backwards compatible to the older, lower bandwidth 1X digital cellular network.

“They’re being used all over, a lot in the oilpatch,” Dulle reports.

“They want that high speed connectivity out there.”

There are also options to use smartphones like the BlackBerry as a modem in a tethered data application.

Physics hasn’t

changed, and there’s a lot to be said for external antennas, the type that were common when bag phones or built-in truck phones were common.

“One of my jobs is finding out areas where we’re short on coverage,” Dulle says. Clients will tell her about areas where there are holes in coverage, and she will bring them forward to the technical side. Two new sites, Shaunavon East and Shaunavon West, both recently activated or soon to be activated, came about in that manner. They are being installed specifically to meet oilpatch needs, she notes.

Debbie Dulle says winter tires and a cellular booster in her car help her when visiting clients in the oilpatch for SaskTel.

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C10

PIPELINE NEWS January 2010

More than just cellular

By Brian Zinchuk Regina – Cellular might be the most obvious answer when someone things about wireless connectivity through the provincial Crown corporation SaskTel, but it’s not the only one.

Richard Redekop’s job is client technology manager with SaskTel. It’s a sales engineering role covering a variety of services, some of which engage third party solu-

tions.

Redekop explains that front line sales staff bring in a ‘business need,’ and they apply technology to address it. “In the oilpatch, wireless is probably the biggest play,” Redekop says. “It is mostly wireless and mobility.”

That includes voice and data on the mobility network, including air cards that allow laptops to tie in via cellular

AS &

“

The bottom line is SaskTel is willing to pursue a solution that will work, and will look at multiple technologies

”

- Richard Redekop modem. However, there are other networks, including fibre optic infrastructure and wireless broadband, which has nothing to do with the cellular network.

The core of the

SaskTel network is fibre optic infrastructure.There are physical fibre rings throughout the province that this network runs on. They are completely redundant, Redekop contends.

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In some cases, there may be fibre right up to the premises. However, fibre may not always be nearby, and it may not be economical to plow it in to a site like a battery.

That’s where broadband microwave links play a role. In the days long before fibre optics, the backbone of Canada’s telecommunications system ran along microwave signals between towers strung out about every 48 km from coast to coast. That was done in the Diefenbaker era.

You’ll see the old, four legged towers along Highway 1 and Highway 11. They used to have white pie-shaped antennas on them. They’ve since found use as cell phone towers.

Today’s microwave transmitters are used to transmit high speed data from point to point. They also can carry a lot more signal than the 2,400 long distance calls and two television feeds the old microwave network did.

“In most cases, beyond five or six kilometres, it makes sense as opposed to plowing fibre

in,” Redekop said. It also depends on the terrain.

Wireless broadband can provide the “last mile reach,” connecting the end user to the main fibre network. SaskTel uses partners to provide that ability, one of which is Comtech, based in Weyburn. Another Saskatchewan provider, Saskatoon’s YourLink Inc., focuses on high speed internet access. On Nov. 18, SaskTel announced it had reached an agreement with YourLink, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Vecima Networks Inc., and RFNow, as part of the Government of Saskatchewan’s objective to ensure 100% high speed internet accessibility throughout the province, according to a release.

Last mile Getting over that “last mile,” is often more than a few miles, however. It can mean having the signal hop over a system of repeater stations, making the signal pass over hills or trees. Microwaves are line-of-sight, and if there is something in the way, like a hill, you have to relay around it.

So why not just set up a satellite dish?

Satellites have bandwidth limitations, Redekop explains, plus there is a latency issue. Even at the speed of light, it takes time for signals to travel from earth, to a satellite in geostationary orbit 35,786 km above the equator, and back again.

Duplex communications can become an issue. The most obvious example of this is when you see a video conference on the national news between Toronto and Afghanistan. The reporter and anchor have to wait a second to hear what the other said before they can respond.

SaskTel does not provide satellite options.

“The bottom line is SaskTel is willing to pursue a solution that will work, and will look at multiple technologies.”

Redekop concludes.

On the web: Historical footage of Canada’s original microwave communications backbone, predecessor of today’s broadband wireless: http://archives. cbc.ca/arts_entertainment/ media/clips/11238/

PIPELINE NEWS January 2010

C11

Stetsonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ND well was a surprise Calgary â&#x20AC;&#x201C; No doubt, Bill Ward, president and CEO of Stetson Oil & Gas Ltd. in Calgary threw a cowboy hat into the air after being contacted to comment on his companyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s $425,000 acquisition of oil and gas assets from Longford Energy Inc. He was happy about the purchase that closed Nov. 15, but more excited to talk about his companyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ďŹ rst Bakken well in the Fort Berthold Reservation in western North Dakota that was coming into production within the hour. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I just got oďŹ&#x20AC; the phone with a guy down there. In another hour we will be pumping that well,â&#x20AC;? said Ward on the morning of Nov. 20. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t think we would get anything out of that ďŹ rst well. All of a sudden we had some oil and gas showing up.â&#x20AC;?

The phone call from North Dakota was a pleasant surprise given that well was shut-in following the cancellation of a 10-day ďŹ&#x201A;ow back test on the middle Bakken zone in October.

After pulling the pressure recorders from the hole, oil and gas was noted in the wellbore prompting Stetson to install a pumpjack. It is currently pumping the well to production tanks. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Usually though

with wells down there, you start to see oil fairly early in the game,â&#x20AC;? said Ward. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t and we thought we would get disappointing results.

However, we did start to see it showing up. If we can get this to work, we are sitting pretty.â&#x20AC;?

Stetson has assembled a land position of approximately 22,000 gross acres on the reservation in partnership with Red Willow Great Plains, LLC to jointly drill and develop the lands. Stetson has a 48.75 per cent interest in the ďŹ rst well.

The Fort Berthold Reservation is the homeland of the MHA Nation of three aďŹ&#x192;liated tribes: the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara which manage numerous oil and gas leases. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The potential is huge,â&#x20AC;? said Ward. â&#x20AC;&#x153;In North Dakota there have been some really nice wells drilled there. We are six miles away from the nearest production in a big area play. We are hopeful we can make something out of that.â&#x20AC;?

A record 381 wells were drilled in North Dakokta in 2008 in the Bakken and Three Forks shale formation and earlier this year, more than 500 wells were predicted to be permitted by year end.

Stetson planned a

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second well in North Dakota in November but the initial disappointment with the ďŹ rst well put those plans on hold. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We are in the process of acquiring seismic data before we go ahead on that second well,â&#x20AC;? said Ward. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t think that will go through until the New Year now.â&#x20AC;?

In the meantime, Stetson is spreading the word about the upside of its acquired Longford oil and gas assets in the Lashburn, Sask., area and the Brazeau and Alder Flats areas of Alberta.

GLJ Petroleum Consultants Ltd. estimates the total proven

and probable reserves of Longfordâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s oil and gas assets at 96,000 boe with a pre-tax value discounted at 10 per cent of approximately $1.28 million, effective July 31, 2009.

At Lashburn, Stetson has acquired a working interest ranging from 16.67 per cent to 85 per cent in four heavy oil wells that it operated for Longford with a production of approximately 45 barrels of oil equivalent a day. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Langford is in the same oďŹ&#x192;ce as us with common directors so the purchase was just a matter of consolidating our interest and cleaning up

the assets sort of thing,â&#x20AC;? said Ward.

Overall, Stetson has an average working interest of 30 per cent on 16 wells in the Lashburn area and most of them are operated by Husky.

At Brazeau and Alder Flats, Stetson has acquired interests of 49 per cent and 100 per cent respectively in two wells that have net production of approximately 15 boe/d.

With the purchase, Stetson also assumes liabilities on two abandoned wells and an oil battery located at Alder Flats south of Drayton Valley in the Pembina oil

ďŹ eld. â&#x20AC;&#x153;At Alder Flats, weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re going to take a look the Cardium formation from a drilling standpoint,â&#x20AC;? said Ward. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a lot of drilling going on in the Cardium formation. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Right now, the two Cardium wells are shut in. We will have to see what comes out of the assessment in the area to be drilled.â&#x20AC;?

The new assets boost Stetsonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s overall production to 175 boe/d and with increased production coming on line from gas wells in Alberta, that total should rise to 250 boe/d shortly. ɸ Page C12

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PIPELINE NEWS January 2010

Delayed production leads to smiles Éş Page C11 â&#x20AC;&#x153;That will give us production cash ďŹ&#x201A;ow to work with,â&#x20AC;? said Ward. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We are building up a baseline of production. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s coming along â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 250 boe/d a day is keeping the lights on and gives us a little bit of discretionary cash ďŹ&#x201A;ow. That North Dakota property holds the keys for us. If it works, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s oďŹ&#x20AC; to the races.â&#x20AC;?

Stetson is one of a small number of Canadian companies operating in North Dakota and Ward says the decision to go stateside was partly based on the lack of available land in southeastern Saskatchewan. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We werenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t able to get a land position there,â&#x20AC;? said Ward. â&#x20AC;&#x153;By the time we were thinking about Estevan, the land was pretty much bought up. We had an opportunity to get a parcel of land in North Dakota.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Production is better down there too â&#x20AC;&#x201C; weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll have to see, though.â&#x20AC;?

Asked what itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s like operating on a U.S. reservation, Ward says â&#x20AC;&#x153;Our ďŹ rst proposal went to the tribal council last summer on June 17. By July 11, I had a

signed deal ratiďŹ ed by the tribal council.

The biggest hurdle is because itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s on a reservation; itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s managed by the federal government and the Bureau of Indian AďŹ&#x20AC;airs. So youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve got government bodies to deal with.â&#x20AC;?

Ready to go Jim Clayton from Clayton Construction Co. Ltd. in Paradise Hill is fortunate to have the bulk of his oilĂ&#x20AC;eld construction equipment deployed at job sites.

Photo by Geoff Lee

5IF $PNNJUNFOU $POUJOVFT Caltech Surveys is fully equipped to take on your well site and pipeline projects, large or small, anywhere in Alberta or Saskatchewan. You can count on us to respond quickly and get your projects completed on time and on budget. From project planning and digital mapping to Ă&#x201E;eld scouting, surveying and plan preparation, Caltechâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s commitment to quality, service and value continues...

w w w. c a l t e c h s u r v e y s . c o m Regina 306.775.1814

Unity 306.228.4366

3297 North Service Road W. Swift Current, SK. S9H 4G5

Direct: 306.773.1660 Toll Free: 888.221.1022 Fax: 306.773.1660 rheitt@flintenergy.com

40229221â&#x20AC;˘09/05/08

cturchak@brutusbodies.com

40247758â&#x20AC;˘10/23/09

Calgary 403.263.8055

Transportation and Logistics Rig Transportation Services Pipe Storage Facility

See our online inventory at www.brutusbodies.com

PIPELINE NEWS January 2010

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Career Opportunities TRICAN WELL SERVICE LTD. is one of Canada's fastest growing well service companies, providing a comprehensive array of specialized products, equipment and services utilized in drilling, completion, stimulation and reworking of oil and gas wells in the Canadian and International marketplace. At Trican, we base our recruitment practices on the belief that a company's greatest asset is its people.

TOOLS

Trican provides services in Fracturing, Cementing, Acidizing, Coiled Tubing, Nitrogen and related services in our field bases ranging from Fort Nelson, BC to Estevan, Saskatchewan.

WE ARE CURRENTLY HIRING FOR ALL LOCATIONS:

• SUPERVISORS • OPERATORS • DRIVERS • FRAC HANDS • HEAVY DUTY DIESEL MECHANIC A valid Class 1 required as well as prior experience in the above pressure pumping operations.

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

Trican Well Service Ltd. Box 849 Estevan, SK S4A 2A7 Fax: (306) 637-2065 • Email: vscott@trican.ca

HUTT’S TRUCKING LTD. www.suretuf.com

CNC Plasma / Oxyacetylene Operators Applicants must have welding background.

Driver’s license required. Reliable, team player.

Wages depend on experience. Benefits available.

Performance bonuses.

Only those to be interviewed will be contacted.

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

is currently seeking

Picker Swampers/Helpers Please contact Travis at: 306-487-8120 Fax resume to: 306-487-2296 or mail to: Box 324, Lampman, SK S0C 1N0

Crew Foreman

Experienced FOR LLOYDMINSTER AREA

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

OILFIELD SERVICE LTD.

CONSULTING & CONSTRUCTION

PRECISION WELL SERVICING Precision Drilling

A division of Precision Diversified Oilfield Services Corp. is currently recruiting OPERATORS, DERRICKHANDS AND FLOORHANDS We invite you to become a member of Precision’s Family and grow with a service rig company where the field comes first.

Valid H2S Alive ticket and a valid class 5 drivers license is required.

Experience is an asset but not required. Preference is given to applicants with a valid class 1A or 3A license.

Visit our Careers page at www.toughnecks.com 2006/07 Winner of Class A CAODC Safety Leadership award for the best safety performance in our industry Excellent benefit package Various employee incentive programs Hands on training provided Competitive wages

Our people, Our passion, Our performance

Estevan Meter Services Ltd. is an OilÀeld Service Company.

Operating in Southeast Saskatchewan since 1967, specializing in Instrumentation, Combustion Services, OilÀeld Repairs, and Specialty Supply Items.

We are currently seeking an individual to Àll the position of

COMBUSTION TECHNICIAN The successful candidate should be a commercial gas Àtter with a minimum of 5 years experience. Combustion and/or oilÀeld related experience is an asset.

We offer full beneÀts, bonuses, pension plan, extremely competitive wages.

Please Apply by Resume to:

Estevan Meter Services Ltd. Box 355 Estevan, Sk. S4A 2A4 or email: dmartens@estevanmeter.com Only persons to be interviewed will be contacted.

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

SpeciÀc Targeting Contact your local pipeline sale rep. to get

28,000 Circulation on your career ad!

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PIPELINE NEWS January 2010

Resources Guide

STAGE OILFIELD TRANSPORT LTD.

Providing Bed Truck Services for Saskatchewan OilďŹ elds Cell: 306-421-8040 Fax: 306-634-5281

634-9761 email - stageoil@sasktel.net

a l t u s g e o m a t i c s . c o m

JUSTIN WAPPEL - Division Manager

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

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

Lloyd Lavigne â&#x20AC;˘ Kirk Clarkson Owners/Managers 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 Specializing in Industrial & Oilfield Motors

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3URXG WR SURYLGH VHOHFWLRQ TXDOLW\ DQG H[FHOOHQFH WR RXU FXVWRPHUV

4?E7 3?<@9DDC ?g^Ub =Q^QWUb

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1db) " % %"# ' '# 2T[[) " % $&& ''"" 5Pg) " % #$" %#&'

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WK 6WUHHW (VWHYDQ Â&#x2021;

Kevin Anderson/Darwin Krall

Bulk Agency

FUSION INDUSTRIES LTD. â&#x20AC;˘ Quality Control â&#x20AC;˘ Pressure Welding â&#x20AC;˘ OilĂ&#x20AC;eld â&#x20AC;˘ Portable Welding â&#x20AC;˘ Fabrication â&#x20AC;˘ Breaking â&#x20AC;˘ Shearing â&#x20AC;˘ CNC Plasma & Torch Cutting â&#x20AC;˘ P1-P1 Carbon Steel Procedures â&#x20AC;˘ P1-P8/P8-P8 Stainless Steel Procedures 24 hr Service

301A Kensington Ave. Estevan, SK.

Phone: 634-6177 Fax: 634-6178 Cell: 421-5441 421-6179

912 6th Street, Estevan

634-7275

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

Email: fusioninc@sasktel.net

SONAR INSPECTION LTD.

TERRY DODDS (24 hrs.) (306) 634-7599 Cell. (306) 421-0316

Head OfĂ&#x20AC;ce 1292 Veterans Crescent Estevan, Sk. S4A 2E1 F: 306-634-5649

M.E.T. OILFIELD CONST. LTD. â&#x20AC;&#x153;All Your Construction and Maintenance Needsâ&#x20AC;?

SPECIALIZING IN: ENGINES, PUMP UNITS, UNIT INSPECTIONS, PIPE FITTING, TREATERS AND PRESSURE TICKET WELDING Box 1605, Estevan, Sk. S4A 2L7 Cell. (306) 421-3174, (306) 421-6410, (306) 421-2059 Fax: (306) 634-1273

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

Box 208

Estevan, SK

S4A 2A3

461-8471 â&#x20AC;˘ 461-8472 â&#x20AC;˘ 461-8473 Call: Clinton Gibbons

E: sonarinsp@sasktel.net W: www.sonarinspection.ca

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Serving All Your Inspection Needsâ&#x20AC;?

UT - MT - PT - RT - VISUAL CertiĂ&#x20AC;ed Level II CGSB Inspections

Estevan OfĂ&#x20AC;ce: 306-634-5285 Regina OfĂ&#x20AC;ce: 306-531-5939

PIPELINE NEWS January 2010

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PIPELINE NEWS January 2010