Alberta Oil March 2015 by Venture Publishing

MAN VS MACHINES

A EULOGY FOR

THAI

THE REAL NORTHERN GATEWAY THE

INNOVATION

REPORT

The Business of Energy

KELCIE MILLER-ANDERSON may have found a way to make tailings ponds obsolete – and she’s just getting started. Meet her and the 25 other game-changers who are CANADA’S TOP ENERGY INNOVATORS

©albertaoilmagazine.com

PM #40020055

TRAINING WITH DISTINCTION FROM CANADA TO CHINA, ALBERTA TO ABU DHABI NAIT’s internationally acclaimed Becoming a Master Instructor (BMI®) program is used by top industry and government trainers around the globe. Put NAIT’s flagship BMI® training program to work for you.

MARCH 2015

volume 10 issue 9 CONTENTS

REPORT ON INNOVATION AND TECHNOLOGY

The Big Picture Canada’s biggest energy companies spent more than a billion dollars in 2013 on research and development. Why they need to spend a whole lot more

Rise of the Machines For years companies have struggled to find the skilled labor they needed. In the future, though, they might not have to struggle nearly as much BY JESSE SN Y DER

COVER STORY

CANADA’S TOP ENERGY INNOVATORS

High Five Sometimes it pays to shoot for the stars. But in these five areas the energy sector doesn’t have much choice but to try BY TODD COY NE

They’re bold. They’re brave. They’re even a little bit weird. Meet the 26 (yes, 26) ideas that are at the leading edge of innovation in Canada’s energy sector and the companies, organizations and individuals behind them

FEATURES

Activists have taken their campaigns to Twitter, Facebook and other social platforms. But that’s not news to some in the energy sector, who are listening — and learning

Pipeline routes to the west, east and south are either blocked or bogged down by political and enviromental opposition. So what about heading north?

BY JESSE SN Y DER

BY R ICHELLE W ISEM AN

Are patents a sword or a shield for the people who hold them? It depends on who you ask – and how you look at them

The Social Network

The Real Northern Gateway

Private Property

BY JAY SMITH & M AX FAWCET T

MARCH 2015

volume 10 issue 9

MARCH 2015

CONTENTS

this month on

ALBERTAOILMAGAZINE.COM

Your favorite energy-related podcast is back for another month of clips, quips and conversations about the issues that matter in your world.

INNOVATION INTERVIEWS

14 DEPARTMENTS 6 EDITOR’S LOG

An innovative idea of my own 11 OBSERVER

Alberta’s former envoy to Ottawa returns home with a message; why strippers might be the first casualty of low oil prices; a primer on PBR 62 JUNIORS

One of the world’s greatest investors remains bullish on oil’s long-term prospects. The question now is whether juniors will be able to survive long enough to participate in that future

BY JODY CHUDLEY

64 CRUDE REPORT

Technological innovation has helped Alberta’s energy industry leapfrog its supposed limitations before. Can it do it again – and do it before it’s too late?

We sat down with some of the leaders in Canada’s energy innovation ecosystem in order to pick their brains on what we’re doing right and what we could be doing better. Emergex Capital Partners’ James Chepyha, GE Canada’s Gandeephan Ganeshalingam, the CCEMC’s Kirk Andries and Kinetica Ventures’ Kevin Frankowski spilled the beans on their respective areas of expertise, and the full interviews are all well worth a read.

CANADA’S TOP ENERGY INNOVATOR We’ve profiled 26 of Canada’s Top Energy Innovators. Now, it’s your turn to pick your favorite. Go online to albertaoilmagazine.com/ innovatevote and vote for the one you think is the most innovative of all, and then take to Twitter and use the hashtag #AOInnovates to campaign on behalf of your choice.

BY JAMESON BERKOW

66 THE LAST WORD

This month we give it to David Dodge, who believes that solar energy’s moment in the sun could happen sooner than most people think

COVER CURTIS COMEAU CONTENTS IMAGES CURTIS COMEAU, KYLE METCALF, CHRIS WEDMAN

WWW.ALBERTAOILMAGAZINE.COM

Visit albertaoilmagazine.com/energyink for the latest from our editors

SCMP FOUR LETTERS THAT SPELL EXCELLENCE IN STRATEGIC SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT.

ABOUT SCMA Supply Chain Management Professionals (SCMP) manage the flow of goods, services, finance and information to ensure an organization achieves its objectives. They often create collaborative opportunities with suppliers and vendors, generating opportunities for innovation and additional cost savings. Today, progressive companies invest in and depend on Supply Chain Management Professionals to maintain their competitive edge.

E: info@scmaab.ca | T: 1.866.610.4089 | W: scmaab.ca

SCMA is the premier association for Canadian professionals in supply chain management. SCMA grants the internationally recognized Supply Chain Management Professional (SCMP) designationâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the highest achievement in the field.

EDITOR’S LOG

An Inconvenient Truth

Why we need to rethink the conventional wisdom on the Conservative government GIVEN THAT THIS ENTIRE ISSUE IS

dedicated to the subject of innovation I thought I’d propose something innovative of my own: that those who work in the energy sector not reflexively throw their support behind Prime Minister Stephen Harper in the next federal election. I know this is a form of heresy to some of you, but before you go looking for that vat of tar and a bag of feathers I’d ask that you hear me out first. After all, I’m not denying that there are plenty of good reasons to vote for Stephen Harper. Maybe you think he’s done a good job of steering the country’s economy out of the ditch it found itself in back in 2008. Fair enough. Maybe you appreciate his tough-on-crime approach or the strong position he’s carved out for Canada in the global war on terrorism. No argument there. But if you’re planning on voting for him because you believe he’s done a good job of promoting the energy sector’s interests? Well, I’d encourage you to reconsider. It’s not that he hasn’t tried to advance those interests. It’s just that the results of those efforts haven’t exactly measured up. His decision to aggressively promote the importance of pipeline projects, a strategy that saw former

In the next issue of Alberta Oil

Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver come out swinging against its critics, may have hurt the very projects he was trying to help. Rather than being seen as mere pieces of infrastructure they instead became a proxy for the Prime Minister and his government. As a result, thousands of people who previously had no interest in the issue suddenly took up against pipelines like they were the literal incarnation of the Harper government itself. I’m not alone in this belief. Back in the fall of 2013, Kinder Morgan Canada president Ian Anderson expressed frustration with the government’s overenthusiastic approach. “I think that they have a role to play in setting regulations and policy,” he said, “but I don’t need them fanning the flames, I don’t need them making the grassroots opposition any worse than it might already be.” As we saw on the slopes of Burnaby Mountain this past fall, that’s exactly what happened. The Harper government’s foot-dragging on carbon emissions hasn’t helped the energy sector either. Instead, as Chris Sorensen wrote in a Maclean’s story in January, it may have unwittingly placed Canada squarely in the crosshairs of global environmental activists — and made projects like Keystone XL more

School is in session with our annual Guide to Careers in Energy, which covers how to find the right program, choose the right career and make the suddenly precarious transition from the classroom to the workforce

WWW.ALBERTAOILMAGAZINE.COM

Arctic Drilling: The final frontier, or just a bridge too far? That and more in our Offshore Report

political than they should be. “Instead of convincing critics Canada could be trusted to develop a carbon-intensive resource in a sustainable fashion, Ottawa instead boasted about Canada’s ‘emerging energy superpower’ status, lashed out at environmentalists and thumbed its nose at international climate change efforts, painting a target on the industry’s back in the process.” I don’t expect to see Alberta send a sea of Liberal or NDP MPs to Ottawa in the next election. Indeed, I’d be surprised if it even elected one of them. But if innovation is about challenging widely held beliefs, testing the limits of what’s possible and, when necessary, sending sacred cows to slaughter, then maybe it’s time people in the energy sector did the same with their own voting habits. The idea of having a Trudeau represent their interests might sound like a nightmare. But as the last few years have shown, letting Stephen Harper continue to do it might turn out to be even worse.

MAX FAWCETT

mfawcett@albertaoilmagazine.com Are the oil sands a beauty or a beast? And what do Rick George, Bill McKibben and Ezra Levant all have in common? We talk to the creator of Beautiful Destruction, an important new photo book, to find out

PHOTOGRAPH RYAN GIRARD

Complete frac spread equipment and support in every shale play.

Dragon is there. Frac Pumper Units Blender Units Data Van Sand Dragons Water Transfer Pumps Pump Parts & Expendables

Wherever your frac site is, we’re there too. Dragon delivers all the quality equipment and support you need to get the job done. We manufacture a full range of frac spread equipment from several of our state-of-the-art facilities. That means every component is severe-duty engineered to perform under the harshest conditions. Each of our field-proven frac spreads is electronically and mechanically integrated end-to-end and precisely managed through our mobile control data unit. Plus we have parts and service centers in every major shale region staffed with frac spread experts, so you always have the backup you need close by to keep your operation running. Complete equipment, support and confidence – delivered on time from one accountable source. Make it happen.

www.dragonproductsltd.com — 403-340-3600

www.dragonproductsltd.com • 403.340.3600 U.S. owned and operated for over 50 years.

AO 3/15

PUMPS & STIMULATION EQUIPMENT • RIGS • TANKS & TRAILERS • SURFACE PRODUCTION EQUIPMENT & LPG TANKS SHALE2014

THE PEAK OF POSSIBILITIES

Customized, cost-effective aviation solutions backed by one of Canada’s top employers.

The Business of Energy VOLUME 10 ISSUE 9

Publisher and Editor-in-Chief RUTH KELLY rkelly@venturepublishing.ca Editor MAX FAWCETT mfawcett@albertaoilmagazine.com Deputy Editor TODD COYNE tcoyne@albertaoilmagazine.com Senior Writer JESSE SNYDER jsnyder@albertaoilmagazine.com Associate Director of Digital Initiatives JIM KERR jkerr@venturepublishing.ca Copy Chief KIM TANNAS Art Director KIM LARSON Associate Art Director RYAN GIRARD Assistant Art Director COLTON PONTO Graphic Designer BEN RUDE Production Manager BETTY FENIAK SMITH Production Technician BRENT FELZIEN Production Technician BRANDON HOOVER Web and Systems Architect GUNNAR BLODGETT Director of Circulation SHARLENE CLARKE Circulation Co-ordinator JENNIFER KING Circulation Co-ordinator KAREN REILLY Marketing Co-ordinator LAURA PAPIRNY Event Co-ordinator NATALIE BUTTS Controller DIANE MOTKOSKI Accounting Assistant GLENNA GRAVEL Executive Assistant TANIA WOROBEC Vice-President Sales ANITA McGILLIS amcgillis@venturepublishing.ca Director of Sales ALISON DE GROOT adegroot@venturepublishing.ca Sales Assistants JULIA EHLI, ASHLEY MARTIN amartin@venturepublishing.ca Advertising Account Executives PEGGY BOGDAN pbogdan@venturepublishing.ca BARB KITZAN bkitzan@venturepublishing.ca ALLYSON KURIAN akurian@venturepublishing.ca DENNIS McCORMACK dmccormack@venturepublishing.ca National Sales WesternSync BRIAN TROTTER briantrotter@outlook.com Telephone: 647-224-1698 Alberta Oil is published 12 times per year by Venture Publishing Inc. www.albertaoilmagazine.com

CALGARY EDMONTON KAMLOOPS

TERRACE LILLOOET FORT MCMURRAY NORMAN

WELLS YELLOWKNIFE

Publishing Office/Edmonton Sales 10259 105 Street Edmonton, AB T5J 1E3 Telephone: 780-990-0839 | Fax: 780-425-4921 Calgary Sales Suite 200 Building B6 2509 Dieppe Avenue SW Calgary, AB T3E 7J9 Telephone: 403-228-4337 | Fax: 403-217-6588 Contents copyright 2015 by Venture Publishing Inc. Content may not be reprinted or reproduced on websites without express permission of the publisher. ISSN:1912-5291 Subscription Prices One year: $59.95 | Two years: $109.95 | U.S.A. one year: $79.95 | International one year: $99.95 Subscription Services by The Oyster Group Enquiries please contact: Toll-free: 1-866-227-4276 ext.260 circulation@albertaoilmagazine.com 10259 105 ST NW, Edmonton AB T5J 1E3

Undeliverable mail should be directed to: Oyster Group – Alberta Oil 33 Thorne Ave, Unit 2 Dartmouth NS B3B 2E7, Canada

Canadian Publications Mail Product Sales Agreement #40020055 Printed in Canada by Transcontinental Graphics This magazine abides by the editorial standards set by the Canadian Society of Magazine Editors. We do not publish unsolicited articles and material sent will not be returned. Media releases may be directed to mediareleases@albertaoilmagazine.com.

1.867.873.4464 www.ﬂysummitair.com

1.855.355.5527 www.summithelicopters.ca

MEMBERS OF THE LEDCOR GROUP OF COMPANIES

Occasionally, Alberta Oil makes its names and addresses available to carefully screened organizations that want to let you know about a product or service that may interest you. If you do not wish to have your name included, please send an email to circulation@albertaoilmagazine.com.

Only pay for the speed you need... Dynamic Routing! SM

At Lynden, we understand that plans change but deadlines don’t. That’s why we proudly offer our exclusive Dynamic Routing system. Designed to work around your unique requirements, Dynamic Routing allows you to choose the mode of transportation — air, sea or land — to control the speed of your deliveries so they arrive just as they are needed. With Lynden you only pay for the speed you need!

www.lynden.com 1-888-596-3361

WE’RE LOOKING FOR CANADA’S TOP

ENERGY AND ENERGY SERVICES COMPANIES

2015

It’s FREE to submit! DEADLINE: April 1, 2015 APPLY ONLINE: albertaoilmagazine.com/ Top100/50

Presented by:

Sponsored by:

LEADING INDICATOR

Observer

NEWS NUMBERS PEOPLE PLACES

Pumping just a couple of barrels of oil per day, so-called “stripper” wells still make up a significant part of North American production. But, as current crude prices continue to squeeze out small producers, the little-wells-that-could may be soon become a thing of the past.

The Indicator: 700,000 THAT’S THE AMOUNT OF PRODUCTION, IN BARRELS OF

oil per day, that comes from the low-volume marginal wells in the United States alone. So-called “stripper” wells produce no more than 15 barrels of oil each per day and tend to average closer to two. But their combined production is equivalent to that of some of OPEC’s smaller nations. Despite their modest output, they still cost thousands of dollars to operate each year. At current crude prices they’re all operating in the red and are increasingly likely to see their operating funds cut. Unlike a

shale well that can be tied off and brought back on with relative ease, a stripper well that gets shut in tends to stay shut in as the bottom of the hole fills with water and sand. According to the American Oil and Gas Society, “Once shut down, they are lost forever. Keeping them in production has long been a challenge for a special breed of oilman, one who combines technical skills with hard work in the field.” If prices don’t turn around soon, that breed may well be facing extinction, and the global supply chain will have fewer barrels of production to work with.

MARCH 2015

THE ASK

Back in the Saddle He’s baaaack. After more than 20 months spent serving as the Alberta government’s envoy in Ottawa, Borden Ladner Gervais LLP’s ALAN ROSS wrapped up his term in the nation’s capital at the end of October and returned to private practice in Calgary. Ross’s appointment in 2012 marked the resurrection of a trade office that hadn’t been open since the mid-1990s. And while Premier Jim Prentice quickly tapped former MPs Rob Merrifield to replace David Manning in Washington and Jay Hill to represent the province’s interests in B.C., Saskatchewan and the North, the Ottawa office remained conspicuously vacant for the balance of 2014. But, whether the office survives the current round of belt-tightening or not, Ross told Alberta Oil that it did some important work on behalf of Alberta – and Alberta’s largest industry.

Alan Ross, former Alberta envoy to Ottawa

WWW.ALBERTAOILMAGAZINE.COM

PHOTOGRAPH BOOKSTRUCKER

What was the biggest thing you learned during your time in Ottawa as Alberta’s envoy?

That we live in a large and complex country which has a diversity of interests and voices competing to influence federal policy on a broad range of issues. And while the energy sector is fundamental to who we are in Alberta, in the federal context it’s just one of those interests. Accordingly, one of the things that I learned is that it’s critical that Alberta gets the attention it merits in the federal sphere, given the importance of the province, its industries and the overall economic benefit they offer to the country. Do you think that message – our message – is being heard to the degree that it needs to be?

It is. On the political side, there are strong relationships between provincially elected officials and their federal counterparts. There are also good relationships between the civil service levels at the Alberta government and federal government across a broad range of ministries. And corporately, my experience is that Alberta’s executives are also increasingly engaging with both political and civil service Ottawa to advance Alberta’s interests on matters such as energy and environmental regulation. Associations are very active as well. Amongst the whole suite of stakeholders reflecting Alberta, the messaging is quite strong in Ottawa. Are we still perceived as outsiders there, or is that perspective changing?

We are, to some degree, still perceived as outsiders, notwithstanding the fact that we’ve had a Harper government and

strong Alberta ministers for some time. I think some of that outsider status comes from the fact that a significant portion of what our industries do and what they’re all about is misunderstood in Central Canada – including the significant economic impact of our industries right across Canada. Speaking of that, the opposition to the energy sector seems to be just as deeply rooted in Quebec as it is in B.C. Given that, do you think TransCanada’s Energy East project can get a fair hearing from that government – and from Ottawa?

I do, for the following reasons. First, the regulator for that project is the National Energy Board, and the NEB has been and remains an excellent regulator with

“We are, to some degree, still perceived as outsiders, notwithstanding the fact that we’ve had a Harper government and strong Alberta ministers.” a rigorous hearing process. It’s subject to well-established administrative law requirements to ensure fair proceedings, and participants have had a meaningful opportunity to be heard in NEB proceedings. It will hear the Energy East application on its merits and decide accordingly. Second, while the premier of Quebec has stated that Energy East would have to meet seven conditions, the fact is that provincial approval is, as a matter of jurisdiction, not necessary. The premier of Quebec’s request is an issue of politics rather than law.

But even on a political front there has been significant engagement with the Quebec government – specifically, the face-to-face meetings at the end of last year between Premiers Prentice and Couillard. These would appear to be productive conversations which addressed both the economic benefits of Energy East and the need for a meaningful approach to environmental issues. Does Alberta need to do more work on selling the rest of the country – and specifically Ontario and Quebec – on the benefits of the energy sector?

I believe that’s true, although I wouldn’t characterize it so much as a need for selling as providing information and addressing misconceptions. For example, the scope of economic benefit from Alberta’s energy sector to the rest of Canada is not, in my view, fully recognized in central and eastern Canada. Some have suggested that while his heart’s been in the right place, Prime Minister Harper’s efforts of late have hurt the energy sector more than he’s helped it. Do you agree?

I would largely disagree with that. I came from the private sector, so I view it through a non-political lens. I think the Harper government, among other stakeholders, has been working hard on energy and environment matters relevant to Alberta. Natural resource ministers both federally and provincially, including Minister Oliver and Minister Rickford, have been active on this file. I think we’ve got a pretty good representation of elected officials in Ottawa who are aware of the enery industry’s concerns.

MARCH 2015

NEW ENERGY

IN BRIEF Age: 24 Birthplace: Mumbai, India Education: Bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering, Georgia Tech Current Position: President of Carbon Upcycling Technologies; Research Manager at zEroCor Tubulars

The Alchemist Forget carbon capture and storage. Apoorv Sinha has found an even more inventive – and even more profitable – way to deal with unwanted emissions DISRUPTION IS A BUZZWORD THAT’S COMMON TO THE

tech world, but the concept remains more or less a stranger to an industry whose key product is still, when it comes right down to it, as old as the ground itself. But as the saying goes, a stranger is just a friend you haven’t met yet. And serial entrepreneur Apoorv Sinha is keen to start making some introductions. His latest project – for which he and his team attracted $500,000 from the Climate Change and Emissions Management Corporation’s Grand Challenge – is a company called Carbon Upcycling Technologies. The company has developed a technology that captures carbon dioxide from an emissions source and joins it with graphite to make strong, versatile and lightweight graphene nanoparticles. The result is a product that takes the worst of the unwanted CO2 emissions from, say, a heavy oil r efinery, and uses these byproducts as the building blocks – quite literally – of a whole other industry. “Right now our main focus is the cement and concrete industry because cement and concrete usually has a lot of add-mixtures in it,” the 24-year-old company president says. “So, the objective is always to capture CO2 as a feedstock and then create nanoparticles that we can sell to the market.” The new technology is designed to create a lighter and stronger concrete for the construction industry, with potential benefits to greenhouse gas (GHG) producers too. While many GHG reduction techniques merely store waste carbon or convert it to fuel – both of which only delay the CO2’s eventual release into the atmosphere – the Carbon Upcycling Technologies method actually binds the CO2 into the graphene particle, creating a wholly new and useful material. And Carbon Upcycling has the potential to make money on both ends of the business, once from selling its products and once from getting paid to collect the emissions used to make them.

WWW.ALBERTAOILMAGAZINE.COM

That’s because heavy emitters in the oil and gas industry may, in the future, have the option to pay a fee to graphene producers like Sinha in order to take some carbon emissions off their hands and reduce the levy they’d otherwise have to pay to governments. Carbon dioxide isn’t the only waste carbon that Sinha’s portable graphene reactor could process, either. In time, solid waste carbons like asphalt may also work. “Someone like Suncor is getting rid of their asphalt and maybe they’ll pay us a little bit of money to get rid of it. Then we make nanoparticles off of it that sell for a price,” he says.

PHOTOGRAPH CHRIS WEDMAN

SHORT CUTS

DEALMAKERS

A primer on play-based regulation REGULATORS HAVE NEVER HAD

much of a reputation for proactive thinking. By nature the business is a reactionary one: Problems arise, the referees send both sides to their benches, right gets sorted from wrong and the appropriate p enalties are assessed. But in 2015, A lberta’s energy regulator will blur the stripes a bit on its black-and-whites to better reflect some of the grays that have crept into the industry of late. Those grays are largely a product of the boom in unconventional plays, and the Alberta Energy Regulator intends to deal with them using something it’s calling play-based regulation, or PBR. The year-long PBR pilot project is a decentralized approach to rule-making that takes as its starting point the idea that not all plays – and not all extraction processes – are created equal. The goal is a streamlined system, better tailored to the unique risks and demands of each region and its developers. The hope is this will not only foster collaboration among companies – and reduce the economic and environmental impact of building multiple competing projects – but also create trust in the community that a single rule, determined once and for all, applies to all. No more multiple applications for otherwise identical

infrastructure projects. No more repeat submissions for, say, a well license, a water license, and a facilities license for each well drilled from a single pad. No more marathon rounds of application hearings, each one for a different set of permits before a different set of stakeholder groups. Instead, there will be a single project application, a single review and a single decision. In order to really put the new system to the test, the Alberta government chose one of the most vexing plays as its proving ground: the Duvernay. It cuts a wide swath across the province, incorporating three municipal governments, a host of forestry management companies, trappers, tourists, aboriginal groups and parks users. Keeping them all happy with the process won’t be easy. But if it works, it could save everyone a whole lot of hassle. “You need all these different types of licenses under the existing regulatory framework,” says Ernst & Young Canada strategy leader Lance Mortlock. “So what the regulator is looking at is ways to align those together so you’re applying for one authorization and there’s one review and one decision, rather than separate authorizations, separate reviews and separate decisions for every single well, every single facility.”

Repeat Performance THE DEAL: Riverstone Holdings LLC and NGP Energy Capital Management backstop another kick at the can for CanEra Energy THE DATE: January 20, 2015 THE DOLLARS: $465 million THE PARTICULARS: What do you get when you combine private equity and a management team with a proven track record of creating value? In this case, it’s another iteration of CanEra Energy, a private oil and gas company run by Paul Charron. The last one was a Torquayfocused operation with approximately 10,000 barrels per day of low-decline oil production that Crescent Point Energy purchased in late April in a cash and stock deal worth $1.1 billion. That was more than double the price CanEra fetched in 2010 when it sold the package of assets it had assembled in the Turner Valley to Legacy Oil + Gas for just a shade over $500 million. THE PAYOFF: Time will tell exactly what Charron and his team do with the capital he’s been advanced and how he invests it, but it’s hard to imagine the timing being much better. This time around he has almost $500 million to work with, and those dollars will go a long way in a market that’s heaving with debt and distressed balance sheets. Talk about a buyer’s market.

“ We’re the problem. We’re forced by price to do our part.” – C ontinental Resources CEO Harold Hamm, talking to the Wall Street Journal about the role that U.S. tight oil producers have to play in rebalancing crude markets

MARCH 2015

FREEZE FRAME

Contained in Contango

Traders betting on rising crude prices are taking to the seas OVER THE COURSE OF A FEW DAYS IN

mid-January, the volume of crude oil being stored in so-called very large crude carriers (VLCCs) in the U.S. grew by 2.7 million barrels. That’s a 45 per cent spike in less than a week. Rather than ship those barrels to buyers overseas, however, traders were using so-called “floating storage” to cash in on a growing contango in the futures market. The same was happening in ports around the world. Following the sharp decline of oil prices in late 2014 and early 2015, spot prices for West Texas Intermediate had fallen well below futures prices, to a level unseen since the downturn of 2008-2009. On January 14, for example, the spot price for West Texas Intermediate was around $42 per barrel. Contracts for February shipments, meanwhile, were at $45, and around $57 for August 2016 contracts. Futures contracts for oil in 2020 were as high as $90 per barrel. Traders appear to think the market will remain in this state of contango, considering the prices they are willing to pay to store barrels offshore. According to the Financial Times, daily rates for the largest tankers in some jurisdictions had reached $84,000, and some estimate they could eventually reach 2008 levels of $100,000 per day. Heavyweight traders like Vitol, Trafigura and Mercuria are licking their chops at the potential profits, particularly after years of stable prices and scant opportunities for arbitrage. According to Bloomberg, a $6.50 spread per barrel between spot and futures prices is enough to justify the daily costs of storing oil offshore. Everything above that is pure profit. PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF KOREAITTIMES.COM

WWW.ALBERTAOILMAGAZINE.COM

$100K

$90

daily fee paid in 2008 by some traders for offshore oil storage

capacity of VLCCs used for offshore storage in millions of barrels

the futures contract for WTI in 2020

MARCH 2015

Financing that works like a well-oiled machine. TD Equipment Finance We offer leasing and equipment financing solutions to suit your business. Our team can help you finance equipment, improve cash flow, and align terms and structure with your financing needs. Contact us and put TD Equipment Finance to work.

Find a Business Banking Specialist at tdcommercialbanking.com/representative or contact TD Equipment Finance at 1-800-263-3216 速

The TD logo and other trade-marks are the property of The Toronto-Dominion Bank.

THE CREATIVE CLASS From environmental reclamation to operational excellence, Canada’s Top Energy Innovators are pushing hard on their industry’s leading edges BY ALBERTA OIL STAFF

IN RETROSPECT, it almost sounded too good to be true. Toe-to-heel air injection, or THAI, was a process that combined controlled combustion with vertical and horizontal wells and promised to produce higher volumes of partially upgraded oil at a fraction of the cost of existing methods. And because it used negligible amounts of water, it was better for the environment as well. “It’s an ideal technical solution,” former Petrobank COO Chris Bloomer said. It was so ideal, in fact, that it enjoyed a place of prominence in a video on innovation that was produced in the mid-2000s, and which still plays today at the Oil Sands Discovery Centre in Fort McMurray. Unfortunately, it didn’t unfold quite the way its proponents had hoped. Rather than revolutionizing the way heavy oil is extracted in Alberta, the technology has consistently failed to even meet the results set by more traditional methods of SAGD and nearly bankrupted the company that invested so much time and money into it in the process. Despite a major corporate restructuring and a shift out of the Athabasca oil sands and into Saskatchewan, Petrobank could never translate THAI’s technological potential into meaningful production gains on its various properties and demonstration projects. Last March, after the results at its Kerrobert property continued to underwhelm, Petrobank agreed to merge with Touchstone Exploration in order to form a new company that would focus its efforts on Touchstone’s assets in Trinidad. The only mention of THAI in the press release heralding the

deal was a footnote indicating that the company would be “continuing our commitment to eliminate the negative operating cash flows from the Kerrobert THAI project.” Did Petrobank’s executives oversell the possibilities associated with THAI? Maybe. But maybe, like so many ideas that promise to move the oil and gas sector forward, it will take longer to demonstrate its value than first expected. Hydraulic fracturing, after all, was around for decades before it transformed the U.S. shale industry into a global powerhouse. Not all technologies immediately find their market, or generate the kind of return that’s needed in order to grow it. But that doesn’t mean that they’re necessarily a failure either. It’s entirely possible that, one day, THAI will do for heavy oil deposits what hydraulic fracturing has done for shale. How will the 26 innovations and technologies (yes, 26 – we can be innovative too) on our inaugural list of Canada’s Top Energy Innovators fare? To be honest, we have no idea. That’s the nature of innovation – the reward can’t come without some risk, and sometimes a product or process that seems destined to succeed ends in failure. What matters is that the people and the companies they work for continue to take those risks. In the 21st century, geology and geography are no longer enough to win. If Canada’s energy sector is going to create as much prosperity over the next 50 years as it did over the last 50, it’s going to have to continue to invest in technology and the high-wattage brains that can both put it to best uses and then make it better. That is the most important renewable resource we have.

MARCH 2015

ONMENT THE ENVIR

THE INNOVATION WASTE RECYCLING THE INNOVATOR ENERKEM IN THE ENERGY INDUSTRY, HEAVY focus tends to be placed on cutting back the energy and materials required to produce and refine products. Of lesser interest tends to be what to do with the waste products that result from the production and consumption of said energy – or, better yet, how to convert that waste into its very own energy source. Enerkem’s commercial facility in Edmonton, Alberta, which converts municipal waste into methanol (and eventually ethanol in 2016), does exactly that. The facility’s construction was part of a partnership between the company, the city’s municipal government and Alberta Innovates – Energy & Environment Solutions that uses a proprietary thermochemical process to produce as much as 38 million liters of renewable chemicals and biofuels per year. Since building the facility, Montreal-based Enerkem has landed three major deals with Chinese companies to build similar plants that convert waste to ethanol. Demand for ethanol has waned in recent years as investors shift their focus toward electric engines rather than those that use higher ethanol blends, and as the energy-intense process of using corn crops to produce ethanol hampers the fuel’s reputation. A process such as Enerkem’s, at least on its surface, could argue against that latter notion.

WWW.ALBERTAOILMAGAZINE.COM

ATIONS AND OPER STRATEGY

THE INNOVATION SUPPLY CHAIN EXCELLENCE THE INNOVATOR MEG ENERGY PLENTY OF MID-TIER producers in Canada’s energy space are making the most of the latest available technologies to coax oil out of the ground more economically and environmentally. But it would be hard to argue such a company is doing so with a more nimble and innovative spirit than MEG Energy. The company has repeatedly shown versatility in reaching new markets, from its 2010 joint venture on the Access Pipeline, to its construction of a private pipeline connecting the Stonefell Terminal to a rail facility in Bruderheim, to its decision to ship bitumen by barge to buyers in the United States. But MEG is known for more than increasing trade optionality: its HI-Q partial upgrading technology is one of several leading attempts to ship bitumen without the need for diluent. The company’s culture of adopting technologies in their early stages has paid off. In 2009, before the company had even gone public, it was setting industry-wide records due to the pace at which it was expanding its production profile at Christina Lake, growing from zero to 25,000 barrels per day in just 10 months.

ATIONS AND OPER STRATEGY

THE INNOVATION REPUTATIONAL REMEDIATION THE INNOVATOR LINDA COADY IF ENBRIDGE’S NORTHERN GATEWAY pipeline does end up getting built, it’s safe to assume that the date June 17, 2013, will figure prominently in the timeline leading up to its completion. That’s when the company hired Linda Coady, a former MacMillan Bloedel executive who helped broker a breakthrough in the impasse between it and the environmental activists that were protesting its Clayoquot Sound operations in the mid-1990s. Time will tell whether she can engineer a similar breakthrough with Enbridge’s more vocal critics, but it appears that her influence is already being felt. Gone is the high-profile advertising campaign that attempted to sell Enbridge’s virtues with generic platitudes and

soothing imagery. In its place is a meaningful attempt to engage the aboriginal communities that remain the project’s biggest roadblock, one that includes substantially increased equity participation and devolution of control from Enbridge to an independent entity governed by a board that represented the interests of all of the project’s various stakeholders. It’s not clear that this new strategy will work, but the very fact that it’s being attempted in the first place speaks to Coady’s influence. And while admitting one’s mistakes and changing course might not seem like much of an innovation, in this particular case it may well be the one that produces the biggest gains.

ATIONS AND OPER Y G E T A R T S

THE INNOVATION PARTNERING WITH ABORIGINAL COMMUNITIES THE INNOVATOR SAVANNA ENERGY SERVICES FINDING SKILLED LABOR AND ESTABLISHING POSITIVE WORKING relationships with aboriginal communities are two areas in which the energy sector has traditionally struggled. But Savanna Energy Services found a way to solve both problems at once by offering a 50 per cent equity stake in new service and drilling rigs to aboriginal communities who live where it does business. Since 2001, the company has partnered with 12 First Nations and Metis communities on the ownership and operation of 16 drilling rigs and nine service rigs, and in 2013 it formed a joint venture partnership with the Fort McKay First Nation (one that offers drilling, well servicing and oilfield equipment rentals) in which Savanna holds a 49 per cent stake. It’s also attracted significant investment in its shares by the Dene Tha’ First Nation, the Samson Cree Nation, the Saddle Lake First Nation, the Horse Lake First Nation and the Métis Nation of Alberta. As a result of these initiatives, the company has access to a local supply of labor and good working relationships with the communities they come from and whose land they’re often working on – strategic advantages that most service companies don’t always have.

PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY ENERKEM, ENBRIDGE, SAVANNA ENERGY SERVICES

MARCH 2015

LOPMENT AND DEVE N IO T A R O L E XP

THE INNOVATION STACKFRAC THE INNOVATOR DAN THEMIG IF THERE WAS A HALL OF FAME FOR oil and gas industry innovators, Packers Plus president Dan Themig would be an inner-circle member. Along with Peter Krabben and Ken Paltzat, Themig founded Packers Plus, a company that would help revolutionize the way horizontal wells were fracked – and in turn help revolutionize the entire North American oil industry. StackFRAC, the company’s prize product and primary innovation, is an open hole ball drop completion system that’s widely credited with unlocking old resource plays that were thought to be too expensive or too technically challenging to tap. The company has continued to press ahead in the years since, adding new functions and features to its StackFRAC process along with additional tools and technologies. That, in turn, has allowed operators to dramatically increase the number of frack stages in each well – and the production that comes with them. In 2012, Themig was recognized for his work with a Sproule Innovation and Achievement Award, which are given to individuals or organizations that “have made significant contributions and accomplishments towards advancing the development of unconventional gas resources in Canada.” It’s a safe bet that it won’t be the last award he receives for his contributions to that sector.

WWW.ALBERTAOILMAGAZINE.COM

ATIONS AND OPER STRATEGY

P RODUC T

THE INNOVATION COLLABORATION BETWEEN

P RODUC T

DE V E

L OP MEN T

EN T

THE INNOVATION UPCYCLING TAILINGS THE INNOVATOR TITANIUM CORPORATION

LARGE OIL SANDS COMPANIES THE INNOVATOR COSIA CO-OPERATION ISN’T EXACTLY a game-changing innovation. But cooperation between multibillion-dollar oil companies? That’s a different story. And that’s precisely the story behind Canada’s Oil Sands Innovation Alliance (COSIA), a union of some of the biggest players in the oil sands. They’ve agreed to share technologies that can help reduce their carbon footprint, improve their environmental performance and minimize the impact of tailings and other waste products they generate in the course of their operations. As of the end of 2014, COSIA’s 13 member companies have shared 777 technologies with each other that cost nearly $1 billion. In

DE V EL OP M

2014 alone, 68 projects were initiated at a cost of more than $200 million. Sharing valuable R&D isn’t something that publicly traded companies are known for doing with each other, but Suncor CEO Steve Williams says Canada’s oil sands companies have learned to see each other as peers rather than competitors. “I don’t see it as us versus each other. It’s us versus the rest of the world.” And while trial and error might have been an acceptable way to do business in the past, it’s no longer good enough. “If you’re smart, you learn from your mistakes,” Williams says. “And if you’re really smart, you learn from other peoples’ mistakes.”

MOST PEOPLE SEE TAILINGS PONDS AS A PROBLEM TO be mitigated. But Calgary’s Titanium Corporation sees them as a resource to be tapped – and it’s doing just that with its suite of Creating Value from Waste technologies. They all seek to extract the valuable components found within tailings, be it heavy metals, bitumen, solvent or water, and find an outlet for them. Between 2008 and 2009 the company conducted more than 20 research projects with 12 different organizations, and in 2010 it performed a 12-month pilot for three oil sands companies. That pilot recovered 75 per cent of the bitumen and solvent in the tailings it was processing while also removing heavy mineral concentrates. Now the company is ready to move to a commercial deployment of its technologies, which would see a facility built near existing bitumen froth treatment plants that would apply a second stage of treatment. That treatment, it believes, would recover commercially attractive volumes of residual bitumen, solvents and heavy minerals like zircon and titanium while making the oil sands more environmentally friendly. Talk about a win-win.

THE INNOVATION FINDING NEW MARKETS FOR NATURAL GAS THE INNOVATOR FERUS NATURAL GAS FUELS WHILE OIL SANDS PRODUCERS have received more than their share of global scrutiny for the carbon intensity of their operations, their peers in the Bakken shale have largely gotten a free pass to date. That’s a curious oversight given the enormous volumes of natural gas that they’re flaring into the air – gas that could be captured and reused rather than simply burned off. But Calgary’s Ferus Natural Gas Fuels, along with Statoil and GE, has developed a solution to that underreported problem. Its Last Mile Fueling Solution, which captures flare gas and uses it to power as many as six of Statoil’s drilling rigs and one of its frack fleets in the region, reduces field emissions (and will help

(LEFT) PHOTOGRAPH BY CURTIS COMEAU. (ABOVE) PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY FERUS NATURAL GAS

Statoil comply with new flaring regulations) while actually reducing its operating costs. That’s not the only innovative work that Ferus is up to these days, either. In late October, the company announced the grand opening of the first merchant LNG facility in Canada in Elmworth, Alberta. The facility produces fuel for engines used in drilling rigs, pressure pumping services and water heating as well as heavy-duty highway and off-road trucks in the region. And Ferus continues to pursue other avenues through which to build out a more robust LNG supply chain in North America, one that it hopes will lead to more widespread use of natural gas in a variety of commercial, industrial and consumer applications.

MARCH 2015

ENT EVELOPM ION AND D T A R O L P X E

THE INNOVATION TAKING THE “DIRTY” OUT OF DIRTY OIL THE INNOVATOR NEIL CAMARTA WHETHER IT’S THE EUROPEAN UNION’S aborted fuel quality directive or the efforts of anti-Keystone protestors to single out oil sands crude, it’s clear that Canadian crude is under attack. These attacks share a common strategy: to effectively de-commoditize oil from various sources by defining them by the emissions attached to extracting them. That’s bad news for oil sands crude, given that it tends to have marginally higher emissions profiles than some of its competing sources of supply. But Neil Camarta, an industry veteran who has run oil sands operations for Shell and Petro-Canada, has a solution that could stop those efforts dead in their tracks: DSU. The acronym stands for desulfurization and upgrading, and it’s a new upgrading process being offered by his new company, Field Upgrading, that he describes as being both simpler and more elegant than existing options. It involves mixing molten sodium with bitumen, which takes the sulfur, heavy metals and acids out of the oil and yields a pipe-ready product (no diluent needed) with just “a fraction of the hydrogen required in conventional upgrading.” As a result, the company says, its process reduces both operating costs and carbon emissions compared to existing upgrading options. Indeed, according to Camarta, a recent test of a sample of Fort McMurray bitumen which contained five per cent sulfur, 300 ppm of heavy metals, an API under eight and an acid number of five was transformed by the DSU process into a product with 0.1 per cent sulfur content, five ppm of heavy metals and no acid at all. And because it’s fully scalable, it can be deployed in a variety of ways, from on-site upgrading of SAGD production to a full-scale permanent facility.

WWW.ALBERTAOILMAGAZINE.COM

ATIONS AND OPER STRATEGY

NT EVELOPME ION AND D EXPLORAT

THE INNOVATION DIGITAL DRILLING RIG INFORMATION THE INNOVATOR PETROFEED PETROFEED MADE SOME PRETTY BIG WAVES in 2014 with the launch (and subsequent adoption) of an app that allows users to see the real-time status of drilling rigs across the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin. Its informative and user-friendly interface made it a hit with users on both Apple and Android platforms, with one iTunes reviewer noting that “Everyone I know in the industry uses this.” In 2015 PetroFeed has already rolled out a new feature (the product of a partnership with operators and major service companies) that will allow users to get directions to well sites. Doing this from a single platform, rather than relying on a mish-mash of Google Map printouts and operatorsourced instructions, will allow companies to get the same set of directions out to everyone who needs them in a timely fashion. PetroFeed believes that this will increase supply chain efficiency and safety by reducing so-called “windshield time” for operators, and it will also allow companies to be more responsive when it comes to changing conditions, be it a road that’s in bad shape or a local farmer who doesn’t want traffic passing close to his home. It remains to be seen whether the app can transition from a free distribution model to a paid one, but its growing popularity among users suggests that’s more likely a question of when than if.

(LEFT) PHOTOGRAPH BY CURTIS COMEAU. (ABOVE) PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY PETROFEED, CENOVUS

THE INNOVATION CO2-EOR THE INNOVATOR CENOVUS ENERGY THERE ARE ALMOST NO examples of successful CO2-EOR projects in Canada – that is, with the exception of the Weyburn, Saskatchewan, field operated by Cenovus Energy. The company has had its Weyburn project under CO2 floods since 2000. Production peaked at the field in the 1960s at around 50,000 barrels per day, and eventually dropped south of 10,000 by the 1990s. The lack of CO2-EOR projects in Canada is largely due to a shortage of natural carbon deposits; in the U.S., where such deposits are widespread, producers

regularly inject CO2 into lackluster wells to stimulate production. But Cenovus managed to cut a deal with a North Dakota company that would pipe CO2 to Weyburn, which soon brought production back up to about 26,000 bpd in 2014. Since this past October, much of that supply of CO2 started coming from the nearby Boundary Dam CCS project, which is the first brown coal-fired power plant ever built with an integrated carbon capture and storage segment. Like many of the other technologies Cenovus adopted early on, other companies are now following suit.

MARCH 2015

DE V EL OP M

EN T

ONMENT THE ENVIR

P RODUC T

THE INNOVATION LOW-COST CCS THE INNOVATOR INVENTYS

THE INNOVATION CUTTING-EDGE FLUID ADDITIVES THE INNOVATOR nFLUIDS

CARBON DIOXIDE IS WIDELY CONSIDERED the main offender when it comes to greenhouse gases that cause global warming and climate change. And for reasons known only to certain environmental groups, oil and gas producers, despite leading the way in clean-energy investment, take almost all of the heat for it. It’s no wonder then that curbing the amount of CO2 that gets released into the environment whenever fossil fuels are burned is not only an industrial best practice but also the only way forward. Vancouver-based Inventys is both leading the way in Canadian carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technology and taking the process one step further. In 2011, the company inked a research and development deal with Suncor Energy for trials of its proprietary VeloxoTherm technology for carbon capture, storage and eventual reuse in CO2-enhanced oil recovery. Technically a gas separation system, VeloxoTherm uses what’s called “temperature swing absorption” to capture carbon at the emission source – a flue stack for instance – resulting in a carbon capture cost of US$15 per tonne, or roughly one-third the cost of other post-combustion solutions. That carbon can then be injected underground for storage, or used either down-well for enhanced oil recovery or in chemical manufacturing.

DRILLING FLUIDS HAVE MANY JOBS, from cooling and lubricating the drill bit to removing cuttings, sealing the wellbore and maintaining hydrostatic pressure to prevent kicks or blowouts, to name just a few. The loss of drilling fluids, while part of the process, is both costly and potentially dangerous. And while there was a time when drillers would chuck graphite, walnut shells and wool down the hole in a slapdash effort to stanch the flow when seepage into or out of the well was detected, today (thanks in large part to nFluids) they have the potential to block seepage using nanoparticles. Incubated at the University of Calgary, nFluids is a private company that has been developing custom fluid additives which should soon provide a safer, greener, more efficient and cost-effective drilling operation. And while other universities and research centers have experimented with adding nanoparticles to drilling fluids, what puts nFluids’s patent-pending technology ahead of the rest is that the company doesn’t use one-size-fitsall nanoparticles off the shelf. Instead it makes them in-house, each set specifically tailored to fit the geology of a specific site. With the average well in Western Canada’s tight oil formations losing between three and five cubic meters of drilling fluid for every 100 meters drilled, that seepage can cost between $30,000 and $80,000 per well, based on average drill depths. If they can prevent even a fraction of that – and previous laboratory tests show their nanoparticle additives can cut fluid loss by as much as 90 per cent – then they’re on to something huge.

ONMENT THE ENVIR

THE INNOVATION WASTEWATER FILTRATION AND PURIFICATION THE INNOVATOR COLLEEN LEGZDINS AS IN THE WIDER WORLD, ACCESS TO CLEAN WATER is an increasingly important asset in the energy industry. Clean water output is no longer just a favor to the planet but a requirement for doing business that shows up on balance sheets. Treating waste from water-intensive industries like fracking, oil sands mining and SAGD is expensive, laborand chemical-intensive and, let’s face it, not always reliable. But after cutting her teeth pioneering early-stage hydrogen fuel cells, Axine Water Technologies founder and chief

WWW.ALBERTAOILMAGAZINE.COM

engineer Colleen Legzdins set out to change all that. The result is a quick, low-cost, chemical-free, one-step technology that uses electrochemical oxidation to remove high concentrations of environmental pollutants from industrial wastewater. The cell-based system is modular and scalable, and can “plug in” to any size project without disrupting existing mining or refining processes. The water that comes out isn’t drinkable, but it is reuseable on site in various applications, creating a clean-water loop that industry won’t have to keep going back to the well for.

PHOTOGRAPH BY ANDREW QUERNER. RENDERING COURTESY NFLUIDS

MULTI-STAGE COMPLETIONS

THE

NEW POWER IN

COILED TUBING COMPLETIONS Specially designed to complete an unlimited number of stages, the Packers Plus Quadrantâ&#x201E;˘ coiled tubing completion system leaves the wellbore with a full inside diameter and requires no intervention following stimulation. Contact us today for more information.

DO IT ONCE. DO IT RIGHT. www.packersplus.com

PMENT ND DEVELO A N IO T A R EXPLO

ATIONS AND OPER STRATEGY

THE INNOVATION AERIAL PROSPECTING THE INNOVATOR SKY HUNTER MAPPING OIL AND GAS PLAYS IS nothing new, but doing it from an airplane certainly is. And that’s what Calgary-based Sky Hunter has done by taking seismic to the skies with its proprietary technology that detects and maps micro-seeps in the ground to predict the presence of pressurized hydrocarbon reservoirs. Sky Hunter uses a small aircraft equipped with a “hydrocarbon nose” and other devices that record airborne hydrocarbon intensities and electromagnetic indicators from approximately 100 meters above the ground – or sea or ice. While one data channel measures for dry gas, two others account for rich gas and oil, filtering for vertical micro-seepage only while eliminating the “noise” of random hydrocarbons present in the atmosphere. The process is not only cheaper than traditional seismic surveying, according to the company, but it can survey areas otherwise off-limits to simple seismic sampling, all while leaving the ecosystem – whether onshore or off – undisturbed. With well over 100,000 kilometers of flight test data proving the effectiveness of Sky Hunter’s patent-pending technology, it seems the sky’s the limit for continued innovation in the airborne exploration field.

WWW.ALBERTAOILMAGAZINE.COM

THE INNOVATION BUILDING INDUSTRY-SCALE WIND POWER THE INNOVATOR KENT BROWN CLEAN ENERGY CANADA NAMED him 2014’s Canadian Innovator of the Year. We concur. With $730 million in operating assets expected by the end of 2015 and some key partnerships with First Nations governments, BluEarth and its president and CEO Kent Brown have created a viable renewable energy business in a country – and a city, Calgary – where many said it couldn’t be done. The independent power producer focuses on buying, building and operating wind, hydro

and solar projects, with 16 projects now operating or in development across the country from B.C. to Nova Scotia. Brown, a former CEO of Canadian Hydro Developers, has put BluEarth on track to control $1 billion in spinning assets by 2017, despite the company only opening its doors four years ago. This year, BluEarth says it will target approximately $700 million in new acquisitions of developmentstage projects and begin construction on a new wind project in Alberta.

(RIGHT) PHOTOGRAPH BY CURTIUS COMEAU. (ABOVE) PHOTOGRAPS COURTESY SKY HUNTER, BLUEARTH

ONMENT THE ENVIR

THE INNOVATION TAILINGS MYCOREMEDIATION THE INNOVATOR KELCIE MILLER-ANDERSON KELCIE MILLER-ANDERSON HAS BEEN experimenting with mushrooms since she was 15 years old. Today, the science-minded Calgary teen has turned that interest into a potentially gamechanging approach to remediating oil sands tailings. Miller-Anderson, 20, has shown how tiny white oyster mushrooms grown in tailings samples can quickly and substantially reduce levels of residual petroleum hydrocarbons, naphthenic acids and pH levels and increase sodium absorption in both solid tailings and tailings water. Miller-Anderson began her award-winning research using soybean plants, but, given the harsh climate of northern Alberta, soon switched to the hardier oyster mushroom common to northern British Columbia with equal success. Recently named one of Canada’s Top 20 Under 20, the University of Alberta student is now exploring whether there are other native species of mushroom that could also work. The theory behind tailings mycoremediation – remediation using fungi – is that the underground part of the fungus releases enzymes that break down hydrocarbons and then uses them as sugars to grow. With time on her side and industry looking closely over her shoulder, Miller-Anderson’s research may yet prove among the most cost-effective and environmentally friendly remediation options for tailings producers, both in the oil and gas industry and elsewhere.

MARCH 2015

ELOPMENT N AND DEV IO T A R O L P EX

ATIONS AND OPER STRATEGY

THE INNOVATION CONVERTING SULFUR INTO PLANT FERTILIZER THE INNOVATOR SULVARIS SULFUR IS WHAT PUTS THE “sour” in sour gas and is a common waste product of many oil and gas industries, including Alberta’s. What to do with the poisonous paleyellow powder once extracted from oil and gas has long been a question that’s answered by the chemical manufacturing industry. But last year, Calgarybased Sulvaris began to put shovels in the ground on its first production plant designed to convert sulfur into farm fertilizer. The Alberta facility is on the site of an existing gas plant operated by Keyera, which is a 50-50 partner in the project. The plant is designed to convert sour gas sulfur into 217,000

THE INNOVATION WIRED DRILL PIPE THE INNOVATOR BEAVER DRILLING EVERYONE AND EVERYTHING seems to be going wireless these days, but there’s at least one company that’s moving in the other direction. Beaver Drilling will be deploying wired drill pipe on one of its rigs in 2015, and the Ethernet-like cable that it plans to use will give its employees real-time analysis of what’s happening at the drill bit. That means they can process the data the drill is sending back and adjust

WWW.ALBERTAOILMAGAZINE.COM

the drilling parameters as needed, improving efficiency and reducing costs by as much as 30 per cent. And while the technology has been used offshore for several years, theirs will be the first time it’s been deployed on a land rig in Canada. In an environment where drilling costs will be scrutinized more closely, that kind of cost-saving improvement should be of interest to just about everyone.

tonnes per year of a fertilizer the company is calling Vitasul. The product, which addresses the vital sulfur requirements of agricultural soil, will be marketed in the U.S., Canada and Asia. The product not only creates a competitive alternative to other sulfur fertilizers but provides a new value-added market for a Canadian oil and gas byproduct. And that market is considerable: in 2011 Alberta produced nearly five million tonnes of sulfur (roughly two-thirds from sour gas and one-third from oil sands upgrading and refining), according to the Energy Resources Conservation Board.

ONMENT THE ENVIR

THE INNOVATION GREEN ENERGY STORAGE THE INNOVATOR ROCKY MOUNTAIN POWER RENEWABLES, PRIMARILY WIND, ALREADY PROVIDE APPROXIMATELY eight per cent of Alberta’s electricity, with two more wind farms planned near Edmonton. But taking the excess power from when the wind really blows in order to save it for when it doesn’t has always been a challenge. Calgary’s Rocky Mountain Power thinks it has found a solution by going underground – literally. By carving out caverns the size of 60-storey skyscrapers in naturally occurring salt layers underneath the Lloydminster area, Rocky Mountain believes it can store enough energy per cavern, in the form of compressed air, to power a town of 100,000 people for five days. But the caverns would be less a source of emergency power than a means of stabilizing the electrical grid by taking excess power off the grid and converting it for storage when the wind is strongest.

PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY BEAVER DRILLING, OAK POINT ENERGY (RIGHT)

LOOKING BACK. LOOKING AHEAD.

PMENT ND DEVELO A N IO T A R EXPLO

THE INNOVATION MODULAR SAGD FACILITIES THE INNOVATOR OAK POINT ENERGY TO CUT COSTS IN THE construction phase of steamassisted gravity drainage projects, companies are offering increasingly modularized designs for steam generation plants. Oak Point Energy may have taken that trend a step further with its modular SAGD facilities, which it says can be assembled on site in all of 30 days. In 2011, Oak Point Energy bought KemeX, the company which designed the technology, and has plans to install the facilities at various oil sands operations, beginning with its Lewis Steepbank lease. The facilities vary in size, ranging

Celebrating 50 years.

from 1,260 barrels per day capacity to over 21,600 bpd. The economic argument for the pocket-size plants, according to the company, is that they can be constructed almost entirely from fabrication shops, making on-site assembly faster and less laborious. The modular facilities are said to shorten development cycles and use less water than larger, more conventional SAGD plants. As producers pare back their capital expenditure programs, all the while attempting to bring on new barrels, the modular technology, or others like it, is likely to have increased appeal amid low oil prices.

beaverdrilling.com

P RODUC T

DE V EL OP M

EN T

THE INNOVATION ALTERNATIVE FUEL ENGINES THE INNOVATOR WESTPORT INNOVATIONS ANYONE WHO STILL THINKS THAT alternative-power engines are too wimpy to properly power cars and trucks is likely unfamilar with the work of Westport Innovations. The Vancouver-based company’s compressed natural gas (CNG) engines provide all the torque, power and efficiency of their diesel counterparts and are already powering long-haul trucks, municipal buses and the company has even delivered LNG tenders for a Canadian National Railway test engine. Under the Ford Motor Company’s vehicle modifier program, Westport’s trademarked Westport WiNG Power System has been integrated into several lines of Ford’s lightest- to heaviest-duty pickup trucks and a school bus. The WiNG system is in use by fire departments, construction companies and delivery fleets around the U.S., and will be coming to a town near you – if it isn’t there already.

P RODUC T

DE V EL OP M

EN T

THE INNOVATION CLEAN, GREEN, HIGH-EFFICIENCY BURNERS THE INNOVATOR ABSOLUTE COMBUSTION HEAT IS A “HOT” COMMODITY IN the oilfield. It’s a basic requirement all the way down the line from extraction to processing to distribution. So it stands to reason that any gains in heating efficiency, no matter how slight, can quickly stack up into real dollars saved. Most fire-tube burners in the oil sands – in separators and treaters, for example – use high-pressure fuels which send flames several feet from the combustion source. That’s not only a potentially dangerous waste of heat, but more flame also means more wear and tear on downstream

WWW.ALBERTAOILMAGAZINE.COM

equipment. So Edmonton-based Absolute Combustion International developed a high-intensity burner that delivers an even and consistent heat, and a near-flameless one to boot. That advanced efficiency means not only lower fuel costs but fewer greenhouse gas emissions. So far, the burner’s applications are targeted towards smaller fire-tube jobs in the three- to five-million Btu range, but down the line the company is considering building more powerful units capable of heating fracking water or producing steam for SAGD extraction.

PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY WESTPORT INNOVATIONS, ABSOLUTE COMBUSTION, GE CANADA (RIGHT)

P RODUC T

DE V EL OP M

EN T

THE INNOVATION ADVANCED FIBER-OPTIC LEAK DETECTION IN PIPELINES THE INNOVATOR HIFI ENGINEERING A PIPELINE LEAK, RUPTURE OR SPILL IS the worst-case scenario for pipeline companies and the industry as a whole. Leak detection systems are many and varied, but for all, speed and accuracy of leak location are paramount in mounting an effective response. Calgary-based Hifi has developed a next-generation fiber optic monitoring system that

can provide precise acoustic, thermal and vibration data along an entire length of pipe – and do it all simultaneously. Founded in 2007, Hifi first developed its patented technology in the upstream sector, providing drillers and operators acoustic data in more than 600 oil and gas wells. The new midstream technology has been refined to locate extremely

low-rate leaks and even indications of pipeline strain before a leak occurs. Now, using laser light pulses through glass fiber optic cable, Hifi can “listen” for hairline cracks and even potential problems like land movement or digging near a pipeline. The company’s goal? No less than 100 per cent safe, leak-free pipelines.

ONMENT THE ENVIR

THE INNOVATION SAGD EVAPORATOR THE INNOVATOR GE CANADA BY ITS VERY NATURE, SAGD IS A WATERintensive process – for now, at least. But GE Canada has made some impressive progress on reducing the amount of water the average SAGD operation uses thanks in large part to the work of Bill Heins, a chemical engineer who’s spent the last two decades trying to figure out how to minimize water use and maximize the ability to recycle it in a variety of industrial settings. Now a general manager for thermal products at GE Water & Process Technologies, he’s developed a SAGD evaporator that could, at full capacity, purify and recover as much as 98 per cent of the water used in a given SAGD operation. His invention also requires far less energy to heat the water than a comparable evaporator. As a result, one of GE’s evaporators could save as much as 500 million gallons of fresh water per year. If you scale that up to the number of SAGD operations in the province today, the number climbs easily into the billions of gallons. For a province that’s already staring at potential water shortages in the near future, that would be a major – maybe even transformative – difference.

MARCH 2015

ATIONS AND OPER STRATEGY

THE INNOVATION THE SUPER PAD THE INNOVATOR SEVEN GENERATIONS

ENERGY

DESPITE BEING A RELATIVELY YOUNG company – or, perhaps, because of it – Seven Generations Energy has earned a reputation for being one of the most innovative companies in Albera. And while it stands out for its willingness to experiment with different combinations of drilling techniques, muds, completion techniques and well spacing and placements in an effort to maximize production and minimize costs, it’s the so-called Super Pads that it’s developed and deployed that are the real eyeopener. Each pad acts like a mini gas plant, with compression, dehydration and fluid-catching facilities on site that can perform a three-phase separation of the gas that’s drilled underneath them. At capacity, each pad is designed to handle 50,000 mcf of gas and 10,000 barrels of condensate per day, which it can then deliver to a central facility. And because they have the compression facilities on site, each length of pipe can handle more gas. All told, each pad adds to the company’s overall operational efficiency – no small consideration in a company that’s looking to grow as quickly as Seven Generations. AO

WWW.ALBERTAOILMAGAZINE.COM

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY SEVEN GENERATIONS ENERGY

know your

INDUSTRY MONEY FOR

NOTHING

ENERGY TRADING:

THESE RIGS WERE

MADE FOR WALKING

THE DIVESTMENT MOVEMENT: TIME TO START WORRYING?

NOT JUST FOR MAJORS ANYMORE

PREMIER JIM PRENTICE TALKS PIPELINES, POLITICS AND THE ART OF ABORIGINAL ENGAGEMENT

THE ENERGY FINANCE REPORT

DOWNSTREAM

REPORT

The Business of Energy

DECEMBER 2014

The Business of Energy

Paint it

ALBERTA OIL’S YEAR IN REVIEW + REPORT ON ENERGY FINANCE

BLACK

How Pembina Pipeline’s Mick Dilger, the 2015 CEO of the Year, is making building pipelines look easy – and very, very profitable

SHELVED MEGAPROJECTS, PIPELINE WARS AND TUMBLING OIL PRICES

WHAT WE’VE LEARNED IN 2014, AND WHAT’S TO COME IN 2015

+7 Fellow C-Suite

ALBERTA OIL’S

YEAR IN REVIEW

Energy Executive Award Winners

MAC VAN WIELINGEN ARC Resources

WWW.ALBERTAOILMAGAZINE.COM

E SAV%

SUNEEL GUPTA Bankers Petroleum ED OKE Calfrac Well Services STEVE SUCHE CNRL RYDER McRITCHIE Encana ANITA DUSEVIC OLIVA Inter Pipeline THANH KANG Whitecap Resources PM #40020055

12 ISSUES OF ALBERTA OIL ONLY $59.95* *Plus GST. Canadian orders only

CALL: 1-866-227-4276 ext. 260 VISIT: albertaoilmagazine.com/aomarch15

ExpEriEncE counts. new buildings are a major investment. we streamline the process by giving you a single point of contact. we estimate costs sooner providing you with greater financial control. we use proven building systems to reduce your build time.

ovEr 40 yEars of DEsign | BuilD ExpEriEncE working for you. w w w. s c o t t b u i l d e r s . c o m

D? KEYLANstor es IN HOC VIVE inde pendent book ONTON SURsell at THE INSIDE STORY OF FRAUD CAN FC EDM and the rebelLUCID:

ship Literary wor

Mortgages: How does yours stack up?

P.44

THE

MONEY I$$UE

ALBERTA’S

ROCKY ROADS PAGE 65

GOT CASH?

ENEWS GET IT

KEEP IT

BLOW IT

ed Avoid investment scams P.50 s, scal aged chaod the world. They’ve man STOCKWATCH: How Alberta’s 50 biggest conquere and ALBERTA’S performed P.26 mountains PLEpublic BEHINDcompanies IES PEO PANvacation COM MEET THE T-GROWING The hottest properties P.56 FASTES PM #40020055

Alberta Venture delivers the latest news, trends and developments in Alberta’s business community. Sign-up for our enewsletter to receive up-to-date information and exclusive industry coverage.

PM #40020055

SIGN-UP TODAY albertaventure.com/AVenews

INSPECTED. MEETS albErTa gaS SafETY rEquIrEMENTS.

Want the latest in energy sector updates?

CSA Group has the local inspection services you need to confirm custom-built and installed gas equipment complies with Alberta Gas Safety Bulletin G-02-01. If your equipment was not certified at the factory, local inspection by a nationally recognized Certification and Inspection Body is a provincial requirement. Contact our Alberta laboratory to schedule your inspection. You’ll enjoy the confidence that comes only with Canada’s most widely recognized labels and marks. Phone: 1.866.797.4272 or 780.450.2111 ext. 52149 Email: fuelfired@csagroup.org

North America I Europe I Asia

www.csagroup.org

FOLLOW ALBERTA OIL ON TWITTER @ALBERTAOILMAG

REPORT ON Innovation & Technology

BIG PICTURE

Return on Investment Underinvestment in R&D is as Canadian as maple syrup. So whose job is it to invest in new technology? IT’S EASY TO FORGET sometimes, given all the rhetorical mud that gets thrown in its direction, but the oil sands began as a research project – and one of the most ambitious in Canadian history. Syncrude Canada was founded 50 years ago as a research consortium that included the provincial and federal governments, and it was tasked with finding a way to turn the bituminous sands around Fort McMurray into a commercially viable project. To say that project was a success would be something of an understatement. But Canada’s energy sector is falling behind when it comes to the amount of money it’s investing in research and development. This is not a problem that’s unique to the energy sector, mind you, as most sectors of the Canadian economy tend to underinvest in research and development compared to their global peers. That said, as a high-cost producer in what is, for the foreseeable future at least, a low-cost world, our energy sector needs to make the necessary investments in the kinds of technology that can improve our competitiveness. That might be a tough sell. The energy sector already has a reputation for being risk averse, and it stands to reason that the inclination will only be exacerbated in the current

environment where many companies are more focused on survival than success. With low revenues now testing budgets throughout the industry, it’s entirely likely that R&D levels will remain below where they need to be. But here’s the good news: there’s a growing community of accelerators, incubators and government-funded competitions that are stepping forward and meeting the challenge of de-risking technologies for the energy sector. According to Kevin Frankowski, the executive-in-residence at Innovate Calgary and program director for Kinetica Ventures, that’s as it should be. “The core business of the energy companies is not to develop technology; it’s to develop resources and to produce those resources and get them to market. Asking them to take on technology de-risking is, I think, unrealistic – and it’s unfair. Other entities such as Innovate Calgary and Kinetica can help to do that, along with other players in the innovation ecosystem. We have a strong innovation ecosystem in Alberta, and it’s a matter of getting the right elements of that ecosystem working together in the right way.” Will it happen? If we want to be able to weather the next downturn in commodity prices better than we’re managing the current one, it pretty much has to.

Research Intensity (R&D as a percentage of total revenue)

Top Eight Oil and Gas Companies Bombardier BlackBerry Canadian Natural Resources

R&D Spending in 2013 (In billions of dollars) 3 2.5 2 1.5 1 0.5 0 BlackBerry

Top eight oil and gas companies combined

Source: Research Infosource

MARCH 2015

REPORT ON Innovation & Technology

WWW.ALBERTAOILMAGAZINE.COM

RISE OF THE MACHINES Fully autonomous operating systems are common in many industries, including mining. How soon will they reach the oil and gas sector, and what will it mean for the people working in it? By Jesse Snyder

IN AUSTRALIA’S PILBARA REGION, A FLAT WESTERN LANDSCAPE

Rio Tinto’s Pilbara mine, located in West Australia, will be among the world’s first fully automated mines

defined by its red earth, mining for iron ore has been going on for more than 50 years. And while machines and contraptions of increasing complexity are used to get that ore out of the pit, they’ve always needed the help of humans – until now. Today, driverless trucks climb up the terraced roadways of the mines, navigating speed and distance by way of sensors. They haul the ore to a nearby rail terminal where train locomotives are operated by engineers in Perth, 1,500 kilometers to the south. Even the drills work autonomously. Only the shovel operators and a small crew of maintenance people are needed on site. Photographs courtesy of Rio Tinto

MARCH 2015

WHILE IT’S FURTHER DOWN the theoretical road than driverless trucks, it’s entirely plausible that robots could ultimately reinvent the entire way oil sands mines are operated. Rather than using the enormous, lumbering machines of modernday mines, companies could eventually use “swarm” technology whereby millions of fist-sized robots collectively perform a singular task. Applied to mining, the THE TECHNOLOGY RIO TINTO IS USING IN ITS PILBARA MINES COULD lightweight automated machines (imagine easily be deployed in the oil and gas sector – and right here in Canada, too. Suncor small dragonfly-like drones) use a chemical Energy is currently piloting similar automation technology in its haul trucks, and process to break down small volumes of could replace all of its drivers with autonomous technology by 2018, according to a ore and transport it to a central location. Bloomberg report. But automation will impact the energy sector far more broadly. An offshore rig in the North Sea is about to test the dependability of a rig floor robot that The method, which was outlined in a report by Dennis Franklin of Computer can single-handedly piece together an entire downhole assembly. Automatic welding machines are becoming increasingly hands-free. The operation of facilities now rarely Sciences Corp., is based on the activities of ant colonies, which order workers into requires workers to be in the plants themselves. All of this raises an interesting and long queues with each body carrying a controversial question: How far can – and should – automation go? small load. When hordes of Colombian leafcutter ants carry bits of vegetation across the forest floor and bring it to a specified storage area, they are in effect carrying out a highly efficient mining process. Swarm technology remains highly –CARL KUHNKE, TRANSPORTATION EXPERT theoretical, but current machinery is already moving in that direction. The logic is that without the need for individual drivers, lighter and more fuelScott Dunbar, an associate professor at the University of British Columbia who efficient machines could cut costs. And has spent plenty of time researching what the mines of the future will look like, is cautious to speculate about when the Rio Tinto model will reach the oil sands. But he while these driverless technologies may has no trouble seeing a scenario in which the majority of current oil sands operations seem futuristic, they’re not out of the realm of possibility – or even probability. are automated in 10 to 15 years. “These aren’t state-of-the-art “I can certainly see economics driving the haul trucks technology in the oil technologies,” says Carl Kuhnke, sands, because those drivers are expensive,” Dunbar says. Drivers can command salaries over $100,000 per year, and, as such, replacing the drivers of a fleet of, say, 40 managing director of the Saskatchewan Centre of Excellence for Transportation. trucks could add up to significant cost savings. And, in the absence of those drivers, Any vehicle equipped with a wireless the specs of the trucks themselves will likely change. For example, the 400-tonne connection, he says, can be equipped with trucks currently used could be replaced by smaller 200-tonne trucks that travel in the sensor technology required to operate close proximity to one another. Such a switch would create less disruption in daily the vehicle autonomously. “You get into production when a haul truck requires maintenance, Dunbar says.

The mines are majority-owned by U.K.-based Rio Tinto, which began automating its operations in 2008. High labor costs and a bleak outlook for iron ore prices have the company chasing economies of scale at its operations, where it plans to raise production to 360 million tonnes per year by 2017. That’s up from 290 million tonnes in 2014, the sum of which already made up 95 per cent of the company’s global iron ore production. In time, the company plans to dig its ore, process it, and ship it to deep sea ports in Cape Lambert and Dampier, Australia, entirely without the need for human intervention.

“ New technology is always scary; you have deadlines to meet.”

WWW.ALBERTAOILMAGAZINE.COM

MEN NOT AT WORK

Does automation put the energy industry’s workforce at risk?

Rio Tinto loads the first ships from its Cape Lambert, Australia, deep sea port

a brand new Ford these days with Ford Sync and Bluetooth, and those additions they have, they are exactly the same technologies you would put in these [haul] trucks.”

AUTOMATION’S EFFECT ON OIL AND GAS WILL GO WELL BEYOND open-pit bitumen mining, too. A Norwegian company called Robotic Drilling Systems is piloting its drill-floor robot technology in April on an offshore project in the North Sea. Using a rotating grabber arm, the robot can piece together the entire downhole assembly of a drill rig; it can thread in the drill bit, torque lengths of pipe together, send the assembly downhole and then retrieve it, all without the need for an iron roughneck.

Mention industrial automation and people tend to conjure up the typical Hollywood doomsday scenario, where humans are forced to live under a repressive, ruthless and hyper-intelligent robot empire. But, in fact, the truth seems far more innocuous, unless, of course, you happen to be a member of organized labor. For these workers, a world in which thousands of jobs are filled by tireless robots might be nearly as bad as the one portrayed on the big screen. And that world is coming, according to the results of a survey of 2,551 researchers and makers of new technology – including autonomous robots and artificial intelligence – done by the Pew Research Center last August. The question was whether robots would indeed take the place of humans in the workforce. The respondents were almost unanimous in their belief that, by 2025, such technologies will have dramatically altered our workplaces. But they were split down the middle as to whether this would affect workers negatively or not. About half said technology would widen the gap between rich and poor and create social tension, while the other saw a more positive future where humans and robots could work

together in harmony. For the oil and gas sector, which often touts job creation as one of its key contributions to both the economy and society, automation poses a conundrum. On the one hand, it could help the industry cope with persistent labor shortages, and potentially improve efficiency and lower costs in the process. On the other hand, eliminating the need for thousands of employees – and the economic spinoffs that ripple out from their employment – could make the already challenging task of selling the public on the industry’s virtues even more difficult. Still, the outcome could be a win-win for workers and their employers. Yes, small numbers of haul truck drivers or roughnecks will be replaced, but the robots that replace them will create jobs – safer and more skill-oriented ones – in maintaining these complex machines. More broadly, it could redirect people towards a focus on more creative pursuits within the industry, rather than repeating the same tasks day after day. As one survey respondent put it, “Advances in A.I. and robotics allow people to cognitively offload repetitive tasks and invest their attention and energy in things where humans can make a difference.”

MARCH 2015

The expansion of the Pilbara operations at Cape Lambert, Australia

The company intends to automate every other section of the drilling process, including top-drive operation and mud circulation. “It may be a few years before we cover all tasks on a drilling rig, but in principle there is no task that we cannot do,” says Lars Raunholt, the vice-president and founder of the company. Even completion tubing could be fed downhole autonomously, he says.

“ It may be a few years before we cover all tasks on a drilling rig, but in principle there is no task that we cannot do.” – L ARS RAUNHOLT, VP & FOUNDER OF ROBOTIC DRILLING SYSTEMS For all of these technological advances and the efficiency gains (and cost savings) they promise, there are still some who aren’t entirely comfortable with turning everything over to machines. That’s particularly true in the oil and gas sector, where operations often still rely on qualities like instinct and intuition that machines haven’t yet managed to perfect. “The process on a drill rig is very dynamic, so you cannot rely on the same sequence all the time; you have to be able to make changes, and make changes fast,” Raunholt says. His company uses intuitive software that can, in theory, work fully autonomously, which Raunholt says differentiates it from the ADR rigs now used in North America.

WWW.ALBERTAOILMAGAZINE.COM

But the electric drill-floor robot is unlikely to replace its semi-autonomous hydraulic counterparts in North America’s shale plays. That’s because the cost to install the robot currently runs in the neighborhood of $2 million, a high price to pay by almost any standards. That’s why, for now at least, Raunholt says the technology only makes sense on offshore projects where operators are willing to pay higher costs to cut drilling times. Whether autonomous operations will become the norm in the notoriously conservative oil and gas industry is a wide-open question. But the cost savings involved with automating production are becoming harder than ever to argue with, even in an industry facing tight margins and therefore little room for error. “New technology is always scary; you have deadlines to meet,” says Carl Kuhnke. “Nothing is guaranteed.” AO

INTEGRATED EPFC APPLIED INNOVATION Fluor is the industry benchmark in applied innovation and continues to drive solutions to improve capital efficiency and execution certainty. Fluor's integrated Engineering, Procurement, Fabrication, Construction (EPFC) approach provides clients with the ability to streamline processes, improve interface management, integrate fabrication and construction into the design and build strategy with the benefits of risk reduction, schedule advancement and cost certainty. Innovative technology such as Fluor's proprietary 3rd Gen Modular ExecutionSM, where modularization drives the layout of facilities resulting in significant plot size reduction and relocation of field hours to a modular yard, integrates seamlessly as part of the EPFC solution. Fluor is a global leader in integrated EPFC, providing clients with comprehensive solutions, global reach and proven expertise to build complex capital projects safely, on budget and on schedule.

www.fluor.com ÂŠ2015 Fluor Corporation 3rd Gen Modular Execution is a service mark of Fluor. ADCA115915

2015 AWARDS GET YOUR TICKETS TODAY TO ATTEND THE BIG REVEAL!

CELEBRATING OUR 2015 FINALISTS > Action Electrical Ltd. > AltaPro Electric > Arnett & Burgess Pipeliners > B & B Demolition > Chandos Construction Ltd. > EverLine Coatings & Services > JV Driver > Kemway Contractors (2006) Ltd. > Muth Electrical Management Inc. > Pemco Construction Ltd. > PCL Construction > Stuart Olson > Taurus Projects Group

Join us at an exclusive awards gala to celebrate the achievements of Albertaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s top contractors. Thursday, April 16, 2015 The Westin, Edmonton, AB 5:30pm Registration & Cocktails 6:30pm Dinner & Awards Reception 8:30pm Dessert Reception

ent d i s e r P E R O M L L I BRENT Fre Construction of F i l l m o T Y201 5

N O I T C U R ST P LU S C O N T H E Y E A R om/CO c . e r u t n F O N l b e r t ave a O y a S d o R t PE R e g i s te r

O I T A P I ANTIC ns? Questio

Call: 1-86

! G N I D L I U B N IS

6 ex t. 24 4 6-227-427 PRESENTED BY

| ema

alber tav il: events@

enture.com