canadian oilpatch technology guidebook & directory
presented by
research
health, safety & environment
communications
data management & software
fracing
production
drilling
tech guide volume 2 2010
WE MAKE IT
BETTER FOR YOU CGI is in the business of satisfying clients. Our 26,000 professionals in 100+ offices worldwide work side-by-side with clients each day to help them reduce risks, contain costs and improve their bottom lines. That’s why CGI has grown to serve more than 400 clients in Western Canada. Since 1984, we’ve provided one of the most comprehensive set of software solutions and services for the oil and gas industry, from critical back-office applications such as PAS and PVR to specialized consulting and application development, integration and maintenance services. Visit cgi.com/oilandgas or contact us at 403-218-8300 to learn more and to experience the commitment™.
faBreeKa dupont
raMco
XoMoX
Worried about a nasty spill? our lined-pipe technologies can solve your fluid handling challenges
resistofleX
We create lined-pipe solutions for the most challenging environments in construction, process, and fluid handling applications. Don’t let a nasty spill ruin your day. Visit our website to learn more. calgary: phone: 403.295.3114 | fax: 403.295.3341 | toll free: 888.770.8899
www.ngc-ps.com
2
tech guide Table Of Contents 11
37 fracing Technology Leap
38
Companies big and small join the fray to advance fracing tailored to new plays
Lightening The Load
42
Bubble-attracting proppant boosts distribution throughout fracture networks
Ice Breaker
44
Inventor turns to nature to fracture tight formations
Discrete Improvement
table of contents 4
10 drilling Greener Drilling Days
Use of full-bore diameter is key to new liner system
Breaking The Mould
Timely Data
11
50
Eschewing the conventional client-vendor relationship, companies collaborate for back-offi ce IT
52
Service company thrives on effi cient recovery of drilling fl uids
Zedi’s wellsite portal improves data timeliness — and could help save a lot of money
Taking A Hit To Make A Play
What Is A Well?
12
Disposable motor seeing onshore success
Extreme Dream
13
Derek Logan thinks that unmanned, automated, remote directional drilling will soon come to pass
27
Open Channels 46
49 data ManageMent & softWare
note froM the editor Technology Drives Industry Revival
45
Fracture network modelling system helps shale gas producers develop a game plan
Bit-To-Bend
15
Monitor And Manage
Drilling Directory 18
24 Production
25 25
Power generators made in small Alberta town used at oil and gas sites around the world — they’ve even gone intergalactic
Marketing To The World
26
Alberta company’s extensive reach provides recession protection
Revving Up
27
Advantage Products introduces new motor design
Production Directory
29
55
New system transmits directional drilling information, provides remote access to data in real time
Data Management & Software Directory
New motor design helps ease directional drilling problems
From Bassano To The Moon
54
PPDM’s mammoth effort to streamline well description lingo catching on
58
tech guide Table Of Contents
60 cOmmunicatiOns Candid Camera
canadian oilpatch Technology guidebook & directory
61
Video surveillance system can help protect assets
Mobile Matches
www.newtechmagazine.com editorial and production publisher | Stephen Marsters smarsters@junewarren-nickles.com editor | Maurice Smith msmith@junewarren-nickles.com design/layout | Andrew Brien abrien@junewarren-nickles.com ad traffic coordinator | Elizabeth McLean writers | Godfrey Budd, Lynda Harrison, Jacqueline Louie, Richard Macedo, James Mahony, Pat Roche, Elsie Ross, Paul Wells
62
New service aims to match available truckers with loads
61
Communications Directory 63
64 health, safetY & envirOnment Vaulting ahead
65
Enviro Vault strives to be the current — and future — standard in tank design
Leak Finder
sales sales manager – magazines | Maurya Sokolon msokolon@junewarren-nickles.com senior account executive | Tony Poblete tpoblete@junewarren-nickles.com sales | Jerry Chrunik, Nick Drinkwater, Nicole Kiefuik, Diana Signorile sales administrator | Craig Cosens
67
Fibre optics promises well-operators a better ‘ear’ for downhole gas leaks
Safe And Sound
68
Inventor’s new shelter system helps lower risks for workers
circulation circulation manager | Donna Rideout drideout@junewarren-nickles.com circulation/advertising | Tracy Wavrecan twavrecan@junewarren-nickles.com
Health, Safety & Environment Directory 70
72 research Geritol For Aging Waterfloods
73
PUBLICATIONS MAIL AGREEMENT NO. 40069240 RETURN UNDELIVERABLE CANADIAN ADDRESSES TO OUR CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT 816 - 55 AVE NE, 2ND FLR, CALGARY, AB T2E 6Y4
Analyzing half century of western Canadian heavy oil waterfl oods yields surprises
Mapping Uncertainty
74
You may also send information on address changes by Email to NewTechnology@ junewarren-nickles.com. Please quote the code that begins with the prefix Ntm. For members of the Society of Petroleum Engineers, please contact the SPE office directly with your address change.
Using geostatistics to analyze reservoirs
Research Directory
3
76
subscription information Dan Cole, (403) 209-3533 Toll Free 1-800-387-2446 ISSN 1480-2147 Canadian Oilpatch Technology Guidebook & Directory is a product extension of New Technology Magazine. New Technology Magazine is published 10 times a year by JuneWarren-Nickle’s Energy Group, a subsidiary of Glacier Media Inc., a leading Canadian information company with interests in daily and community newspapers and business-tobusiness information services. Junewarren-nickle's Energy group 2nd Floor, 816 - 55 Avenue NE Calgary, Alberta, Canada T2E 6Y4 T: (403) 209-3500 F: (403) 245-8666 Toll Free: 1-800-387-2446
74
president & CEO | Bill Whitelaw group publisher | Agnes Zalewski sales director | Rob Pentney art director | Ken Bessie publications manager | Audrey Sprinkle
4
tech guide note from The editor
Technology drives industry revival “maY YOu live in interesting times,” goes the proverb, inferring more curse than blessing. If nothing else, the oil and gas industry — with its booms and busts, its constant re-inventing of itself and its overarching influence on world affairs — remains above all an interesting one to follow. Indeed, there is nothing uninteresting about the transformation that has taken place in the natural gas sector in recent years, where what was considered a sunset industry in North America has risen phoenix-like from its ashes to roar back to life in the form of the shale gas revolution. Seemingly overnight, the focus has shifted from that of potentially large-scale imports of natural gas to replace once diminishing reserves to questions about what we can do with all the excess capacity coming online with the successful unlocking of each new shale gas play across the continent.
Similarly, though earlier, the solving of the oilsands puzzle has transformed the North American oil industry, allowing Canada — not so long ago thought to be running out of oil — to move to the front of the line of suppliers to the ravenous U.S. market. The common denominator in both instances is technology. And much of that technology comes from Canada.
how do you reinvent well servicing? ask Savanna
Savanna Well Servicing www.savannaenergy.com
The successful separation of bitumen from the sand, clay and water entrapping it, and the advanced in-situ extraction methods that would follow, were the result of decades of research, development, piloting and no small measure of sheer determination to make it work. The payoff has been the recognition of the Alberta oilsands as the biggest reserve of oil outside the Middle East. Different types of technology solved the shale gas conundrum, initially in the Barnett shale of Texas, where advances in horizontal drilling and multistage fracturing perfected techniques that spread like wildfire to shale gas basins throughout North America and now the world. Cutting-edge fracturing and horizontal drilling innovations in Canada, where resources are challenging at the best of times, have helped hone those methods to the point shale gas plays are taking off in various basins across the country. It is that kind of innovation, and the unconventional thinking and unrelenting perseverance often behind it, that is celebrated in our annual Tech Guide: Canadian Oilpatch Technology Guidebook & Directory and its sister publication, New Technology Magazine. In this year’s Tech Guide, we highlight success stories in various sectors of the oil and gas industry, from fracturing technology expertise to advances in drilling and production, health and safety innovations and the latest in data management and software updates. Successful development of the oilsands and of shale gas resources due to advances in new technologies has fundamentally altered the petroleum industry in ways few could have predicted a decade or two ago. It has led to a resurgence in oil and gas production while creating new jobs and increasing government revenues. And it has fostered an environment conducive to investment and the growth of junior and intermediate oil and gas companies while luring the supermajors back to the North American fold. Certainly, in this case, the industry’s “interesting times” amount to more blessing than curse. Welcome to the Tech Guide!
Maurice Smith, Editor msmith@junewarren-nickles.com
FlexCord. TM
When Pipe Pressure Spikes, Your Heart Won’t.
If your pipelines are prone to severe pressure pulsations Flexpipe Systems has an innovative solution: FlexCord Linepipe. FlexCord Linepipe combines the benefits of a light-weight spooled, corrosion resistant system with the strength and cyclic durability of steel. Helically wound, galvanized steel cords ensure the high level of fatigue resistance required for severe cyclic conditions. Like all Flexpipe Systems products, FlexCord Linepipe helps you decrease pipeline project costs, reduce your environmental footprint and eliminate costly corrosion inhibitor programs. And with its ease of installation, production can be online in nearly half the time. So the pressure is off of you‌ and your pipeline too. Helically Wound Galvanized Steel Cords Barrier Layer High Density Polyethylene Liner
It Pays to be Flexible.
High Density Polyethylene Jacket
Find out more about FlexCord Linepipe for your next project. Visit: www.flexpipesystems.com
6
tech guide List of Advertisers
Departure Energy Services ................................. 16, 17
List of advertisers Arrival Oil Tools ........................................................ 8, 9 Arrival Oil Tools (www.arrivaloiltools.com) specializes in the engineering and manufacturing of downhole drilling tools for the oil and gas industry. Arrival takes a great amount of pride in being an inventive, dynamic and highly energetic company focused on the following three principles: innovation, responsiveness and delivery.
Brother’s Specialized Coating Systems Ltd. ............. 28 Brother’s Specialized Coating Systems Ltd. (www.brotherscoating.com), headquartered in Edmonton, develops and uses specialized coating techniques for the benefi t of industry across Western Canada.
CGI ............................................................................ IFC CGI (www.cgi.com) combines a continuum of consulting, systems integration, and IT management and business process services with oil and gas expertise to help organizations create agile and cost-effective infrastructures.
Calfrac Well Services Ltd. ....................................... OBC Calfrac Well Services Ltd. (www.calfrac.com) has become a leading independent provider of specialty designed fracturing, coiled tubing, cementing and well servicing solutions that are designed to increase the production of hydrocarbons from wells drilled throughout Western Canada, the United States, Russia, Mexico and Argentina.
SubScribe
Today!
Departure Energy Services (www.departureenergy.ca) is a customer-focused provider of directional drilling services, committed to delivering exceptional value with well established technologies.
Eagle Drilling Services Ltd. .................................. 22, 23 Eagle Drilling Services Ltd. (www.eagledrillingservices.ca) was established in 2005 by Derrick Big Eagle and Rob MacCuish. Since then, the company has grown to become one of the most effi cient and respected contract drillers in the business, having won several industry awards.
Enviro Vault Ltd. ........................................................ 69 Enviro Vault Ltd. (www.envirovault.com) addresses environmental concerns posed by leaking valves and piping on oilfi eld storage tanks with its Enviro Vault product, an internal tank chamber concept. The technology addresses the high service costs and safety concerns associated with spill clean up and frozen valves.
Expro Group Canada Inc. .................................... 34, 35 Expro Group Canada Inc. (www.exprogroup.com) leads the way in well fl ow management. The company provides the services, products and expertise its customers need to measure, improve, control and process fl ow from their oil and gas wells.
Flexpipe Systems ........................................................ 5 Flexpipe Systems (www.fl expipesystems.com), a division of ShawCor Ltd., manufactures and sells a spoolable composite pipeline system used for oil and gas gathering systems, water disposal, CO2 injection pipelines, and other applications where a corrosion resistant, high pressure pipeline is required.
New Technology Magazine is the first word on oilpatch innovation.
Order New Technology Magazine right now and save 50% off the annual subscription price. Get a one-year subscription for only $60*! Your annual subscription includes 10 issues of New Technology Magazine, the annual Tech Guide and access to our archives at newtechmagazine.com. Subscribe now by contacting Tracy Wavrecan at twavrecan@junewarren-nickles.com or 403.209.3506. Please quote code: TechGuide10. *Plus applicable taxes. Domestic subscriptions only. Offer only available to new subscribers.
junewarren-nickles.com
tech guide List of Advertisers
7
geoLOGIC systems ltd. ......................................... 53, 57
Sanjel Corporation...................................................... 36
geoLOGIC systems ltd. (www.geologic.com) was founded in 1983 as an independent software company with a goal of providing improved software and data to the oil and gas industry and delivering a more comprehensive, relevant data solution.
Sanjel Corporation (www.sanjel.com) is a privately owned, Canadian-based, international oilfield service company with over two and a half decades of industry experience. As a major competitor in the global oil and gas market and the largest privately owned oilfield service company in Canada, Sanjel offers five specialized service lines including acidizing, cementing, coiled tubing, fracturing and nitrogen.
JuneWarren-Nickle’s Energy Group ............................. 6 JuneWarren-Nickle’s Energy Group (www.junewarren-nickles. com) is Canada’s oldest and most recognized energy publishing house, with products such as New Technology Magazine and the Tech Guide. Providing authoritative print and online publications, data sets, maps, charts, and directories, JuneWarrenNickle’s is the Canadian leader in oil and gas, construction, and alternative energy publishing.
Savanna Energy Services Corp. ................................... 4 Savanna Energy Services Corp. (www.savannaenergy.com) is a premiere contract drilling and well servicing company providing safe, efficient and cost-effective energy services throughout Western Canada and the U.S.
NGC Product Solutions ................................................ 1
Schlumberger Canada Limited .................................. 48
NGC Product Solutions (www.ngc-ps.com) makes, distributes, innovates and creates the next generation products and solutions for the most challenging environments in construction, process and fluid handling applications while adhering to the highest quality design standards.
Schlumberger Canada Limited (www.slb.com) is a leading oilfield services provider, trusted to deliver superior results and improved E&P performance for oil and gas companies.
Oil Lift Technology Inc. ................................................. 7 Oil Lift Technology Inc. (www.oillifttechnology.com) designs and manufactures progressing cavity pump equipment, gear drives, belt drives, rod lock BOPs, hydraulic power packs and electric generators.
Source Energy Tool Services Inc................................ IBC Source Energy Tool Services Inc. (www.sourceenergy.ca) provides superior downhole equipment and services including workover, completion, fishing and drilling motor systems.
Contact Tony Poblete at tpoblete@junewarren-nickles.com for inquiries about advertising in the 2011 edition of Tech Guide: Canadian Oilpatch Directory Guidebook and Directory
AMOS Asset Management & Optimization System
advertorial
technologyprofile Arrival Oil Tools Inc.
Backed by an experienced team, new firm launches a series of innovative directional drilling tools A small group of oilpatch veterans launched Arrival Oil Tools Inc. as an engineering and tool rental services firm in May 2009. In the wake of the global financial meltdown and a slumping oil and gas sector, the timing — on the face of it, at least — could not have been worse. But the five partners in the group were confident that industry would use the specialized tools they planned to develop. “The main focus at Arrival is to design and build drilling tools to be rented to the industry. These are tools we believe are needed to improve drilling efficiency,” says Dan Robson, president and a partner at Arrival Oil Tools.
Arrival's VersaStabe tool
“The main focus at Arrival is to design and build drilling tools to be rented to the industry. These are tools we believe are needed to improve drilling efficiency.”
The rapid-fire sequence in which Arrival has brought a series of new downhole tools to the oilpatch suggests that the company, which has five engineers on staff, is right on target. Over the past year, it has introduced five new tools onto the market, applied for three patents, and has several more products for downhole applications in development. This impressive debut is the result of a solid foundation. Arrival’s five principals have extensive experience in downhole tool development, directional drilling both onshore and offshore, with, says Robson, “A strong emphasis on extended reach and horizontal drilling.” Given Arrival’s track record so far, potential customers for the as-yet-to-belaunched tools, especially ones based in Western Canada, should not have to wait long. “All our tools are designed, spec’d, machined and assembled in Alberta,” says Robson. Several members of the group that launched Arrival had previously worked together in drilling tool product development. This often entailed devising niche tools or equipment on a demand basis because what was needed just did not appear to exist. Partly because of that experience, says Robson, “We have a specific-issue-oriented approach to the development of new tools. People come to us and ask us to build a solution to a problem.”
A case in point is a proprietary debris management tool, called a Cuttings Mobilizer, that Arrival commercialized this past year. The drilling conditions on an overseas ERD project were being stymied as a result of downhole cuttings that the circulating mud had allowed to accumulate. “They needed a tool that would remove the cuttings. By getting the cuttings bed out of the hole, there’s less obstruction to running packers, and drilling improves,” says Robson. Accumulation of cuttings is often a problem on deeper, high-angle horizontal wells where there are pressure and flow-rate limits. The Cuttings Mobilizer is a mechanically-based device designed to move the cuttings out of the hole. It can be run either in an open hole or in casing. It starts the process by creating turbulence. “It agitates the hole on the low side, where the cuttings are, and gets the cuttings back into the flow stream,” says Robson. The VersaStabe, a downhole, hydraulicallyactuated stabilizer, is another new tool from Arrival. Designed to control well-bore inclination in 2D directional drilling applications, it reduces spiralling and saves tripping times as control of the variable gauge tool is activated while rotating. “It’s a new twist on an old tool as we’ve changed to a chevron blade design to reduce torque resistance,” says Robson. Other Arrival tools that will soon be commercialized include an adjustable bi-directional reamer, a low-cost rotary steerable drilling tool and a surface-actuated downhole control system. For more information, please contact: Dan Robson, president Arrival Oil Tools Inc. T: 403 730 6660 F: 403 730 8965 E: drobson@arrivaloiltools.com www.arrivaloiltools.com
A
Cuttings Mobilizer
TM
Debris Management Tool 1
the ULTIMATE in hole cleaning Designed for maximum performance and easy handling in horizontal or deviated wells, the Cuttings Mobilizer is useful in reducing torque and drag problems by removing cuttings resting on the low side of the wellbore, while strategic placement of clusterite and stabilizer orientation are tailored and built into the tool to assist in reaming operations.
4
By keeping the wellbore clear of cuttings, another major benefit of the Cuttings Mobilizer is the reduction of the ECD (equivalent circulating density).
3
The Cuttings Mobilizer incorporates the following features: 1 2 5
3
2
* Patent pending
4
5
Short Overall Length: Designed for easy rig floor handling and more cost effective manufacturing and transportation. Conventional Right-Hand Wrapped Stabilizer: Full 360° support minimizes wear to the major diameter of the tool joint and rotor blades. Combination Left/Right-Hand Wrapped Stabilizer: Assists in hole cleaning and moving cuttings and debris during back-reaming operations. Clusterite Covered Leading Edges: Aggressive stabilizer edges break up large hole debris and cuttings but will not affect hole gauge. Cuttings Agitation: Rotor blades lift cuttings off of the low side of the borehole and auger them into the mud flow.
Innovative engineering. Downhole excellence. 403.730.6660 Arrival Oil Tools Inc.
| www.arrivaloiltools.com
drilling
tech guide drilling BOS Solutions
11
Greener Drilling Days Service company thrives on efficient recovery of drilling fluids By James Mahony
Oilfield service companies planning to be around years from now will not go far wrong by making the environment a priority today. If there’s a lesson in the recent experience of Calgary-based BOS Solutions Inc., which manufactures drilling fluid treatment systems, that’s likely it. The company specializes in the efficient use and recycling of drilling fluids, something that might have been a non-starter 20 years ago, but has grown steadily since Canadian and U.S. regulators began cracking down on the use and disposal of drilling fluids. Apart from reducing the footprint of drilling operations, the setup of the company’s systems is one of the fastest in the industry. According to Ryan Pilsner, BOS chief operating officer, a typical set-up takes about 45 minutes from the time the truck arrives onsite. Instead of several loads, the BOS truck has just one load to haul, simplifying the logistics of moving. While the exact BOS system varies depending on whether oil-based or water-based mud is used, it usually includes the BOS multisectioned mud tank and two centrifuges, although other hardware is sometimes used. Some of the equipment, such as the BOS flocculation tank, is unique. Unlike other “floc” tanks, it’s divided into nine sub-tanks or cells. During operations, drilling fluid flows from the well to the tank, eventually making a full circuit of the cells. Along the way, polymer and calcium are added as the mud is agitated, causing solids to clump and fall to the bottom of each cell, where suction draws them off for further processing. Viewed from above, each cell or sub-tank shows gradually more clear water and fewer solids as the mud flows from cell to cell, until only clear water remains when the ninth cell is reached. By then, almost all solids — such as barite, bentonite and other additives — are drawn off and run through centrifuges, reducing them to a dry, compact form, while the remaining water can be recycled. A trend that has helped BOS is the industry’s use of oil-based drilling fluids. Before
←
fluid management BOS says its tanks provide the flexibility to use one system to perform several different fluid management operations during the drilling process.
↑
floc tank BOS’s floc tank is divided into nine sub-tanks
invert, the oilpatch relied on water-based muds that were easier to dispose of and easier on the environment. Stricter environmental rules governing oil-based muds mean companies need to properly dispose of drill cuttings and excess fluid, often trucking them to offsite disposal areas. The less they have to move, the better. In business since late 2003, BOS at first relied on water-based mud management for its bread and butter. Just over two years ago, however, it began offering oil-based mud treatment. The result is that invert management now makes up about 60% of the company’s business, much of it south of the border. The extent of the shift to invert came as a surprise, Pilsner says. Planning to focus on waterbased fluids, the company put several such tanks into service. Yet, in order to diversify, BOS also built a prototype tank for oil-based muds. “Later, we got feedback from customers,” says Pilsner. “We decided to go ahead and build five more tanks. As soon as we did, our salesman came back and said we needed more. It was quite a surprise.” Using a closed-loop, pitless drilling system, the BOS tank allows the rig to drill with oil-based mud with minimal product loss. As the mud is filtered, solids and impurities are drawn off and centrifuged, allowing the operator to re-use the oil and stack the solids for later disposal. When solids have to be moved, they’re reduced to a light and compact form. A going concern in Canada for six years now, BOS only entered the U.S. market in 2007. Shortly thereafter, the U.S. made up between 10 and 15% of BOS’s total North American business. Since then, the figure has quadrupled. Today, the company has 44 systems operating in the U.S., versus 18 in Canada. The spike in U.S. business put BOS in the news last fall, when the Alberta government honoured a number of businesses with track records for exports. BOS Solutions was one of three finalists in the New Exporter category for the Alberta Export Awards in the spring of 2009. Organized by the Alberta branch of the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters, the awards recognize the achievements of Alberta businesses in exporting products and services. ■ Contact for more information Ryan Pilsner, BOS Solutions, Tel: (403) 234-8103, Email: info@bos-solutions.com
12
tech guide drilling The motor Company
The purpose-built GeoDrive disposable motors are priced to be left in the well and engineered to handle cementing. The most practical use in Western Canada is in liner installations, Gretener notes, citing success in a particular application in northeast B.C. “We can build a disposable motor [that’s less costly],” he says. “There are areas in Alberta in the heavy oil area and southeast Saskatchewan where they limit their horizontal reaches because they know they can’t get their liners out there. They can only push so hard and they can only push so far. “In the past, you didn’t put a motor on it because the cost of a motor was $60,000 or $70,000.” The motors, he adds, are effective in deeper vertical wells along the Foothills and for shale gas development in northeast B.C. Bruce Garland, drilling and completions lead for northeast B.C. with Nexen Inc., says while drilling a shale gas well in the Horn River Basin in early 2009, poor hole conditions caused problems running a 114.3-millimetre liner into a 156-millimetre horizontal section. “These issues became so dramatic that it became impossible to run the 114.3-millimetre liner past the intermediate casing point,” DiSpOSABLe mOTOr SeeinG OnShOre SuCCeSS he recalls. By Richard Macedo After numerous failed attempts, including casing scraper runs and wiper trips to clean the intermediate string to a point where the liner could be run to bottom, Nexen searched for another method. “It was The Motor Company’s disposal mud motor that provided the most cost-effective solution to aid in running the liner top [to] bottom,” Garland says. “The motor along with a rollercone bit were run at the bottom of the 114.3-millimetre liner, enabling us to wash through the sand build-up inside the ... intermediate casing and successfully place and cement the production liner on bottom.” Because Of eXpensive drilling day rates running into The motors are also used the hundreds of thousands of dollars, disposable positive in snubbing operations where displacement motors have been used effectively offshore to the operator wants to drill out help keep costs in check. plugs and drop the motor on Operators run these motors on the end of their production string the bottom, eliminating the to make sure casing gets to the bottom. The motor lets the operator need for additional snubbing in drill or circulate through tight spots and bridges, eliminating the need and out of the wellbore. to trip casing and perform cleanout trips. In these cases, running a “We’ve drilled in excess of cost-effective disposable motor is inexpensive insurance. 100 hours with these motors Seeing this success offshore, The Motor Company, a Calgary-based [in] conventional drilling service and supply outfit, decided to bring the idea to Western without a problem,” Gretener Canada. With wells being drilled deeper and longer in the shale gas says. “The big thing we had to area of northeast British Columbia and heavy oil applications in do was bring the costs down to ↗ Saskatchewan and Alberta, a new market is emerging, says the a level that would appeal to the market here. inexpensive motor’s designer. “We’ve redesigned a lot of the internal insurance “We sold a bunch of [disposable motors] in the North Sea, some in components. Some of that’s proprietary.” the Gulf of Mexico,” says Dan Gretener, president. “They run these on Originally designed for The design changes make the motors more offshore application, their final casing string and that’s just to ensure they get their casing economic to fabricate and machine. They’ve The Motor Company’s to bottom if they get into tight spots. disposable motors are been in commercial operation since the end gaining a foothold in “If they have to pull their casing out of the hole and do a trip of 2009. Western Canada. and everything else, that’s usually at least a day and a half, two days, “Although these motors are labelled sometimes a bit longer. With the rig costs you experience offshore, it’s disposable, they have gone through rigorous a huge amount. That’s where the idea originated.” testing and are built with only new compoDue to cost, use of disposable motors has been limited in Alberta, nents,” Gretener says. ■ Gretener says. When needed for sacrificial purposes, vendors would typically employ a used, usually worn-out motor. The problem, Contact for more information though, is that many companies want new, more reliable variations. Dan Gretener, The Motor Company, Recently, The Motor Company introduced the newly-fabricated Tel: (403) 230-3055, disposable motor to Western Canada with positive results to date. Email: dgretener@themotorcompany.ca
Taking a Hit To Make a Play
tech guide drilling Extreme Engineering
13
Extreme Dream Derek Logan thinks that unmanned, automated, remote directional drilling will soon come to pass By Paul Wells
As the founder of Extreme Engineering Inc., Derek Logan isn’t afraid to think big and dream bold. In fact, he and his company have already introduced unmanned measurement-while-drilling (MWD) tools that have become an industry leader and are continuing in their quest to push the envelope even further. “If I were to take a look at what our goal is, it’s to bring cost-effective technologies to the marketplace that reduce the costs to the producer, increase the drilling efficiency for the producer and reduce manpower on location. Simply put, our goal in life is to reduce the cost of drilling a wellbore with technology,” he explains. “What’s coming down the pipeline, what does the future hold? I think the dream of the industry is to be able to have minimal personnel on location, maximum control of the wellbore, and minimum health, safety and environmental [HSE] risk.”
Unmanned, automated, remote directional drilling, anyone? Logan thinks it’s within reach and can be attained sooner rather than later. He says that Extreme has already got “most of the pieces of the puzzle in place” for unmanned MWD with central control from an offsite command centre. “We can have MWD operators sitting there watching the monitors in the command centre and adjusting and tweaking remotely without anybody knowing. We can now take a directional driller and we put him in a pod, in a room, and he sits there and sees the same screen but his decision-making process is different than the MWD operator,” Logan says. “So if you marry the two together you now have this semi-automated process. You’ve got less people, lower costs and lower HSE [risk]. You have higher performance because you’ve
got experts looking at multiple wells and they are seeing repetition — they’re getting familiar with an area, familiar with a rig, familiar with the performance of particular components. It’s something that we’re working towards. Once you can demonstrate a remote MWD and directional drilling operation, the next step is to integrate a closed loop drilling control system with a rotary steerable system or an automated rig. Then you can start to see the genesis of the unmanned, automated remote process.” In 2001, Logan and his partners flicked the switch on Calgary-based Extreme Engineering with a singular focus — to perfect an unmanned MWD concept that would change the industry by allowing drillers to execute their programs with increased precision, diminish their footprint and reduce their manpower requirements. A tall order, to be sure — game-changers usually are — but one that the spirited entrepreneur and 30-year veteran of developing tools for the oilpatch was confident that he could fulfil. “I had been building MWD tools for close to 30 years and the technology involved in those tools was always the best you could get your hands on — you’re always trying to get your hands on the best software, the best hardware, the best electronics, the best minds. But no matter what you did you always had to put people on location to run it,” “ The data just magically, mystically shows up Logan says. “As well, you had your footprint on a screen. In doing that, we were able to bring and your safety issues. You had guys the costs down because you didn’t have to carry driving tens of thousands of miles a year and you couldn’t get away from two or three highly-trained guys for every job, that. All of these things put a burden each of whom was costing $800 to $1,000 a day.” onto the product. Your cost for providing that service was outrageous.” So he and Extreme Engineering set out to build a better mousetrap. But rather than simply improve upon legacy technology the group opted to start essentially from scratch. “When we put Extreme Engineering together back in 2001, one of the criteria we set was, ‘OK, guys, let’s do it all over again. Let’s take a clean sheet of paper and when we get done developing these tools we should have enough science and technology to be able to put these tools in the ground and let them run automatically without anybody on location,’” Logan says. “So we put all of our past experience together with the latest technology advances into the XPulse and XEM projects and we produced a product that you could take into the field, put it into a drill collar and literally walk away,” he says. “The tools are designed to be left in the BHA [bottomhole assembly], moved with the rig, picked up and drilled with over a period of many weeks, even months, without service personal going to location.” And in doing so, Logan notes that the tool automatically took care of itself. It recognized what was going on in the BHA when the drilling operation was underway. The surface equipment was smart enough to automatically pick up the signal and display the data so the driller, who is the end user, simply had to look at the information displayed and make the required drilling operational adjustments. “The data just magically, mystically shows up on a screen. In doing that, we were able to bring the costs down because you didn’t have to carry two or three highly-trained guys for every job, each of whom was costing $800 to $1,000 a day,” he notes. Since being introduced into the market in 2004 the products — called XPulse Survey on Connection and XEM Telemetry (see New Technology Magazine, September 2006) — have proven their worth in the field and become industry leaders. Tool time In a nutshell, XPulse and XEM are an unmanned MWD directional survey service product line that was the first of its kind when Extreme introduced it into the marketplace. Logan explains that during normal drilling operations XPulse automatically transmits and decodes surveys every time a new connection is made, with no operator involvement. The survey time for this on a jointed pipe application is zero, and only one minute for surveys when used on a coiled tubing rig.
14
tech guide drilling extreme engineering
“At Extreme Engineering this is referred to as a net zero effect on drilling operations, as no rig downtime is incurred. Other methods to take just one single-shot wireline survey could take 30 to 45 minutes. Even competitors' conventional hydraulic survey tools have historically taken 10 to 15 minutes or more,” he says. “The time saved from Survey on Connection translates into a more efficient drilling operation, because less time saves dollars in your operating budget. In addition, more data means more reliable and accurate information. This will translate into higher ROP [rate of penetration] as the rig crew learn to recognize local drilling tendencies and have confidence to apply more weight on bit knowing they will have an MWD quality survey within the next 10 metres.” Where XPulse communicates with pressure pulses imposed onto the drilling fluid, electromagnetic (EM) telemetry communicates by emitting EM signals into the Earth’s formations. Similar to XPulse, XEM surveys are taken when the pumps are turned off and new pipe connections are made. The data is then transmitted to the surface receiver and decoded to the doghouse display. The system is designed to allow for continuous drilling without the cost-intensive hassle of stopping operations to perform surveys. “The XEM can be used in normal drilling applications [similar to XPulse] and it has the added advantage of being able to communicate in an underbalanced drilling medium,” Logan explains. “XEM also adds value with its higher data rate and can be utilized when drilling rate of penetration is aggressively too fast for a mud pulse telemetry system. XEM has no moving parts and therefore has less risk of mechanical failure and/or erosion.” XEM and XPulse can also provide the necessary information operators need to directionally steer the well. The XEM product line has the added value of providing pressure while drilling, gamma ray logging and significantly higher data rate transmissions. In keeping with Extreme’s philosophy there are no personnel necessary for this operation, unlike common EMMWD applications. Extreme has drilled over 900 wells with a local directional drilling provider working for a major producer in southern Alberta without having an MWD operator on location. All of Extreme Engineering’s product service lines are tied into a Calgarybased command centre that allows support staff to remotely troubleshoot and for the company to provide real-time assistance to rig operators 24/7 when required. “We’re sitting here watching what’s happening in the various locations. So if Joe Driller is a new guy and doesn’t quite know what he’s doing — it’s not his fault, he’s just new — our command centre tech will be watching the performance of the system and send a text message directly to the MWD monitor or pick up the phone and go straight to Joe and say, ‘Joe, what you should be doing is this, this and this,’ and then you’re going to get much better usage of the tool,” Logan explains. “So the command centre emphasizes the unmanned aspect of the tool but it gives these rigs a dedicated, experienced guy watching, as if you’ve got an MWD operator sitting in a trailer, eating bologna sandwiches and drinking coffee at a cost to Extreme and the producer.” growing recognition Logan says the hard work and dedication of the Extreme Engineering team is a source of pride, as are the awards that have been bestowed upon the company in recent years. In 2007, Extreme received a coveted Alberta Science and Technology (ASTech) Leadership Foundation award for Outstanding Commercial Achievement in Alberta Science and Technology (for corporations having gross sales less than $25 million per annum). The acknowledgement was another in a series of awards and accolades that have characterized Extreme’s rapid growth since its launch in 2001.
↓
extreme surface kit The rugged and compact surface kit permits minimal intrusion for the drilling crew. Automated data detection and decoding is achieved with sophisticated Digital Signal Processing (DSP) running on a standalone tablet computer.
↙
one unmanned tool The unmanned operation is mobilized and de-mobilized quickly and conveniently with one operator and a pickup truck.
Extreme has received considerable recognition for its ability to successfully seek answers to fundamental problems and find solutions that are at once creative and practical. Among its many accolades are the prestigious R&D 100 status awarded in 2003 by R&D Magazine, an honour Logan views as the technological equivalent of the Oscars. “The ASTech award confirms Extreme’s commitment to excellence in the areas of downhole drilling,” he says. “Our engineering and manufacturing business, coupled with a successful operational division, has helped us understand how to build better tools that achieve the unmatched level of reliability and functionality that have become our hallmark across the industry.” One of the world’s powerhouse service and supply companies also took note of Extreme’s accomplishments and decided to make Logan’s creation part of its stable of assets when Schlumberger announced in June 2008 that it had acquired the business of Extreme Engineering. In keeping with Extreme’s vision to offer low-cost, high-performance unmanned drilling tools, the company is currently developing a simple and cost-effective device that will measure mechanical aspects such as shock, vibration and slip stick. The device will be an add-on to XPulse and XEM systems. This data will be presented to the driller in an unmanned, automated and easy-to-interpret visual display. Similar to the market acceptance of XPulse Survey on Connection, Logan expects this product to become commonplace for any and all drilling applications. The device will advise and warn the drilling crew if and when they have entered into a destructive downhole mode that will damage the BHA, MWD tools and decrease their ROP. Although these measurements are not new, to have them available for the rig crew in a low-cost unmanned offering is unique. The product will also allow Extreme’s command centre to monitor and advise when the MWD system is being subjected to a drilling environment that will ultimately cause a downhole failure. Currently in field trials, this new product is already demonstrating its value to the drilling process by offering the recognition of what is happening downhole during the drilling process. “Providing accurate information about when the BHA is in a slip stick mode and/ or when it is in a high lateral vibration mode with shock levels exceeding 500 to 600 Gs has allowed us to alter the drilling program in a manner that reduces the slip stick and lateral shock levels and hence increases the ROP and increases the reliability of the MWD, motor and bit,” Logan says. ■ Contact for more information Derek Logan, Extreme, Tel: (403) 537-5818, Email: dlogan@Extremeeng.com
tech guide drilling wenzel Downhole Tools
Bit-To-Bend new mOTOr DeSiGn heLpS eASe DireCTiOnAL DriLLinG prOBLemS By Richard Macedo
neWs Of the success of a new motor design has sparked heavy demand for the product. Calgary-based downhole drilling tools supplier Wenzel Downhole Tools developed a new motor design that reduces the distance between the bit and the bend point in motors used for directional drilling applications. A typical application is to set the bend at 1.41 degrees, then drill the curve using a combination of sliding and rotating to generate an average build up rate of 12-14 degrees per 100 feet and continue drilling a lateral section by rotating the motor with the bend still set at 1.41 degrees. Conventional motors with longer bit-tobend distances require the motor to be set at a higher bend setting which cannot be rotated without significant risk of motor damage when generating the 12-14 degrees per 100-foot curve. They are tripped out of the hole so the bend setting can be reduced and then run back in the hole to finish the lateral section. Using the short bit-to-bend tool allows customers to eliminate one trip, reducing non-productive time and saving them money. It also greatly reduces the risks that occur when rotating a conventional motor outside of its safe operating limits, like rotating the motors at too high of a bend setting in a curved wellbore. News of the success and capabilities of this tool has reached potential customers, the company says. This has caused a recent surge of demand for the tool. Engineering manager Orren Johnson, who was responsible for the design of the new motor, says industry has had a tendency in the last couple of years to
15
↙
short stuff For Wenzel’s new motor design, the bit-to-bend distance is three feet. Current motors typically measure over six feet from bit-to-bend.
drill wells with a bend setting that was higher than the company recommended. “The result of drilling with motors set at a high angle was an increased risk of failure,” Johnson says. “One of the objectives is to allow them to drill the same curvature of well with the distance between the bit and the bend about half and consequently reduce the bending stress, drill string torque and other problems associated with a longer bit-to-bend length. “Now it can be drilled with a much lower risk of damaging the motor.” Beyond this, though, there existed a challenge to have a motor that could drill a curve and the lateral without having to trip after drilling the curve. This is particularly important as horizontal drilling continues to become the method of choice for operators. The short bit-tobend distance will allow companies to accomplish this with a higher well curvature than was provided by previous motors. “The general need or request for shorter bit-to-bend has been around for a very long time,” Johnson adds. “It’s been something we’ve been thinking about for a long period of time.” The need appears more urgent now and became a higher priority partly because of the surge in horizontal drilling. Wenzel says that the first short bit-to-bend prototypes were manufactured in 2008. “The first runs were at the end of 2008 [in] late December,” Johnson says. “We’ve had over 20 runs on it so far. The typical build-up rate achieved has been higher than expected. “It has been able to generate well curvatures far better than conventional motors.” The first commercial run of these motors are now in use. Preliminary run results suggest it will work effectively, the company says. “There is a cost savings in the amount of time it will take to complete a well,” Johnson says. “In the wells where you would have to change the motor out after drilling the curve, now we can drill the curve and the lateral in one run. “There were some cases where they had a very difficult time maintaining the build rate in very soft shales and it’s anticipated this one will be able to maintain enough angle that they will hit their targets more effectively in this formation.” Wenzel will market the product across North America, with the new technology having been applied in Alberta, Oklahoma, Wyoming, Pennsylvania and Texas in its initial runs. “We really don’t think it’s limited to any specific field,” Johnson says. ■ Contact for more information Orren Johnson, Wenzel, Tel: (780) 702-5287, Email: Ojohnson@wenzel-downhole.com
advertorial
technologyprofile DES Provides Engineered Proprietary DDS Tools Supported By Expert Operational Experience Departure Energy Services Inc. (DES) is a directional drilling services company that offers a unique combination of an owner-operated suite of proprietary downhole tools, an engineering approach to problem solving, and a track record of innovation and experience rarely found within a single management team. “We have known from the beginning that we have to bring technical solutions to our customers. Otherwise we would be just another ‘me-too’ supplier with little or nothing innovative to offer the industry. We are focused on achieving problem-free wells and using engineering to deliver a better product to clients,” says Dan Robson, director of strategic development at Departure. Launched less than four years ago, Departure has already built an impressive track record servicing clients with its suite of proprietary tools supported by expert operational advice. The company developed its own line of downhole motors in order to have full engineering control over quality and design. “We designed these tools with all the latest bearings, metallurgy and coatings, so it would be better than the best available tools offered by third-party suppliers,” says Robson. The field-proven tools are available in a range of sizes from 4 ¾ to 9 5⁄8 inches. The first technology that Departure developed was a low-cost alternative to the expensive closed loop vertical rotary steerable systems. The company’s proprietary G-Force Vertical Guidance Drilling System recently completed its
100th well. Drilled for NAL Resources, this well set a record as the fastest ever drilled in Alberta’s Garrington field and was the deepest drilled to date, at 3,544 metres (11,627 feet), with the G-Force Vertical Guidance Drilling System. This kind of high performance, at less than half the cost of closed loop vertical rotary steerable systems, results from G-Force’s uniquely stabilized PDM (positive displacement motor) with tilt module, trajectory control and real-time survey monitoring with Departure’s proprietary MWDLite system and software. “The G-Force is a modified drilling motor. It’s no different from a rotary steerable tool in terms of its three points of contact, but it works mechanically without
include a focused gamma ray logging system add-on for G-Force and current development of an inclination-at-bit system for the Canadian and U.S. market. The company’s combination of in-house expertise, experience and proprietary tools is helping it meet the challenges of today’s complex drilling projects. But Robson emphasizes, “Ultimately, it’s more about the knowledge base than expensive tools.” Departure is headed by Larry Comeau, chairman and CEO, who has 34 years of directional drilling experience and has been involved in many industry firsts, including groundbreaking oil and gas technologies that have resulted in 27 Canadian and/or U.S. patents. He has managed operating staff in 33 countries.
The company’s proprietary G-Force Vertical Guidance Drilling System recently completed its 100th well. Drilled for NAL Resources, this well set a record as the fastest ever drilled in Alberta’s Garrington field and was the deepest drilled to date, at 3,544 metres (11,627 feet), with the G-Force Vertical Guidance Drilling System. complex electronics,” says Robson. The G-Force increases the rate of penetration by eliminating fanning and decreasing torque and drag. By extending bit life, G-Force also reduces trip times, further cutting costs. Besides NAL, G-Force has several clients, including Harvest Operations Corporation, Trident Resources Corp., and some majors. G-Force assemblies are configured according to hole size, geographic location, geology, bit selection, well objectives and hole design, and are compatible with PDC or tricone drill bits. Departure continues to innovate and develop new tools and systems. These
The company has an operations base in Leduc, Alberta, has just opened a new operations base in Caspar, Wyoming, and will add its first Middle East operations base in the third quarter of 2010.
For more information, please contact: Bruce Bond, sales & marketing manager Departure Energy Services Inc. T: 403 266 3940 E: bbond@departureenergy.ca www.departureenergy.ca
G-ForceTM
G-Force™ Vertical Guidance Tool
Vertical Guidance Tool
The G-Force™ vertical guidance drilling system is a lower cost alternative to full-service directional drilling operations and rotary steerables.
Departure Energy Services’ G-Force™ Vertical Guidance System consists of a uniquely stabilized High Performance PDM with Tilt Module, Departure’s MWDLite™ System and software, which, after initial system setup by a qualified Departure Energy Services technician, enables steering operation of the Directional BHA by the drilling foreman and rig crew. DES personnel can monitor well bore position through remote EDR (Electronic Data Recorder) access. Support to rig site personnel is provided by Departure’s on-call Senior Directional Drilling supervisors. G-Force™ engineered stabilized performance directional drilling assemblies are configured according to hole size, geographic location, geology, bit selection, well objectives, and well design.
deviation control | collision avoidance | vertical drills to KOP stay within hard boundaries | minimize well bore tortuosity remote or site supervised
www.departureenergy.ca
Benefits • • • • • • • • • •
Eliminates fanning often required to stay vertical, thus increasing ROP. Decrease in Torque and Drag. Reduction in daily DIRECTIONAL/MWD supervision and associated costs. System is compatible with any standard PDC or TRI-CONE drill bit. Significant cost savings compared to high end rotary vertical systems. Gamma Ray logging available independently, or as a system add-on. MWD (Inc, Az, TF) System can be configured to be fully retrievable. Additional Motor and String Stabilization can be provided. Torque and Drag and BHA Modeling Engineering services available. Final Borehole Survey computation provided.
Departure Energy We’ll get you there. PROVIDING DIRECTIONAL SERVICES TO OILFIELD PROFESSIONALS.
www.departureenergy.ca | 1-877-233-3940 © 2009 Departure Energy Services Inc. Media no. DMM_0002 rev B
All rights reserved. Printed in Canada.
18
tech guide dirEcTory Drilling
drilling directory
Accudrill Inc. Bay 14, 702 - 18 Ave. Nisku AB T9E 7V8 780-955-9337 www.accudrill.com
B.W. Rig Supply 609 - 21 Ave. Nisku AB T9E 7X9 780-955-8686 www.hyduke.com
Black Diamond Energy Services 2000, 715 - 5 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 2X6 403-206-4747 www.blackdiamondenergyservices.com
Advance Drilling Ltd. 400, 221 West Esplanade North Vancouver BC V7M 3J3 604-980-5973
Baker Hughes Canada Company 1000, 401 - 9 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 3C5 403-537-3400 www.bakerhughes.com
B-Line Directional Drilling Box 1240, Elk Point AB T0A 1A0 780-210-2225
Aero Drilling & Consulting Ltd. Box 263, Bentley AB T0C 0J0 403-748-3603 Airways Rentals, Leasing & Sales 4605 Gateway Blvd. Edmonton AB T6H 5C3 780-451-2203 www.airwaystrucks.com AKITA Drilling Ltd. 900, 311 - 6 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 3H2 403-292-7979 www.akita-drilling.com Alta. Can. Oil Tool Int. Ltd. Box 370, Avonlea SK S0H 0C0 306-868-2291 Ark Directional Services Inc. Box 10219, Airdrie AB T4A 0H5 403-255-1055 www.arkdirectional.com Arrival Oil Tools 946 - 55 Ave. N.E. Calgary AB T2E 6Y4 403-730-6660 www.arrivaloiltools.com
Beaver Drilling Ltd. 910, 500 - 4 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 2V6 403-265-6472 www.beaverdrilling.com Beck Drilling and Environmental Services Ltd. 9919 Shepard Rd. S.E. Calgary AB T2C 3C5 403-297-1399 www.beckdrill.com Bertram Drilling Corp. 10 Main St., Box 100 Carbon AB T0M 0L0 403-572-3591 www.bertramdrilling.com Bico-Faster Drilling Tools Inc. 805, 505 - 6 St. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 1X5 403-262-5595 www.bicodrilling.com Big Sky Drilling Inc. Box 659, Oxbow SK S0C 2B0 306-483-5132
BOS Solutions 1200, 444 - 5 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 2T8 403-234-8103 www.bosrentals.com
CanElson Drilling Inc. 515, 808 - 4 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 3E8 403-266-3922 Cathedral Energy Services Ltd. 1700, 715 - 5 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 2X6 403-265-2560 www.cathedralenergyservices.com Champion Drilling Inc. Box 1090, Brooks AB T1R 1B9 403-362-4400 www.ensignenergy.com
Boundary Equipment Co. Ltd. 10740 - 181 St. Edmonton AB T5S 1K8 780-483-3133 www.boundaryequipment.com
Chinook Drilling 2550, 300 - 5 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 3C4 403-269-2612 www.totalenergy.ca
Brandette Well Servicing Ltd. Box 6150, Drayton Valley AB T7A 1R6 780-542-3404 www.brandette.com
Classic Oilfield Service Ltd 5211 - 65 St. Lloydminster AB T9V 2E8 780-875-3276
Camaro Drilling Ltd. 8, 4101 - 19 St. N.E. Calgary AB T2E 7C4 403-250-2431 Canadian Association of Oilwell Drilling Contractors 800, 540 - 5 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 0M2 403-264-4311 www.caodc.ca
Columbia Oilfield Supply 9280 - 25 Ave. Edmonton AB T6N 1E1 780-437-5110 www.precisiondrilling.com Compass Directional Services Ltd. 400, 525 - 11 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2R 0C9 403-237-8799 www.compassdirectional.com
tech guide dirEcTory Drilling
19
ContainerWest 11660 Mitchell Rd. Richmond BC V6V 1T7 800-561-9530 www.containerwest.com
Enerow Industries Inc. 4800 - 27 St. S.E. Calgary AB T2B 3M4 403-279-9696 www.enerflow.com
Garritty & Baker Drilling Inc. 5715 - 56 Ave. Edmonton AB T6B 3G3 780-433-8786 www.garrittyandbakerdrilling.com
Hyduke Machining Solutions 2915 - 15 St. N.E. Calgary AB T2E 7L8 403-250-5323 www.stratex-mco.com
Control Drilling Service (1987) Ltd. 5921 - 87A St. Edmonton AB T6E 5W6 780-465-6006 www.controldrillingservice.com
Ensign Energy Services Inc. 1000, 400 - 5 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 0L6 403-262-1361 www.ensignenergy.com
H.M.F. Oil Co. Ltd. 408 Mississippian Dr., Box 938 Estevan SK S4A 2A7 306-634-7688 www.hmfoil.ca
Impact Rock Bits Box 6448, Peace River AB T8S 1S3 780-624-2640 www.impactrockbits.com
Cougar Tool Inc. 7319 - 17 St. Edmonton AB T6P 1P1 780-440-2400 www.cougartool.com
Excalibur Drilling Ltd. 700, 435 - 4 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 3A8 403-269-2041 www.excaliburdrilling.com
Halliburton Group Canada 1600, 645 - 7 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 4G8 403-231-9300 www.halliburton.com
Couturier Oilfield Anchors Ltd. 6306 - 50 Ave., Box 5039 Drayton Valley AB T7A 1R3 780-542-6358 www.couturieranchors.com
Excell Specialty Ltd. 9516 - 62 Ave. Edmonton AB T6E 0C9 780-437-2776
HiTech Fluid Systems Ltd. 1800, 505 - 3 St. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 3E6 403-547-2906 www.hitechfluid.com
Cubex Limited 12126 - 44 St. S.E.. Calgary AB T2Z 4A2 403-258-1544 www.cubexltd.com D & D Oilfield Rentals Corp. Box 1197, Redcliff AB T0J 2P0 403-548-2700 www.ddoil.net Decarson Rentals 1203 - 4 St. Nisku AB T9E 7L3 780-955-9420 www.essentialenergy.ca Densak Pipe & Oilfield Trucking Service 20 Strathcona Rd. S.W. Calgary AB T3H 1V5 403-246-5551 Departure Energy Services Inc. 1750, 700 - 6 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 0T8 403-266-3940 www.departureenergy.ca Drilling Controls Canada Inc. 607 - 22 Ave. Nisku AB T9E 7X7 780-955-2400 Drilling Fluids Treatment Systems Inc. (DFTS) 7530 - 114 Ave. S.E. Calgary AB T2C 4T3 403-279-0123 www.dfts.com Dril-x-Fluids Inc. 480, 840 - 6 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 3E5 403-444-1517 www.dril-x.com Eagle Drilling Services Ltd. Box 312, Carlyle SK S0C 0R0 306-453-2506 www.eagledrillingservices.ca Encore Coring & Drilling Inc. 1345 Highfield Cres. S.E. Calgary AB T2G 5N2 403-287-0123 www.ensignenergy.com
Extreme Engineering 130, 3510 - 29 St. N.E. Calgary AB T1Y 7E5 403-640-9494 www.extremeeng.com Foremost Industries LP 1225 - 64 Ave. N.E. Calgary AB T2E 8P9 403-295-5800 www.foremost.ca
Horizon Drilling Inc. 900, 606 - 4 St. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 1T1 403-290-0308 www.horizon-drilling.com Hyduke Drilling Solutions 2107 - 6 St. Nisku AB T9E 7X8 780-955-0360 www.hyduke.com
Ironhand Drilling Inc. 405, 535 - 10 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2R 0A8 403-237-6789 Jomax Drilling (1988) Ltd. 1700, 505 - 3 St. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 3E6 403-265-5312 www.jomax.ca K & D Pratt Ltd. 210 John Savage Ave., Box 279 Dartmouth NS B3B 0C9 902-468-1955 www.kdpratt.com K Tec Industries (2005) Inc. Box 1060 Grande Prairie AB T8V 4B5 780-538-1855 Komat Drilling Box 20126 Medicine Hat AB T1A 8M4 403-580-7476 Lory Oilfield Rentals Inc. 1004 - 15 Ave. Nisku AB T9E 7S5 780-955-2626 www.oilfieldrentals.com Lougheed Welding & Fabrication (2005) Ltd. 405 - 18 Ave. Nisku AB T9E 7T5 780-955-3700 www.lougheedwelding.com Marlex Energy Services Company 610 - 15 Ave. Nisku AB T9E 8A3 780-955-7311 www.marlex.ca Marquis Alliance Energy Group Inc. 1800, 800 - 6 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 3G3 403-264-1588 www.marquisalliance.com Matco Manufacturing Ltd. Box 2, Site 2, R.R. 2 Sexsmith AB T0H 3C0 780-568-4484 MaxxiMat Inc. 21074 - 5 St., Nisku AB T9E 7X4 780-979-6588 www.maxximat.com McCaw's Drilling & Blasting Ltd. 4228 - 47 Ave., Box 2250 Rocky Mountain House AB T4T 1B6 403-845-3101 www.mccawsdrilling.com Mi Casa Rentals Inc. 200, 435 - 4 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 3A8 403-262-2288 www.micasa-rentals.com
20
tech guide dirEcTory Drilling
N.O.V. Downhole 2700, 144 - 4 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 3N4 403-234-9999 www.nov.com
Phoenix Technology Services LP. 630, 435 - 4 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 3A8 403-543-4466 www.phoenixcan.com
Sentry Pumping Units International 450, 444 - 5 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 2T8 403-775-7077 www.sentryinternational.net
Nabors Canada 2800, 500 - 4 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 2V6 403-263-6777 www.nabors.com
Precision Drilling Corporation 4200, 150 - 6 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 3Y7 403-716-4500 www.precisiondrilling.com
Simmons Group Inc. 800, 906 - 12 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2R 1K7 403-244-5340 www.simmonsenergy.com
Newsco Directional & Horizontal Drilling Services Inc. 7000 Railway St. S.E., Box 8388 Calgary AB T2H 3A8 403-243-2331 www.newsco.ca
Prinoth Ltd. 6815A - 40 St. S.E. Calgary AB T2C 2W7 403-279-7271 www.prinoth.com
Smith Drilling & Remedial 710, 396 - 11 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2R 0C5 403-264-6077 www.siismithservices.com
Prudential Energy Services Ltd. 11000 - 95 St. High Level AB T0H 1Z0 877-926-9164 www.prudentialenergy.ca
Smith International Canada, Ltd. 710, 396 - 11 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2R 0C5 403-264-6077 www.smith.com
Quintera Drilling Box 1408, Brooks AB T1R 1C3 403-501-3704
Smith Technologies 710, 396 - 11 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2R 0C5 403-264-6077 www.smithbits.com
NGC Product Solutions 1B, 624 Beaverdam Rd. N.E. Calgary AB T2K 4W6 403-295-3114 www.ngc-ps.com Noble Drilling (Canada) Ltd. 4 Fl., 10 Fort William Pl. St. John's NL A1C 1K4 709-758-4400 www.noblecorp.com NorthBasin Energy Services Inc. 150, 707 - 10 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2R 0B3 403-648-8600 www.northbasinenergy.com Northwell Rentals Ltd. 9111 - 39 Ave. Edmonton AB T6E 5Y2 780-437-7469 OK Drilling Services L.P. Box 700 Red Deer AB T4N 5G6 403-343-8860 www.okdrilling.com Pantera Drilling Inc. 600, 407 - 8 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 1E5 403-515-8400 www.panteradrilling.com Parsons Oilfield Services & Supply Inc. 88 Scandia Rise N.W. Calgary AB T3L 1V6 403-818-2005 Pason Systems Inc. 6130 - 3 St. S.E. Calgary AB T2H 1K4 403-301-3400 www.pason.com Patterson - UTI Drilling Canada Limited 1450, 101 - 6 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 3P4 403-269-2858 www.patenergy.com Peloton Computer Enterprises Ltd. 450, 1000 - 7 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 5L5 403-263-2915 www.peloton.com Petris Canada 805, 734 - 7 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 3P8 403-225-4954 www.petris.com
R & M Energy Systems Canada 3703 - 98 St. Edmonton AB T6E 5N2 780-465-9500 www.rmenergy.com RBI Canada 2000 Inc. 5677 Burleigh Cres. S.E. Calgary AB T2H 1Z7 403-255-3730 www.rbi-canada.com
Source Energy Tool Services Inc. 6402 - 56 St., Box 21006 Lloydminster AB T9V 2S1 780-808-8788 www.sourceenergy.ca Southwest Distribution Ltd. 9691 - 45 Ave. N.W. Edmonton AB T6E 5Z8 780-434-3473
Richfield Equipment Ltd. 337, 440 - 10816 Macleod Tr. S Calgary AB T2J 5N8 403-236-0056 www.richfieldequipment.ca
Stoneham Drilling Inc. 1020, 850 - 2 St. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 0R8 403-264-7777 www.stonehamdrilling.com
Rig Locator 2 Fl., 816 - 55 Ave. N.E. Calgary AB T2E 6Y4 403-209-3500 www.nickles.com/rig
Strip-O-Matic Rentals & Sales Ltd. Box 73037, Edmonton AB T5T 3X1 780-577-5112
Rotary Sales & Service 9516 - 62 Ave. Edmonton AB T6E 0C9 780-434-3621 Rowan Companies, Inc. 1070, 99 Wyse Rd. Dartmouth NS B3A 1L9 902-469-1973 www.rowancompanies.com Savanna Energy Services Corp. 1800, 311 - 6 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 3H2 403-503-9990 www.savannaenergy.com Saxon Energy Services Inc. 1700, 700 - 4 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 3J4 403-716-4150 www.saxonservices.com Schlumberger Canada Ltd. 525 - 3 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 0G4 403-509-4000 www.slb.com
T1 HDD Services Inc. 2059 #3, 9899 - 112 Ave. Grande Prairie AB T8V 7T2 866-814-5254 www.t1hddservices.com Tall Pine Drilling Ltd. Box 700, Bentley AB T0C 0J0 403-748-2955 www.tallpinedrilling.com Tartan Controls Inc. 6932 - 34 St. Edmonton AB T6B 2X2 780-463-3366 www.tartancontrols.com Technicoil Corporation, Drilling Division 1510, 555 - 4 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 3E7 403-509-0700 www.technicoilcorp.com Teledrift Canada Inc. 7, 4275 - 78 Ave. S.E. Calgary AB T2C 2Y4 403-203-0840 Tempco Drilling Company Inc. Box 5543, Stn. A Calgary AB T2H 1X9 403-259-5533
Terracon Geotechnique Ltd. 140, 2723 - 37 Ave. N.E. Calgary AB T1Y 5R8 403-266-1150 www.terracon.ca Terracon McKay Ltd. 140, 2723 - 37 Ave. N.E. Calgary AB T1Y 5R8 403-266-1150 www.terracon.ca Terroco Drilling Ltd. 4044, 39139 Hwy. 2A Red Deer County AB T4S 2A8 403-343-6236 www.terroco.com The Crossing Company Inc. 1807 - 8 St., Nisku AB T9E 7S8 780-955-5051 www.thecrossingcompany.com
tech guide Directory Drilling
The Motor Company 4525 - 6A St. N.E. Calgary AB T2E 4B2 403-230-3055 www.themotorcompany.ca 3D Drilling Tools Inc. 8135 Wagner Rd. Edmonton AB T6E 4N6 780-440-1922 www.3Ddrillingtools.ca Total Energy Services Inc. 2550, 300 - 5 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 3C4 403-216-3939 www.totalenergy.ca Tracer Supervision 1110, 340 - 12 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2R 1L5 403-261-7097 www.barlon.ca
Tracker Sales Ltd. Box 809, Bowden AB T0M 0K0 403-224-0000 www.trackersalesltd.com Trendon Bit Service Ltd. Box 548, Redcliff AB T0J 2P0 403-548-7242 www.trendonbitservice.com Treo Drilling Services L.P. R.R. 2, Ponoka AB T4J 1R2 403-783-5720 www.treodrilling.com Trinidad Drilling Ltd. 2500, 700 - 9 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 3V4 403-265-6525 www.trinidaddrilling.com Tri-Service Oilfield Manufacturing 9545 - 58 Ave. N.W. Edmonton AB T6E 0B8 780-434-9596 www.tsm.ca
21
Tristar Resource Management Ltd. 800, 815 - 8 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 3P2 403-262-8595 www.tstar.ca
Westquip Diesel Sales (Alta.) Ltd. 11720 - 181 St. Edmonton AB T5S 1M6 780-486-2645 www.westquip.ca
Varel Rock Bits Canada Inc. 9926 - 29 Ave. Edmonton AB T6N 1A2 780-435-5706 www.varelrockbits.com
XI Technologies 1700, 734 - 7 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 3P8 403-517-0111 www.xitechnologies.com
Viper Rentals & Services Ltd. 10709 - 95 St. High Level AB T0H 1Z0 780-926-3366 www.viperrentals.ca
XL Fluid Systems 102, 2531 Hochwald Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T3E 7K3 403-265-4344 www.xlfluids.com
Wenzel Downhole Tools Ltd. 1000, 717 - 7 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 0Z3 403-262-3050 www.downhole.com
X-Treme Energy Group 8014 Edgar Industrial Cr., Box 6239 Red Deer AB T4P 3R3 403-341-0067 www.xeg.ca
advertorial
technologyprofile Eagle Drilling Services: Dedicated Employees Build Success Eagle Drilling Services, which specializes in drilling Bakken wells, is one of the most efficient and respected contract drillers in the business. Founded in 2005 by Derrick Big Eagle and Robert MacCuish, Chairman of the Board, Eagle Drilling is a small drilling company based in southeast Saskatchewan, which now ranks in the Saskatchewan Top 100 Companies. The Carlyle, Saskatchewan–headquartered drilling services provider uses only the newest in drilling technology, and prides itself on the knowledge, experience and dedication of its workers. “The whole thing — our full success rate — can be put on the shoulders of our people,” says Derrick Big Eagle, President and General Manager. “I’m the first guy to admit I surround myself with good people in order to make myself look good. I think we did a very good job at that, and it shows by our reputation, utilization and low employee turnaround. Our people are the backbone of Eagle Drilling.”
Recently, Eagle Drilling reached a major milestone, achieving more than one million man-hours with no Lost Time Accidents. “Being able to reach that speaks to the responsibility of our employees — for themselves and for each other, really taking safety to heart, and we’re proud of that,” says Eagle Drilling Office Manager Tina Twietmeyer. Band Of Brothers Eagle Drilling enjoys low employee turnover: 80 per cent of its employees have been with the company for two years or more. Some employees have worked together for the full five years the company has been operating, while others have worked together for more than 15 years, at Eagle Drilling and at other firms. So it’s no surprise that crew members are close. They are more than co-workers: they
are friends, brothers and cousins. Workers look out not just for their own safety, but for the safety of each team member. Safety is of the utmost importance at Eagle Drilling, where it is not just policy, but also an attitude that Eagle Drilling has instilled, from the president down to the newest floor hand. Getting To Zero is a company-wide goal, and it’s considered to be everyone’s responsibility. Eagle Drilling would never have achieved the safety milestones it has, if not for its safety-conscious, experienced, reliable staff. People Are What Makes Eagle Drilling Great Eagle Drilling believes the company is only as strong as the people who work for it. Eagle Drilling has 160 employees who are an invaluable asset and have grown with the company. They know the equipment and the rigs. Many helped build the rigs from the ground up, and can also repair and maintain them. They are familiar with the areas they work in, since most have lived and worked in southeast Saskatchewan for most of their lives. They are reliable and trustworthy. And that trust between employer and employee, is what makes a company successful. Eagle Drilling has strong family values, with regard for its employees and their loved ones. The majority of employees live less than two hours away from location. Eagle Drilling believes it is important that workers can return home each night, since this allows them to maintain a healthy home and family life. The company also supports employee health by offering stellar health coverage. Making Local Investment A Priority Eagle Drilling management has more than 100 years of combined experience working in southeast Saskatchewan’s oil industry. “We have a great experience level within our management team,” Big Eagle says. “We are all local boys that grew up on the rigs down here, and we have a good idea of how
southeast Saskatchewan works. I think that gives us an advantage over most others.” Big Eagle, who has worked in the region for his entire life, is keen on helping small towns maintain their vitality, economic well-being and way of life. To this end, Eagle Drilling hires as many local workers as possible (currently, 85 per cent of its staff are local) and on average, invests $16 million in annual wages back into the local economy. The company also uses as many local services as possible, including parts, supplies and maintenance, with an average investment of more than $10 million each year going into southeast Saskatchewan’s economy. In addition, Eagle Drilling manufactures all of its rigs, each at a cost of approximately $7 million, through a company based in southeast Saskatchewan. All Eagle Drilling rigs are equipped with the latest in drilling technology, for a safe, fast, reliable and cost-efficient drill. Eagle Drilling employees are committed to doing the best job possible, each and every time. “We would like to take this opportunity to thank the employees for their dedication,” Twietmeyer says. For more information, contact: Tina Twietmeyer, Office Manager Eagle Drilling Services Ltd. T: 306.453.2506 F: 306.453.2508 www.eagledrillingservices.ca
Your #1 Drilling Solution! Capable of drilling any well SE Saskatchewan or SW Manitoba has to offer Latest in Drilling Technology
Experienced Personnel Cost Efficient Drill Times SAFE; Operating at over 1,000,000 Man Hours with Zero LTA’s
Office: 306-453-2506 Located in:
Carlyle, SK
www.eagledrillingservices.ca
ProducTion
tech guide Production Global Thermoelectric
25
From Bassano To The Moon Power generators made in small Alberta town used at oil and gas sites around the world — they’ve even gone intergalactic By Lynda Harrison
↓
remote operations
A Bassano, Alberta-based company has taken global trade otherworldly. Global Thermoelectric’s power supply installations aren’t just in remote, exotic locations around this planet; they’re even on the Moon. The company’s president says its original technology, thermoelectric generators (TEGs), was originally developed by 3M and was used in the Apollo space program. 3M thermoelectric generators were used in SNAP-27 radioisotope thermoelectric generators and were taken to the Moon on Apollo missions 12, 14, 15, 16 and 17, used to power lunar surface experiments packages, says Bruce Taylor. They are still up there, he adds. TEGs convert heat to electricity. Heat is applied to thermocouples that are specially engineered so that the application of heat induces an electric current to flow. Although the TEGs employed in space used radioisotopes as a heat source, the TEGs that Global supplies use propane or natural gas burners to generate heat. Global Thermoelectric’s TEGs and other industrial applications for the oil and gas industry and telecommunications — for well sites, offshore platforms, pipelines, repeater stations and radar stations — are made in the small Alberta town of Bassano and exported all over the world. To date there have been more than 20,000 Global Thermoelectric TEGs installed in 50 countries. Here’s the connection between the little town and the moon: back in the 1970s some of 3M’s engineers were duck hunting in the Bassano area. They happened to tell some local businessmen about their line of work and those businessmen thought TEGs were such a good idea they bought the technology and rights to it, says Taylor, who has been with the company for about two years. The investors opened a factory right there in Bassano, “ They’re the only people who stepped which lies about 140 kilometres east of Calgary, and started adapting and selling TEGs to the gas industry. The factory is up to the plate with still in Bassano — population 1,345 — employing 60-some people who do all the manufacturing. Integration of cusa good solution.” tom systems is done in Calgary, where the engineering and head office are located. Total employees number about 110. From TEGs the business has evolved into providing custom-made, entirely remote power systems, using solar, gensets and in some cases uninterrupted power supply (UPS) where the electrical grid connection is highly unreliable. A UPS, Taylor explains, is basically a container full of batteries. The company recently shipped one off to Kazakhstan. There it will supply power via an electrical grid and continue to supply that power for “a number of days” to a pipeline should that grid fail. If the grid is still off after a few days, a portable generator will keep the batteries charged, he says. “It has not only batteries but a lot of electronic gear in there that’s pretty sophisticated stuff.”
Two thermoelectric generators (TEGs) on a multi-well pad in Wyoming. The producer historically used solar but in this region the TEGs were the more economical solution.
Global Thermoelectric specializes in power systems that can go for long periods of time before routine maintenance and fuel are required. “We’re the specialists when you need a power system and you’re out in the middle of nowhere and you’ve got two issues: you can’t afford to have it fail and secondly, it’s expensive to service,” says Taylor. Some of its systems, such as genset cycle chargers on pipelines, can last for a full year before they need refuelling or maintenance. They are engineered to run only occasionally, to charge battery banks, and to run on very little fuel so oil changes can be few and far between. A genset is an engine that typically runs on propane or diesel, connected to a generator to produce electrical power. It’s exactly like what’s on a diesel locomotive, but in this case it moves valves or powers instrumentation, Taylor explains. Beginning with a few installations in Alberta in 1975, the privatelyowned company now has systems all over the world, he says, rattling off its equipment’s whereabouts: Africa, Russia, China, India, Australia, Croatia, Peru, Bolivia, Colombia, Venezuela, Brazil and Argentina.
26
tech guide ProDUcTion Global Thermoelectric/Top-Co
There is a growing market for power in remote locations for two reasons, says Taylor. One stems from the proliferation of cellular phones that are going into remote locations and the other is increasingly far flung worldwide oil and gas exploration. “Those types of [operations] need very, very high reliability,” he says. BP purchased 29 remote power systems in 2009 incorporating TEGs with a proprietary voltage-sensing auto-start device, a battery bank and enclosure, and BP’s solar panels for its gas well sites in northeast British Columbia. Bruce Arneson manages the instrumentation and controls group at CH2M Hill’s energy and chemicals division (BP’s EPC contract firm). He says he looked at all available options before settling on Global Thermoelectric’s systems, and expects they will reduce greenhouse
gas emissions at the wellsites by 90% due to the solar component. “They’re the only people who stepped up to the plate with a good solution,” says Arneson. Taylor estimates the oil and gas industry portion of his business has grown at least 10% per year over the past five years and he expects that to continue. He singles out China, the central Asian republics known as “The ‘Stans,” as well as North Africa and Southeast Asia as particularly hot markets for the company’s products. At least 90% of sales are now outside of Canada and 70% are outside of North America, says Taylor. “We’re in everything from the jungles of Brazil to Alaska. We go from very, very hot to very, very cold.” Global Thermoelectric’s equipment has been installed where ↑ temperatures can reach 60 C, such as the North African desert and world power the Middle East, and then get very cold at night. That kind of heat TEGs offshore Gabon (left) and an application can burn up electronics, and batteries don’t like extreme hot or cold so they have to be engineered properly. “We do things with paint, air in Peru. conditioning, ventilation systems, all of those kinds of things,” he says. Global has received the Canada Export Award three times as well as a special lifetime achievement award and a supplier’s award from China for the East-West Pipeline. ■ Contact for more information Greg Toner, Global Thermoelectric, Tel: (403) 720-1880, Email: greg.toner@globalte.com
Marketing To The world ALBerTA COMpAny’s eXTensive reACh prOviDes reCessiOn prOTeCTiOn By Lynda Harrison an edMonton-Based coMPany that specializes in providing equipment used in the cementing of wells has more than doubled revenue in three years thanks to international expansion. Top-Co specializes in two product lines: float equipment and centralization equipment, both of which are used in the primary cementing of casing in oil and gas wells. Centralizer products, just as the name suggests, are used to center casing in the wellbore so they can surround it with cement. All casing has to be cemented. The float equipment is a valve that, when cement is being pumped, opens and enables the cement to pass through the casing. Once pumping is completed, because it’s under high pressure, the valve closes to keep the cement in the hole; otherwise it would come back to surface. The company also supplies about 1,500 “part numbers” to producers: many different sizes, materials and threads, depending on the well, the formation they’re drilling in, if they’re encountering a lot of heat,
↓
specialized equipment Top-Co says proper placement of casing centralizers (below) and fl oat equipment (right) is necessary in obtaining a successful primary cement job.
the depth and other factors. Top-Co does nothing but design, manufacture and distribute equipment. “We’re specialists. There’s only a handful of companies that do this in the world and we don’t want to move outside our niche,” says Gerald McLaughlan, president and chief executive officer. Most of Top-Co’s growth is in the Middle East and Southeast Asia, as well as North African countries Libya, Algeria, Tunisia and Egypt, while Russia is becoming an important market. McLaughlan says being international has been key to Top-Co’s success, “Primarily because geographic diversification insulates you from cycles in the industry.” A serious downturn in drilling activity in Canada and the United States was experienced recently due to an oversupply of natural gas, which represents 70% of drilling, he notes. Meanwhile, offshore markets tend to focus more on oil and that market is stable, he adds. Three years ago 50% of the company’s revenue was derived from Canada, whereas by the end of 2009 it was split 25% Canada and 75% exports. “Hence our nomination for an export award,” McLaughlan says. Top-Co was one of three companies nominated by the Alberta division of Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters for the inaugural Alberta export awards in the category of “manufacturing – oil and gas.” “We nominated Top-Co for CME’s Alberta Export Award because it is really a great example of a home-grown success story,” says Dee Pannu, acting senior trade commissioner for the Alberta regional offices of the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. “Now active in 62 countries worldwide and working with the Canadian Trade Commissioner Service in several of them, Top-Co has expanded by consistently being an innovator and enhancing its product lines into technology-intensive
TYPE 335 WELDED SEMI-POSITIVE CENTRALIZER-HINGED
tech guide Production Top-Co/Advantage Products applications for horizontal and directional drilling and heavy oil.” The company has been designing and manufacturing float and mechanical cementing products since 1963. It has 275 employees working from a 165,000-square-foot facility in Edmonton and a 25,000-square-foot plant in Weatherford, Texas. A third facility, in the Persian Gulf, opens this year. Top-Co has distribution and customer support centres in Edmonton, Calgary, Houston and Weatherford, as well as in Mexico, Russia, Azerbaijan and the United Arab Emirates. Independent sales agents and distributors are in more than 40 countries. The company brings in the raw materials and all manufacturing, testing and finishing is done in-house using electronic design media and three-dimensional modelling before it is released, so it is not relying on sub-contractors that can create delays and lead to loss of quality control. Doing it all themselves also means they can be flexible — an emergency order can be done quickly and if there’s a spike in demand for a particular product they can change their production rapidly and fill that void without relying on outside sources. Speed is critical in this time-sensitive industry. McLaughlan says 99% of the time Top-Co ships out products within 24 hours of receiving their order. In addition, its $3 million, computerized flow-test loop facility enables the company to test new products and conduct failure analysis before they go to the field. The machine puts drilling mud through the float valve and around in a loop to test the flow rate, temperature and the valve’s ability to handle the pressure it would encounter in an actual well, while ensuring oil meets American Petroleum Institute standards. “There is nothing like it in the industry, and it’s sitting here in little old Edmonton,” says McLaughlan.
It tested a special cementing plug designed for a project offshore Newfoundland, where rigs can cost $500,000 a day to rent so it’s important there are no problems or delays. “We were able to build it, test it, and through a web broadcast, engineers in Newfoundland and Calgary were able to witness the test so they could be fully satisfied it would perform to their specifications before taking the risk of putting a unique product in the well and encountering a problem,” says McLaughlan. The item was built in five days, says Faisal Rashid, an engineer who does Hibernia’s desk design evaluation and services for clients. He witnessed the test in St. John’s and was very happy with Top-Co’s service. “The response was very quick, professional and we got very good support, very good communication,” he said. ■ Contact for more information Gerald McLaughlan, Top-Co, Tel: (780) 440-4440, Email: Gerald.McLaughlan@top-co.ca
27
Revving Up Advantage Products introduces new motor design By Stephen Marsters
You’ve got to hand it to Jim Weber: the roughneck-turnedinventor is nothing if not persistent. After eight years of work — more on that in a bit — Weber and his team at Advantage Products Inc. (API) have introduced a new motor design for the oilpatch that boosts efficiency, reduces costs, enhances safety and provides environmental benefits. The company’s TorqDrive is the first variable-speed permanent magnet motor designed for progressive cavity pump (PCP) top drives. It eliminates hydraulic pumps and motors, gearboxes and belt drives. ↖ “With a normal induction motor, you basically plug it in and it’ll rigorous testing run at whatever the designed run speed is,” says Weber, president of Top-Co recently comAPI. “Our new motor doesn’t work that way.” missioned a state-ofImagine a dimmer switch used at home that easily adjusts light the-art test flow loop, guaranteeing equiplevels from nearly dark to fully lit by simply turning a knob or sliding a ment manufactured lever. In simplistic terms, API’s new motor can be controlled the same meets API and Top-Co’s “best quality” standards way. “It’s actually a bit more complex than that, of course, but that’s through dynamic com- what it boils down to,” says Weber. puter logged testing. The motor is designed to deliver continuous 1,000 foot-pounds of torque from 30 r.p.m. to 450 r.p.m. and can generate up to 1,400 foot-pounds of breakaway torque. “At rated speed and torque, the TorqDrive delivers 85 horsepower at a remarkable 97.4% efficiency,” Weber notes. Advantage installed the first field unit in November 2009, and the company was rolling out the new design at the end of June. “With all the other units that are out there right now, and in this particular field, they have to change the speed on the drivehead an average of four to seven times before they get it optimized and running right where they want it to. But with the existing hydraulic
28
tech guide ProducTion Advantage products
units, they can only achieve about a 50% speed range before they have to shut down the well and change the sheaves and belts to get additional speed range. With our motor, it’s as simple as changing the speed set point in the control panel to set any speed you want, without shutting down the well.”
to work with PCPs. Six or seven other manufacturers later copied the design. In 1997, Weber formed API to develop new and innovative solutions for the oil industry. The company’s products include the TorqStopper (a new and improved torque anchor compared to the old no-turn tool) and the SideWinder (a simple and effective wellhead a career of innovation that allows access with coil tubing, through a side entry port (SEP), Weber has been closely associated with the PCP market for years. into the casing annulus for de-watering and cleanout). ↓ He started in the oilpatch in 1968 as a roughneck, and came up The TorqStopper, which is API’s flagship product, has one movmotoring along through the ranks on the drilling side of the business. ing part. There are now in excess of 25,000 TorqStoppers in use API’s TorqDrive repreHe began hearing about PCPs in the mid-1980s, he recalls. “There worldwide, with distribution though companies such as Weatherford, sents the industry’s fi rst were about 2,500 in service,” says Weber, who was living at the time National Oilwell Varco, Europump, Midfield Supply, R&M Energy Sysvariable-speed permain the small town of Halbrite, Saskatchewan. “And although 2,500 nent magnet motor for tems, Wilson and CE Franklin. The most popular TorqStopper model, PCP top drives. applications is not really the basis to start a tool company, I was betthe TX7, is used in seven-inch casing, and the company has “clicked ting everything that use of the pump would grow like crazy and it has over 10,000 units” in the manufacture of that model. — history has proven me to be correct on that.” Perseverance As for the new motor, the API team has been working for close to eight years on getting it to market. In fact, “perseverance” may well be Jim Weber’s middle name. “There’s been lots of nights I didn’t sleep so well,” he says with a laugh. “But the development of the motor has been really exciting. It’s kept us going.” The first iteration of the motor was literally struck by lightening: not an auspicious start. And API’s initial joint venture with a manufacturer “went bad,” Weber says. More recently, the company has spent “quite a number of years” to conquer the issue of controlling the motor. Users will be impressed by the TorqDrive’s reduced requirement for maintenance as well as the inherent safety features, Weber says. “For rig crews, it’s very easy to pick up, because it’s concentric with the rod string. They just pick it up and lift it on. With other PCP top drive designs, you have a motor hanging over to one side. So the centre of gravity is not in line with the well, and it’s quite hard to sling.” Weber says the TorqDrive is also much quieter than other motors — “a lot quieter,” in fact. “This will be especially useful for producers with operations situated near to acreage owners, who have concerns about noise levels emanating from wellsites,” he notes. He says the high efficiency of the motor also leads to lower operatHowever, frequent failures of the early PCPs and tubing strings ing costs and reduced greenhouse gas emissions. Weber expects were common. The problem was that the torque and vibration inherelectricity cost savings per well could range from $6,000 to $11,000 ent with the PCP would cause the tubing string to become unscrewed per year compared to conventional top drives, while the reduced and drop down the wellbore. “One of my customers wanted a tool to power consumption equates to 50 to 80 tonnes per year of reduced prevent this and described to me what the tool had to do. He said, CO2 emissions. ‘Jim, we need a tool that will set and prevent rotation of the tubing “You know, five years from now, I’m thinking, we’re all going to say, string, but that we can still pull from the wellbore after it’s been set.’ ‘Those eight years we spent on that motor ... well, it was worth it.’” ■ I knew there wasn’t such a thing.” After doing a patent search and finding there was no tool out there to do the job, Weber designed the Contact for more information industry’s first torque anchor, the “no-turn tool” (a phrase he coined), Jim Weber, Advantage Products, Tel: (403) 264-1647
“Industry Leading Quality & Service Since 1987” Specialists in internal & external coating applications Epoxies • Metallizing • Fibreglass Linings • Plural Spray Pipe • Tanks • Vessels • Towers • Valves 6150 - 76 Avenue, Edmonton, AB T6B 0A6 Phone (780) 440-2855 Fax (780) 440-1050
• 100% Canadian Owned • www.brotherscoating.com
tech guide dirEcTory production
29
production directory
Accu-Flo Meter Service Ltd. 4028 - 7 St. S.E. Calgary AB T2G 2Y8 403-243-1425 www.accuflo.com
Amorex Solutions Ltd. 1500, 324 - 8 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 2Z2 403-770-7865 www.amorex.com
Armatek Controls Limited 55 Judson St. Toronto ON M8Z 1A4 416-251-3111 www.armatek.com
Bonnett's Energy Services Box 1, Site 33, R.R. 2 Grande Prairie AB T8V 2Z9 780-532-5700 www.bonnettsenergy.com
Accurata Inc. 120 MacEwan Park Rise N.W. Calgary AB T3K 4A1 403-295-1637
Annugas Compression Consulting Ltd. 3601 - 48 St. Wetaskiwin AB T9A 3N9 780-361-2350 www.annugas.com
ATECH Application Technology Limited 242, 3359 - 27 St. N.E. Calgary AB T1Y 5E4 403-261-0005 www.atech.ca
Boundary Equipment Co. Ltd. 10740 - 181 St. Edmonton AB T5S 1K8 780-483-3133 www.boundaryequipment.com
Apex Oilfield Services (2000) Inc. 4424, 39139 Hwy. 2A Red Deer County AB T4S 2A8 403-347-1628 www.apexoil.ca
Baker Hughes Canada Company 1000, 401 - 9 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 3C5 403-537-3400 www.bakerhughes.com
API Oilfield Hauling Inc. R.R. 1, Red Deer AB T4N 5E1 403-309-7400
Baron Oilfield Supply 9515 - 108 St. Grande Prairie AB T8V 5R7 780-532-5661 www.baronoilfield.ca
Advanced Flow Tech 6135 - 10 St. S.E. Calgary AB T2H 2Z9 403-212-2382 www.afti.ca Advantage Mud Systems Ltd. 730, 777 - 8 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 3R5 403-262-1120 www.advantagemud.com Advantage Products Inc. 273, 1919B 4 St. S.W. Calgary AB T2S 1W4 403-264-1647 www.advantageproductsinc.com Alpha Controls & Instrumentation 6, 361 Steelcase Rd. West Markham ON L3R 3V8 905-477-2133 www.alphacontrols.com
Ardy Rigging Ltd. Box 180, Valleyview AB T0H 3N0 780-524-3459 www.ardyrigging.com Argus Machine Co. Ltd. 5820 - 97 St. Edmonton AB T6E 3J1 780-434-9451 www.argusmachine.com
Bell Industries 5317 - 91 St. Edmonton AB T6E 6E2 780-434-4401 www.bellindustries.net Black Ink Oilfield Mechanical Inc. 5 Wellhead St. Devon AB T9G 1Z6 780-987-4924
Bowie Pumps of Canada Ltd. 9333 - 41 Ave. N.W. Edmonton AB T6E 6R5 780-465-7812 www.bowiepumps.com Brazeau Well Servicing Box 6028, Drayton Valley AB T7A 1R6 780-621-0654 www.essentialenergy.ca Brother's Specialized Coating Systems Ltd. 6150 - 76 Ave. Edmonton AB T6B 0A6 780-440-2855 www.brotherscoating.com C.B. Engineering Limited 20, 1220 - 59 Ave. S.E. Calgary AB T2H 2M4 403-259-6220 www.cbeng.com
30
tech guide dirEcTory production
Cactus Gas & Oil Operators Ltd. 26 Chinook Dr. S.W. Medicine Hat AB T1A 4B3 403-526-8910
Central Wireline Services 4513 - 51 St., Box 1969 Stettler AB T0C 2L0 403-742-5000
Calfrac Well Services Ltd. 411 - 8 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 1E3 403-266-6000 www.calfrac.com
Centrilift 1000, 401 - 9 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 3C5 403-537-3400 www.centrilift.com
Calmena Energy Services Inc. 300, 855 - 8 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 3P1 403-225-3879 www.blackwatchenergy.ca
Chemicals By Sterling Ltd. #92 Hwy. 39 East, Box 1098 Estevan SK S4A 2H7 306-634-6549 www.cbsterling.com
Cameron Canada Corp. 7944 - 10 St. N.E. Calgary AB T2E 8W1 403-291-4814 www.c-a-m.com
Codeco Energy Group Inc. 3 Fl., 3333 - 8 St. S.E. Calgary AB T2G 3A4 403-237-7808 www.codecoenergygroup.com
Canadian Dewatering LP 11819 - 24 St. N.E. Edmonton AB T6S 1B5 780-406-5111 www.canadiandewatering.com
Coltek Energy Services Ltd. R.R. 1, Site 4, Box 11 Grande Prairie AB T8V 2Z8 780-538-9878 www.coltekenergy.com
Canadian Nitrogen Services Ltd. 610B McCool St., Box 1909 Crossfield AB T0M 0S0 403-946-0404 www.canadiannitrogen.com
Computer Modelling Group Ltd. 150, 3553 - 31 St. N.W. Calgary AB T2L 2K7 403-531-1300 www.cmgl.ca
Canadian Wellhead Isolation Corp. 34 Industrial Dr. Sylvan Lake AB T4S 1P4 403-340-3356 www.wellheadisolation.com
Concord Well Servicing Box 1528, Valleyview AB T0H 3N0 780-524-2113 www.concordwell.com
Canyon Technical Services Ltd. 1600, 510 - 5 St. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 3S2 403-355-2300 www.canyontech.ca Carnwood Wireline Service Ltd. 108, 3907 - 98 St. Edmonton AB T6E 6M3 780-434-1122 www.carnwood.com Cartel Energy Services Inc. Box 155 Beiseker AB T0M 0G0 403-947-3334 www.cartelenergy.com CCS Corporation 24 Fl., 530 - 8 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 3S8 403-233-7565 www.ccscorporation.ca CE Franklin Ltd. Box 6776, Stn. D. Calgary AB T2P 2E8 403-531-5600 www.cefranklin.com Cementing Technology & Equipment Ltd. 6704 - 59 St. N.W. Edmonton AB T6B 3N6 780-485-8799 www.cteltd.com Central Production Testing Ltd. 500, 727 - 7Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 0Z5 403-571-5171 www.cptl.net
Decoking Descaling Technology Inc. 2, 4873 - 46 St. Lacombe AB T4L 2B2 403-346-7444
Entero Corporation 500, 1040 - 7 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 3G9 403-261-1820 www.entero.com
Diamond Energy Services 1521 North Service Rd. West Swift Current SK S9H 3S9 306-778-6682 www.diamondenergy.ca
Enviro Vault 105, 7370 Sierra Morena Blvd. S.W. Calgary AB T3H 4H9 403-263-4433 www.envirovault.com
DPS Microbial Solutions 312 - 3 St., Box 116 Frobisher SK S0C 0Y0 306-486-2110 www.dpsmicrobial.com
ESI Energy Services Inc. 500, 727 - 7 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 0Z5 403-262-9344 www.energyservicesinc.com
DrSCADA Automation 160, 32 Westwinds Cres. N.E. Calgary AB T3J 5L3 403-264-5937 www.drscada.com
Essential Energy Services Ltd. 1100, 250 - 2 St. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 0C1 403-263-6778 www.essentialenergy.ca
Eagle Well Servicing 8113 - 49 Ave. Close Red Deer AB T4P 2V5 403-346-7789 www.eaglerigs.com
Expro Group Canada Inc. 1650, 734 - 7 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 3P8 403-532-0873 www.exprogroup.com
Electric Motor Service Limited 8835 - 60 Ave. Edmonton AB T6E 6L9 780-496-9300 www.emsl.ca
Field Production Testing Service Inc. Box 4760, Taber AB T1G 2E1 403-635-4212
Conn Pumps 630, 1010 - 1 St. S.W. Calgary AB T2R 1K4 403-262-5151 www.connpumps.com Control Microsystems 48 Steacie Dr. Kanata ON K2K 2A9 613-591-1943 www.controlmicrosystems.com Couturier Oilfield Anchors Ltd. 6306 - 50 Ave., Box 5039 Drayton Valley AB T7A 1R3 780-542-6358 www.couturieranchors.com CTC Energy Services 7755 Edgar Industrial Way Red Deer AB T4P 3R2 403-347-6717 www.essentialenergy.ca C-TECH Oilwell Technologies Inc. 3201 - 84 Ave. Edmonton AB T6P 1K1 780-464-3800 www.ctechenergy.com Danco Equipment (2009) Inc. 9111 - 41 Ave. Edmonton AB T6E 6M5 780-468-5151 www.dancoequipment.com Daniel Industries Canada Inc. 4215 - 72 Ave. S.E. Calgary AB T2C 2G5 403-279-1879 www.daniel.com
Endeavor E-Line Services 1100, 250 - 2 St. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 0C1 403-265-9423 www.endeavoreline.com Enerchem International Inc. 450, 440 - 2 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 5E9 403-269-1500 www.enerchem.com Enerflex Ltd. 904, 1331 Macleod Trail S.E. Calgary AB T2G 0K3 403-387-6377 www.enerflex.com Enerflow Industries Inc. 4800 - 27 St. S.E. Calgary AB T2B 3M4 403-279-9696 www.enerflow.com
Flexpipe Systems 3501 - 54 Ave. S.E. Calgary AB T2C 0A9 403-503-0548 www.flexpipesystems.com Flowstar Technologies Inc. 8709 - 50 Ave. Edmonton AB T6E 5H4 780-485-6667 www.flowstardcr.com FMC Technologies Company (Subsea Systems) 650, 400 - 3 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 1C9 403-232-1141 www.fmctechnologies.com Galvanic Applied Sciences, Inc. 7000 Fisher Rd. S.E. Calgary AB T2H 0W3 403-252-8470 www.galvanic.com
tech guide Directory Production GasEnergy Strategies Inc. 175 Oakmount Rd. S.W. Calgary AB T2V 4X3 403-251-4048 Global Heat Transfer 7716 - 67 St. Edmonton AB T6B 2K4 780-448-3600 www.globalheattransfer.com Global Steel Ltd. 1600, 144 - 4 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 3N4 403-237-8108 www.globalsteel.ca Global Thermoelectric 9, 3700 - 78 Ave. S.E. Calgary AB T2C 2L8 403-236-5556 www.globalte.com Global Well Servicing Ltd. Box 7745, Drayton Valley AB T7A 1S8 780-515-9885 www.globalwellservicing.com Golder Associates 102, 2535 - 3 Ave. S.E. Calgary AB T2A 7W5 403-299-5600 www.golder.ca GPM Sales & Service Inc. 5925 - 91 St. Edmonton AB T6E 6A7 780-432-6957 www.gpmsales.ca GrenCo Industries Ltd. 3710 - 78 Ave. Edmonton AB T6B 3E5 780-468-2000 www.grenco.com GS Hitech Controls Inc. 6173 - 6 St. S.E. Calgary AB T2H 1L9 403-255-7884 Halliburton Group Canada 1600, 645 - 7 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 4G8 403-231-9300 www.halliburton.com Hertz Equipment Rental 8660 - 61 Ave. Edmonton AB T6E 5P6 780-435-3711 www.hertzequip.com High Arctic Energy Services Inc. 8112 Edgar Industrial Drive Red Deer AB T4P 3R2 403-340-9825 www.haes.ca HiTech Fluid Systems Ltd. 1800, 505 - 3 St. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 3E6 403-547-2906 www.hitechfluid.com Hi-Tech Seals Inc. 9211 - 41 Ave. N.W. Edmonton AB T6E 6R5 780-438-6055 www.hitechseals.com
31
Honeywell 5925 Centre St. S.W. Calgary AB T2H 0C2 403-509-1200 www.honeywell.com/acs/indsol
Ketek Industries Ltd. 20204 - 110 Ave. N.W. Edmonton AB T5S 1X8 780-447-5050 www.ketek.ca
M-I SWACO 5 Fl., 700 - 2 St. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 2W2 403-290-5300 www.miswaco.com
Horizontal Well Testing Ltd. 10, 5915 - 40 St. S.E. Calgary AB T2C 2H6 403-880-4030 www.horizontalwelltesting.com
Kodiak Well Service Box 6101 Fort St. John BC V1J 4H6 250-787-9016 www.essentialenergy.ca
Mow-Tech Ltd. 17740 - 118 Ave. N.W. Edmonton AB T5S 2W3 780-484-6356 www.mowtech.com
Husky Transport Ltd. 12155 - 242 Rd., Box 6070 Fort St. John BC V1J 4H6 250-785-8335 www.huskytransport.com
KSM Inc. 1904 - 4 St. Nisku AB T9E 7T8 780-955-3456 www.ksmrig.com
Nabors Production Services 33 Schenk Industrial Rd. Sylvan Lake AB T4S 2J7 403-887-7400 www.nabors.com
Hyduke Mechanical & Machining 2311 - 8 St. Nisku AB T9E 7Z3 780-955-9559 www.hyduke.com
Kudu Industries Inc. 9112 - 40 St. S.E. Calgary AB T2C 2P3 403-279-5838 www.kudupump.com
National Coating Technologies Inc. 1975 Logan Ave. Winnipeg MB R2R 0H8 204-632-5585 www.nationalcoating.com
ICI Artificial Lift 6010 - 53 Ave. Lloydminster AB T9V 2T2 780-872-7470 www.icisolutions.ca
Lamarre Equipment Inc. 9419 - 27 Ave. Edmonton AB T6N 1C9 780-438-3493 www.lamarreequipment.com
National Process Equipment 5, 3401 - 19 St. N.E. Calgary AB T2E 6S8 403-219-0270 www.natpro.com
ICTC (Innovative Chemical Technologies Canada Ltd.) 400, 635 - 6 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 0T5 403-720-5020 www.eclgroup.com
Levy's Machine Works Ltd. 3503 - 78 Ave. S.E. Calgary AB T2C 1J7 403-279-2010 www.levysmachineworks.com
Nelgar Oilfield Services 101, 7477 - 49 Ave. Red Deer AB T4P 1N1 403-309-2620 www.nelgarservices.com
Lonkar Well Testing Ltd. 8080 Edgar Industrial Cres. Red Deer AB T4P 3R3 403-347-9727 www.lonkar.com
Newpark Canada Inc. 300, 635 - 6 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 0T5 403-266-7383 www.newpark.ca
Lufkin Industries Canada Ltd. 1050, 808 - 4 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 3E8 403-234-7692 www.lufkin.com
NGC Product Solutions 1B, 624 Beaverdam Rd. N.E. Calgary AB T2K 4W6 403-295-3114 www.ngc-ps.com
M.W. Hagel Consulting Ltd. 18 Golden Key Estates Calgary AB T3P 1A5 403-265-7800 www.optimus.ab.ca
Northstar Drillstem Testers Inc. 201, 736 - 1 Ave. N.E. Calgary AB T2E 0B8 403-265-8987 www.northstardst.com
Marquis Alliance Energy Group Inc. 1800, 800 - 6 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 3G3 403-264-1588 www.marquisalliance.com
Oil & Gas Instruments Inc. 3, 265 Main St., Box 237 Glencoe ON N0L 1M0 519-287-3554
Impact Rock Bits Box 6448, Peace River AB T8S 1S3 780-624-2640 www.impactrockbits.com Infinity Oilfield Services Inc. R.R. 2, Sundre AB T0M 1X0 403-230-6031 www.infinityoilfield.com Integrated Production Services Ltd. 1900, 840 - 7 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 3G2 403-266-0908 www.ipsadvantage.ca International Frontier Resources Corporation 100, 601 - 10 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2R 0B2 403-215-2780 www.internationalfrontier.com Jet Rentals & Sales Ltd. B102, 400 - 5212 - 48 St. Red Deer AB T4N 7C3 403-352-8579 John Crane Canada Inc. 423 Green Rd. Stoney Creek ON L8E 3A1 905-662-6191 www.johncrane.com Kayden Instruments 3368 - 114 Ave. S.E. Calgary AB T2Z 3V6 403-253-1423 www.kayden.com Keddco Mfg. Ltd. 645 Keddco St., Box 999 Sarnia ON N7T 7K6 519-336-2960 www.keddco.com
Master Flo Valve Inc. 4611 - 74 Ave. Edmonton AB T6B 2H5 780-468-4433 www.masterflo.com
Oil Lift Technology Inc. Bay 3, 1820 - 30 Ave. N.E. Calgary AB T2E 7M5 403-291-5300 www.oillifttechnology.com
Matrix Drilling Fluids Ltd. 1240, 540 - 5 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 0M2 403-265-7660 www.matrixdrillingfluids.com
OilPro Oilfield Production Equipment Ltd. 348 Lake Placid Green S.E. Calgary AB T2J 5A3 403-215-3373 www.oilpro.ab.ca
MaX-Quip Inc. 6235A - 86 Ave. S.E. Calgary AB T2C 2S4 403-258-3680 www.maxquip.ca
Opsco Energy Industries Ltd. 285175 Kleysen Way Rocky View AB T1X 0K1 403-272-2206 www.opscoenergy.com
McAdoo Flow-Systems Ltd. Bay 6, 6115 - 4 St. S.E., Box 68058 Calgary AB T2H 2H9 403-547-5002 www.mcadooflowsystems.com
Pacific Valve Services Inc. 9750 - 62 Ave. Edmonton AB T6E 0E3 780-463-3972 www.pacificvalve.com
32
tech guide dirEcTory production
Packers Plus Energy Services Inc. 900, 407 - 2 St. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 2Y3 403-263-7587 www.packersplus.com
Petro Management Group Ltd. 401, 100 - 4 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 3N2 403-216-5100 www.petromgt.com
Proven Reserves Exploitation Ltd. 1730, 734 - 7 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 3P8 403-218-7000 www.proven-reserves.com
Sanjel Corporation 200, 505 - 2 St. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 1N8 403-269-1420 www.sanjel.com
Paintearth Energy Services 2435 - 22 St. N.E. Calgary AB T2E 8K8 403-264-5682 www.paintearth.com
PHH Petroleum Consultants Ltd. 240, 1121 Centre St. N.W. Calgary AB T2E 7K6 403-232-6822 www.phhpc.com
Pumps & Pressure Inc. 7018 Johnstone Dr. Red Deer AB T4P 3Y6 403-347-9770 www.pumpsandpressure.com
Savanna Energy Services Corp. 1800, 311 - 6 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 3H2 403-503-9990 www.savannaenergy.com
PCM Canada 1014, 888 - 3 St. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 5C5 403-444-6951 www.pcm.eu
Platinum Energy Services (Lloydminster) Corp. Box 10207 Lloydminster AB T9V 3A3 780-875-7145 www.platinumenergy.net
Q'Max Solutions Inc. 1700, 407 - 2 St. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 2Y3 403-269-2242 www.qmaxsolutions.com
Schlumberger Canada Ltd. 525 - 3 Ave. S.W.Calgary AB T2P 0G4 403-509-4000 www.slb.com
Peak Energy Services Trust 900, 222 - 3 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 0B4 403-543-7325 www.peak-energy.com Pembina Controls Inc. 9611 - 42 Ave. Edmonton AB T6E 5R2 780-432-6821 www.pem-controls.com Penetrators Canada Inc. 8002 Edgar Industrial Ave. Red Deer AB T4P 3S2 403-346-7474 www.maxperf.ca Penta Completions Supply & Services Ltd. 9543 - 56 Ave. Edmonton AB T6E 0B2 780-436-6644 www.pentarods.com
Polycore Tubular Linings Corporation 430, 736 - 8 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 1H4 403-444-5554 www.polycore.ca Precision Drilling Corporation 4200, 150 - 6 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 3Y7 403-716-4500 www.precisiondrilling.com Premiere Energy Services Ltd. 1700, 500 - 4 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 2V6 403-874-6666 www.premiereenergy.ca Proficient Oil Tools Ltd. 105, 616 - 71 Ave. S.E. Calgary AB T2H 2R1 403-255-4070 www.proficientoiltools.com
Peterson Instruments 123, 5655 - 10 St. N.E. Calgary AB T2E 8W7 403-291-9169 www.petersoninst.com
Propak Systems Ltd. 440 East Lake Rd., Airdrie AB T4A 2J8 403-912-7000 www.propaksystems.com
Petris Canada 805, 734 - 7 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 3P8 403-225-4954 www.petris.com
PRO-ROD 3201 - 84 Ave. Edmonton AB T6P 1K1 780-449-7101 www.prorod.com
R & M Energy Systems Canada 3703 - 98 St. Edmonton AB T6E 5N2 780-465-9500 www.rmenergy.com Rebco Oil Tools Inc. 4226 Ogden Rd. S.E. Calgary AB T2G 4V3 403-243-1380 www.rebcooiltools.com Redmont International ULC 3336 - 47 Ave. S.E. Calgary AB T2B 2W1 403-297-0910 www.redmont.com Reliance Well Servicing (2002) Ltd. Box 7285 Drayton Valley AB T7A 1S5 780-542-5295 www.reliancewell.com Rheotech Drilling Fluid Services Inc. 610, 700 - 4 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 3J4 403-237-8870 www.rheotech.ca Rockwell Servicing Partnership 1000, 400 - 5 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 0L6 403-265-6361 www.ensigngroup.com Roll'n Oilfield Industries, Ltd. 305, 5208 - 53 Ave. Red Deer AB T4N 5K2 403-343-1710 www.rolln.com Rotation Power & Equipment Inc. Box 500, Neilburg SK S0M 2C0 306-823-4818 www.rotationpower.com S.A. Armstrong Limited 23 Bertrand Ave. Scarborough ON M1L 2P3 416-755-2291 www.armstrongpumps.com Sabre Oilfield Equipment Ltd. 2412 Cameron Ravine Dr. Edmonton AB T6M 0J2 780-446-6054 www.sabreoilfield.com Safety Boss Inc. 921 - 9 Ave. S.E. Calgary AB T2G 0S5 403-261-5075 www.safetyboss.com
Select Energy Systems Inc. 4215 - 54 Ave. S.E. Calgary AB T2C 2A2 403-243-7542 www.selectesi.com Sentry Pumping Units International 450, 444 - 5 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 2T8 403-775-7077 www.sentryinternational.net Shearer Products, a Division of National Oilwell Varco 7043 - 56 Ave. Edmonton AB T6B 3L2 780-988-5522 www.nov.com Sienna Contracting Ltd. 683 - 18 St. S.W. Medicine Hat AB T1A 7Y1 403-527-9881 www.siennacomposite.com Simark Controls Ltd. 10509 - 46 St. S.E. Calgary AB T2C 5C2 403-236-0580 www.simark.com Sim-Con Oilfield Equipment Ltd. 800 - 10 St. West, Box 246 Kindersley SK S0L 1S0 306-463-4938 www.simconoil.com Smith International Canada, Ltd. 710, 396 - 11 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2R 0C5 403-264-6077 www.smith.com Sounder Technologies 31 Norris Close Red Deer AB T4P 1R2 403-340-9750 www.meterdat.com Source Energy Tool Services Inc. 6402 - 56 St., Box 21006 Lloydminster AB T9V 2S1 780-808-8788 www.sourceenergy.ca Spartan Controls Ltd. 305 - 27 St. S.E. Calgary AB T2A 7V2 403-207-0700 www.spartancontrols.com SPM Flow Control Ltd. Unit A, 8060 Edgar Industrial Red Deer AB T4P 3R3 403-341-3410 www.weiroilandgas.com
tech guide dirEcTory production
Stewart & Stevenson, Canada 3001 Shepard Rd. S.E. Calgary AB T2C 4P1 403-215-5300 www.stewartandstevenson.com
Telematic Controls Inc. 3364 - 114 Ave. S.E. Calgary AB T2Z 3V6 403-253-7939 www.telematic.ca
Trinidad Well Servicing 2500, 700 - 9 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 3V4 403-265-6525 www.trinidaddrilling.com
Stimulus Resource Technologies Inc. 702, 1718 - 14 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2N 4Y7 403-239-3520
Top-Co LP 7720 - 17 St. Edmonton AB T6P 1S7 780-440-4440 www.top-co.ca
Triple D Technologies Inc. 115, 9650 - 20 Ave. Edmonton AB T6N 1G1 780-440-3348 www.tripledtechnologies.com
Toran Power & Equipment Ltd. 500, 727 - 7 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 0Z5 403-218-1882 www.toranpower.com
Tryton Tool Services 5107 - 62 St. Lloydminster AB T9V 2E3 780-875-0800 www.essentialenergy.ca
Total Enerex 9715 - 115 St. Grande Prairie AB T8V 5S4 780-532-8347 www.totalenerflex.com
TS&M Supply Box 28, Estevan SK S4A 2A2 306-634-6494 www.natoil.com
Storm Service Rigs 1510, 555 - 4 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 3E7 403-509-0724 www.stormrigs.com Stream-Flo Industries Ltd. 4505 - 74 Ave. Edmonton AB T6B 2H5 780-468-6789 www.streamflo.com Sumitomo Canada Limited 2800, 150 King St. West Toronto ON M5H 1J9 604-691-6000 www.sumitomocanada.com Sure Flow Consulting Services (1992) Inc. Box 7400, Bonnyville AB T9N 2H7 780-826-6864 www.sureflowconsulting.com Tartan Controls Inc. 6932 - 34 St. Edmonton AB T6B 2X2 780-463-3366 www.tartancontrols.com Techmation Electric & Controls Ltd. 1, 43 East Lake Cres. N.E. Airdrie AB T4A 2H5 403-243-0990 www.techmationelectric.com Technicoil Corporation, CT Service Division 1510, 555 - 4 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 3E7 403-509-0700 www.technicoilcorp.com
Tracer Supervision 1110, 340 - 12 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2R 1L5 403-261-7097 www.barlon.ca
Tucker Wireline Services Canada Inc. 900, 444 - 5 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 2T8 403-264-7040 www.tuckerwireline.com
TRC Hydraulics Inc. 855 Champlain St. Dieppe NB E1A 1P6 506-853-1986 www.trchydraulics.com
Variperm (Canada) Limited 10, 3424 - 26 St. N.E. Calgary AB T1Y 4T7 403-250-7263 www.variperm.com
Treeline Well Services Inc. 750, 333 - 11 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2R 1L9 403-266-2868 www.treelinewell.com
Vetco Gray Canada ULC 710, 530 - 8 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 3S8 403-264-4146 www.geoilandgas.com/vetcogray
Trendon Bit Service Ltd. Box 548, Redcliff AB T0J 2P0 403-548-7242 www.trendonbitservice.com
Wavefront Technology Solutions Inc. 100, 17608 - 103 Ave. Edmonton AB T5S 1J9 780-486-2222 www.onthewavefront.com
Trican Well Service Ltd. 2900, 645 - 7 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 4G8 403-266-0202 www.trican.ca
Westcomm Pump & Equipment Ltd. Unit 2, 3424 - 26 St. N.E. Calgary AB T2E 7A4 403-215-7867 www.westcommpump.com
33
Wilco Wireline & Swabbing Services Inc. 1, 4451 - 58 Ave. S.E. Calgary AB T2C 1Y3 403-279-8895 www.wilcowireline.com William Nichols Consulting 4616 Brockington Rd. N.W. Calgary AB T2L 1R6 403-714-3330 www.williamnichols.com Wizard Well Servicing Ltd. 5211 - 65 St. Lloydminster AB T9V 2E8 780-875-6035 Wood Group Pressure Control Canada Inc. 8743 - 50 Ave. Edmonton AB T6E 5H4 780-450-3401 www.woodgroup.com World Oil Tools Inc. 6, 3504 - 72 Ave. S.E. Calgary AB T2C 1J9 403-720-5155 www.worldoiltools.com XL Fluid Systems 102, 2531 Hochwald Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T3E 7K3 403-265-4344 www.xlfluids.com Zazula Process Equipment Ltd. 1526 - 10 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T3C 0J5 403-244-0751 www.zazula.com Zedi 500, 600 - 6 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 0S5 403-444-1100 www.zedi.ca
advertorial
technologyprofile
Leading the way in well flow management Expro leads the way in well flow management and provides services, products and expertise customers need to measure, improve, control and process flow from their oil and gas wells. New Technology: ViewMax Camera ViewMax is Expro’s latest development in downhole video technology. The tool incorporates a second camera in the patented backlight camera lighthead. This second camera is pointed sideways and can rotate allowing unobstructed views of the wall of the pipe or openhole formation, fractures, etc. ViewMax allows operators to acquire the traditional down view ahead of the tool and/or to
Expro’s Canada operations cover both onshore and offshore operations and its investment and track record in developing technology means that the company is a major player in the oil and gas industry. Expro is one of the market leaders in providing a complete solution for all customers’ well integrity needs using a combination of calipers, logging tools and downhole video cameras. All of these services can be deployed on electric line or slickline to ensure the customer is offered the maximum versatility.
Expro’s Calgary operations have an emphasis on downhole video in vertical and horizontally completed oil and gas wells. The range of downhole video camera systems offer operators a cost effective way to ’see’ downhole problems rather than inferring them or just plain guessing. Downhole video is a proven technology and more than 5,000 downhole video surveys have been run in a wide range of oil and gas well conditions.
Expro’s market leadership in downhole video is based on technology and service. Our operators are skilled at well preparation to ensure the greatest chance of successful pictures. Patented lighthead design, superior transmission rates and patented lens surfactant ensure that we provide superior picture quality and service. The lens surfactant repels hydrocarbons allowing surveys in flowing wells and entries through well bore fluids. Expro’s customers can rely on great service and commitment to solving problems down hole and have troubleshooting solutions which cover production optimization and internal inspection services.
view the pipe wall on the same trip in the well. By alternating the power sent to the tool, the video operator can switch between cameras to rotate the camera to get a circumferential view of the pipe or look ahead. By providing images of the pipe wall, ViewMax can provide operators with more information on the causes of failures in their wells or to better understand the nature of their problem. The tool works with either the fibre optic video system or the HawkEye III electric line camera. Contact us at: 403-532-0873 www.exprogroup.com
Imagine the typical large horizontal fracturing operation. Now Imagine taking that operation to a never-belore-seen scale in canada, running uninterrupted for well over 100 days. Imagine an operation that included: o
o o
o
o
o
Operating and maintaining over 55,000 dedicated HP on site. Pumping 50,275 tonnes of sand over 111 days. Dedicating over 150 workers to support the operation.
At Horn River, Sanjel Took Fracturing to an Unprecedented New Level
Building an Innovative on-site sand terminal to automate the continuous loading, storing, weighing, and distribution of sand that has travelled from up to 2,000 kms away. Being in one of the most remote regions of Canada, thousands of kilometres from home base, with helicopters becoming key operational tools. Working in the dead of winter, in temperatures as low as -40' Cand in bliuards and white-out conditions, requiring you to keep everything from freezing and failing. Water. Acid. Machinery. People.
Now imagine completing this huge operation ahead of schedule and surpassing pertormance expectations. This was Horn River in the winter of 201 0, the largest singl&-Iocation fracturing project in Canadian history, almost four times larger than the previous record.
There's a New Energy Here
This was Sanjel taking fracturing to an unprecedented new level. And we have just begun, Stay tuned for more.
There's a new anargy here at Saniel. Tha anargy to do mora.
----------- Acldlzlng' C.mlmlng¡ CDllldTublng' Fl1Itblrl nll" NllnIU11I
Clinla • USA • Inlllmational
Pr'lde br PerI or mance .
. I.com sanle
Fracing
38
tech guide Fracing Schlumberger/Halliburton
Technology Leap Companies big and small join the fray to advance fracing tailored to new plays By Maurice Smith
What began as a seemingly insolvable challenge — to economically release vast quantities of natural gas trapped in shale formations across North America — is becoming increasingly routine as service companies, from tech savvy majors all the way to one-man startups, apply their own expertise to the one-time conundrum. As play after play is unraveled, turning around what was just a few years ago considered a sunset industry, companies continue to find novel ways to trim costs and squeeze out more molecules of gas from the ultra-low permeability rock. With the shale gas nut effectively cracked, the horizontal drilling and multi-stage fracing that unraveled those difficult plays is now migrating to more conventional reservoirs, giving new life to once tired plays. As majors like Schlumberger and Halliburton tout their latest, all-encompassing innovations to improve completion economics, medium to micro players like Trican, Triple D Technologies and Golder (see following stories) offer niche solutions of their own in a bid to catch a piece of the action. Schlumberger has played to its greatest strengths, its size and multidisciplinary know-how, to create a range of new tools and techniques targeting Canada’s most promising shale gas play, northeast British Columbia’s Horn River Basin. And Schlumberger believes those innovations are on their way to not only unlocking that potentially massive, though remote, play, but spreading to other basins worldwide.
tech guide Fracing Schlumberger/Halliburton
39
Shale gas plays, which require maximum reservoir exposure to be economic, have been solved through the use of long horizontal wells that are fractured in multiple zones along their several-hundred-metres length. Most producers, according to Salman Khalid, a Calgarybased Schlumberger senior petrophysicist, have been working under the assumption that the reservoir changed little along the length of the horizontal. Each zone, therefore, was fractured identically. But as detailed logging can reveal, the reservoir is not consistent, with qualities varying abruptly in vertical and lateral directions, and therefore each frac should be designed specific to each zone. “What we are trying to do is to optimize fractures in horizontal wells. And the first thing to understand is the heterogeneity of the reservoir along the horizontal, which is contrary to what many people assume — which is that everything along that horizontal is homogeneous,” says Khalid. The principal means to characterize the lateral has been openhole wireline logging — taking readings before the well has been cased and cemented. But that has its drawbacks, since it requires the presence of a drilling rig, adding to day rate costs. And it can be risky, notes Khalid. “Because you are in the open hole, you are subject to the possibility of getting stuck there or having other issues, which could delay the process or just increase the expense on the part of the operator.” Given those limitations, companies were forgoing logging of the lateral portion of the well altogether, says Gorchynski, to the detriment of the completion strategy then employed. “The trend in the market has been to only conduct reservoir evaluation on the initial and vertical wells, and then apply this knowledge to the rest of the field,” he says. ← “We have seen lots of recent instances where initiating flow we are not entirely sure of the stress environSchlumberger performs ment that we are in when we are completing multiple stimulation some of these wells, and this has led to us not treatments on a horizontal shale gas well in effectively stimulating the well.” Oftentimes, a refrac is then required, he notes, creating northeast B.C. additional expense. Understanding reservoir properties beforehand and planning completions based on that knowledge is the key to production optimization, he stresses. Schlumberger’s alternative to openhole logging, aside from the option of using logging-while-drilling tools, was to devise a method to log the lateral after it has been cased, cemented, and the rig has been released. To accomplish this, the company marshalled the “With the recent focus in shale gas activity, expertise of its in-house Data & Consulting Services (DCS) group to produce solutions from primarily in northeast B.C., but not restricted cased hole tools that can provide the same reservoir answers, after completions, as openhole to there, we are very focused on improving logging tools could before completions. The DCS group employs over 2,200 technical experts, our ability to understand the reservoir and including geologists, geophysicists, petrophysicists, and reservoir and production engineers. improve completion practices,” says Trevor The new cased hole solution may take a different route to get there, but they are now Gorchynski, Unconventional Gas Business capable of producing the same basic answers as openhole logging tools, at a lower cost and manager, Canada. “Geologically speaking, without the risks. what we have in northeast B.C. is probably the With such instruments as spectroscopy logging, epithermal neutron porosity logging and potential, with the Horn River Basin, to be one multidimensional shear sonic logging tools, Schlumberger can now provide all the necessary of the best shale gas plays in North America. measurements post-casing. Tools available include the ECS Elemental Capture Spectroscopy “We have lots of examples of how we can logging tool, which provides in-situ geochemical analysis; the Platform Express platform that complete these from our previous experience provides an integrated combination of neutron porosity, density, gross gamma ray and electriin plays such as the Barnett shale [in Texas] cal logs; and the Sonic Scanner used to measure anisotropy and mechanical properties with and others. But we can’t assume what works axial, azimuthal and radial information. there is what is going to work for us here. We “Some of the parameters that we look at are lithology, porosity, organic carbon, water still need to really advance our understandsaturation and mechanical properties of the rock, which includes stresses, and those kind of ing of the reservoir to allow us to have lots of things,” Khalid says. “When you have the knowledge of these variables, you go in and choose knowledge to make informed decisions,” says your completion strategy based on that. You can optimize parameters like pumping pressure, Gorchynski. volume that you are going to pump in, the proppant that you are going to use. So basically
40
tech guide Fracing Schlumberger/Halliburton
Flow regime in near-vertical well
Flow regime in deviated well
Flow regime in near-horizontal well
Velocity
Top 1
Bottom
Velocity
Holdup
Velocity
1
0 0 Top
Bottom
Top
↑
spinner advance Schlumberger's Flow Scanner tool uses five spinners instead of one to more accurately measure flow in deviated and horizontal wells.
Top
0 Bottom Top
Water
1
Holdup
Holdup
Bottom
Oil
Bottom
0 Top
Bottom
what you are getting is the flexibility of intelligent design,” he says. “This technique has been optimized in Canada and we have been using it successfully for about the past year or so,” Khalid adds. “Most of the focus in Canada has been in the Horn River, but it’s being applied in other places like the Montney, and I’m sure as people get to know about it there will be a lot of application, [and] I’m expecting that people from the U.S. will pick it up as well.” Other new tools include the Flow Scanner horizontal and deviated well production logging tool, which, using five small spinners aligned vertically that can take readings from five “slices” of the wellbore from top to bottom, excels in horizontal wells the way previous tools did in vertical wells, and the two-drive, modular TuffTRAC cased hole services tractor can run up to six drive sections as needed to push heavy loads through the wellbore. Taken together, such new tools and techniques have combined to bring down the cost of production from the potentially prolific Horn River Basin in a fraction of the time it took to make the Barnett shale the massive, highly profitable play it is today. And part of the reason for that is the valuable learnings taken from the Barnett and applied to other shales, which provide an invaluable starting point for all shale plays that have followed. “I think all that learning has helped us shorten the learning curve dramatically in the Horn River, and the same could be said of the other opportunities that we are seeing in Canada,” Khalid says. “There are other plays which are coming up as well — the Montney is not a classic shale but it is considered as a shale reservoir, and there are the Colorado shales which others are looking at, the Bakken, the Utica in Quebec, and then there are others that people are looking at which they are not talking about.” Unique approaches In its focus on the Montney, an emerging tight natural gas play in northeast British Columbia and northwest Alberta, Halliburton was also faced with a play with a heterogeneous character that presented unique stimulation challenges. “The whole world is not a Barnett shale; there is a real tendency for people to think that everything is the same as the Barnett shale and that everything should be done the same way and that’s definitely not true,” says Halliburton’s Robert Taylor, who has spent the last year on core studies of the Upper Montney from two different wells and two different producers. “What we are seeing in areas that we have studied is that there are definitely some issues with water sensitivity and to just go in and copy what is done in the Barnett shale [which displays little water sensitivity] would definitely be a mistake,” he says.
tech guide Fracing Schlumberger/Halliburton
New Tools Other innovations Halliburton announced last year include Stimulation for the Digital Asset workflow that provides the capability to view real-time stimulation data in engineering, geological and geophysical interpretation environments. This enables operators to use all the information they have not only to monitor and adjust treatments on the fly, but also to design better stimulation treatments, improve perforation strategies and improve field development plans. This workflow brings together leading solutions from Halliburton’s
fracturing, microseismic mapping, and software products and services. The company’s Cobra Frac H coiled-tubingbased fracturing service helps operators achieve increased fracture intensity by enabling the placement of virtually an unlimited number of fractures in the horizontal section of a well. This solution, based on Halliburton’s unique treatment process coupled with a new bottomhole assembly using advanced elastomer technology, has already provided significantly improved production from more than 30 horizontal wellbores in Canada’s Spearfish tight-sand formation, the company said. The Cobra Frac H service uses a bottomhole assembly which enables post-frac
41
analysis to determine treatment effectiveness and it can also be used to efficiently refracture existing wellbores. Halliburton also has a new extreme-temperature synthetic fracturing fluid comprising the first system that performs confidently at temperatures above 450 F while providing the proppant transport capabilities critical for the successful fracturing of deeper, hotter formations. In addition, this fluid system does not require a formation cool-down process, as did previous systems, which often contributes to poor initial well performance. This new fluid system is helping operators turn high-temperature discovered resources into producing assets. ■
regained methane permeabilities as a function of drawdown pressure used energized fracturing fluids that minimize the total water injected into the reservoir. Specifically, it found the most effective systems were water-based, ultra-high quality (90% quality or higher and 10% or ← less water) foams and hydrocarbon-based systems. MonoProp On the water-based side, the OmegaFrac system combined three different components, each of which had previously been used separately, resulting in improved performance over a MonoProp proppant (left) and conventional traditional guar-based fluid. bauxite proppant (right) In order to facilitate the higher quality foam, a different type of proppant needed to be suspended in the new incorporated, in this case a new patented lightweight MonoLayer proppant that forms a OmegaFrac fracturing fluid. The specific grav- partial monolayer providing improved fracture conductivity. As lower concentrations are ity of MonoProp virturequired, the monoproppant enables the use of high quality foams while still injecting the ally eliminates proppant required amount of proppant into the fluids. A potential issue with a normal proppant is that settling. with the use of a high quality foam there are limits as to how much proppant can be put into the fluid. The monoproppant has been tested for high closure structures to 10,000 pounds The Upper Montney that was studied per square inch. exhibits reduced “regained methane permeThe third component of the system is a new base gel polymer that provides both improved ability” as a function of both frac fluid water fracture conductivity and low shear viscosity for improved proppant transport. content and exposure time, says Taylor, a As operators work to understand the Montney and other tight reservoirs, among the key senior technical professional manager. A key questions they are trying to answer is how many fracs there should be, their spacing and the challenge for the operator is to maximize spacing of the laterals with the objective of effectively draining the reservoir while not comthe effective fracture flowing half-length to pleting more fracs than are necessary. “That really gets into the need to do proper computer get better production from the wells and to modelling and design, which is part of what we are offering here,” says Taylor. “The overall goal maximize the fluid clean up. “The faster you is to deliver higher asset value so at the end of the day by applying these technologies the can clean up the fracturing fluid, the faster operators are actually seeing better overall economics.” you are going to get it on production and With the monoproppant, considerably less product — as a rule of thumb 10 times less that can be very important as the production — is required so it is faster to work with, which saves both time and money. “As you get into you get in the first two or three months can more remote locations, that in itself can be be a large part of the economics of the well,” a factor.” he says. In the end, though, operators can best fully A paper presented at the Canadian realize the potential of the Montney with a International Petroleum Conference in 2009 thorough understanding of the reservoir in discussed work in which a large number of which they are working, Taylor emphasizes. fracturing fluids were studied for regained “That usually means taking your time on the methane permeability with Montney core. Of first few wells and doing a lot more testing ... the fluids studied, four were identified which to really delineate what you’ve got,” he says. outperformed the others — two water-based “Then you can go ahead in more of a producand two hydrocarbon-based. tion mode.” ■ Although there are issues with water retention and slickwater was not the best choice, it certainly wasn’t the worst choice ← as damage to the reservoir also is a key issue, Monolayer says Taylor. (Slickwater fracs combine water Left: Distribution of proppant in a conventional with a friction-reducing chemical additive state-of-the-art propped fracture. Right: Fracture that allows the water to be pumped faster propped with a partial monolayer of MonoProp proppant demonstrated in an API test cell. into the formation.) “We don’t want to have any more water content in the fluids than we have to; we want to get it out of the reservoir as quickly as we can.” The study observed that the highest
42
tech guide Fracing Trican
Lightening The Load Bubble-attracting proppant boosts distribution throughout fracture networks By Maurice Smith
Many of the shale gas plays across North America which are transforming natural gas supply fundamentals are dependent on hydraulic fracturing technology to force open channels for the gas to escape. But much of the several tonnes of sand or manufactured proppant pumped downhole to buttress the cracks blasted into the rock during a frac job is wasted, settling on the bottom of the created fractures close to the wellbore. That has companies looking for ways to drive more of the proppant deeper into the formation, such as making them smaller or lighter, using extremely high slickwater pump rates to maximize turbulence or adding chemicals to the water to better carry the proppants farther out. Trican Well Service Ltd. thinks it has a cheaper, simpler solution. Company researchers developed a surfactant that causes a thin layer of micro bubbles to adhere to the grains of sand or synthetic proppants, allowing them to be more easily picked up, kept in suspension and more effectively transported within the turbulent flow, resulting in better distribution in the fracture network. Dave Browne, corporate director of technology, likens the treated sand grains to lightweight beach balls. “When it gets into the current it’s more like a beach ball in a stadium where everybody just gives it a tap and it keeps going, whereas a regular sand grain would be more like a soccer ball — it is still going to move, but it is a lot harder to keep it airborne, or waterborne.” The patent-pending proppant transportation modifier, christened FlowRider, is the product of three years of research spearheaded by Kewei Zhang, a surfactants expert who completed his PhD thesis on the subject. Preliminary field results showed as much as a tripling of production compared to offsetting wells.
↖
Slickwater fracs Slickwater fracs have become de rigueur for the burgeoning shale gas sector because, unlike gel-based fracs — which use polymers Conventional slickwater to thicken the fluid to better carry proppants — slickwater fracs (top) versus slickwater are cheaper, require less cleanup and are less damaging to the tight, with FlowRider, drainage area after 10-years low-permeability formations. Chemical friction reducers added to the of production. water enable higher pressures to be applied at surface, allowing the fluid to be pumped faster into the formation. But without gels, proppant transport can be compromised. “The friction reducer makes the water more slippery to lower the planar fracture
tech guide Fracing Trican
friction in the wellbore; otherwise the pressure is too high on surface and it costs too much to pump,” says Browne. “That’s what defines these slickwater fracs is that there is very little viscosity, one to three centipoise. The problem with not having viscosity is that there is no way, other than turbulence, and high pump rates, to carry the sand deep into the reservoir. “As soon as the turbulence and the velocity decrease as you get out into the rock, because it gets wider than it is in the tubing, the sand starts to fall out. It forms a bed at the bottom of the fracture and it piles up, and so you keep pushing the sand along the top of what is already there and depositing it at the end of the pile, at the end of the dune, so to speak. So you end up pumping large amounts of water and large amounts of sand to try and access all the reservoir that you want to break up with your fracturing process. “But because we are adding this air to the system, and it’s attaching to the sand grains, we end up getting this far better proppant transportation.”
↑
43
fluid and compared it to this transportation modifier, and what we found was that we had about 80% regain permeability with a regular slickwater fluid in the core, and 105% regain permeability with A lab test compares the fluid treated with our transportation modifier, so we actually a bottle of Trican's regular slick-water frac improved the ability of that core to move gas through it. Normally fluid (left) and 40/70 you damage the core a little bit but this one showed that we actually mesh natural sand with improved it.” a bottle of its slickTests were conducted on a core sample from an Alberta sandstone water frac fluid with the same sand plus 0.4% to simulate what effect the water and chemicals within the water proppant transportahave on the rock. The company found that a regular slickwater fluid tion modifier. in the core produced about 80% regain permeability compared to 105% regain permeability with the fluid treated with FlowRider, actually improving the ability of the core to move gas through it. Browne says that is because of the product’s airphilic quality, which reduces the water saturation in the core. “All gas reservoirs have a certain amount of water in them that coats the sand grains or shale of the reservoir. Our product wants to attach itself, in a microscopic layer, to the sand grain and then it attracts the air to it. So then the Transportation modifier water is in the middle of the pore space and wants to flow out rather FlowRider, added in concentrations of about two litres to 1,000 than being stuck to the sand.” litres of water, is a two-component system added simultaneously to Because the sand suspension qualities are so good, FlowRider improves the water to make the sand attract air, or airphilic. It therefore allows proppant distribution over the height of the reservoir and transports it relatively affordable sand to perform like synthetic ultra-lightweight farther into the formation. Pumping can be reduced to produce the same proppants that are made of materials like polymers to increase results, reducing horsepower requirements, says Browne. buoyancy. Ultra-lightweight proppants are not only more expensive, The addition of FlowRider eliminates the need for flowback Browne says, but typically “can’t withstand the heat and the crushing” enhancer additives and costly gelled fluid sweeps designed to push encountered in the formation. the sand bank deeper into the formation preventing a near wellbore FlowRider leaves no residue and tends to gives the sand a “fluffy” sand-off. Additionally, Browne says FlowRider can work with any type quality that inhibits the hard packing of sand. “When you stop [pumpof proppant and it can get the same results as conventional fracing ing] in a regular slickwater frac, the sand all just falls to the bottom using less proppant and water. and packs quite tightly, whereas this sand treated with our transportaGiven the thriving shale gas sector even in today’s relatively low tion modifier, it almost looks like the sand is fluffy due to the layer of natural gas price environment, Trican anticipates a huge potential bubbles around it.” That makes it easier to pick up and set in motion. market for FlowRider. “All of North America right now is focused on The company has found that the proppant pack has about 20% these shale gas plays. We believe that this could be a real gamemore connectivity than when it doesn’t have the additive. “We changer for the whole industry because it would make shale gas believe that’s because it was ‘fluffy’ and doesn’t pack as tightly, which fracturing far more efficient,” says Browne. ■ creates more permeability.” Tests were conducted on a core sample from an Alberta sandstone Contact for more information to simulate what effect the water and chemicals within the water Dave Browne, Trican Well Service, Tel: (403) 215-5890, have on the rock, Browne says. “We used a typical slickwater fracing Email: DBrowne@trican.ca rise to the top
44
tech guide Fracing Triple D Technologies
Ice Breaker Inventor turns to nature to fracture tight formations By Maurice Smith
Horizontal multi-fracture technology is revolutionizing oil and gas production across North America, opening up new resource plays and boosting production by double-digit percentage points. But it comes at a cost as the fracture technology requires ever growing amounts of horsepower — and the surface infrastructure needed to produce it and force it into tight reservoirs far downhole. The president of an Edmonton-based startup thinks there is a better, simpler and cheaper way to produce the same results. And he uses a fluke of nature to do it. Darrell Kosakewich, founder, president and majority shareholder of Triple D Technologies, wants to use the unique property of water to expand as it freezes — about nine per cent in volume — to move the process of creating the necessary frac pressures underground, to the reservoir itself. Similar to the freeze-thaw process that creates frost heaves that damage roads, the technique Kosakewich has patented freezes water downhole, causing it to expand and crack the rock, opening up passageways for hydrocarbons to flow back to the wellbore. “Let face it, ice moves mountains, so why wouldn’t it move a little bit of formation,” he says. The process uses concentric coiled tubing, or alternatively jointed pipe and coiled tubing, to circulate a refrigerant along the length of a horizontally drilled wellbore. The refriger-
↗
freeze frame Triple D Technologies’ freeze frac technique uses the expansion property of freezing water to fracture the reservoir.
ant flows through the annulus between the two pipes, freezing the water-filled wellbore in the process. Use of concentric tubing in the closed-loop system keeps the refrigerant from ever directly contacting the water or the reservoir and provides a means of moving the freezing process along the length of the wellbore even while the outside tubular is frozen in place. By relying only on the sheer might of water expansion as it turns to ice to create the necessary fracture pressure, the process does away with the surface equipment required in conventional fracing to produce extremely high pressures needed and pump them downhole. It is thus inherently safer, less costly and creates a significantly smaller surface footprint compared to conventional fracturing techniques, Kosakewich says. Additionally, the system uses produced water in volumes only enough to fill the wellbore and requires no fresh water, gels or other chemicals as is typical with traditional fracs. “We can do a frac without the frac trucks and usual equipment and we get frac pressures in the neighbourhood of around 300 mpa [megapascal], which is two to three times greater than anything you can get on the surface,” he says. “The internal coil of the tubulars is moveable, similar to the retractable aerial on your car, so we can position it any place we like while the outer one is frozen in place. “With ice we can then also put together some very interesting isolation packing situations. If we wanted to shut off a flowing water zone, we would just set up over it, freeze there first, and then move on. We have the only packer in the world that can go through a slotted liner and seal to the wellbore.” Whereas conventional fracing tends to produce horizontal cracks, requiring the pumping of proppants as a buttress to counteract gravity’s tendency to close them, Triple D’s technique offers a simpler solution, Kosakewich believes. “Ice behaves in such a way that the forces go out radially from the freeze point, and so consequently you get a vertical frac, which doesn’t close once you take the freezing away. Because it’s been vertically loaded, in our system, we don’t need to use proppants at all.” The freeze frac is significantly cheaper than other methods, Kosakewich says, estimating an average cost of about $125,000 to $150,000 per frac. The initial market push will be for enhancing production from existing, low-production wells. “It will allow producers that have mature fields to take another look at their assets and give them the ability to get wells producing again. They can step up the value of their asset without [spending] too much money.” Triple D formed an alliance with Calgarybased companies Technicoil Corporation and PetroJet Canada Inc. to bring the technology to market. Technicoil will provide the delivery system while Petrojet will provide downhole services. In one field trial of the freeze frac in a Nexen Inc. coalbed methane well, the technology itself worked flawlessly, says senior staff engineer John Anderson, though the end result was less encouraging. “In terms of the operation of the freezing, there were no issues whatsoever — it worked perfectly,” he says. “But as far as the effectiveness of the treatment, the jury is out on that. There was really no effect either positive or negative on the production of that well. I was hoping that we would get some cracking of the coals, some fracturing, perhaps two metres out into the coal, to increase the near wellbore permeability. But we have not seen that happen.” Anderson cautions the lack of production response may be due more to the reservoir chosen than the technology. “I don’t think coal was the best candidate. Being such a soft rock, the fractures we created may have resealed themselves. Shale gas plays, tight gas sands, something of that nature, might be a better candidate. “I am convinced that the freezing downhole does take place. Depending on rock type, the fractures created by the freezing may increase the producibility, or possibly help in hydraulic frac initiation or other stimulation techniques.” ■ Contact for more information Darrell Kosakewich, Triple D Technologies, Tel: (780) 440-3348, Email: tripledtech@hotmail.com
tech guide Fracing Golder
45
Discrete Improvement Fracture network modelling system helps shale gas producers develop a game plan By Paul Wells
The ability to accurately predict and optimize drainage volumes in gas shales is no simple feat. The movement of hydrocarbons and other fluids in gas shale and other naturally fractured reservoirs often is not as expected or predicted. Flow through fracture networks are scale dependent, anisotropic and highly heterogeneous, complicating well completions and development planning. However, recent advancements in understanding one of the most important geological parameters in shale gas reservoirs — the natural fracture system — are aiding exploration and production companies in their quest to optimize drilling programs and, ultimately, recovery. Evidence from microseismic monitoring of hydraulically induced ↗ fracture growth shows that hydraulic fractures sometimes propagate integrated away from the present-day maximum horizontal stress direction, application negatively affecting well performance. One likely cause is that existing FracMan Reservoir fractures act as weak planes that reactivate during hydraulic fracturing. Edition (FRED) allows That’s why knowledge of the geometry and intensity of the natural geologists and engineers to seamlessly fracture system is important for effective hydraulic fracture treatment integrate geological, design, as production is often dominated by large fractures and the geophysical and wellability of wells to connect to them, says Doug Bearinger, geology advitest data into a single quantitative discrete sor for Nexen Inc. fracture network “As far as advancement goes, historically hydraulic fracturing models model. The resulting have been fairly simplistic. They essentially use a poroelastic model that models can then be assumes the rock is not fractured to begin with, which gets you into used by industrystandard applications trouble if you keep making that assumption in a reservoir that is already to evaluate well drilling quite fractured,” explains Bearinger, who is involved in advancing the location and complecompany’s Horn River shale gas play in northeastern British Columbia. tion design, gel and grout treatment design, “I think people are coming to appreciate that hydraulic fractures estimate original oilare not typically simple bi-wing planar fractures and that they also in-place, and compute intersect open natural fractures.” estimated ultimate Characterization of natural fractures is increasingly becoming a key recovery (EUR). element in the game plans of shale gas players. And for good reason, Bearinger says, noting that fractured reservoirs are particularly challenging because production is dominated by the reservoir scale of the fracture fabric. “It’s important to have awareness in understanding fracture systems, the sort of things you should look at. For instance, there’s the whole problem “ I think people are coming of scale. It’s not like a conventional reservoir where you take a piece of core and say, ‘Yeah, to appreciate that hydraulic this represents the permeability and porosity fractures are not typically of this sandstone.’ The scale at which the simple bi-wing planar fabric repeats itself is much, much larger than a core,” Bearinger says. fractures and that they “A core could be extremely conservative also intersect open and make you think something is no good at all or be way too optimistic because fractures natural fractures.” often cluster.” Bearinger says there are certain measurements that can go a long way in helping companies understand which fractures might be more productive than others. For instance, outcrop exposures can help with understanding fracture fabrics provided that the importance of scale and fracture size are observed, and with
images of suitably oriented boreholes, fracture sets can be identified and quantified. Fracture properties are also determined through core examination, fluid loss measurement and production logging. “However, in terms of the natural fracture fabric, probably the best tool we have to model and work with — or at least play with what the possibilities could be based on the data we have — is the discrete fracture network [DFN] model,” Bearinger says. DFN modelling Paul La Pointe, manager of petroleum services for the FracMan Technology Group at Golder Associates Inc., says DFN modelling technology developed by his company — called FracMan — has been successful in helping clients plan their shale gas drilling programs. “As an industry we do a good job figuring out where the gas is in the matrix, and we know a lot about the engineering, but one of the big unknowns is the natural fracture system and how best to connect the well to it via hydraulic fracturing. That’s where our technology comes in,” La Pointe says.
46
tech guide Fracing Golder/Source energy Tool Services
“To optimize drainage, you’ve got to tap into a natural fracture system that’s an efficient collector of the gas, the natural ‘plumbing’ of the reservoir. What we do is we make models of this fracture plumbing and simulate the microseismic response and flow in it.” Not only does this help validate the “plumbing model” of the natural fracture system, it also enables producers to better understand the resulting drainage. “The microseismic response tells us the volume of the fracture system connected to the well through the fracs, which in turn gives us a better understanding for the potential drainage volumes,” La Pointe notes. “After we’ve calibrated one of these models we can look at different well orientations and locations, and different hydrofracing designs, to see how they impact drainage.” La Pointe explains that DFN models provide the means for quantifying hydraulic properties from measured fracture data obtained. Fracture network models can be used to estimate hydraulic parameters for reservoir simulation, interpret well test and evaluate reservoir performance. “We really focus on the fracture component. We work with a number of different companies down in the Barnett [shale in Texas], for example, and help them figure out where to focus their development or how to redesign what they’ve been doing,” La Pointe says. “One of the things we try to do is figure out why some wells are good and others are bad, and try to determine to what extent the natural fracture system and the way it’s being accessed through hydraulic fracturing plays a role.” DFN models can help determine average well estimated ultimate recovery (EUR). La Pointe notes that well recovery and production within fractured reservoirs is highly variable and uncertain since effective connectivity of the well with the existing fracture system is highly heterogeneous. He says the network realizations are stochastic so they can be used to quantify uncertainty in the results. “Since the fracture network models use a stochastic approach, the probability distribution of well production can be determined. Quantification of uncertainties in reservoir development cannot be provided by standard reservoir models with the same geological realism,” he says. DFN models can enhance the optimization of well spacing. Specifically, these models can be used to quantify the compartmentalization of the fracture network, the effective drainage radius and effect of fracture anisotropy on the shape of the drainage patterns. “The scale effects of fractured reservoirs are particularly important here and cannot be assessed with standard porous media continuum models,” La Pointe explains. According to La Pointe, fracture network models can also predict the effectiveness of well stimulation techniques, as models show how the hydraulic fractures link up with existing fracture systems. DFN models provide new insights into secondary and tertiary recovery design and performance. “Secondary recovery within fractured reservoirs is often problematic, particularly when the injection fluid surrounds and isolates matrix blocks prior to their complete desaturation,” La Pointe explains, adding that it is possible to improve the effectiveness of recovery using DFN models as this approach more accurately portrays advancing fronts, early water breakthroughs, the effectiveness of gel treatments and the effects of thermal stimulation than conventional reservoir models. Data for constructing DFN models can be derived from a wide variety of geological, geophysical and production data, including lineament maps, outcrops, two-dimensional and three-dimensional seismic, well logs of various types, core, single-well and multi-well production tests, flow logs, injectivity profiles, as well as structural or depositional conceptual models. ■ Contact for more information Paul La Pointe, Golder Associates, Tel: (425) 883-0777, Email: plapointe@golder.com
MultiPak Liner Packer Centralizer
open channels uSe Of fuLL-BOre DiAmeTer iS key TO new Liner SySTem By James Mahony
fOr sOme Oilfield service companies, multi-stage fracturing has become the life-blood of Western Canada’s oil and gas industry, thanks to the success of horizontal drilling in formations like the Montney in British Columbia and the Bakken in Saskatchewan. Although not first to the party by any means, a Lloydminster, Alberta-based company claims its tools set it apart from competitors. Source Energy Tool Services Inc. says its MultiStim Liner System is a bonus for producers tackling multi-stage fracs due to the ability to use the liner’s full-bore diameter during fracturing and other operations. In the usual multi-stage frac operation, intermediate casing extends downhole, to the point where the well turns horizontal. From there, an uncemented liner extends laterally into the uncased open hole. Typically, the first step involves running a fracturing string into the liner, to the toe of the well. The well is then pressured up and packers are set, isolating the open-hole sections for fracturing. With the packers set, a pressure-activated port near the toe of the well is opened, allowing the first — and smallest — of several composite balls to be pumped down the well and into the liner.
tech guide Fracing Source energy Tool Services
Retriev-a-Seat Frac Port
MegaSeal Open Hole Packer
47
MultiStim Flow Lock Shoe
↖
open for business The MultiStim liner system allows operators to use the liner's full-bore diameter during fracing and other operations.
The ball “flows” down the liner to the end, where it lands in a flowlock shoe, plugging the toe of the well, and creating a closed chamber. Now, the fracturing is done, one stage at a time. At each stage, the ball-drop is repeated, using an increasingly larger ball, as the heel of the well is approached. According to Source, the MultiStim liner can handle fracs of up to 17 stages. At the end of each one, the fracturing string is pulled up the well, leaving several balls and ball seats downhole, along the length of the liner. Depending on the well, the balls may flow back to surface. While they can do so, the ball seats cannot, and would stay downhole, except that some operators want to retrieve them. That can be done with Source’s seat-retrieval tool, conveyed downhole on jointed pipe or coiled tubing. The tool pulls the ball seats from the well in one run. The company’s treatment of the ball seats is a key difference between MultiStim and other isolation liners. Other liners often leave the ball seats downhole, although operators can, if they wish, mill or drill them out later, but that can be costly, Source says. Under the MultiStim system, when the ball seats are removed, Source also cleans out the remaining sand from the liner, using clean-
←
back again By using the MultiStim liner, operators can run back into the well to re-stimulate, isolate zones letting in water, or conduct sand cleanouts and production logging.
ing fluid. With other liners, since the ball seats stay downhole, the working diameter of the liner is reduced to the point that conventional tools can’t be used in the well, Source says. For example, when fracturing is complete, some operators want to production-log the well, run packers for isolation-testing, or conduct other operations using conventional tools. That’s not possible with the seats in place. Even if the operator drills or mills them out, the company still does not get the full inner diameter that it started with. On the other hand, Source says the MultiStim liner allows the operator to run back into the well and, for example, isolate a zone that’s letting water in. In addition, where an operator wants to return later to re-stimulate, the MultiStim system allows it, while some others do not, he says. According to one user, being able to recover the ball seats after fracturing is MultiStim’s main advantage. “It opens the well back up to full inner diameter,” says Brian Stanthorpe, a well completions specialist with Petrobank Energy and Resources Ltd. “That’s important if you’re running different tools later on.” He cites production-logging and sand clean-outs as among the more common operations that might have to be done later on. As well, after removing the ball seats, operators can use conventional tools. “But with the ball seats in place, you’ve got a restricted inner diameter. It then becomes kind of a tradeoff, in that you can only run coiled tubing, unless you take the seats out.” Petrobank has used the MultiStim liner on horizontal Bakken oil wells that were multi-stage fractured. Apart from gaining the freedom to re-enter the wellbore later with conventional tools, Stanthorpe says the system allows the operator to selectively close frac ports, a useful feature, although not unique to the MultiStim system, he notes. “There are other [systems] with a closable port as well, but I think [Source’s] is the easiest to shift closed,” he says. ■ Contact for more information Jay Halpenny, Source Energy, Tel: (403) 206-4730, Email: jhalpenny@sourceenergy.ca
Ocean
Create innovative oil and gas apps.
Innovate. Without boundaries.
*Mark of Schlumberger. Measurable Impact is a mark of Schlumberger. Š 2010 Schlumberger. 10-IS-0395
One major oil company has written over 60 Ocean* plug-ins extending Petrel* workflows—to meet specific reservoir challenges and distribute proprietary intellectual property globally across their organization.
Fast.
With the Ocean framework, software developers can focus on the domain logic of their applications, without worrying about infrastructure code. Apps have been created in as little as one hour. The freedom to innovate is here now. Dive in. 403-294-4300 www.slb.com/ocean
Global Expertise Innovative Technology Measurable Impact
daTa ManagEMEnT & SoFTwarE
50
tech guide Data Management & Software CGI
Breaking The Mould Eschewing the conventional client-vendor relationship, companies collaborate for back-office IT By Maurice Smith
For production accountants, few things are as excruciating as the conversion from one software system to another. A necessary evil, perhaps, but something that should be kept to a minimum, undertaken as infrequently as possible. “Production accounting system conversions are generally fairly painful, and anything you can do to limit the amount of times you might have to convert from one system to another is certainly worth investigating,” says Darren Anderson, manager, Operations Accounting for Devon Canada Corporation. But as technology, and the regulations by which production accountants (PAs) must operate, change, old systems become antiquated and must be replaced. And, as some Western Canadian companies were learning, software vendors could be as unreliable as a weather forecast, leaving producers on the lurch when they went under or stopped supporting an existing software system, a problem confronting Devon recently. “The vendor that supported the product we were on had given us a date of when it was going to be unsupported, so that became our new deadline [to migrate “ The agile methodology is a to a new provider],” Anderson relates. “That very iterative process where date also coincided with the new royalty framework coming into play in Alberta, and the cycles are less than a because they weren’t going to sustain their week. The developers and product beyond that point, our current product wouldn’t handle the new framework, the business people are which made it obsolete.” sitting side-by-side, so if the Needless to say, sustainability in a new developer isn’t sure about system was a high priority. In fact, it was the key ingredient when officials from four major something, they can conproducers sat down at an informal breakfast fer with the subject matter meeting in 2003 that started the ball rolling in re-thinking how production accounting experts from the oil and systems are developed, maintained and made gas companies and courseto last. Unsatisfied with existing options, but correct very quickly.” each lacking the resources to single-handedly spearhead development of a new and lasting solution, Encana Corporation, Talisman Energy Inc., Husky Energy Inc. and Devon banded together in an unusual collaborative venture to jointly create one. The companies put the concept out to tender and received 18 responses from across North America and overseas before narrowing their search to CGI, Canada’s largest pure-play IT/business process outsourcing company. With 26,000 employees, offices in 16 countries and revenues of $3.8 billion last year, the Montreal-headquartered company already produced one of the four major PA systems in use in Western Canada, called Triangle, as well as production, financial and asset management systems. “The big selling point that CGI had is that they absolutely understood the whole concept of sustainability — it involved a different way of looking at the product than the traditional market had,”
explains Anderson. “That’s important because, going into this, the four sponsor companies had a vision of creating a sustainable product that could have a life of 15 to 20 years — which obviously is an eternity in the IT world. Sustainment board The companies created a “sustainment board” with representation from each sponsoring company as well as a seat for the vendor, which “would have one voice on the board but wouldn’t be able to dictate — as it was with the old model, where the vendor more or less made all the calls,” Anderson says. Like the four sponsoring majors, CGI embraced the concept from inception, revamping the development process to bring the producers into the loop. An average of three PA professionals, subject matter experts, from each of the sponsoring companies were loaned over several months to CGI, where they sat shoulder-to-shoulder with software engineers to guide development every step of the way. Altogether, the team would grow to as many as 76 people at its height, including CGI staffers, seconded professionals and specially hired consultants, to produce the Production Accounting Solution (PAS) system. “As the service provider to the joint venture, we took on what we refer to as a shareholder model, rather than the traditional vendor-client approach to software,” says Peter Robinson, partner
tech guide Data Management & Software CGI
51
sitting side-by-side, so if the developer isn’t sure about something, they can confer with the subject matter experts from the oil and gas companies and course-correct very quickly,” says Robinson. Everybody liked the approach, he adds. “The whole idea of having the subject matter experts there while you are developing the code is becoming a real cornerstone in any software development.” Robinson says PAS, with its modern web-based, web services orientated architecture, represents a step-change from the increasingly outdated systems it is replacing. With time freed up through decreased data entry and greater efficiencies, PAS allows PAs to concentrate on higher-value work such as analysis, property reviews and best practices. Mindful of the anxiety a new product rollout can create, CGI built in an incremental functionality that allows for a gradual implementation. Training was another priority, with a sophisticated online help facility and interactive training techniques. But the main lever to get PAs on side is the functionality and intuitiveness built into PAS as a result of the shared development model.
and vice-president, Oil and Gas Solutions and Services, CGI. “Under the shareholder model, governed by the sustainment board, there is a contractual group of the voting members, whereby the sustainment board sets the development priorities, approves the budgets, approves the staffing rates, and sets the service levels and reserves for future technology development. “So the industry is in full control over what gets done and what priorities are set. It’s not the software vendor saying ‘No, I am not going to put that in the release,’ but rather a business-driven and cooperative approach — a joint venture partnership. The end result is a system truly designed by PAs, for PAs.” Agile methodology CGI chose the highly-collaborative “agile methodology” to produce PAS. Developed in reaction to the sometimes overly-regimented waterfall model — entailing a linear and sequential approach to software design (with no going back, like water that has cascaded over the falls) — agile involves breaking tasks into small increments worked on by self-organizing teams in iterations, or short time frames, with regular re-evaluation in a nimble, adaptable workflow. Teamwork, customer involvement and face-to-face communication are emphasized. “The agile methodology is a very iterative process where the cycles are less than a week. The developers and the business people are
Going live PAS testing began in 2007, with Devon first to go live in September of that year and first to complete conversion in October 2008. Husky, Talisman and Encana followed in 2009, with the first non-sponsor company to migrate to PAS, Penn West Energy Trust, expected to complete conversion in 2010. Terri Kinsman, general manager of production accounting at Penn West, says PAS has performed beyond expectations. “We definitely expected that there would be efficiencies created by the system but certainly not of the magnitude that were created,” she says. “It is incredibly efficient — most of our production accountants would tell you they are saving at least a day, if not more [in a monthly cycle] in terms of getting their splits done and processing their facilities.” Developers examined everything from screen design to the most efficient way to do gas allocation to improve the look and feel of the system. While their old systems were menu driven, PAS is a quicker, mouse-based point-and-click based system, Kinsman notes. “It has a fabulous look and feel about it. The dashboard is really user friendly and it hasn’t been difficult to learn. The support that we have had from CGI has been very good and there have been very few glitches, really, when you think of the magnitude of the project.” PAS, Kinsman points out, has allowed Penn West to consolidate the four legacy PA systems it had accumulated through acquisitions into one uniform system. PAS design allows simple export/input of entire property master and monthly data, she says. And the once arduous task of transferring properties — often involving paper files, well lists, facility descriptions and the like, manually transferred in the past — has become, when the transaction is between companies both using PAS , almost as easy as sending an email, she says. The single biggest glitch, users say, was underestimating the enormity of the project early on. Representatives from all five companies were forced to return to management with requests for additional funding early on. All five acceded, determined to create a quality product, says Anderson. The collaboration that produced PAS may be unusual among typically highly competitive companies, but it worked in this instance because of the non-competitive nature of production accounting. “It’s not a competitive differentiator between these companies — it’s a regulatory and an administrative burden that they all have to meet,” says Robinson. While PAS was developed with the majors, CGI says it can provide the same advantages to companies of any size. It anticipates signing another five major customers through 2012. ■ Contact for more information Peter Robinson, CGI, Tel: (403) 213-8478, Email: peter.robinson@cgi.com
52
tech guide Data Management & Software Zedi
Deane says integration became a logical step after Zedi acquired OAS Oilfield Accounting Services Ltd. (OAS), a Calgarybased private corporation providing chart reading and integration services to the industry, in the fall of 2008. A press release announcing the acquisition noted that, “OAS has developed unique, high-quality image analysis technology that, when combined with Zedi’s current technology, will ultimately deliver consolidated field-wide information throughout a producer via one web-based repository.” The acquisition, now called Zedi TrueChart, Zedi’s wellsite portal improves data timeliness — added approximately 25,000 wells measured with charts to the 11,000 wells monitored and could help save a lot of money electronically. “It was an opportunity to give By Godfrey Budd our customers integrated data regardless of the measurement technology at the wellsite,” says Deane. Without integration, recording the kind of information gathered by Zedi Vital, a field data capture software application that integrates a range of volumetric data, net and gross production numbers, and working interests with accounting applications and registry filings, involved a lot more work in the case of charted wells. “Previously, a customer would have to enter this data manually for charted wells. It was time-consuming and error-prone. Natural gas producers, from Providing chart and EFM data in one spot juniors to majors, benefit from the timely simply gives producers faster, easier access to flow of critical production information and accurate data and provides new capabilities data. Management at Calgary-based Zedi Inc. that helps them better manage their operabelieve the recent integration of two applications and compliance requirements,” says Jeff tions, Zedi Access, formerly Smart-Alek.com, Jewitt, Zedi’s surveillance product manager and Zedi TrueChart, will improve the timeliand project lead for the integration project. ness of the information flow for producers. The more automated gathering and Zedi provides the upstream industry with movement of data resulting from integration electronic flow measurement (EFM) devices like Smart-Alek and a reduces the risk of errors, non-compliance suite of software applications for the capture and management of and having to make adjustments, he says. data. The company announced the integration of the Zedi Access The Energy Resources Conservation Board’s portal with Zedi TrueChart last October. The integration of the two enhanced production audit program (EPAP), applications, which operates on an automated basis and is provided which will come into force in Alberta next at no extra charge to existing clients, allows access to both field chart year, is expected to impose stricter producand EFM data via Zedi Access. tion auditing standards and could add to the A quick overview that compares the functionality of these applicacomplexity of regulatory filings. tions before and after integration sheds some light on just how this When Zedi announced the integration integration should improve the flow of production data and informaof chart and EFM data in October, several tion overall for producers. producers had been using Zedi’s upgraded Irrespective of integration, data flows quickly and seamlessly from EFM devices like Smart- ↑ portal for about six months. One of them was Alek, Zedi SCADA and Zedi Connect, to Zedi Access, but, prior to integration, chart-based Corinthian Energy Corporation. Colin Davies, accessible Info information was less readily available, often leaving management out of the loop with respect The integration of the company’s president and CEO, says: “We to production data until after month-end. can now access flow information from all the Zedi TrueChart with Charts are gathered with varying frequency, from daily to once a month, but once a week is Zedi Access (formerly wells in a field on a more timely basis. The Smart-Alek.com) crecommon. Zedi TrueChart, a high resolution image analysis software package for charts, then benefit has been access to the information ates efficiencies for oil as now, would convert the raw paper image to precise data. Often, however, the only person and gas producers with on a number of wells as soon as the field guy to see this information would be the field operator. the ability to view both gathers the information. This has improved chart and electronic “So, typically, in this situation, the engineers and others in management don’t get this our ability to understand the wells’ perforflow measurement data information until after month-end. Now, as soon as the chart information comes in, whether through one secure mance and optimize production in a more it’s scanned in the field or couriered in, it’s available on Zedi Access. Producers can take advan- web portal. timely fashion.” ■ tage of the capabilities of Zedi Access to get a view of all the other wells in the field, whether they’re measured by chart or an EFM device like Smart-Alek,” says Debra Deane, VP of service Contact for more information operations and investor relations at Zedi. Debra Deane, Zedi, Tel: (403) 444-003, Integration provides other benefits. For one thing, producers can now include chart data in Email: Debra.Deane@zedi.ca trending reports and data exports.
Timely Data
THANK YOU. Without you there, we wouldn’t be leading the way in superior customer service.
Leading the way with customer-driven data, integrated software and services for your upstream decision-making needs. geoSCOUT | gDC | petroCUBE at www.geoLOGIC.com
54
tech guide Data Management & Software PPDM
What Is A Well? PPDM’s mammoth effort to streamline well description lingo catching on By: Maurice Smith
One need look no further than the Bible for proof of the power of common terminology. Speaking one common language, the builders of the Tower of Babel might climb to the very heavens — take that away, and the effort falls apart in confusion and disarray. Similarly, the lack of a lingua franca to describe something as basic and fundamental to the oil industry as a well has led to no end of miscommunication, misinterpretation and inefficiency, both within the industry and within companies themselves. With the amount of data surrounding wells increasing exponentially, a need was seen to come to a broad consensus about what everybody was talking about, says Trudy Curtis, CEO of the Calgary-based Professional Petroleum Data Management (PPDM) Association. The first phase of the PPDM’s What is a Well? project recently wrapped up with an interactive tool available to its members designed collaboratively by oil companies and leading data vendors around the world. “The lack of baseline definitions for key well components has created inconsistencies that can represent significant obstacles for companies and regulatory agencies who need to perform comparative analysis and manage well data from different sources and for different uses,” says Steve Cooper, PPDM chief communications officer. The impetus for the project came from the companies themselves, says Curtis. “You would think, it being our most important business object, that we would know [how to define a well], but we didn’t,” she says, noting common terms are necessary not just within individual companies’ various departments, but among service companies, data vendors and various government regulatory agencies as well. Consider, for example, the evolution of the well over the past 40 years, she says. “At one time, every well we drilled was essentially a straw poked into the ground. Now if you look at well configurations, I might have one hole in the ground, but have 30 wellbores. And each wellbore might be completed into one formation, or it might be completed into a number of formations. In each wellbore I could have one tubing string or I could have [several] tubing strings. So it has got a lot more complex.” As complexity has increased, terminology has diverged. One person’s wellbore is another’s borehole. One company’s sidetrack
↑
new phase Phase II of the "What is a Well?" project presents the well component definitions and baseline well diagrams.
is another’s lateral. “Not only are there a lot of different terms that people use, but we don’t all mean the same thing when we use the same terms. As you go discipline by discipline — from the person in the land office to the drilling operations crew, the production accountants tracking volumes, geologists when they describe the well, et cetera — each group focuses on a different part or component of that whole well configuration.” While there may not be a right or a wrong way to label a well component or activity, the route chosen will have consequences, she says, “in terms of the data and information that you can keep, the way that you can describe it, and the way that you can exchange and share information.” How, for instance, should an existing well be classified when it is re-entered and deepened years after it was drilled. “Is it the same wellbore or is it a new wellbore? For example, if we make a decision that that’s all one wellbore, then what do we do with the original total depth of that first wellbore, which was its total depth for perhaps 10 years?” Similarly, there have been various ways to define a situation where drilling problems arise, equipment is lost downhole and the well is sidetracked to get around the obstruction. “That abandoned wellbore is never completed and it will never produce. But it’s been drilled and there may be logs and cores and other data, and there have been costs associated with that particular junked and abandoned hole. But most regulatory agencies do not acknowledge the existence of that, so if you submit a log and the log pertains to that abandoned hole, what happens to that log?” Typically, it is attached to something else, usually the remedial wellbore, Curtis says, meaning that there is a well log going through a portion of the formation that isn’t represented by the portion of the wellbore that the log is now attached to. “So if I am a geologist looking at that well, it isn’t going to make any sense, because it’s attached to the wrong place. The only way to figure that out is to go back to the directional survey, which hopefully will be complete.” Inconsistencies can be found in several other areas, such as how production is reported or in dealing with the numerous regulatory agencies an international oil company will encounter. The Canadian and U.S. well numbering systems, for instance, are “vastly different” from each other, Curtis says. “Once you start getting into this, it’s amazing the kinds of problems that you find exist. If you have been working in an area a long time, you find the really experienced people know this, but it’s not written down anywhere. And with new people coming into the industry very fast, we have got to ramp them up very quickly in such a way that they will not make incorrect interpretations about what they are seeing. At least with What is a Well?, they have the information compiled, so they have a fighting chance of figuring it out, and that’s part of what What is a Well? is all about.” The What is a Well? working group initially tried to narrow down a definition of a well and to determine who deals with wells at various stages in their lifecycle, from conception to abandonment. It identified a set of nine terms that outline the important components of a well — such as well origin, wellbore completion and wellbore contact interval — and created a term, a definition and a set of clarifying statements that describe each. A series of simplified illustrations found on the association’s interactive website serve to describe the various wellbore configurations.
tech guide Data Management & Software PPDM/Pason Narrative text outlines a well’s history. “You can click through the whole story and see what’s happening to that wellbore over its lifetime. It can serve as very good educational material for somebody who is new to the industry or be used as a very good communications tool so that different people can come to a consensus about what they are dealing with.” The initial working group included a number of major operators, including Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Encana Corporation, Hess Corporation, Nexen Inc., Shell Canada Resources and Talisman Energy Inc., in addition to data vendors geoLOGIC systems ltd. and IHS. Regulatory agencies representing five Canadian provinces and over a dozen U.S. states have also participated. If anything, the economic downturn seemed to increase interest in the PPDM model, says David Hood, PPDM chairman and president of geoLOGIC. “PPDM itself is being rapidly adopted by companies both at the super-major scale and [among] smaller companies — we are really finding that, in the times we are in, the ability to use a common standard data model really improves efficiency and cuts costs,” he says. “Part of the strength of the organization is that oil companies come together collaboratively and work to provide an open source standard right across the world.” While the What is a Well? project is just one of several PPDM initiatives, Hood says some companies have told him adopting What is a Well? alone has justified belonging to the association. He says the distinct characteristics of the Canadian oilpatch are responsible for the direction taken by the organization. “Calgary is a unique market in many respects, with the concentration of technology companies together with operating companies — a very close-knit group — and also the cross-pollination between the software and data companies and operating companies,” he notes. “We also have government regulation [Alberta's Energy Resources Conservation Board] that ensured data was freely and openly disseminated, and that had a big effect in creating that culture. “This whole initiative was born in Calgary, and is now going worldwide.” ■
Monitor And Manage New system transmits directional drilling information, provides remote access to data in real time By Godfrey Budd With drilling activity on the rise across Western Canada, oil and gas producers will be able to reap the full benefits of a new product from Pason Systems Corp. that offers labour-saving potential. Introduced commercially last summer, the company’s Remote Directional System (RDS) not only streamlines several critical processes involved in directional drilling, but can also reduce the number of measurement-while-drilling (MWD) and directional drilling services (DDS) personnel needed at the wellsite. A key attribute of Pason’s RDS, as its name implies, is the efficient, real-time sharing of directional drilling information on one or more wells among key stakeholders, including the driller, rig manager, geologist, operator and DDS personnel — regardless of their location. “Ultimately, in some cases, it could eliminate the need for DDS people at the wellsite altogether,” says Dwayne Kelm, drilling adviser at Encana Corporation. Kelm and his group at Encana have been using the system since the spring of 2009 and, he says, “The bugs have been worked out of the system and it’s a usable tool.” Using existing Pason infrastructure, the RDS is a software-based product that transmits directional drilling information and provides remote access to the data in real time. It allows DDS personnel to remotely monitor and manage multiple wells and communicate with the driller on the rig floor and in the doghouse. The system replaces existing MWD surface systems by decoding their mud pulse tools using Pason’s pressure sensor, and works in conjunction with the Pason electronic drilling recorder (EDR). The RDS is a natural extension of Pason’s existing line of products and services, which includes data acquisition, wellsite reporting software, remote communications and Internet information management tools.
Contact for more information Trudy Curtis, PPDM, Tel: (403) 668-9454, E-mail: curtist@ppdm.org
Defining Facets Last summer, PPDM kicked off Phase 2 of its What is a Well? project. “Phase 2 is about establishing baseline definitions for well status and classification,” says Steve Cooper, PPDM’s chief communications officer. “We have got more companies sponsoring for Phase 2 because there is a lot of interest around standardizing the terminology. And the other thing we are doing is taking Phase 1 analysis and applying that to some additional states in the U.S. and also to Australia.” Australia has been selected because of its significant PPDM Association membership presence, regulatory data is readily available and there has been a strong expression of interest in participation on behalf of the regulatory agencies, operators and vendors. Well status and classification, as defined by the PPDM, are essentially different ways of describing wells so that people can find the right well or set of wells for the purpose that they require. These are what the PPDM refers to as facets. A significant component of the project will be to define the different facets. The facets need to be: based upon key business processes; associated with the baseline well component definitions (Phase 1); tied to the well lifecycle; clearly and precisely defined; and populated with a set of starter values. ■
55
→
Real-Time Info Remote RDS users can view real-time directional information, including the rosebud, and send drilling instructions back to the rig floor.
56
tech guide daTa ManagEMEnT & SoFTwarE pason Pason Communications
Drill Rig Work Site
Global Communications Via Pason Satellite systems and DataHub
Pason Computers and Equipment
Directional Drilling Data
External Work Site
Drilling Rig
Pason Software
Sensor Downhole Tools
Directional Drilling Instructions Directional and MWD Personal, Computers and Equipment
Traditionally, says Canadian sales manager Lars Olesen, in an interview at Pason’s Calgary headquarters, where the RDS was developed, “MWD companies have equipment on the rig that decodes information from downhole, that transmits data and turns it into something useful. So here, with RDS, the EDR performs the function of conventional surface decoding equipment. MWD provides the raw data for the DDS people to develop an action. The EDR is on most rigs. So the merger between EDR and directional drilling is powerful. As it was before, the two were not integrated.” Previously, the crucial information was, of course, accessible via various programs and systems — remote secure desktop software, Excel, planning software, data aggregation, diagnostics and so on. But, says Olesen, “it was local to one technician’s computer at any one time. Various people could get the information, but not from one to many systems in real time. What’s new about RDS is a standardized system that allows any directional company to gather and manage information and send executable commands — all on the same platform. The system grabs the information and stores it digitally where everyone can see it at the same time.” The RDS uses an audible alert to notify the driller that an instruction is being sent. Also, any of these instructions is in a standardized format and can be sent to the directional doghouse computer and the Pason SideKick (a versatile, compact remote display similar to the doghouse computer that can be mounted at various locations) on the rig floor. In turn, the driller follows a procedure to acknowledge receiving the instruction. This helps eliminate the vagaries of ad hoc-style instruction and response, and ensures speed and clarity, says Olesen. The system also includes a control
↑
remote access Pason says its Remote Directional System is a cost-reduction solution for directional drilling companies. Using existing Pason infrastructure, the software-based product transmits directional drilling information and provides remote access to the data in real-time.
Illustration courtesy of Pason
Reduction in travel of Directional and MWD Personnel
mechanism to ensure that one user, whether remote or on site, is responsible for operations. Control can be transferred to the MWD technician so the system can be configured to work with the downhole tool or to the directional driller so that instructions can be sent to the driller. The RDS can improve well planning — both by importing well plans from the Pason DataHub (a data repository for drilling data, well information, tour sheets and morning reports) and through comparing the planned well path with the actual one. Depending on downhole conditions and the directional drilling program itself, among other factors, it should be possible for a DDS firm to manage several wells at a time on a remote basis, says Aaron Eddy, the Pason project lead for the RDS design and development. No doubt a product like the Pason RDS marks a leap forward in labour-saving and efficiency in general. But Derek Logan, director of manufacturing and engineering at Extreme Engineering Inc., a firm specializing in MWD downhole instrumentation and communications that worked with Pason on RDS, sees even more system integration and automation around the corner. “We’re very much in favour of remote, unmanned operations. We need people to do the job, but not necessarily on location,” he says, and adds that as software and instrumentation technologies improve and mature, further integration and automation become feasible. “For now, Pason’s RDS doesn’t make decisions or execute commands, i.e., it doesn’t control the rig. But, at some point, it could extend to fully automated, unmanned directional drilling,” he says. The Pason RDS, as it gains clients in the MWD sector, will have to contend with the fact that there are several MWD systems. “Each MWD technology will require an integration process as the Pason system has to understand the respective transmission software protocols and technologies,” says Logan. But once that hurdle is cleared, an MWD firm stands to save money and time, based on Pason’s current RDS technology, regardless of any possible further automation. “I now have surface hardware maintained by Pason. There’s no need for us to set up a transducer, cables, remote display or computer hardware, et cetera, for running MWD. This would enhance my business because it allows us to access their rig without having to ship out a whole lot of infrastructure. Surface hardware and decoding are done by the RDS system. We don’t have to spend time on it,” says Logan. Steve Mravunac, a partner at NuEra Oilfield Services Inc., a DDS firm, sounds perhaps less sanguine than Logan about the prospect of unmanned directional drilling. “I can reduce the number of men but never eliminate the need on occasion for on-site personnel.” Also, he says that with the greater use of remote control and shared information, it could become critical to clearly identify the lines of responsibility. Despite the caveats, he believes the underlying rationale is sound. And again, there are savings. “I don’t have to buy and install $40,000 to $60,000 worth of surface decoding equipment,” says Mravunac. ■ Contact for more information Lars Olesen, Pason, Tel: (403) 301-3400, Email: Lars.Olesen@pason.com
If you know what you’re doing – you only need one
industry-leading customer service
easy & efficient migration of existing data
helping clients increase productivity
Having everything you need in one software solution saves your company time and money. It’s also easy to use with our Windows-based platform. Thousands of landmen, engineers & geologists use geoSCOUT™ oil and gas mapping and analysis software every day, to make more efficient, informed decisions. Give us an hour for a demo – we know you’ll see the value. Call 403.262.1992 Email info@geoscout.com | Online www.geoscout.com
Another powerful suite of tools from
58
tech guide dirEcTory Data management & Software
data management & software directory
Alternate Solutions Inc. 565 Arvin Ave. Stoney Creek ON L8E 5N7 905-643-8289 www.asifluid.com
Brillium Corporation 12 Hamptons Pl. N.W. Calgary AB T3A 6B8 403-614-3913 www.brillium.ca
Control Microsystems 48 Steacie Dr. Kanata ON K2K 2A9 613-591-1943 www.controlmicrosystems.com
Energy Navigator 2200, 101 - 6 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 3P4 403-233-9400 www.energynavigator.com
Ambercore 140, 1 Antares Dr. Ottawa ON K2E 8C4 613-820-4545 www.ambercore.com
Canadian Discovery Ltd. 300, 706 - 7 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 0Z1 403-269-3644 www.canadiandiscovery.com
Copyseis Ltd. 6705 Fairmount Dr. S.E. Calgary AB T2H 0X6 403-253-3425 www.copyseis.com
Energy Solutions International 200, 7904 N. Sam Houston Parkway W. Houston TX 77064 281-664-8200 www.energy-solutions.com
AMEC Training & Development Services 400, 111 Dunsmuir St. Vancouver BC V6B 5W3 604-664-4367 www.amec.com/training
C-FER Technologies 200 Karl Clark Rd. Edmonton AB T6N 1H2 780-450-3300 www.cfertech.com
Coraspec Systems 1600, 521 - 3 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 3T3 403-262-8750 www.coraspec.com
Enersight Corp. 204, 3320 - 17 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T3E 0B4 403-246-7447 www.enersight.com
Amorex Solutions Ltd. 1500, 324 - 8 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 2Z2 403-770-7865 www.amorex.com
CGI Information Systems and Management Consultants Inc. 900, 800 - 5 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 3T6 403-218-8300 www.cgi.com
CriticalControl Solutions Inc. 1100, 840 - 7 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 3G2 403-705-7500 www.criticalcontrol.com
Entero Corporation 500, 1040 - 7 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 3G9 403-261-1820 www.entero.com
AVEVA 2600, 144 - 4 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 3N4 403-303-3335 www.aveva.com
CL Consultants Limited 3601A - 21 St. N.E. Calgary AB T2E 6T5 403-250-3982 www.clconsultants.ca
Datacon Core Imaging Inc. 2410F - 2 Ave. S.E. Calgary AB T2E 6J9 403-270-9350 www.dataconimaging.com
Envirosoft Corporation 10-B, 1235 - 64 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2H 2J7 403-225-8760 www.envirosoft.ca
B & G Systems Canada 54, 850 Tapscott Rd. Scarborough ON M1X 1N4 416-646-2885 www.b-gsystemscanada.com
Computer Modelling Group Ltd. 150, 3553 - 31 St. N.W. Calgary AB T2L 2K7 403-531-1300 www.cmgl.ca
DGL Software Services Ltd. 200, 1040 - 7 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 3G9 403-234-9202
Fekete Associates Inc. 2000, 540 - 5 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 0M2 403-213-4200 www.fekete.com
tech guide dirEcTory Data management & Software Financial Services & Management Group Inc. 66 Discovery Ridge Manor S.W. Calgary AB T3H 5L8 403-861-8299 www.fsmg.ca Fugro Data Solutions Canada 4221 - 23B St. N.E. Calgary AB T2E 7V9 403-250-1119 www.fugro-data.ca Gas & Oil Accounting (1988) Ltd. 200, 1040 - 7 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 3G9 403-234-9202 www.dglsoftware.com GEDCO 1200, 815 - 8 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 3P2 403-262-5780 www.gedco.com
M.W. Hagel Consulting Ltd. 18 Golden Key Estates Calgary AB T3P 1A5 403-265-7800 www.optimus.ab.ca
Pason Systems Inc. 6130 - 3 St. S.E. Calgary AB T2H 1K4 403-301-3400 www.pason.com
SAP Canada Inc. 600, 400 - 3 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 4H2 403-269-5222 www.sap.com
Mustagh Resources Ltd. 134 Hubman Landing Canmore AB T1W 3L3 403-265-5255 www.mustagh.com
Peloton Computer Enterprises Ltd. 450, 1000 - 7 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 5L5 403-263-2915 www.peloton.com
NEOTEC 430, 910 - 7 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 3N8 403-277-6688 www.neotec.com
Petris Canada 805, 734 - 7 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 3P8 403-225-4954 www.petris.com
Schlumberger Information Solutions (SIS) 600, 322 - 11 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2R 0C5 403-294-4300 www.slb.com/sis
Oil Lift Technology Inc. Bay 3, 1820 - 30 Ave. N.E. Calgary AB T2E 7M5 403-291-5300 www.oillifttechnology.com
PHH Petroleum Consultants Ltd. 240, 1121 Centre St. N.W. Calgary AB T2E 7K6 403-232-6822 www.phhpc.com
geoLOGIC systems ltd. 900, 703 - 6 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 0T9 403-262-1992 www.geologic.com
Terrapoint Canada 140, 1 Antares Drive Ottawa ON K2E 8C4 613-820-4545 www.terrapoint.com
GuildOne, Inc. 901, 304 - 8 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 1C2 403-355-8900 www.guild1.com
The Fluid Life Corporation 9321 - 48 St. Edmonton AB T6B 2R4 780-462-2400 www.fluidlife.com
Halliburton Landmark Software & Services 1600, 645 - 7 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 4G8 403-231-9300 www.halliburton.com
IHS 200, 1331 Macleod Trail S.E. Calgary AB T2G 0K3 403-770-4646 www.ihs.com/energy Jedex Equipment Ltd. 4, 4063 - 74 Ave. S.E. Calgary AB T2C 2H9 403-531-8670 www.jedex.ca
SustaiNet Software International Inc. 98, 887 Great Northern Way Vancouver BC V5T 4T5 604-717-4327 www.sustainet.com
Terra Management Inc. 611 - 71 Ave. S.E. Calgary AB T2H 0S7 403-269-6090 www.terramanagement.com
Glenbriar Technologies Inc. 301, 401 - 9 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 3C5 403-233-7300 www.glenbriar.com
IFP Technologies (Canada) Inc. 810, 744 - 4 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 3T4 403-234-0342 www.ifp-canada.com
Sierra Systems Group 2500, 1177 West Hastings St. Vancouver BC V6E 2K3 604-688-1371 www.sierrasystems.com
Teknica Overseas Ltd. 910A, 800 - 6 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 3G3 403-269-4386 www.teknicaltd.com
Geomodeling Technology Corp. 1100, 665 - 8 St. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 3K7 403-262-9172 www.geomodeling.com
Hampson-Russell Limited Partnership 510, 715 - 5 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 2X6 403-266-3225 www.cggveritas.com/ hampson-russell
59
3esi 200, 1601 Westmount Rd. N.W. Calgary AB T2N 3M2 403-270-3270 www.3esi.com
Open Door Technology Inc. 108, 7710 - 5 St. S.E. Calgary AB T2H 2L9 403-777-2410 www.opendoor.ca P2 Energy Solutions 2100, 639 - 5 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 0M9 403-774-1000 www.p2energysolutions.com Pandell Technology Corp. 215, Bldg. B8-2526, Battleford Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T3E 7J4 403-271-0701 www.pandell.com Paradigm Geophysical (Canada) Ltd. 2110, 125 - 9 Ave. S.E. Calgary AB T2G 0P6 403-571-1555 www.pdgm.com
Professional Petroleum Data Management Association Bankers Hall PO Box 22155 Calgary AB T2P 4J5 403-660-7817 www.ppdm.org Quest Computer Consultants 145, 6815 - 8 St. N.E. Calgary AB T2E 7H7 403-275-2775 www.geometrix.ca Resource Energy Solutions Inc. 204 - 7A St. N.E. Calgary AB T2E 4E8 403-245-0220 www.resourceenergysolutions.com RiskAdvisory, a division of SAS (Canada) 970, 401 - 9 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 3C5 403-263-7475 www.riskadvisory.com
Trivision Geosystems Ltd. 314, 602 - 11 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2R 1J8 403-777-9454 www.powerlogger.com WellSight Systems Inc. 102, 7370 Sierra Morena Blvd Calgary AB T2H 4H9 403-237-9189 www.wellsight.com XI Technologies 1700, 734 - 7 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 3P8 403-517-0111 www.xitechnologies.com Zedi 500, 600 - 6 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 0S5 403-444-1100 www.zedi.ca
coMMunicaTionS
tech guide coMMunicaTionS intelliview
candid camera viDeO SurveiLLAnCe SySTem CAn heLp prOTeCT ASSeTS By Lynda Harrison
a calgarY-Based technOlOgY company has come up with an explosionproof video surveillance system with remote applications to protect assets — people and equipment — to ensure everything in the field is operating as it’s supposed to. IntelliView has created video surveillance with real-time field intelligence, by converting closed-circuit cameras into video sensors for use in remote areas. Among other benefits, it reduces the need for on-site security and operating personnel. Where it’s really unique is the analytics in the box where the camera’s images are stored, says Shelly Brimble, the company’s communications and marketing consultant. The smrtDVR box contains software IntelliView has programmed to recognize specific events such as somebody crossing a fence line, someone loitering around a well site, a worker down, an object left behind and pipeline leaks. “There are endless applications for this product,” says Brimble. It can operate in temperatures as cold as -50 C, and monitor meters, pumpjacks, oil leaks and flare quality. For example, it can trigger an alarm if the gauge on a flow-valve meter exceeds a pre-defined limit. It can also remotely monitor production and report meter readings. The product went commercial in 2006 when it was used by Nexen Inc. To date that is the only oil and gas company employing the system, though there have been international deployments, at remote sites that were exposed to vandalism. Nexen recognizes that security analytics can assist in increasing the safety and security of its assets, says Brent Fulmek, Nexen’s manager of divisional information technology services. The company is piloting three of IntelliView’s security analytics systems and has found the graphical user interface allows the user to easily select predefined security rules that, in the event of a breach, can record the event and
61
send an alert to a handheld device, says Fulmek. It is still in the testing phase but initial results are encouraging, he says. Using analog surveillance cameras, IntelliView can detect, identify and track objects. Two-way audio communication combined with video and digital data enables interaction with authorized and unauthorized individuals at remote sites. “It’s really good for sour gas applications, for any kind of sensitive infrastructure like collection pipelines coming into a grouped area,” says Brimble. It could also benefit emergency response planning, refineries, upgraders, compressor sites and at oilsands construction sites, she adds. Each smrtDVR box can be equipped with four cameras and each camera can have 10 event notifications, such as an intrusion, assigned to it. Companies can choose the events and change them at any time. When a selected event occurs the system sends out a notification in a low-resolution jpeg photo or video. “The beauty of it is you don’t need huge streaming video or huge infrastructure for communication,” says Brimble. The alert can be sent by cellular phone, satellite and electrical power lines. It can send notifications to handhelds including BlackBerry and iPhones, or if a client prefers, they can have a built-in third-party monitoring company option or tie it into their existing monitoring solution, she says. False alarms set off by natural occurrences such as rain, snow, glare and shadows were a huge problem with analytics in the past but that’s been solved for IntelliView by a team of six PhDs from the University of Calgary. “We’re one of 10 companies in the world that can open up the box because we have our own source code, and re-program the code,” Brimble says. The system uses its own localized power — solar, battery, or gas or diesel generators — and communication infrastructure. IntelliView is also exploring the use of fuel cells, using methanol, so it can be left in remote locations for up to three months without maintenance. ■ Contact for more information Shelly Brimble, IntelliView, Tel: (403) 338-0001, Email: brimble@intelliview.ca
↙
Eye Spy IntelliView has developed a smart video surveillance solution that connects customers to onsite cameras.
62
tech guide coMMunicaTionS Can Telematics
Mobile Matches new ServiCe AimS TO mATCh AvAiLABLe TruCkerS wiTh LOADS By James Mahony
a cOmpanY that matches available trucks to shippers with loads to move — but no mover — is not far removed from the concept that drives many North American dating services. In essence, Can Telematics matches available truckers with loads through a service called Mobile Match. Customers are typically trucking companies, which pay a monthly fee to post the availability of their idle trucks online. The company is targeting 30% of the oil and gas trucking market, according to one of its executives. “If a trucker is looking to advertise on our network of 30 loadboards, he simply
broadcasts that through our Mobile Match service,” says Duncan Ford, Can Telematics’ chief technical officer. “It then broadcasts to the loadboards where he’s at, and that he’s available.” On the other side of the equation, people or companies with loads to move will also be able to use the service for a monthly fee. They too will post information about the loads they want hauled on electronic message boards, to which the truckers will have access through the Web (the system will be geared mainly to trucking fleets, rather than to independent truckers). Although no one at Can Telematics is calling Mobile Match a dating service for trucks, it bears a resemblance, as they say. One useful innovation is that the service will offer a GPS system to narrow the location of available tractor units for interested shippers. Eventually, Mobile Match also plans to adapt its mobile data terminals (MDT) for trucking companies. The ultimate plan is to install the MDT units in cabs, allowing truckers to contact Mobile Match directly and relay their availability. While rig-owners would have to buy the MDT units and pay a monthly fee to use them, they would gain one benefit in that their geographic position would automatically be updated as the truck moves across the country. ■ Contact for more information Duncan Ford, Can Telematics, Tel: (403) 450-7854, Email: Duncan@Canhaul.com
tech guide dirEcTory Communications
63
communications directory Applied Electronics Limited 5170-B Timberlea Blvd. Mississauga ON L4W 2S5 905-625-4321 www.appliedelectronics.com
Glentel Inc. 8501 Commerce Crt. Burnaby BC V5A 4N3 604-415-6500 www.glentel.com
Barnett Engineering Ltd. 215, 7710 - 5 St. S.E. Calgary AB T2H 2L9 403-255-9544 www.barnett-engg.com
Guardian Telecom Inc. 7552 - 10 St. N.E. Calgary AB T2E 8W1 403-258-3100 www.guardiantelecom.com
Benchmark Data Solutions 5, 4001 - 19 St. N.E. Calgary AB T2E 6X8 403-590-9101 www.benchmarkdata.ca
Hinz 204, 801 Manning Rd. N.E. Calgary AB T2E 7M8 403-235-5305 www.hinz.com
BH Electronics Ltd. 23 Deermoss Pl. S.E. Calgary AB T2J 6P5 403-278-2084 www.www3.telus.net/hendersb
Infosat Communications, Inc. 3130 - 114 Ave. S.E. Calgary AB T2Z 3V6 403-543-8188 www.infosat.com
Can Telematics C5, 6215 - 3 St. S.E. Calgary AB T2H 2L2 403-450-7854 www.cantelematics.com
IntelliView 808 - 55 Ave. N.E. Calgary AB T2E 6Y4 403-338-0001 www.intelliview.ca
Cartel Energy Services Inc. Box 155, Beiseker AB T0M 0G0 403-947-3334 www.cartelenergy.com
Microhard Systems Inc. 17, 2135 - 32 Ave. N.E. Calgary AB T2E 6Z3 403-248-0028 www.microhardcorp.com
Energy Processing/Canada 500, 900 - 6 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 3K2 403-263-6881 www.northernstar.ab.ca
Network Innovations Inc. 4424 Manilla Rd. S.E. Calgary AB T2G 4B7 403-287-5000 www.networkinv.com
Northern Transportation Company Limited 42003 MacKenzie Hwy. Hay River NT X0E 0R9 867-874-5100 www.ntcl.com Platinum Communications Corporation 15, 6320 - 11 St. S.E. Calgary AB T2H 2L7 403-301-4590 www.platinum.ca Priority Leasing Inc. 200, 7909 Flint Rd. S.E. Calgary AB T2H 1G3 403-216-1930 www.priorityleasing.net Reboot Communications Limited 814, 41 Dallas Rd. Victoria BC V8V 4Z9 250-388-6060 www.rebootconference.com Rigstar Communications Inc. 3567 - 52 St. S.E. Calgary AB T2B 3R3 403-243-0600 www.rigstar.ca Rigwatch Instrumentation Bay 22, 5025 - 51 St. S.E. Calgary AB T2B 3S7 403-263-6777 Rinax Systems Ltd. 5542 - 1A St. S.W. Calgary AB T2H 0E7 403-243-4074 www.rinax.com
Rittal Systems Ltd. 7320 Pacific Circle Mississauga ON L5T 1V1 905-795-0777 www.rittal.ca Sigit Group Inc. 540, 734 - 7 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 3P8 403-723-4256 www.sigitgroup.com T1 Services Inc. 204, 4216 - 10 St. N.E. Calgary AB T2E 6K3 888-522-7180 www.t1telcom.ca Telesat Canada 1601 Telesat Court Gloucester ON K1B 5P4 613-748-0123 www.telesat.com Trinity Electronics Systems Ltd. 10708 - 181 St. Edmonton AB T5S 1K8 780-489-3199 www.trinity-electronics.com Westcan Wireless 12540 - 129 St. Edmonton AB T5L 4R4 780-451-2355 www.westcanwireless.com Western Midland Communications Ltd. 8, 3601 - 19 St. N.E. Calgary AB T2E 6S8 403-250-9433 www.westernmidland.com
HEalTH SaFETy & EnvironMEnT
tech guide HEALTH, SaFETY & Environment Enviro Vault
65
Vaulting ahead Enviro Vault strives to be the current — and future — standard in tank design
When Enviro Vault officially began in 1997, founder and president Russ Hebblethwaite patented what he calls the “internal chamber concept in storage tanks.” It wasn’t by chance, however, that he raised the bar set by previous incarnations of tank design, By Paul Wells as he had for many years worked closely with tanks used in the oil and gas sector, an experience that highlighted the operational and safety issues relative to tanks and formed the basis for the Enviro Vault design features. Hebblethwaite is firm in his belief that the Enviro Vault concept is the most significant modification to the design of above ground storage tanks in recent history. The company provides a variety of products that include or build upon this patented concept whereby a recessed chamber is installed inside the tank with an access door through the tank wall, and where all valves, sample taps, electronic controls and heater (if required) are also mounted within this internal chamber. These products address environmental concerns posed by leaking valves and piping. They also address the high service costs associated with spill cleanup, frozen valves and high level switches and, most importantly, Hebblethwaite notes, they address “serious safety concerns for those working with the tanks as it provides operators with ground level” access to valves and instrumentation. “The use of the Enviro Vault keeps operators off ladders and out of confined spaces such as traditional external tank shacks,” he says. Enviro Vaults can be installed in any size or shape of new tank or in-service tank. To date, it is primarily used in the upstream petroleum industry for heavy oil, production tanks, produced water, rental tanks and separator packages. However, this concept offers many benefits for other applications outside the oil and gas industry where a tank is required. The first Enviro Vaults were manufactured to address valve-related concerns associated with larger heavy oil tanks, those capable of stor↖ ing between 750 and 1,000 barrels of the thick crude. A novel concept outside in at the time, industry began to integrate the new technology into Enviro Vault is the other storage applications. Today the vaults have attained widespread patented concept of popularity. Typical new and retrofit tank sizes to date range from 25 installing an internal to 5,000 barrels. chamber inside the tank to house valves, While “tradition” proved to be their biggest nemesis, some 14 years heaters, level controls and over 16,000 tanks later, the Enviro Vault is enjoying a steadily and spill containment. increasing market share of the tank valve and piping containment market across Canada and the United States. In the years since first entering the marketplace, Enviro Vault has gained a place of prominence within the Western Canadian oilpatch. With the company’s market share in new heavy oil tank manufacturing now in the 90% range, Enviro Vault is set to unveil some recently announced technologies that Hebblethwaite says will “open up vast new opportunities” for the internal chamber concept.
66
tech guide HEALTH, SaFETY & Environment Enviro Vault
↗
poor practices Enviro Vault’s product line addresses environmental concerns posed by leaking valves and piping
As the industry continues to evolve and focus more attention in the regulation of environmental and safety issues, Alberta’s Energy Resources Conservation Board updated Directive 055 to provide better storage practices for the upstream petroleum industry in January 2008. This renewed emphasis has spurred a series of Enviro Vault solutions to meet these new challenges. At a recent Petroleum Technology Alliance Canada event, Enviro Vault introduced three new designs that will further enhance the operational efficiencies and environmental performance of tanks — the DuoVault, FloVault and ThermoVault. The issue of secondary containment in the event of a major failure is the principal design behind Enviro Vault introducing its DuoVault product to the market. The DuoVault is essentially a “tank-in-a-tank” concept intended to enable producers to meet the issues of secondary containment while still enjoying all the benefits of the original Enviro Vault and the flexibility of “no dikes.” The DuoVault runs vertically from the tank floor to its roof, providing continuous, uninterrupted interstitial space around the primary tank with available 110% containment. The DuoVault also has all the benefits of the original model, such as spill containment, heated and protected
instrumentation including site glass, and high level shutdown switches. Enviro Vault’s new FloVault was launched in June. It is a separator package located inside the Enviro Vault that offers a smaller footprint on the lease. It also offers heater efficiency using a single heater for tank contents and equipment as well as ease of transport.
“ Listening to the concerns of the industry from regulatory boards to operators in the field and investing heavily in research and development of innovative new tank design technologies, Enviro Vault has become a leader in the above ground storage tank industry.” The ThermoVault will be the third new product to launch as it will be transitioning to the testing phase of Enviro Vault’s research and development process mid-year. Essentially an Enviro Vault with multiple catalytic or electric heaters, this unit is intended to offer a cleaner, safer alternative to fire tubes for smaller BTU heat requirements. Upcoming ThermoVault testing will compare energy requirements, fuel gas savings and reduction in air emissions to conventional fire tube
applications for potential carbon tax credits for producers. Enviro Vault is working with Alberta Innovates Technology Futures and the National Research Council’s Industrial Research Assistance Program in conducting an extensive research and development program for the ThermoVault that is expected to be complete by early 2011. “Listening to the concerns of the industry from regulatory boards to operators in the field and investing heavily in research and development of innovative new tank design technologies, Enviro Vault has become a leader in the above ground storage tank industry,” Hebblethwaite says. “With a proven track record of existing designs and new products in the queue, one can expect Enviro Vault to continue providing the next generation solutions for tank safety and environmental stewardship going forward.” There has been a steadily increasing interest from United States-based producers for technologies that address environmental solutions, particularly emissions, which has prompted Enviro Vault to start a U.S. corporation headquartered in Denver. ■ Contact for more information Russ Hebblethwaite, Enviro Vault, Tel: (250) 703-1995, Email: russ@envirovault.com
tech guide HEalTH, SaFETy & EnvironMEnT hifi engineering
67
leak Finder fiBre OpTiCS prOmiSeS weLL-OperATOrS A BeTTer ‘eAr’ fOr DOwnhOLe GAS LeAkS By James Mahony
With the mOdest natural gas prices of recent months, cost-conscious producers are taking a closer look at the bottom line. As part of those efforts, many are reviewing maintenance costs. In that category, the need to repair downhole leaks that allow gas to reach surface is common enough. Leaks fall into two groups: gas migration, where gas works its way to surface, often outside the wellbore, and surface casing vent flow, where gas moves up the wellbore, often between production and surface casing. Gas migration is considered less serious than surface casing vent flow. For Alberta’s oil and gas regulator, whether casing vent flow or gas migration, downhole leaks are a problem that needs attention. Under Energy Resources Conservation Board (ERCB) rules, leaks need to be reported. Depending on severity, casing vent flows may be classed as serious or non-serious. The ERCB gauges seriousness through a formula that considers well depth, gas pressure and flow rate. Repairing leaks can be costly, and production is usually stopped during repairs. According to Lance Gosselin, a production and completions engineer for Cenovus Energy Inc., $150,000 per well is not out of line with the costs of repairing a casing vent flow. That would include two runs at plugging the leak, usually by perforating the casing and doing a cement squeeze. “It’s pretty rare that we’d get it on the first try,” he says. “We go in, hit it, and if it’s still there, we go back in for a second remediation and hopefully get it then.” At times, though, before the well is finally abandoned, a company could spend up to $1 million on the necessary remediation. But before remediation, the leak must be found. “That’s the biggest challenge,” says Gosselin. Until now, the tools for the job were a microphone on a wireline. Sounds from the well were recorded, interval by interval, much like any other well-logging. The sound of hissing gas has its own signature and recordings would be interpreted to locate the source of the vent flow. Now, a small Alberta company has found another way. According to John Hull, founder of HiFi Engineering Inc., fibre optics provides a faster, more accurate way of finding downhole gas leaks. An electrical engineer, Hull explains that, while a fibre optic line can serve as a conduit for data travelling as pulses of light, the untreated fibre is not acoustically sensitive and could not normally detect differences in sound or pressure. However, Hull has developed a method of treating the fibre that transforms it into an acoustic sensor. After treatment, the fibre itself becomes the “microphone” and is “extremely sensitive to acoustics, much more so than the human ear, with equally high fidelity,” Hull says. Apart from being able to move data at the speed of light, the fibre can sense even faint sounds in the wellbore, hence its usefulness for tracing casing vent flows or gas migration through the noise produced. “It’s important to note we’re using fibre optics [both] as a sensor and as a transmission medium,” says Hull. “Not only are fibre optic sensors very sensitive, but we’re sending huge amounts of data: that’s how we get the fidelity and quality of measurement.” One of the functions of HiFi’s software is to provide a suite of sound signatures that allow operators to better recognize casing vent flow and distinguish it from other downhole noise.
↙
listening ear
➊
➋
HiFi’s technology consists of a distributed fi bre optic-based sensor array that can gather precise data along the entire wellbore in a fraction of the time of current methods. The system consists of 1) a transmission line to the hydrophones and 2) up to 256 tightly-wound acoustic fi bre hydrophones.
HiFi’s fibre optic technology was extensively tested at the former Alberta Research Council’s lab in Edmonton, and the company has logged six commercial jobs, according to Hull. In addition, the system’s fibre optic acoustic sensors were tested on four Cenovus natural gas wells in Alberta, including those handled by Gosselin. For engineers like Gosselin, the signal-tonoise ratio is key to the usefulness of any sound-detection device. In a nutshell, the higher the ratio, the more sensitive the tool. “If your ratio is five-to-one, you wouldn’t hear the noise of the small bubbles causing the surface casing vent flow, but if you expand that to 350-to-one, then all of a sudden you can grab the really low-amplitude stuff and hear it,” he says. The phenomenon is not limited to older wells. Every time Cenovus sinks a new well, a crew member performs a 10-minute bubble test, checking the casing vent flow pipe at surface for signs of gas flow (the pipe exits from the surface casing). “If there’s any bubble flow, you’ve got to determine the severity of it,” Gosselin says. Hull acknowledges Cenovus has a stake in HiFi’s success, since the producer invested in the company through a technology innovation fund created before Cenovus split from Encana Corporation. He believes the distributed acoustic sensor system will be road-ready by mid-2010. ■ Contact for more information John Hull, HiFi Engineering, Tel: (403) 852-3454
68
tech guide HEalTH, SaFETy & EnvironMEnT hex-hut
→
Safe and Sound invenTOr’S new SheLTer SySTem heLpS LOwer riSkS fOr wOrkerS By Jacqueline Louie
↙
↖
give me shelter The Hex-Hut is made from rubberized fi reretardant canvas and offers an alternative to the jury-rigged shelters that have traditionally been used in the welding business.
←
safetY, QualitY and productivity: these are the driving passions of Mark Moroney, founder, inventor and principal shareholder of Calgary-based Hex-Hut Shelter Systems Ltd. “It’s all about safety,” asserts the 51-year-old businessman, who designed the six-sided welding tent for use on any in-situ thermal heavy oil or oilsands construction project, “pretty much anywhere folks are building above-ground pipeline facilities.” Hex-Hut’s simple, rapid and consistent deployment means that workers can perform their jobs more efficiently, effectively and safely, says Moroney, who founded Hex-Hut Shelter Systems in 2003 and serves as the company’s operations vice-president. The Edmontonborn entrepreneur, who grew up in Calgary, co-owns the company with brothers William and Paul. An independent rig welder who worked in the oil and gas construction industry for 25 years — primarily in Western Canada as well as a three-year stint in Russia — Moroney also spent four years as a construction site representative for a major oil and gas producer. Moroney came up with his idea for the multi-purpose shelter system as a direct result of his on-the-job experiences trying to weld in extremely challenging conditions. Made from rubberized fire retardant polyvinyl chloride canvas, the patent-protected, umbrella-shaped Hex-Hut offers a unique alternative to the non-engineered, jury-rigged shelters that have traditionally been used in the welding business. Each unit’s lightweight aluminum frame, which folds out like an umbrella, attaches to the pipeline or structural steel being welded. Since there is no conventional square frame that requires the ground for support, Hex-Huts can be used on almost any part of a job. Each of the six-walled (hexagonal), 44-kilogram units always has the same configuration, interior room and overhead clearance, regardless of the elevation or slope of the pipeline, steel or terrain. The shelters, which provide a comfortable environment with natural light and ventilation, are suitable for all welding processes and allow the people working inside them to manipulate their work environment to suit their needs and the requirements of the welding process. The system set-up, which minimizes the need for skilled workers, has no environmental concerns and requires no reclamation, as it eliminates the one-use hoarding material used in traditional shelters.
tech guide HEalTH, SaFETy & EnvironMEnT hex-hut
→
→ ←
69
→
↓
←
Two workers can set up or take down a Hex-Hut unit in under 10 minutes and under ideal conditions it takes just one person to set up in the same short period of time. Moroney built the first prototype in his garage in 2001, then spent the next three years welding prototypes trying to perfect the design. Once he was sure the system worked well mechanically, he began the patent process. Three years ago, Hex-Hut asked Calgary-based Tangent Design Engineering to streamline the design for manufacturing, as well as conduct virtual testing for snow and wind loading. Not surprisingly, Hex-Hut has caught on quickly with customers. “Those tents are above and beyond anything else in regards to safety,” says Dave Szatowski, operations manager and owner of Revcon Oilfield Constructors Inc., a St. Albert, Alberta-headquartered company that has been using the Hex-Hut system for more than a year. “And as far as ease of use and quality, there is nothing that touches them.” Hex-Hut Shelter Systems, which has been profitable every year since it began, rents out its 100-unit-fleet to ensure it is maintained in top-notch shape. While the units are in use across North America, the company’s primary focus remains the Athabasca oilsands. Currently, Moroney is developing two new products to add to Hex-Hut’s oilfield construction equipment line. In addition to his work at Hex-Hut, the Calgary entrepreneur does
←
↑
safety consulting through his other company, C-Mark Inc., helping corporations and individuals better understand the value of workto weld and protect place safety. While safety has been a priority throughout Moroney’s entire The Hex-Hut is career, it has become an even more urgent concern since the death of lightweight, portable and easy to erect. his eldest son Jason in late 2007. A pipefitter with 10 years experience, Jason, 28, was killed instantly while on the job at a major heavy oil construction project in northeastern Alberta. Moroney now gives keynote presentations and seminars aimed at raising awareness of how companies can improve their safety programs and move closer to a zero-injury workplace. Looking forward, the Hex-Hut inventor would like to see his shelter system out in the field in every oilsands development, pipeline and facility project in Western Canada. “I believe the heavy oil thermal industries, especially SAGD [steamassisted gravity drainage] and in-situ, will make a major contribution to the Alberta and Canadian economies in the coming decades,” Moroney says. “My hope is that Hex-Hut will be there to help out.” ■ Contact for more information Mark Moroney, Hex-Hut Shelter Systems, Tel: (403) 293-7333 ext 223, Email: mark@hex-hut.com
Innovative Storage Tank Designs Enviro Vault™ benefits include: 1 2 3 4 5
Reduced Service Costs Superior Environmental Stewardship Improved Operational Safety & Efficiency Improved Security Easy Installation and Delivery
70
tech guide dirEcTory health, Safety & environment
health, safety & environment directory A.F.M. Resources Ltd. R.R. 2, Okotoks AB T1S 1A2 403-938-2158 Abandonrite 2800, 500 - 4 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 2V6 403-263-6777 www.nabors.com Accurata Inc. 120 MacEwan Park Rise N.W. Calgary AB T3K 4A1 403-295-1637 Altus Geomatics 17327 - 106A Ave. Edmonton AB T5S 1M7 780-481-3399 www.altusgeomatics.com Altus Group Limited, Environmental & Forestry 17327 - 106A Ave. Edmonton AB T5S 1M7 780-489-7883 www.altusgroup.com AMEC Earth & Environmental 140 Quarry Park Blvd. S.E. Calgary AB T2C 3G3 403-248-4331 www.amec.com Ark Envirotech Inc. 102, 1439 - 17 Ave. S.E. Calgary AB T2G 1J9 403-355-3655 www.arkenvirotech.ca Banner Consulting Services, Inc. 269 Valley Springs Terrace NW Calgary AB T3B 5P8 403-510-5351
Bennett Jones LLP 4500, 855 - 2 St. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 4K7 403-298-3100 www.bennettjones.com
Diagnostic Engineering Inc. 111, 616 - 71 Ave. S.E. Calgary AB T2H 2R1 403-253-4856 www.diagnosticgroup.ca
Frac Rite Environmental Ltd. 2, 4416 - 5 St. N.E. Calgary AB T2E 7C3 403-265-5533 www.fracrite.ca
Black Gold速 Projects - Inspection 3809 South Island Hwy. Campbell River BC V9H 1M4 403-262-4653 www.black-gold.ca
Energy Insurance Group 1500, 727 - 7 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 0Z5 403-261-6061 www.cpix.com
Geo Webworks Inc. 2020, 801 - 6 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 3W2 403-301-4001 www.geowebworks.com
Boundary Technical Group Inc. 8, 421 East Lake Road N.E. Airdrie AB T4A 2J7 403-948-2198 www.btgi.ca
Enviro-Guard Reclamation Inc. 252 Sienna Hills Dr. S.W. Calgary AB T3H 2Y8 403-540-9312
Geophysics GPR International Inc. 100, 2545 rue de Lorimier Longueuil QC J4K 3P7 450-679-2400 www.geophysicsgpr.com
Calvin Consulting Group Ltd. 1A, 3850 - 19 St. N.E. Calgary AB T2E 6V2 403-547-7557 www.calvinconsulting.ca CEDA-REACTOR LTD. 500, 11012 Macleod Tr. South Calgary AB T2J 6A5 403-253-3233 www.cedagroup.com
Envirosoft Corporation 10-B, 1235 - 64 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2H 2J7 403-225-8760 www.envirosoft.ca Enviro Vault 105, 7370 Sierra Morena Blvd. S.W. Calgary AB T3H 4H9 403-263-4433 www.envirovault.com
Clear Environmental Solutions 440, 840 - 6 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 3E5 403-263-5953 www.clearenv.com
Epic Environmental Technologies Inc. 48 Carlton St., Box 700 Redvers SK S0C 2H0 306-452-3200 www.epicenvirotech.com
DANA Technical Services Ltd. 208, 3016 - 19 St. N.E. Calgary AB T2E 6Y9 403-571-0390 www.danats.com
FDI Acoustics Inc. 250, 600 Crowfoot Cres. N.W. Calgary AB T3B 0B4 403-547-9511 www.fdiacoustics.com
Ghostpine Environmental Services Ltd. 111, 10699 - 46 St. S.E. Calgary AB T2C 5C2 403-291-9238 www.ghostpine.com Golder Associates Ltd. 2535 - 3 Ave. S.E. Calgary AB T2A 7W5 403-299-5600 www.golder.com Hex-Hut Shelter Systems 120, 2719 - 7 Ave. N.E. Calgary AB T2A 2L9 403-293-7333 www.hex-hut.com HFP Acoustical Consultants Corp. 1140, 10201 Southport Rd. S.W. Calgary AB T2W 4X9 403-259-6600 www.hfpacoustical.com
tech guide dirEcTory health, Safety & environment HMA Land Services Ltd. 100, 7710 - 5 St. S.E. Calgary AB T2H 2L9 403-692-0850 www.hmaland.com Hunter and Associates/GIS Unit 18, 2285 Dunwin Dr. Mississauga ON L5L 3S3 905-607-4120 www.hunter-gis.com Hydrogeological Consultants Ltd. 17740 - 118 Ave. N.W. Edmonton AB T5S 2W3 780-483-7240 www.hcl.ca HydroQual Laboratories Ltd. 4, 6125 - 12 St. S.E. Calgary AB T2H 2K1 403-253-7121 Integrity Land Inc. 9940 - 99 Ave. Fort Saskatchewan AB T8L 4G8 780-992-1500 www.integrityland.com Intrinsik Environmental Sciences Inc. 1060, 736 - 8 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 1H4 403-237-0275 www.intrinsikscience.com J.K. Engineering Ltd. 320, 7930 Bowness Rd. N.W. Calgary AB T3B 0H3 403-247-1777 www.jkeng.ca
McNally Land Services Ltd. 215, 5718 - 1A St. S.W. Calgary AB T2H 0E8 403-503-5263 Milepost Manufacturing R.R. 2 St. Albert AB T8N 1M9 780-459-1030 www.milepostmfg.com Millennium EMS Solutions Ltd. 208, 4207 - 98 St. Edmonton AB T6E 5R7 780-496-9048 www.mems.ca Naft Canada Resources Ltd. 251158 Welland Way Calgary AB T3R 1L3 403-239-3003 New Paradigm Engineering Ltd. 10444 - 20 Ave. N.W. Edmonton AB T6J 5A2 780-448-9195 www.newparadigm.ab.ca Nichols Environmental (Canada) Ltd. 17331 - 107 Ave. N.W. Edmonton AB T5S 1E5 780-484-3377 www.nicholsenvironmental.com Nor-Alta Environmental Services Ltd. 157, 9768 - 170 St. Edmonton AB T5T 5L4 780-486-4931 www.nor-alta.com
Normcan 2400, 530 - 8 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 3S8 403-233-7565 www.normcan.com Outcrop Communications Ltd. 800, 4920 - 52 St. Yellowknife NT X1A 3T1 867-766-6700 www.outcrop.com
71
Scace Environmental Advisors Inc. 2416 Sandhurst Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T3C 2M6 403-246-8303 Seaway Energy Services Inc. 810, 808 - 4 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 3E8 403-235-4486 www.seawayenergy.com
Panther Environmental Inc. Box 7793, Bonnyville AB T9N 2J1 780-812-2702
Seguin Construction (1979) Ltd. 913 - 8 St. N.W., Bag 10 Slave Lake AB T0G 2A0 780-849-3091
PFL Inc. Offshore & Arctic Technology 3387 Oakwood Dr. S.W. Calgary AB T2V 4V6 403-265-3212
Skypics 10420 Maplemont Rd. S.E. Calgary AB T2J 1W4 403-271-5094 www.skypics.ca
Pratum Resource Consulting Ltd. 2320 - 41 Ave. N.E. Calgary AB T2E 6W8 403-717-0493 www.pratum.com
SLR Consulting 200, 1620 West 8 Ave. Vancouver BC V6J 1V4 604-738-2500 www.slrconsulting.com
Remedx Remediation Services Inc. 305, 1550 - 5 St. S.W. Calgary AB T2R 1K3 403-209-0004 www.remedx.net
Tansley Associates Environmental Sciences Bay 3, 1470 - 28 St. N.E. Calgary AB T2A 7W6 403-569-8566 www.tansleyaes.com
Roy Northern Environmental Ltd. Box 847 Fairview AB T0H 1L0 780-835-2682 www.roynorthern.com
TERA Environmental Consultants 1100, 815 - 8 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 3P2 403-265-2885 www.teraenv.com
Kaizen Environmental Services Inc. 333 - 50 Ave. S.E. Calgary AB T2G 2B3 403-297-0411 www.kaizenenviro.com
Trek Construction & Environmental Services Ltd. 63A Skyline Cres. N.E. Calgary AB T2Y 2K4 403-274-1000 www.gettrekin.com
Kanuka Thuringer LLP 1400, 2500 Victoria Ave. Regina SK S4P 3X2 306-525-7200 www.kanukathuringer.com
Visible Data Inc. 1100, 640 - 8 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 1G7 403-244-1288 www.visibledata.com
KCM Engineering Ltd. 84 Oakmount Way S.W. Calgary AB T2V 4Y1 403-807-6576
Waterworks Technologies Inc. 2024 - 12 Ave. N.W. Calgary AB T2N 1J7 403-289-3198 www.waterworks.ca
Keneco Environmental Services (2000) Inc. 3 Fl., 3333 - 8 St. S.E. Calgary AB T2G 3A4 403-237-8137 www.kenecoenviro.com
Whitland Consulting Inc. 2320 McIntyre St. Regina SK S4P 2S2 306-757-8511
Levelton Consultants Ltd. 500, 1110 Centre St. N.E. Calgary AB T2E 2R2 403-269-4141 www.levelton.com
WorleyParsons Infrastructure & Environment 100, 4500 - 16 Ave. N.W. Calgary AB T3B 0M6 403-247-0200 www.worleyparsons.com
Lorrnel Consultants 400 - 6 St. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 1X2 403-233-0900 www.lorrnel.com
Wotherspoon Environmental Inc. 104, 429 - 14 St. N.W. Calgary AB T2N 2A3 403-269-4351 www.wenv.com
Marquis Alliance Energy Group Inc. 1800, 800 - 6 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 3G3 403-264-1588 www.marquisalliance.com
rESEarcH
tech guide Research Saskatchewan Research Council
73
Geritol For Aging Waterfloods Analyzing half century of western Canadian heavy oil waterfloods yields surprises By Pat Roche
It would seem obvious: If a waterflood can recover more oil than primary production, then you should start the waterflood as soon as possible, right? And shouldn’t every barrel of fluids produced from the reservoir be replaced by the same volume of injected water to maintain pressure? In conventional light oil waterflooding, the answer in both cases is yes. But what about heavy oil? Some heavy oil waterfloods recover as much as 700% of the primary recovery while others have to be abandoned. Finding out why is more than an academic exercise. Alberta and Saskatchewan have a combined total of more than 32 billion barrels of heavy oil in place. About 24% of this huge prize is under waterflood, and the secondary recovery for heavy oil waterfloods in Western Canada ranges from one per cent to 21% of the original oil in place, according to the Saskatchewan Research Council (SRC). About five years ago the SRC began compiling data on waterfloods in heavy and medium-gravity oil pools in Alberta and Saskatchewan. Some of the waterfloods date back more than half a century. The project has looked at 120 reservoir and operating parameters for 80 heavy oil waterfloods and another 100 in medium-gravity oil — all in Alberta and Saskatchewan. In creating the database the SRC wanted to find out whether the principles governing conventional waterfloods also apply to heavy oil, and to identify the factors that produce a successful heavy oil waterflood. “What’s been learned is that the heavy oil waterfloods truly are different from the conventional oil waterfloods,” says Gay Renouf, the scientist in charge of the SRC’s heavy oil waterflood database project. “Conventionally you’d think that permeability and heterogeneity are the most important things. This was true for the medium oil waterfloods, but not for the heavy oil waterfloods. And we found — for both medium and heavy oil waterfloods — operating factors (such as water throughput rate and pressure maintenance) are more important than the reservoir properties.” Meanwhile, BP plc — eager to optimize waterflooding strategies for its Alaskan heavy and medium-gravity oil pools — extensively analyzed the SRC’s large database to get an idea of what worked best in Western Canada. The results are published in a paper co-authored by Renouf and Bradley Brice of BP Alaska. In conventional light oil waterflooding, two of the key recommended practices are to start waterflooding early and to maintain a voidage replacement ratio of one. Brice’s number crunching challenged both assumptions. The BP-SRC study found it was beneficial to delay the start of waterflooding until a specific fraction of the original oil in place was recovered, Brice and Renouf wrote in their Society of Petroleum Engineers/Petroleum Society/Canadian Heavy Oil Associa-
74
tech guide Research Saskatchewan Research Council
tion paper published in 2008. Although the results varied with factors such as API gravity, the study found the ultimate recovery on some waterfloods improved if there was some primary production (1.5% of the original oil in place, or more, depending on the API) before starting the waterflood. Secondly, varying the voidage replacement ratio also correlated with increased ultimate recovery. This goes against the conventional practice of replacing every barrel of produced fluids with one barrel of water.
↙
waterflood surprises Gay Renouf reached some unexpected conclusions recently after a detailed analysis of dozens of heavy oil waterfloods in Saskatchewan and Alberta.
Mapping Uncertainty Using geostatistics to analyze reservoirs By Richard Macedo “In so many of the waterflood applications, the government response is you must maintain your voidage replacement ratio at one. And then Bradley’s number crunching actually showed that is not the best way of operating some of the waterfloods,” says Renouf. Although the paper said a cumulative voidage replacement ratio of one should still be maintained, it recommended this be achieved through periods of under-injection and periods of over-injection. Renouf has since focused on the different stages in the lifespan of a waterflood, and how operating strategies should change with each stage. The conventional wisdom is to keep the water/oil ratio as low as possible. But in studying Alberta and Saskatchewan heavy (less than 20 degrees API gravity) and medium-gravity (20-30 API) waterfloods, Renouf found some heavy oil waterfloods with extremely high water cuts were hugely successful. (The SRC research focuses on oil recovery, not water recycling economics. High water-disposal costs can make projects uneconomic, though there are successful projects with water cuts exceeding 99%.) Finally, the mechanism at work in heavy oil waterfloods is different from conventional waterfloods. In light oil waterfloods — where the oil and water have similar mobility — the injected water pushes the oil out of the pores. But in the case of heavy or medium-gravity crude, the water’s ability to push the oil is hindered by viscous fingering. Because the oil is thicker, the injected water tends to channel around it. But while water isn’t very good at pushing heavy oil, another mechanism may be at work. According to a theory advanced in the 1980s and recently modified by Steven Vittoratos of BP Alaska, the injected water entrains clumps of oil and emulsions, pulling them along. Renouf believes this process — dubbed water dragging — is the active mechanism in heavy oil waterfloods. So the more water circulated, the greater the oil recovery. Unlike light oil waterflooding, pressure maintenance isn’t the main driver. “Pressure maintenance is important, but it’s not nearly as important as putting a lot of water through,” Renouf says. ■ Contact for more information Gay Renouf, Saskatchewan Research Council, Tel: (306) 787-9389, Email: renouf@src.sk.ca
Uncertainty can keep geologists up at night as they try to decide which part of an untapped basin will yield optimal results. Where should a well be drilled in a new play? Which part of the basin will provide the best production rates and what recovery process should be used? Seismic information and geological understanding help guide the companies away from this uncertainty. But more can be done to mitigate risk and measure uncertainty. Geostatistical modelling — an evolving discipline that uses mathematics, probability, computing science and numerical analysis to help analyze reservoirs — has grown over the past few decades from a curious novelty to a more accepted practice. Clayton Deutsch, a professor with the University of Alberta and a geostatistics expert who has authored books and papers on the subject, says the main focus of geostatistics is constructing high-resolution, three-dimensional models of categorical variables, such as facies and continuous variables like porosity and permeability. There are three specific cases where geostatistics can provide valuable support for decision-making: calculating maps of uncertainty over large areas to support resource calculations and well placement; reconciling well and seismic data into high-resolution reservoir
75
tech guide Research University of Alberta models; and constructing representative models of heterogeneity to provide input to flow simulation and support reservoir forecasting. “Geostatistics provides those numerical models of what the reservoir could look like,” he says. “The two goals of geostatistics are to quantify heterogeneity and create plausible models, and the second being to provide a measure of uncertainty.” The computer-based geological models are then scaled to an even coarser resolution for resource calculation or flow simulation. A common goal of geostatistics is the creation of detailed numerical 3D geologic models that simultaneously account for a wide range of relevant data of varying degrees of resolution, quality and certainty. “Numerical tools are used to create numerical models that mimic the patterns of variability that we believe exist in the reservoir,” Deutsch says in one of his papers. He notes in an interview that geostatistics has always sold itself as data integration. “We try to integrate all the data,” he explains, which includes the geophysical, petrophysical, well data and geological understanding. The numerical information is punched into software that will take that data, calculate summary stats, measure patterns and then create models. “Most of it is done on the computer,” he says. “Some people will use fairly sophisticated visualization tools. “People that do geostatistics typically have a combination of backgrounds,” Deutsch adds. “They’re either engineers with a lot of geological training or geologists with a lot of numerical model computer training.” Looking over the past 20 years, Deutsch says geostatistics is being used with more frequency. Decades ago, it was treated as an oddity, although it’s becoming a standard practice with many of the world’s major oil and gas companies. “If they don’t have a geostatistical model and a quantification of uncertainty, a project will not be approved,” he says. “Some smaller companies are doing things on maps, so it’s not used across the board, but it’s used a lot. “To some extent it’s a corporate culture thing. Bigger companies tend to use it more.” Where it’s most effective is filling in the gaps in an “unsampled” region. “You get a lot of information from seismic but it doesn’t resolve heterogeneity down to the decimetre level,” Deutsch says. “Seismic
↓
model behaviour Left: Flow-based tetrahedral grid generation based on saturation front tracking from an injector (blue arrow) to a producer (red arrow). Elements are shaded by volume. Right: Regions where high fluid velocity is expected in a single well pair water-injection scenario. The underlying grid is tetrahedral.
fine scale, time step 7
200
0.9
180
fine scale, time step 7
1
0.8
200
1
0.9
180
180
0.8 160
160
160
0.7
0.7
140
140
140
0.6
0.6
120
120
120 0.5 100
0.5 100
100 0.4
80
0.4 80
0.3
60
0.3 60
0.2
40
0.1
20
10
20
30
40
50
0
200
40
20
10
20
30
40
50
80
60
0.2
40
0.1
20
0
10
↖
20
30
40
50
reducing risks
[also] is not a camera; it doesn’t tell you exactly what’s there. It gives you acoustic properties that are important.” Well data provides precise information, but wells are so far apart that the geological variation over hundreds of metres can be huge. “That heterogeneity is partially measured by wells and seismic and well testing and so forth,” he says. “But there’s a lot of uncertainty and variability between the wells because it just hasn’t been measured completely.” But geostatistics should not be considered when there’s too little time and expertise to effectively apply the techniques and validate the resulting models, Deutsch cautions. Geostatistical techniques are time consuming and finicky to apply and it takes time to establish a reservoirspecific workflow, choose reasonable modelling parameters, conduct reasonable sensitivity studies, verify the results and apply the models. “It is to some extent still an emerging technology,” he says. “It probably is not used to the level it could be. Then again, I think the slow staged implementation is the right thing. It would be wrong to jump on a bandwagon and start applying it before you built the expertise inside an organization. “The adoption of it is as fast as is practical.” Geostatistics can be used to help reduce uncertainty for either oil or natural gas reservoirs, although Deutsch says for gas, the heterogeneity isn’t as important because it will flow through a wider range of permeable rocks. “It is important for the size of the gas reservoir and thinking about water influx and pressure support,” he notes. Deutsch says there are several schools of thought on the effectiveness of geostatistics. There are champions who believe the application of geostatistics adds value in almost any reservoir modelling. Skeptics don’t think a geostatistical model will have a meaningful impact on reservoir management decisions. But he adds that a majority of engineers and geoscientists are seeing an increasing use of geostatistics, though they are not sure when it should be used and how the results affect reservoir decisions. ■ Contact for more information Clayton Deutsch, University of Alberta, Tel: (780) 492-9916, Email: cdeutsch@ualberta.ca
Left: Water saturation profile on a grid characterized by permeability upscaled from layer 77 of the SPE10 dataset. Centre: Water saturation profile on a triangular grid characterized by permeability from layer 77 of the SPE10 dataset. Right: Coarse unstructured grid generated based on layer 77 of the SPE10 permeability field, which has been re-sampled to a fine triangular grid.
76
tech guide dirEcTory research
research directory Alberta Geological Survey 402, 4999 - 98 Ave. Edmonton AB T6B 2X3 780-422-1927 www.ags.gov.ab.ca
Canadian Heavy Oil Association 400, 500 - 5 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 3L5 403-453-0178 www.choa.ab.ca
C-FER Technologies 200 Karl Clark Rd. Edmonton AB T6N 1H2 780-450-3300 www.cfertech.com
Alberta InnovatesTechnology Futures 250 Karl Clark Rd. Edmonton AB T6N 1E4 780-450-5111 www.arc.ab.ca
Canadian Society for Unconventional Gas 420, 237 - 8 Ave. S.E. Calgary AB T2G 5C3 403-233-9298 www.csug.ca
Alberta Sulphur Research Ltd. 6, 3535 Research Rd. N.W. Calgary AB T2L 2K8 403-220-5346 www.chem.ucalgary.ca/asr
Canadian Society of Exploration Geophysicists 600, 640 - 8 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 1G7 403-262-0015 www.cseg.ca
CREWES – Consortium for Research in Elastic Wave Exploration Seismology Department of Geoscience University of Calgary Calgary AB T2N 1N4 403-220-8863 www.crewes.org
The Arctic Institute of North America 2500 University Dr. N.W. Calgary AB T2N 1N4 403-220-7515 www.arctic.ucalgary.ca Canada School of Energy and Environment EDT 434, 2500 University Drive N.W. Calgary AB T2N 1N4 403-210-6891 www.canadaschoolofenergy.com Canadian Energy Research Institute 150, 3512 - 33 St. N.W. Calgary AB T2L 2A6 403-282-1231 www.ceri.ca
Geological Survey of Canada (Calgary) 3303 - 33 St. N.W. Calgary AB T2L 2A7 403-292-7000 www.nrcan.gc.ca Institute for Sustainable Energy, Environment and Economy (ISEEE) Earth Sciences Building, Room 1040 University of Calgary 2500 University Drive N.W. Calgary AB T2N 1N4 403-220-6100 www.iseee.ca National Research Council Institute for Ocean Technology Box 12093 St. John's NL A1B 3T5 709-772-2479 www.http://iot-ito.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca
Petroleum Technology Alliance Canada 400, 500 - 5 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 3L5 403-218-7700 www.ptac.org Petroleum Technology Research Centre 6 Research Drive Regina SK S4S 7J7 306-787-7497 www.ptrc.ca Saskatchewan Research Council 125 - 15 Innovation Blvd. Saskatoon SK S7N 2X8 306-933-5400 www.src.sk.ca Society of Petroleum Engineers 425, 500 - 5 Ave. S.W. Calgary AB T2P 3L5 403-237-5112 www.spe.org/Canada University of Alberta Edmonton AB T6G 2R3 780-492-3111 www.ualberta.ca University of Calgary 2500 University Dr. N.W. Calgary AB T2N 1N4 www.ucalgary.ca
40,000 horsepower. 3,600 tonnes of sand per well.
The hottest energy plays on the continent. All in a day’s work. From the Horn River, Montney and Deep Basin in Canada to the Marcellus and Fayetteville basins in the United States, Calfrac has an outstanding track record in unconventional gas plays. Specialized pumping equipment, a state-of-the-art research and development facility that advances fracturing applications ever further and reliable sand storage and delivery thanks to our long-standing relationships with suppliers. Our highly experienced crews are involved from advance planning to on-site supervision. We’re just as strongly committed to safety, as evidenced by our high safety performance. We’ve proved ourselves on project after project in some of the toughest shale and tight sands basins anywhere – one of the reasons Calfrac was awarded Shell Upstream 2009 Supplier of the Year for the Americas.
WWW.CALFRAC.COM