“The beauty of the case study for us was that it allowed us to prove on a scale what we had been calculating and saying for quite a while—that this technology is perfectly suited for small locations where size or layout might be a challenge,” states Seth Moore, Chief Operating Officer and Catalyst co-founder.

Hydraulic fracturing is a drilling technique in which water, sand, or chemicals are blasted into a wellbore under high pressure to break up rock formations so natural gas and oil can be extracted. Vortex Prime offers an alternative to conventional fracking fleets—the energy industry term for the rigs, trucks, vehicles, pumps, and other equipment needed for hydraulic fracturing. The Vortex Prime fracking fleet is the first of its type to use direct-drive turbine technology.

The pumps are directly connected to military-grade turbines fueled by natural gas. The self-contained system is compact, requiring six to eight pumps versus twenty for a conventional fleet, reducing onsite space by over 50 percent. It also offers big power, speedy set-up, fuel savings, and reduced emissions and maintenance.

“We have said all along, ‘Look at the fuel savings that this technology can achieve.’ We were able to prove that,” he says, pointing to Catalyst’s case study. “When all things were considered, we saved the customer substantial money.”

Released March 4, 2023, the case study concerns an assignment that the company carried out at a small, two-well pad in Howard County, Texas. At the customer’s request, a hybrid solution was implemented, with 75 percent of pumping done with Vortex Prime and the remainder done with conventional diesel-powered pumps.

The Vortex Prime system pumped for 261 hours over 17.2 days, with an average treating pressure of 8,110 psi and a maximum treating pressure of 8,465 psi. The system can reach nearly 15,000 psi depending on how it is configured. 92 percent pumping efficiency was achieved, carbon dioxide emissions were reduced by 654 metric tons, and the client’s fuel costs were slashed by 41 percent, for a savings of $425,000.

“That fuel savings number could have been even higher than what it was if we had run all the turbines,” notes Moore.

In addition to taking up less space than a conventional fleet, the Vortex Prime system used in the case study required less maintenance, enhancing the safety of the fracking crew. Fewer pieces to transport meant less need for back-and-forth trips to the worksite. It offers other benefits as well, including a kill switch feature that cuts idle time. The system can be put back online in minutes, versus hours for a traditional fracking fleet. The company makes the Vortex Prime at its manufacturing facilities and also offers conventional fracking pump options.

There have been other big developments recently at Catalyst besides the case study. At the start of this year, the company announced a partnership with GD Energy Products (GDEP), a company that has been designing and manufacturing pump solutions for the oil and gas industry since the mid-19^th century. Under the terms of the agreement, Catalyst will be using GDEP’s Thunder 5000 quintuplex pump, capable of reaching 5,000 horsepower, in the Vortex Prime system.

“It’s a spinoff of their GD 3000 pump, which was a triplex pump—a three-plunger pump. This was a five-plunger pump. We went to them and gave them a challenge, and they partnered with us,” he says. “Both companies are working in a collaborative partnership.”

Catalyst was established in April 2018 by Moore and two co-founders, all of whom were imbued with a predilection for out-of-the-box thinking. Sadly, after we last spoke, company co-founder Michael Morgan passed away. Moore and fellow co-founder Bobby Chapman are determined to respect Morgan’s vision as they keep the company going.

“It was a sad passing, hard to comprehend. Our thoughts are with his family and friends. The employees who worked with him are touched by his loss. Bobby, Mike, and myself were here before the beginning of Catalyst, and our success is certainly due in part to his efforts and his knowledge and skill and experience,” Moore says, adding, “He would want us to go on.”

Part of this going forward involves remaining true to the company’s original mission, which was to be innovative and open-minded about new technology and processes. Indeed, for all of its success, remaining flexible and agile is the goal.

“I don’t consider us a start-up anymore, but we still have a lot of that start-up mentality. We go from concept to action pretty quickly. There are not a lot of layers for ideas to get bogged down in and shrivel on the vine,” he explains.

As proof, he points to the speed at which Catalyst can erect and dismantle its fracking operations. “We can move our pumps, set up, and be ready in twelve hours or less. My guys are telling me I can get it down to eight hours; I don’t know any system in the fracking world that does that,” Moore says.

Quick installation, of course, means more pumping time for clients. This dynamic approach also draws potential employees who want to break away from the more conservative mindset inherent in the conventional oil and gas sector.

“If people have ways of doing things better, faster, safer, more efficient, and profitable, we listen to those people. Sometimes, our meeting in the morning can result in action being taken after lunch. I think that appeals to a lot of people, and because of that, we’ve been able to get some really good talent,” states Moore. Current employment at Catalyst stands at approximately 185 individuals.

The company’s business model is centered on rentals. Instead of selling the Vortex Prime and other fracking solutions, Catalyst leases out equipment and crews. The firm remains focused on the Permian Basin—a region encompassing West Texas and Southeast New Mexico containing vast oil and natural gas deposits.

“There’s a lot of work in the Permian,” says Moore, “and we’ve had people reach out to us from outside the United States and areas outside the Permian Basin. Currently, we’re building capacity,” he explains. “At the moment, it seems to make the most sense to keep this technology operating as close to our home base as possible. We like the fact that we don’t have to fly in experts. We’ve partnered with people who have boots on the ground.”

Like other fracking companies in the Permian Basin, Catalyst has had to respond to certain industry trends, including simultaneous fracturing, aka simul-frac, and electric fracturing, or e-frac. Moore is a strong proponent of the former and not a huge fan of the latter.

While conventional fracking fleets use diesel-powered pumps, e-frac systems run on electricity. By using an e-frac fleet, energy companies can reduce fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, but it is hardly a perfect solution. Large-scale e-frac systems have such high energy needs that they cannot be plugged into an existing electrical grid, and this would not be a realistic option in much of the Permian Basin anyway.

The Texas electrical grid is independent of other state grids, leaving it highly vulnerable to unexpected surges in demand. A cold snap in the Lone Star State in early 2021 resulted in the near-collapse of the grid as Texans cranked their thermostats.

“When people say e-frac, they assume it’s easy and quick and clean; they don’t realize all that goes into it,” Moore says. Gas-powered generators are needed to create electricity for e-frac systems, a requirement that can be expensive and inconvenient.

He is considerably more enthusiastic about the emergence of simul-frac, a hydraulic fracturing process entailing the use of two horizontal wells at the same time. “We feel [our] technology is perfectly suited for simul-frac because it amplifies and multiplies that fuel saving,” he shares. The compact size of the Vortex Prime system also means it is a good fit for simul-frac operations.

When asked about the future, Moore anticipates expansion. “I think we’d like to be at eight fleets by the end of 2024. We should be adding our fourth fleet somewhere in Q4 of this year, so that’s a growth of four fleets next calendar year. We’ve talked about all kinds of options but, at the end of it all, we’re focused on making sure we grow in a [controlled] manner and that we maintain service quality and maintain safety. We feel like everything good that will happen, will happen as long as we manage those things.”

The post This Hydraulic Fracturing Pump Fleet Proves its Worth<p class="company">Catalyst Energy Services</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

“We manufacture electrical equipment for industries that are growing in demand,” says David Evdokimoff, Chief Executive Officer of Boundary Electric. “A large part of our business is transformers and switchgear distribution. We manufacture that for multiple industries: oil and gas, hopefully hydrogen, data centres, crypto, electrical utilities.” A data centre is a secure location where networked computer systems store, process, and/or distribute gargantuan amounts of digital information.

Boundary, which also serves municipalities, maintains two facilities in Grand Forks and one in Trail, British Columbia.

“We’re an original equipment manufacturer (OEM), so we manufacture a majority of our equipment. We have subcontractors and some items we outsource to keep costs down, but most is manufactured out of our Grand Forks and Trail facility,” Evdokimoff explains.

In addition to transformers and switchgear equipment, the company also designs and manufactures metering kiosks, substation components, splitters, portable power centres, and motors. It offers testing, inspection, maintenance, repairs, and electrical servicing and contracting as well. While the company primarily works in North America, it has shipped its wares as far afield as Egypt, Greenland, South America, and the Philippines. The firm also installs equipment within the British Columbia interior.

A few years ago, Boundary developed a new specialty working with the budding cryptocurrency scene. New crypto coins are created or ‘mined’ by powerful computers that solve complex math problems to validate transactions. Housed in data centres, these computers require a lot of electricity.

“We had a company call and they said they want to put fifty megawatts into a building. That’s the equivalent of putting the power that would go to a city into a building. It didn’t make any sense. We were like, ‘Why would you want to do that?’ So, that was our introduction to Bitcoin,” recalls Evdokimoff.

After supplying electrical equipment to this client, “Our phone rang off the hook. From that point on, we manufactured electrical equipment for a few other major players in the game,” he adds.

Boundary Electric was founded in 1947 by Allen Napoleon Docksteader and his son, Wes Docksteader, with a focus on manufacturing and distributing electrical transmission gear. The company remains a family business, with Allen’s great-grandson Justin Docksteader serving as Evdokimoff’s business partner. The plan is to keep Boundary a family firm going forward. At present, the company has approximately eighty employees across all branches.

“I think for us it’s creativity, and attitude,” Evdokimoff says, regarding what the company looks for in potential hires. “Skill set, we can teach. We’re looking for people who are able to work on the fly, able to take on problems that come at them and see the opportunity as opposed to roadblocks. We’re looking for people that work exceptionally well in a team, especially in tackling new things. If you’re getting into crypto, if you’re getting into hydrogen, if you’re getting into these new markets, you have to be willing to be a problem solver.”

Boundary offers “a competitive pension and benefits program” and continuous staff training, he says. Clearly, the company is doing something right, having been certified as a Great Place to Work in Canada. Great Place to Work certification, which is largely based on employee survey results, recognizes firms with positive workplace cultures and satisfied staff.

“There are two things we’ve done really well. We’ve always provided a quality product. That’s something internally we strive to do through our quality management systems and such, but it’s also something that has always been a staple of the company. Our name is on this, so we want this to be very good; that’s on the product side. On the market side… electricity is needed almost everywhere. We have followed the market trends. If oil and gas was doing well, we’re in oil and gas. If forestry was going really well, we’re doing forestry; we’re [now] doing data centres,” Evdokimoff shares.

As evidence of its commitment to quality, Boundary has ISO 9001:2015, Canadian Standards Association (CSA), and Underwriters Laboratory (UL) certification. Maintaining these certifications entails constant vigilance and frequent audits, and Evdokimoff praises the company’s management group, which holds monthly meetings to discuss and “create action plans for continuous improvement within our company.”

Unlike a number of other companies, Boundary Electric came through the COVID pandemic in relatively good shape. COVID “had an interesting impact in a lot of ways,” notes Evdokimoff. Boundary took great care to keep its workers safe by introducing robust health and safety protocols. While some business with customers in the oil sands of Western Canada dropped off, business picked up in other areas.

“We were lucky, in a sense,” he says. “We were building data centres in the midst of all of this. That kept our business thriving, and we were hiring [while] a lot of places were actually decreasing employees. We also saw an increase locally, with our service and construction team, as a lot of people were doing household renovations and staying home.”

According to Evdokimoff, the company does its best to stay flexible and diversified. These attributes have been central to its success, he adds. As such, the company is keeping a very close eye on the emerging hydrogen sector, which has been touted as the next big thing in alternative energy.

As the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy at the U.S. Department of Energy states, “Hydrogen is a clean fuel that, when consumed in a fuel cell, produces only water. Hydrogen can be produced from a variety of domestic resources, such as natural gas, nuclear power, biomass, and renewable power like solar and wind. These qualities make it an attractive fuel option for transportation and electricity generation applications. It can be used in cars, in houses, for portable power, and in many more applications.”

Needless to say, all of this is very appealing and companies are eager to get in on any future hydrogen windfall. Boundary Electric representatives attended the second annual Canadian Hydrogen Convention, held this April in Edmonton. The conference featured dozens of speakers, thousands of visitors, and plenty of interest in hydrogen.

“We’re starting to see some steps taken in the [hydrogen] industry with regards to having projects that are starting to make their way across the line. We’re starting to see that with vehicles,” says Evdokimoff. “We know there will be a massive demand in that sector and we want to support it with core infrastructure such as transformers, distribution, and switchgear.”

He describes hydrogen as one in a series of technologies including electric vehicles, artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and data centres, that will be “the big drivers for the electrical industry in the next ten to fifteen years.”

Among the projects Boundary Electric has helped build for crypto clients, municipalities, and energy firms is a cryptocurrency mining site for DMG Blockchain in Christina Lake, BC. This project involved designing and manufacturing eighty-five-megawatt substations, twenty-four customized 2500 kVA substations, and a control centre, as well as cabling and wiring tasks.

The company also custom-built a series of 1,500 kVA substations for Access Pipeline in Redwater, Alberta and designed, provided, and tested a secondary unit substation for transportation network TransLink for the City of Surrey in British Columbia.

“The list of cool things we’ve supplied products for is big,” Evdokimoff wryly notes.

He is particularly proud of “the ability of our products and our transformers in reducing greenhouse gases in the world. That seems like an amazing thing, and that we can do this from the interior of British Columbia in small towns.”

As for the future, Boundary is looking around at other opportunities. “We’ll be starting on manufacturing liquid-immersed data centres for a customer out of the United States. That will be a little bit different than the air-cooled data centres we’ve been manufacturing to this point. We are also embarking on a panel program. We will be an OEM manufacturer of distribution panels that are five thousand amps and below,” he states.

Liquid immersion is a method of cooling servers and computer equipment at data centres and an alternative to more traditional air cooling.

“I think five years from now, our business will continue to be extremely strong,” adds Evdokimoff. “Whether that’s supplying utilities for traditional use or supplying commercial and industrial clients for their projects—i.e., crypto, data centres, hydrogen, electric vehicles—we know that for the products and services we have, demand is going to be very strong.”

The post Providing Power for Over 75 Years<p class="company">Boundary Electric</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

“The single biggest change is that we’ve engaged our upstream strategy,” states President and CEO Steve Hightower, “and we’ve started Hightower EV Solutions, where we’re putting [electric vehicle] charging stations throughout the country.”

In the fuel industry lingo, ‘upstream’ gas or oil production refers to companies involved in the identification, extraction, and production of raw materials. It is a broad category that covers surveying, drilling, manufacturing, oil sands mining, and other activities. ‘Downstream’ refers to post-production fields such as retail and distribution.

HPC’s upstream work centers on crude oil and liquid natural gas. Core downstream services include bulk fuel deliveries for commercial vehicle fleets, supply chain and inventory management, and emergency fuel supply. The company provides bulk fuel that goes into new cars coming off assembly lines at Honda, Nissan, and General Motors plants and also has clients in the sports, retail, utilities, government, manufacturing, and education sectors.

Given the surging popularity of electric cars, its move into the electric vehicle (EV) market makes good business sense. Launched a year and a half ago, Hightower EV is the third company to operate under the HPC umbrella. The other two are Hi-Mark Construction Group, which works on water and wastewater facilities in the Midwest and Eastern U.S. and HP Energy, which tackles infrastructure projects that enhance energy efficiency. Hi-Mark and HP Energy are both thriving, along with their parent company, Steve reports.

Hightower EV can design, build, and install electric vehicle infrastructure. In partnership with various tech companies, the turnkey service provider has worked on roughly 12,000 EV charging units nationwide.

“In some cases, we’re providing charging as a service. We go in and make an investment, say, for a retailer. We would actually bring the [EV charging] units in, and we would own them. We would do a profit share with the retail service station or hotel if they didn’t want to do the initial investment due to lack of early traffic. We would take on the risk,” he says.

For all the attention on EVs, HPC has no intention of abandoning gas and diesel.

“We focus on our customers where they’re at. We are a strong liquid fuels organization. That’s our core. That’s what built us. We don’t shy away from it. We try to bring in clean fuels and biofuels that are more ecologically friendly. Electric is a new fuel for vehicles, and our customers have expanded into that area, so we expanded with them,” Steve explains.

Unlike fossil fuels, biofuels are derived from living plant material. Ethanol, made from corn, is a common biofuel in North America, while fuel made from sugarcane is ubiquitous in South America.

The company’s business-to-business (B2B) fleet card continues to be one of its most popular offerings in the gas and diesel space. Used to purchase services and/or products, the card is accepted at thousands of gas stations and truck stops across the U.S.

The popularity of the fleet card “is growing tremendously. We’ve got over 300,000 cards in the marketplace right now, all commercial B2B. It’s saving many of our customers lots of money, and it’s growing very rapidly,” he says.

Hightowers Petroleum Company remains vigilant to the threat posed by COVID. While not as deadly as it once was, the virus has not been eradicated. “We’ve maintained a pretty strict protocol. We’re probably one hundred percent back to work. We are a critical business. People need to have fuel in the marketplace. We try to be pretty strict, based on lessons learned relative to mask-wearing in our facilities and common areas,” Steve says.

Now that the pandemic has hopefully peaked, trade shows and industry events that were shuttered or conducted online have reopened to the public. In recent months, he has been traveling a great, visiting trade shows in person to meet peers, promote the company, and network.

Another thing that has not changed since the last profile is the company’s ownership structure. The firm remains “one hundred percent” family-owned, states Steve. His son, Stephen Hightower II works as its chief operating officer, while his daughter works on contracts. Other family members, including a nephew, are also employed by the company.

“I’m extremely proud. If something were to happen to me, I know the business would continue to move forward,” he says.

Hightower family members participate in an array of business and community organizations, including the fuel marketing association SIGMA, the Greater Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce, the National Petroleum Council, the Cincinnati Opera, and the American Association of Blacks in Energy (AABE).

The company has ISO 14001:2015 certification for Environmental Management and ISO 9001:2015 certification for Quality Management. “When you talk about ISO, it’s not just words. It’s how you operate your business, how you document your business, how you continuously improve your business. We have customers that require, through their ISO procedures, that we are also ISO. A lot of the [original equipment manufacturers] require that. So, we have to maintain our ISO, our quality standards,” Steve states.

In addition to ISO, “We have continued to develop our ESG (environmental, social and governance) program that looks at ways in which we can reduce our environmental impact. Part of that would be Hightower EV Solutions. One initiative is to reduce carbon emissions, but there’s the social side of that as well. We’re continually making sure we’re doing the right thing by our communities—not just investing in our communities, but participating in the communities,” he says, adding, “Our company maintains its values of being an honest and socially responsible organization that has a reputation of working hard.”

Asked if he finds it odd that a company built around fossil fuels is so concerned about the environment, he says no. “It’s important for our company to remain relevant and forward-thinking. We know our customers. As they began to be forward-thinking, we also had to be forward-thinking. We never want to be the last horse and buggy on the street,” he explains.

HPC is not looking to get into hydrogen, touted as an up-and-coming miracle fuel for vehicles by some proponents. “I believe that the U.S. made a bet on electric as a primary fuel,” Steve says.

He anticipates that hydrogen will eventually make a mark in some parts of America, depending on federal government infrastructure funding. It is far too early for the company to get involved, given the nonexistent state of hydrogen infrastructure, and the company’s commitment to EVs.

In addition to the Middletown headquarters, HPC maintains offices in South Africa, New York, Michigan, and Washington, DC. The company has approximately seventy-five employees across all its companies, a number Steve believes will grow significantly once federal funding for infrastructure projects kicks in.

It follows a certain process when it comes to new hires. “Each and every time we go out, we look for the best possible person that we can. We don’t ask them about their politics. We don’t look at their color. We don’t look at their sexual orientation. We look at their qualification, abilities, attitude,” he says.

The result is HPC’s diversity, of which he is proud. The company is one of the leading African American fuel firms in the country. “We know there’s a level of uniqueness in our diversity, and there’s not much diversity in this industry. We’ve hopefully done a lot of things right,” he says.

Given the company’s ownership structure, it is not surprising that he describes Hightowers’ culture as family-oriented. “You have to be compassionate to your employees and their needs because they have families as well. My employees want the best for their families as well, their kids. Things happen, and when things happen, you have to be compassionate and understanding and try not to be strict or unreasonable when someone has a personal issue. You’ve got to support them, help them take care of it any way you can.”

Not counting COVID, he cites fuel shortages as the biggest challenge facing HPC at present. Global shortages and rising fuel prices are concerns that keep the company on its toes.

Still, Steve offers an upbeat forecast. “We really feel we can operate in the neighborhood of half-a-billion dollars. I am moving very hard to get to $1 billion over the next twelve months. That’s the ambitious part of me.”

Increased upstream business will likely drive this growth, he says. After reaching the billion-dollar mark, there is a new set of goals he wants to achieve. “Half a decade into the future, we want to be a global energy organization. At that point in time, then I can begin to look at possibly resting a little more,” he states, with a laugh.

The post This Gas and Diesel Downstream Wholesaler Goes Upstream and Electric<p class="company">Hightowers Petroleum Company</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

The company provides, but is not limited to, Geo-technical, Environmental, and Hydro-geological drilling services throughout Ontario, using a variety of drill rigs mounted on truck and tracked carriers. Geo-technical drilling is a type of drilling that is performed as part of the construction process. This is mainly carried out for structures like buildings, bridges, cell phone towers, roads, city infrastructure, et cetera. Soil samples are retrieved by GEDI and analyzed by engineering firms. Data can also be gathered, via this soil sampling process, for environmental and hydro-geological purposes.

When the groundbreaking ceremonies take place, drillers and Geo-technical engineers “don’t get the limelight like the architects and politicians do when they put the silver shovel in the ground,” notes Dave Gunn, GEDI’s Principal and Co-Owner. “But it’s the data that makes these things work,” Mr. Gunn adds, “whether it’s a water line being buried, a tunnelling project, or someone buying a $100 million piece of property, we have to make sure the data accurately represents the soil being tested.”

From conception to completion, GEDI is a one-stop shop for their clients. GEDI can assist with utility locates, daylighting operations, traffic control services, drilling services, water well services, and so much more. The company has a fabrication department in-house and can sustain itself when it comes to retrofitting rigs and building tooling. “We have been able to stay competitive, while offering a superior service, by performing most of the services ourselves,” says Mr. Gunn. “On large or specialized projects, work is occasionally partnered with trusted third parties.”

Before the company’s inception, Mr. Gunn was once employed as an Environmental, and Geo-technical, technician. It was then he and his business partner Ron Barnhardt, who also worked for the same firm, launched GEDI back in 1991 in response to a lack of good health and safety work practices and low customer service within the industry.

“At the time,” says Mr. Gunn, “health and safety, and customer service, were almost non-existent.” With Mr. Gunn’s knowledge of soil sampling data and Mr. Barnhardt’s drilling systems and mechanical knowledge, Geo-Environmental Drilling Inc. was born.

In its infancy, GEDI mainly performed soil investigations and installed remediation equipment for energy companies such as Imperial Oil and Shell Canada, who Mr. Gunn speaks highly of by praising them for their “unwavering commitment to safety and professionalism.” Over time, the bulk of GEDI’s work shifted from the energy sector to the construction industry.

Today, their workload is more or less evenly divided between geo-technical and environmental drilling. “People are buying land to build on,” begins Mr. Gunn, “and an environmental assessment is required when dealing with the banks. Then, before they build on the land, a Geo-technical investigation has to be completed. When the refinancing needs to be done, ten years later, the banks want to make sure the soil isn’t contaminated. It isn’t uncommon for us to drill a site numerous times over the decades.”

So, what sets GEDI apart from other drilling firms?

Mr. Gunn attributes GEDI’s success to the quality of their overall service, their relationships with their clients and employees, and the production of accurate data for the engineering firms that hire GEDI. “Everyone here is concerned with our client’s next drilling project,” he states. “Our goal is to safely, and efficiently, complete a client’s drilling program within the time and budget estimated. We need the engineers to be successful in their business so we can perform their next job.”

But doing a great job for its clients isn’t the only contributing factor to GEDI’s success.

Geo-Environmental Drilling is very proud of its environmental safe-work practices. Mr. Gunn says,” there are many small tasks and practices that have to be completed for a job to be successful—proper handling and disposal of waste and running newer, well-maintained equipment,” to name a couple. These practices cannot be implemented properly without the employees.

GEDI, currently, employees 35 to 40 employees and is always looking for good people to join their team. Mr. Gunn explains what he looks for in a new hire: “We are looking for someone who is willing to learn, wants to advance, and is able to follow policies and procedures. We can train them to do everything else.”

According to Mr. Gunn, it usually takes three to five years to go from a green horn driller’s assistant to a fully licensed driller. This journey includes new employee orientations, on-site training, stringent health and safety training, an operator training program, well licensing training, MOE training, a driver training program, and most importantly, the hard work and dedication in providing an unparalleled drilling service.

Of course, there are benefits to maintaining a high level of qualified staff and services. Mr. Gunn says he has never advertised because he been able to rely on word of mouth, referrals, and repeat customers to obtain work. This strategy has been successful for GEDI. Some of its past projects include the Gordie Howe Bridge spanning the Detroit River in Windsor, Ontario; the Port Lands Toronto project, which will be a revamped waterfront at the bottom of the Don River; and numerous transit infrastructure projects for Toronto, Hamilton, and Mississauga.

“All of our projects are important,” Mr. Gunn states. “The Gordie Howe Bridge required a great deal of preparation in case artesian conditions were encountered within the bedrock formation. Other projects require us to accurately drill and sample to depths of 150 meters. Some projects require us to deal with potential contamination, traffic control, homeowners, tenants, civilians et cetera.” Some projects are also sensitive because of nearby buried utilities.

GEDI operates a subsidiary, Geo-Daylighting, responsible for exposing the buried services so they are not damaged during the drilling process. The day-lighting process consists of a large truck equipped with an “Air-Knife” system that uses high-pressure air to safely break apart the soil around the services while simultaneously containing it in a large holding tank via a high volume vacuum system. This system ensures that buried facilities aren’t damaged, but more importantly, that no one is hurt during the drilling process because of a utility strike.

GEDI is partially responsible for raising the standards in the industry over the past 30 years. In the early 1990s, when Mr. Gunn worked for a consulting firm, drill crews wore shorts and running shoes on site. Although this made for good backyard barbecue attire, it didn’t protect the worker from heavy equipment or potentially contaminated soil. By contrast, Geo-Environmental Drilling has always taken a “safety first” approach to its operations.

GEDI performs numerous on-site safety audits and safety meetings to make sure all safety protocol is being followed, not only by its employees, but its clients too. In addition to maintaining their tools and equipment, GEDI reinforces the “safety first” approach through their safety culture and mentoring programs. This safety culture is ingrained in everyone’s minds through constant encouragement for employees to speak up if they come across any safety concerns. Mr. Gunn believes it is this type of transparency and awareness that helps GEDI overcome unforeseen challenges such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The initial stages of COVID-19, in early 2020, were scary for everyone,” he says. “We dealt with these stages within the company in several different ways. We had daily morning meetings to discuss the virus’ progress. We tried to figure out what was false information on social media and countered that with what we hoped was correct advice.” While GEDI remained open for business throughout the pandemic, as a designated essential service, it did have to get creative with how to keep its employees, and the public, safe.

“Despite the government assistance, and continuance of drilling,” he says, “we did have to absorb some additional costs due to COVID-19 procedures. We had crews driving in separate trucks and we staggered morning start times to reduce employee contact,” to list a couple. Despite the challenges, Mr. Gunn is very proud of the company’s past and is excited about its future.

Geo-Environmental Drilling will continue to find ways to enhance its products and services. “My main goal,” says Mr. Gunn, “has been and will always be to have Geo-Environmental Drilling synonymous with high quality work and unparalleled commitment to the health and safety of all its employees and the people who hire us.”

The post Raising the Bar for the Geo-technical Drilling Industry<p class="company">Geo-Environmental Drilling Inc.</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

“As of now, we have a total rental fleet of just over 275,000 horsepower, and out of that total, we are 98.5 percent electric-driven. We still have a miniscule percentage of legacy compression units that are driven by combustion engines, but we are getting closer and closer to the one hundred percent figure,” states Chief Executive Officer Brian Green, son of the company founder.

TOPS also offers comprehensive service, support, and maintenance for the roughly nine hundred advanced compressors in its fleet. Its customers consist of energy companies in the Permian Basin—a region in the south-western U.S. with abundant oil and gas deposits.

Gas compression—which increases the pressure of natural gas by reducing its volume—is not a new technology. TOPS, however, has established itself at the forefront of the compression field. Instead of driving the compressor with a traditional gas combustion engine, its compression skids have two electric-powered motors for nearly emissions-free operation.

Compressors from the company also feature custom-designed supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) technology. A SCADA system uses sensors, software, programmable logic controllers (PLCs), and other devices to enable process automation, data collection, and remote performance monitoring.

This type of innovation helps it stand out. “I think the biggest piece for us is automation—what we are able to do control-wise with an electric motor and a PLC. It’s far more advanced than what can be done with a gas engine. Everything is simpler—from restarts to monitoring operational ability,” says Green. “Secondly, there is the amount of data and analytics we’re able to collect from this system. Pretty much everything on that skid we can track in real time,” he shares.

“We have roughly 125 data points that we’re capturing in real time from each of our compressor skids. All that data is being funneled through our control room. It’s being looked at with statistical models to see if temperatures, vibration, pressures, or anything is out of norm or out of standard deviation.”

If a mishap is detected, or if a unit is down, TOPS can dispatch technicians to investigate and fix the problem or even restart the system remotely.

In addition to being highly efficient, the company’s compressors are better for the environment. Gas compressors typically run continuously, every day of the year, so traditional systems create a lot of carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions and other toxic fumes. Removing a gas combustion engine from the equation “is a significant benefit, not just for our industry but for our customers and everyone, from an ESG (environmental, social, governance) perspective,” says Green. TOPS compressors are also less noisy and costly and offer greater run-time than their gas-powered counterparts.

From its Midland headquarters, TOPS maintains a satellite office in Carlsbad, New Mexico and a facility in Yukon, Oklahoma. The Carlsbad branch primarily supports field personnel in the region, while the Yukon facility “gets our units ready and does major overhauls and such,” Green explains.

Equipment handled in Yukon is intended for use elsewhere. “Our operating area is all within the Permian Basin. Every one of our compression units is located in West Texas or southern New Mexico,” he says. Business is booming at present, so there is no need to expand outside of the Permian Basin.

TOPS has “a tremendous backlog for equipment that’s already contracted out to a blue chip customer base. So, right now, we are as busy as we can be servicing needs in the Permian. It would have to be a pretty good opportunity for us to move outside because we’re doing really well here,” he states.

The company gets most of its gas compressor units from Ariel, an Ohio-based firm that describes itself as ‘the largest manufacturer of separable reciprocating gas compressors worldwide.’ Green explains that there are “only a handful of manufacturers of natural gas compressors. The gold standard in the compression industry is Ariel. So, roughly eighty percent of our fleet is Ariel gas compressors.”

Ariel will build a compressor frame with cylinders and other equipment. Then, the product is sent to a network of Ariel packagers who work with TOPS “on the design of the overall compressor skid and compressor package, adding the cooler, motors, piping, pressure vessels, et cetera,” says Green.

Once the packagers’ work is done, the compressor goes to TOPS which installs instrumentation and other technology, then adds the finished product to its fleet.

Brian Green’s father L.D. Green founded the firm in 1996. When Brian came on board in 2006, the focus was on traditional, natural-gas-driven compressors which were “the industry standard,” in that period, he remembers. It has “definitely been an evolution.”

By 2008, shale gas had become a much sought-after commodity in the Permian Basin. “We were getting involved in the gas-lift compression market around that time. We began to see a lot of problems popping up with traditional compression units with natural gas engines. They weren’t really designed to run well in the Permian Basin. They weren’t really designed to handle the wet, saturated, heavy-gravity gas that we see up here,” recalls Green.

Around 2011, TOPS began delving into electric-driven compression as an alternative. “At the time we had all the naysayers who were saying, ‘Electric doesn’t make any sense.’ Fast forward, and we’ve completely flipped that metric,” says Green. “We’re doing business with the who’s who—blue chip customers in the Permian Basin—so I think we’ve proven that the concept for our area makes a lot of sense.”

L.D. Green worked as president and chief executive officer of TOPS until recently. In January of this year, he decided “to enjoy a much earned retirement, but he’s still involved with the company as chairman of the board,” his son states.

Brian Green, who has handled just about every facet of the business, moved from chief operating officer to chief executive officer. The company is now partnered with private equity group, Apollo Global Management, Inc. and is no longer a family business.

One consistent theme throughout the years has been a commitment to customer service. As business expanded, the company invested in new compressors and staff. “As we grow our fleet size, you have to have enough technicians to keep up. You have to have additional engineering support, project management support, all the back office support to make sure those guys in the field have the parts they need when they need them and where they need them,” explains Vice President of Sales and Marketing Misty Ingle.

TOPS currently has 165 employees. When considering a new employee, particularly for work in the field, the company wants people “who are technically inclined, who are not afraid to learn new things, who can embrace working with electronics and automation. It’s not something they’re intimidated by,” says Green.

A strong work ethic and the ability to take on challenges and “wear several different hats,” is also important, he continues.

“We love an employee who will challenge our preconceived notions. A lot of companies will squash that in their employees but we welcome somebody to challenge us and help us grow and do things differently,” adds Ingle.

For all its upward momentum, the company faces many challenges, including COVID. When the virus began spreading rapidly in March 2020, it introduced controls on people entering and leaving its facility, temperature checks, and social distancing to keep its workforce safe.

The pandemic “was an incredibly tough time for our industry,” but TOPS got through the worst of it intact and grew during the crisis, says Green. “I think it is a testament to what we’re doing and the benefits our customers see with our products.”

While the virus might have peaked, the fallout from shutdowns continues to wreak havoc on supply chains. Like many companies, TOPS has been dealing with long delays in part shipments, especially electronic components from Asia.

Still, the forecast for the future is bright. When interviewed, the company was preparing to ship a 2,000 horsepower compressor—its biggest unit yet. This fully electric system is quite a leap for the firm, which previously only handled compressors that went up to 800 horsepower.

“We see this as an opportunity for us to continue to grow, to put out some larger compressors. The same things that made us so successful with the smaller compressors, we think are going to be game changers for the larger units,” says Green.

Five years down the road, “We want to be seen as the leader of not just electric compression but the leader in compression in general. We’re constantly adapting and innovating. We want to see our horsepower totals continue to grow. We want to continue to grow our team and take advantages of opportunities as they come up.”

The post This Texas Company Expands its Gas Compression Business<p class="company">Total Operations & Production Services (TOPS)</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

Sadly, the biggest change “was my father passing away,” shares President Jake Bolton. Craig Bolton, who was interviewed for the previous profile, passed in the fall of 2021. Craig served as the company President. After his death, Jake, who had been Vice President, stepped into the top leadership spot while Jake’s younger brother, Lucas, and Plant manager, Patrick Park, have stepped up to help fill the void.

To honour Craig, the company has retained its focus on top-quality products and services, while upholding a loyal, experienced workforce. Peninsula continues to be a one-stop shop that offers a comprehensive range of services including consultation, modelling and industrial design, three-dimensional (3D) printing, part and mould design, manufacturing, packaging, warehousing, and shipping.

Consultations entail detailed discussions with clients and preliminary design work. Moulds can be custom designed according to customer specifications. Once a design has been chosen and successful prototypes have been built, the company will commence a production run of parts and moulds on its thirty-four custom injection machines and other processing equipment. This work is done in a 65,000-square-foot space at the company’s Fort Erie headquarters.

Across the street from the production center is Peninsula’s 30,000-square-foot warehouse for logistics work. The warehouse stocks customer products and inventory and this is where some light packaging is done. The company can provide display cases, blister and clamshell packages, and boxes, as well as perform heat sealing, labelling, and polyethylene bag packaging, to highlight and protect customers’ products. Logistics also covers brokerage duties and arranging pick-ups or deliveries for clients.

The company maintains a large inventory of a variety of plastic resins, which is very beneficial to its customers as they are able to pass on the savings of buying material in larger quantities. For commodity resins like polypropylene and polyethylene, there are four silos on-site which allow the company to purchase material in railcar quantities. Material in these silos can then be pumped directly to work centers without requiring a manual transfer of materials. This again provides added cost savings to customers. “We are looking at further improvements to this process by adding more silos and more advanced material conveying systems,” says Bolton.

Peninsula has a separate division called Nova Products that makes plastic goods such as glass case inserts, spools, and hydro components. Storage containers for recyclables are another Nova specialty; it makes ‘blue bins’ used to store paper and plastic recyclables and ‘green bins’ used to store kitchen and organic waste, primarily for municipalities. Blue bins include small, five-gallon units that can be fitted under desks, mid-sized stackable containers, and large twenty-two-gallon curbside bins. Green bins range from two-gallon kitchen containers to thirteen-gallon curbside units.

Nova has developed a brand new product: a thirty-two-gallon, black plastic garbage can, of which the company is particularly proud. “It’s light, compact, and made with superior materials, so it won’t break. It also has a “better aesthetic design,” than other garbage bins, according to Bolton.

The superior materials include impact-modified polypropylene. The garbage bin will be sold by retail outlets such as Home Depot, Home Hardware, and Walmart. The company is working on placing the thirty-two-gallon bin in Canadian Tire as well, he says.

In addition to its Fort Erie facilities, Peninsula uses a 20,000-square-foot, third-party warehouse in Buffalo, New York. This warehouse points to one of its strengths: the ability to ship products to both Canada and the U.S. with ease.

“It’s one of the things that sets us apart from other injection moulders. We’re literally on the border. The transfer of goods across the border is something we make extremely easy for our customers. We take the headache out of it,” Bolton states.

Other things also set the company apart. For a start, it maintains high standards of quality, with ISO and National Sanitation Foundation Institute (NSF) product certification. Based in Michigan, but with an international reach, the NSF offers product certification services in various fields including food equipment.

Peninsula has implemented Health Canada’s Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) program and Critical Control Points (HACCP) system. The GMP program is designed to ensure high standards for packaging material, among other things.

The company has a client-centred business ethos. Customers can approach Peninsula with a vague concept that the company turns into a production-ready product. This process is driven by the use of 3D, computer-aided design software. It sometimes taps into the same skillset to fix problem moulds from other firms.

Peninsula uses 3D printers as well, but only for prototyping. Despite the hype about 3D printing, the process is still too slow and unwieldy to mass produce moulds or parts, says Bolton. “It’s not going replace injection moulding in this century. It doesn’t compare to the strength of injection moulding or the speed of injection moulding,” he points out.

Given this, Peninsula is eager to buy more custom injection machines, preferably bigger ones. At present, the largest machine the company owns has a clamping force of 1800 tons. Within a couple of years, it hopes to add a 2,500-ton machine to its lineup. “We’re looking to increase our tonnage. We’re looking for a bigger machine,” says Bolton.

For all the progress Peninsula is making, the company is still somewhat in recovery following COVID. “2021 was a tornado of a year, but things have been returning back to normal,” Bolton reports.

Certain health protocols remain in place; visitors are still required to sign in, and staff members, in general, are much more vigilant about the prospect of illness. Now that the virus appears to be finally receding, the company has taken to attending in-person trade shows again while continuing to enhance its online presence.

Prior to the pandemic, Peninsula employed 130 workers around the clock. This has been reduced to ninety employees working continuously for five days a week. Bolton hopes that the workforce has been only temporarily downsized.

Meanwhile, the company is striving to streamline its operations to increase efficiency. A few years ago, it acquired an enterprise resource planning software system for its offices. The system has proven its worth and the company is now “working on implementing bar code scanning and the Internet of Things into the workplace,” reports Bolton.

Peninsula’s human resources department has added new software as well, to track vacation time and other employee data. The software will eventually include online employee portals to help employees access their information faster and easier. The firm uses a fingerprint clock check-in for staff and is looking to expand its machine monitoring capabilities to keep an eye on cycles and production time.

In addition to software, the company has introduced robotic systems on its plant floor. Robots enhance both productivity and worker safety by taking on potentially dangerous tasks once performed by employees such as reaching into machines to remove parts.

For all the technological software and robotic solutions, Peninsula is fully aware of the importance of human relationships. The company builds employee loyalty. Staff members are eligible for a variety of benefits, including dental coverage and a registered savings program. Peninsula emphasizes internal promotions and likes to match experienced staff with new hires for intensive, hands-on training.

It tries to encourage a family-like work culture, which makes sense given its heritage. The company originated as a small custom injection moulding shop with a handful of machines and employees in Georgetown, Ontario. It was purchased by Jake Bolton’s grandfather in 1976 and moved to Fort Erie. Fred changed the name to Peninsula Plastics and expanded the operation. Craig took over in 1989, and now his two sons are heading the business.

Going forward, the plan is to keep Peninsula within the family and expand operations through moulding larger products. There is also talk about entering new product categories such as the home organization market. “We’re working on that now,” says Bolton.

There have also been discussions about setting up new branches in different cities. “Especially with shipping costs, we could definitely see ourselves branching out—trying to cover more of North America,” he says.

The post New Products, New Ownership for This Family Firm<p class="company">Peninsula Plastics</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

Services rendered by PFM include the design and installation of recycling and waste equipment, material marketing (a company database tracks global material markets for paper, plastics, Styrofoam, wood, masonry, metal, and other substances), and obsolete and excess inventory control solutions. The latter service entails the tracking and monitoring of excess raw, packaged, and finished goods (to ensure they are properly disposed of). Inventory control can cover personal care products, cosmetics, fragrances, and industrial chemicals.

Additional company competencies include liquid and bulk waste solidification, cosmetic product incineration, electronic recycling, and ethanol recycling. Equipment maintenance and repairs are also offered (the firm has in-house and in-the-field fabrication capabilities), as well as power washing and cleaning, site surveys and insurance inspections. Preventative maintenance services are available too.

Premier handles all manner of materials, including plastic, wood, rubber, glass, paper, cardboard, aluminum, insulation, foam/carpets, packaging, Styrofoam, and more. A sample green certified destruction material audit form on the company website lists additional substances that PFM can process such as solvents, nail polish, oils, metal alloys, steel, and detergents, to name a few. The company’s customer base covers residential buildings, malls, schools, government offices, sports facilities, industrial facilities, and more.

A vast array of recycling equipment is available for clients. Popular products include high-capacity shredders (for securely destroying vast quantities of confidential documents), augers (used to pre-crush and compact cardboard, construction refuse, plastic, and pallets), and cart tippers (which dump loads into compacting equipment).

Various compactors and balers are offered as well. Compacting waste into sealed bags can drastically reduce waste volumes, while also preventing leakage and foul smells. The company’s compactor category includes self-contained compactors (these are specifically designed for wet waste and the containment of liquids) and stationary compactors (designed for “maximum compaction of waste materials into a receiver container of various sizes,” in the firm’s words).

The baler category includes horizontal balers (featuring multiple feed openings and chamber sizes, these are useful machines when recycling in high volumes); vertical balers (which take up a smaller footprint compared to other balers); conveyor-fed baling systems; and multi-chamber balers (which sort and bale recyclable items such as plastic film and cardboard). Additional gear on offer includes plastic foam densifying machines (which use high-volume extrusion to crush plastic foam scrap) and turbo separators (interior blades, bars, and screens separate packaging from products).

PFM can provide eco-friendly construction and demolition-related services. The firm will sort and separate demolition and construction debris, with an eye toward finding reusable items and/or materials. Some reusable products are donated to charities. These construction and demolition services help contractors fulfill Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) compliance, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification and other regulatory requirements. The LEED program is an initiative from the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC).

Clients can also contract PFM for solid waste engineering. This entails customized source separation, waste audits, supply chain overview, inventory issue solutions, sustainability compliance, and more.

PFM was founded by a waste management industry veteran named Bob Frustaci. His vision was to establish a waste management firm that put sustainability first. The company was initially based out of a 10 by 10 foot office and had minimal capital. In the early days, the fledgling firm was primarily focused on serving the hotel industry, but it soon branched out and expanded into the construction and manufacturing sectors, where waste, unused materials, and excess inventory are common issues.

The company has been recognized for its work. On February 9, 2018, PFM received a Certificate of Innovation in Sustainability from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). PFM has also received the Green America Business Seal of Approval. To earn this honor, a firm must demonstrate commitment to environmental sustainability and social justice, and businesses that garner the Seal of Approval are listed in the National Green Pages.

PFM has also been a member of the U.S. Green Building Council since 2020 and is affiliated with the Institute for Supply Management (ISM), Green America, the New Jersey Affordable Housing Management Association, and others.

Sister company PCS (Premier Compaction Systems, LLC) offers waste equipment services in the Northeastern United States, with a focus on compactors and trash chutes. PCS staff can design and implement waste management processes using top-of-the-line equipment. The company promises a “total recycling solution” and can provide servicing and repairs as well.

The customer base for PCS includes municipal governments, grocery stores, nursing homes, retailers, manufacturers, residential buildings, distribution centers, packaging companies, schools, hospitals, and more.

PCS has also earned multiple awards and kudos, including a 2018 Certificate of Innovation in Sustainability from New Jersey DEP (the same honor that was earned by PFM) and a Gotham Green Award in 2018. The Gotham Green Awards are awarded by Gotham Networking to small and mid-sized companies “for their contributions, inspiration and guidance in helping us all take better care of the planet and ourselves” as a press release puts it.

PCS also was named 2019’s Best Sustainable Waste Management company by the Mid-Atlantic Real Estate Journal and was a 2019 Manufacturer of the Year finalist in the small company category (with 50 employees or fewer). The latter contest was run by the New Jersey Manufacturing Extension Program (NJMEP), a not-for-profit organization that helps manufacturers based in New Jersey become more competitive, efficient, and effective.

Into the future, expect to see Premier Facility Management and Premier Compaction Systems continue to lead the way on reducing waste, recycling costs, and the carbon footprint of their clients, all the while improving the environment.

The post Reducing Waste, Expenses, and the Carbon Footprint of Its Clients<p class="company">Premier Facility Management / Premier Compaction Systems</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

Salmon farming is a type of aquaculture that involves raising fish in underwater pens as opposed to trawling them in the wild. It’s a very big business: on the East Coast of Canada, the sector generates $2 billion in economic output and $800 million in GDP (Gross Domestic Product) annually, while employing over 8,000 people. Atlantic Canadian salmon farmers produce about 350 million nutritious meals each year.

Headquartered in Letang, New Brunswick, the ACFFA has 81 members. Besides fish farmers, members include service providers, research groups, and feed companies. The ACFFA continues to operate the Letang-based Limekiln Wharf Service Centre on behalf of the aquaculture industry.

A return to form
As part of the transition to normality, the ACFFA hosted its annual Research, Science, and Technology forum in St. Andrews, New Brunswick, from October 25^th to 27^th, 2022.

“It was our first time back in person without health restrictions in years,” says Farquharson. The Association opted to retain a hybrid format, offering presentations, seminars, and speakers in-person and online. That way, people who couldn’t travel to the event were still able to take part.

The forum proved to be a big hit, with approximately 150 registrants, two days of events and presentations, and an inaugural Women of Salmon Farming Symposium. The latter event focused on issues relating to women in the industry, with a view toward promoting gender equity and opportunity. Symposium guests included Marie Terese Letorney, a European opera singer turned communications specialist. Letorney ran a well-received session “on how men and women communicate differently in the business world,” says Farquharson.

In a similar fashion, the Association is putting the finishing touches on a report titled, Gender-Based Opportunities and Challenges in Salmonoid Farming in Atlantic Canada. “We had some details from the draft [report] going into the Symposium, but now, with the results from the Symposium and new statistics from Statistics Canada, we want to incorporate all of those into the final report,” explains Farquharson.

The report will show that women in aquaculture tend to be higher educated than their male counterparts, even though educational achievement has little impact on gender pay ratios, she continues. The Association will host a Women in Seafood roundtable at an upcoming Responsible Seafood Summit “to continue the conversation,” she says.

An international event, the Responsible Seafood Summit used to be called GOAL (Global Outlook for Aquaculture Leadership). Co-hosted by the ACFFA, the rebranded summit will take place this fall in Saint John, New Brunswick. This will mark the first time the event has been held in Canada, with British Columbia hosting the summit a few years ago.

“We’ve put a big effort into bringing that conference here,” Farquharson says. “[It will feature] the thought leaders, the CEOs, the executives of seafood companies… government officials, NGOs; they will all gather. We are working closely with the Global Seafood Alliance to co-host.”

Farquharson also attended the North Atlantic Salmon Conservation Organization (NASCO) conference in Edinburgh, Scotland from June 6th to 9th, 2022. An annual international event, the conference rotates between countries that have wild salmon (a list that includes Canada, Denmark, the European Union, Norway, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States). Farquharson typically participates in the conference each year as part of the Canadian delegation.

Advocacy, always
The Inner Bay of Fundy Salmon Recovery Project (iBoF) continues to be one of the ACFFA’s flagship programs. This project aims to replenish stocks of wild salmon, and to achieve this goal, wild smolts (salmon that haven’t reached full maturity and can live in saltwater) are raised in custom-built pens, and then released into Bay of Fundy rivers. This huge undertaking involves a partnership between the ACFFA, Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO), Parks Canada, the salmon industry, First Nations groups, and provincial authorities.

Last year, there were “158 returns”—that is, salmon returning to rivers in the inner Bay of Fundy—and things look equally promising this year, says Farquharson.

Advocacy also remains central to the ACFFA’s mission. “I’m always advocating for effective regulatory policies… that’s 90 per cent of my job, communicating for effective regulatory policies and processes in Atlantic Canada. We were really pleased when New Brunswick released its Finfish Aquaculture Development Strategy… Salmon farming started here 40 years ago, so it’s really encouraging to see New Brunswick step up to the plate and want to be leading again in the development of the industry,” states Farquharson.

Finfish include salmon, which is why the report is so significant for the ACFFA. The recently released New Brunswick Finfish Aquaculture Growth Strategy 2022 – 2030 document touches on seven “strategy themes” (land-based aquaculture, governance, competitiveness and science support, fish health, promotion and advocacy, strategic infrastructure, and regulatory efficacy). Presented by the New Brunswick Department of Agriculture, Aquaculture, and Fisheries, the Strategy aims to grow the province’s finfish sector.

As part of its ongoing mission, the ACFFA also works to raise awareness about the importance and realities of Atlantic Canadian salmon farming. “There are still people out there who think we stand on the side of a net pen and throw fish feed in the water with our hands. It’s ridiculous,” states Farquharson.

People are often unaware of how high-tech the field is, employing the latest sensors, computers, automated feeding systems, cameras, monitors, and more. Every aspect of salmon development in aquaculture pens is closely monitored and farmers adhere to strict environmental regulations.

For all that, certain myths continue to prevail, including the notion that aquaculture is bad for the environment and that farmed fish is less nutritious than wild fish.

As the ACFFA points out, aquaculture helps blunt the impact of climate change. According to a 2018 study by the High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy (HLP), salmon farming releases fewer greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) than terrestrial animal farming (i.e., raising cows, pigs, and sheep on land)—which is a good thing, given that climate change might have a hugely negative impact on oceans and aquatic life.

“I think anybody that says climate change isn’t affecting them is not looking out their window or paying attention,” states Farquharson.

As for nutrition, Farquharson points to a 2020 research paper in the Journal of Agriculture and Food Research, by Dr. Stefanie Colombo (assistant professor of Aquaculture at Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia). Colombo found there was little difference in the nutritional value of wild salmon and farmed salmon. When it came to health, the key factor was the species involved (Colombo’s study looked at six types of salmon, examining each for levels of fat, protein, amino acids, mercury, fatty acids, and cholesterol), not whether the salmon was farmed or wild.

To enhance its public education efforts, the ACFFA developed a 360° virtual reality Atlantic Canadian salmon farming tour. People can don VR goggles and take a virtual tour, starting at a wharf and leading to a salmon farm, hatchery, and fish lab.

In a similar fashion, the ACFFA launched a “Uniquely Atlantic” digital campaign last spring to highlight the merits of Atlantic Canada farmed salmon. As part of the campaign, the Association refreshed its website and created Instagram reels (short videos that are a hugely popular feature on this social media platform).

“This year, we’re going into TikTok,” notes Farquharson, citing another online platform for user-contributed videos that is much used by young people.

Growing the industry
In addition to raising awareness about the salmon farming sector, the ACFFA hopes such efforts encourage more young people to consider taking aquaculture jobs. Like many industries, Atlantic Canadian salmon farming is suffering from a labour crunch. Many older workers have either retired or are reaching retirement age, and not enough young people are stepping in to fill their positions.

To this end, the ACFFA recently hired a community outreach and education coordinator, whose job involves talking to students and developing packages for guidance counsellors about the industry, says Farquharson. Farquharson herself makes presentations in schools, pointing out how the aquaculture sector is rapidly expanding and in need of new workers.

The ACFFA’s messaging seems to be having an effect. Each year, the Association hires a third-party polling firm to determine what Atlantic Canadians think about salmon farming. In the most recent poll, aquaculture garnered an 81 per cent approval rating (up slightly from the usual 80 per cent result).

Asked to provide a five-year industry forecast, Farquharson envisions more post-smolt facilities, larger hatcheries on land, and a growing awareness of the economic, nutritional, and environmental benefits of Atlantic salmon farming.

The post Promoting Aquaculture with Advocacy and Action<p class="company">The Atlantic Canada Fish Farmers Association</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

Indeed, the single biggest change since the previous profile has been “the expansion and development of our CLEAR program… We were originally very focused on water treatment—which is still a tremendous part of our business. However, we expanded into oil treatment, then really focused in on the treatment of gas. We dove a lot deeper into the economics versus the strictly worker safety and emission control aspect of it,” says President Steve Martinson.

CLEAR Technology removes hydrogen sulphide from water, sour crude oil, and condensate, while giving the client the ultimate choice on whether or not chemicals are used in supporting the process. It was originally developed as an eco-friendly, safety-enhancing solution for companies doing well-testing, completions, under-balanced drilling, and similar duties. CLEAR’s purpose has since evolved, and the technology can now be used to help oil and gas companies meet environmental, social, and governance benchmarks while reducing costs.

“If oil has H₂S in it, transport routes can be limited. A producer might be very near to a pipeline entry point but that pipeline can’t take H₂S,” notes Brenden Meston, Vice President of Sales.

The company had a client in North Dakota who could not access local pipelines because his oil contained hydrogen sulphide. The client was forced to drive five and a half hours north to Saskatchewan to tap into a pipeline that could handle it. Using CLEAR Technology, AMGAS removed hydrogen sulphide from the oil at the client’s facility, eliminating the need for costly transport.

A company with hydrogen sulphide in its oil can also expect to receive a lower price for its product. “We take away that deduction, so now they’re getting premium dollar for their oil as well as getting the least costly transport option possible,” states Meston.

In a focused effort to bridge the gap between traditional chemical treatment of fluids and mechanical options the company has developed some hybrid or modified solutions. These include the CLEAR Injection System (CIS) and CLEAR Injection System Plus (CIS Plus) products which incorporate CLEAR Technology elements while providing a specific focus on individual project objectives. “It is imperative that we continuously consider the economic, social, and environmental climate in which we and our clients are operating.” Meston adds, “Expanding our offering within the CLEAR line of solutions allows for a weighted approach guided by a project’s specific needs.”

CIS is a “chemical-reduced injection system,” while CIS Plus features “some mechanical portions, as well as the injection system. [CIS Plus] is going be our flagship system and lead AMGAS’ future growth,” he says.

Among other products are the AMGAS Capture Technology (ACT), T-Series Scrubbers, High Gas Rate (HGR) scrubbers, and Truck Mount Scrubbers. You cannot buy these at a retail store. “We have a business-to-business structure. A lot of the time, we work through third-party engineering services. An oil company will hire people to develop their site layout and do planning, and we get involved with them. But it’s always business-to-business,” he explains.

Services cover everything from H₂S management in well activity to turnarounds and shutdowns, sulphur-related services, terminals and transportation, processing and production, and tank gauging, and most of the company’s tasks are self-performed.

“We’re self-service. [We offer] a lot of turnkey services. Our engineering side has really grown and become a big source of pride. It gives us the ability to be flexible and nimble in our offering,” says Martinson. “Our boots on the ground offering has developed even further. We’ve got substantial staffing in America and in the Middle East. That part of it has grown.”

Besides oil and gas, the company serves the pulp and paper and agriculture sectors. The firm has also been doing a great deal of work with biogas. Biogas consists primarily of methane derived from decomposing organic matter such as manure, wood chips, plants, and solid waste. It represents a green way to produce fuel out of material that might normally go into a landfill. Going forward, biogas “has the potential to represent a big portion” of the company’s business, according to Meston.

Including the Calgary head office, AMGAS maintains five branches in Canada; one in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates; and two in the United States—in Texas and North Dakota. AMGAS acquired two Alberta-based companies—Roundline Transport and Impact Industrial—to expand its footprint and services. Roundline is a transportation and logistics company while Impact Industrial provides a wide array of fabrication and design services.

Total employment across all branches and acquisitions stands at around 120 workers, about the same number as this time last year. Martinson cites “attitude, a safety-first mindset, and a willingness to learn,” as the main prerequisites looked for in new hires.

“We love it when new team members have experience; we love it when they have education, but we’ve always been a bit of a niche business and the amount of in-house training that’s going to happen regardless of someone’s background is pretty substantial,” he points out.

The company rewards loyalty with in-house opportunities for advancement and promotion. “We’ve set this company up so it can be a career for people, as opposed to a job,” he says. “As we grow, we’ve developed different avenues for people in sales, marketing, engineering, and operations.”

Capitalizing on industry-leading in-house engineering expertise, and through acquisition and internal development, AMGAS is proudly adding combustion and incineration services to its solution offering. The company will “target incineration in high H₂S environments,” says Meston, and will provide these incineration / combustion services at customers’ worksites.

“The addition of incineration and combustion solutions really increases our ability to fully service our clients’ needs,” states Martinson. “Incineration and combustion can be a tremendously effective solution when it’s applied in the right situations. It opens the door for a tremendous amount of offshoot opportunities for energy capture and energy re-use.”

During the COVID crisis, AMGAS introduced health protocols and safety measures to keep its staff from getting infected. As “a truly essential service,” the company “had no choice but to keep going” when the lockdowns were most stringent, he recalls.

The pandemic might have peaked but COVID is still wreaking havoc on the company’s supply chain, and inflation has proven to be another hindrance when it comes to buying supplies. Still, with the worst hopefully over, company officials are pleased that trade shows, which briefly became online-only events, are once again allowing people to attend in person.

“I would say we’re back to business as usual, and we do love the ability to be able to see and talk and interact with people,” he affirms.

AMGAS has been going to as many shows as possible and plans to participate in events in Alberta, Texas, Southern Saskatchewan, Southern Ontario, and the Middle East. “We’re doing a broad sweep on the conference tour this year,” notes Meston.

It remains heavily involved in charitable endeavours. The company regularly takes part in the STARS and SPURS Gala Campaign. The latter is an initiative by Enserva (formerly, the Petroleum Services Association of Canada), to raise funds for a medical air rescue organization that serves rural areas. It also helps local charities in the communities in which it works.

He says staffing is one of the company’s biggest non-COVID-related challenges. The firm has not been immune to the labour crunch impacting industries across North America, as the current workforce ages and not enough young people enter skilled trades to take their place. Market uncertainty is another pressing issue. Oil and gas have become controversial energy options in some quarters, subject to public protests and political opposition. Such a reaction can be anathema for capital markets and project investment, says Martinson.

Nonetheless, he offers an optimistic forecast based on the fact that AMGAS solutions are both environmentally responsible and highly economical.

For the future, he anticipates “growth and expansion,” in terms of “our manpower and product offering… Our solution offering will continue to evolve and grow.”

The company’s ownership structure will likely remain the same, however. AMGAS is currently a family-run business celebrating nearly 35 years innovating the H₂S management space. AMGAS sees a traditional “family first” mentality as a foundational core value for the company. This mindset extends beyond the ownership group to the greater “AMGAS family” and is the basis for AMGAS’ HOMESAFE safety program. “Of the many sources of pride that are generated for me from this company, the HOMESAFE program and its commitment to our people and their families has to be number one.”

Meston lists two specific future objectives: “Our goal, over the next few years, is to transition [CLEAR Technology] from what was originally a safety device to more of an integrated solution for our clients, where they benefit and they can get an ROI as well as environmental [benefits],” he says. “In five years, I would love to see us significantly more integrated with initial production companies and be working with the development of oilfields in addition to increasing operations at the plant.”

The post A CLEAR Commitment to H2S Management<p class="company">AMGAS</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

The company’s latest product, the cutting-edge VortexPrime™ system, offers high-powered pumping, a small footprint, low operating costs, reduced emissions, and ease of use. “VortexPrime™ is a technology that we say checks all the boxes,” states Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Seth Moore.

Released earlier this year, VortexPrime™ is the first frac fleet of its kind to use direct-drive turbine technology. The term “frac fleet” is industry lingo for the equipment used in hydraulic fracturing such as trucks, pumps, mixing equipment, manifolds and vehicles.

VortexPrime™ offers power and efficiency in a single package. Moore measures efficiency in terms of fuel consumption and human capital— the number of workers required to transport, install, operate, maintain then dismantle a hydraulic fracturing system.

This revolutionary solution can be directly attributed to Catalyst’s spirit of innovation and open-mindedness. The company was officially founded on April 23, 2018, by Moore, Chief Executive Officer Bobby Chapman and Chief Financial Officer Mike Morgan. From the start, the co-founders aimed to do things differently in a traditionally conservative industry.

“When we came up with the idea for the company, we had a blank canvas. We could kind of do what we wanted to. We searched out a lot of different technologies and possibilities,” he recalls of the company’s early days.

At first, the company used conventional Tier-4 final diesel-powered hydraulic fracturing systems to serve clients. However, the desire to break the mold remained strong. Out of this came an idea: why not couple a military-grade turbine powered by natural gas directly to a pump? Other companies have tried to develop similar systems, but Catalyst was determined to take the lead on this concept.

“We partnered with some great people, sat down with whiteboards and markers and designed the VortexPrime™ from the ground up. It wasn’t something we purchased off the shelf. It wasn’t something that we gave to an equipment design company to go build for us. It was something built by us and the partners we contracted with,” says Moore, with a touch of pride.

Creative as they were, the development team was also cautious. A VortexPrime™ prototype was built and put through extensive field tests to see if it fulfilled expectations. Only after testing was complete did the company create a final version which was released commercially in February of this year.

VortexPrime™ generates plenty of horsepower but is also “very agile. We can move it. This equipment moves every two to five weeks, so you need a fleet that can be set up and taken down in a relatively short time frame,” states Moore.

He stresses again that most of the work on this solution was done in-house. “We manufacture it ourselves. We have a manufacturing center in Odessa, Texas where we build these units.”

The fully-self-contained VortexPrime™ solution is compact, requiring eight frac pumps, versus twenty on conventional frac fleets, and offers up to twenty-percent-reduced systems cost compared with a conventional system. VortexPrime™ requires less maintenance, produces up to forty percent fewer CO₂ greenhouse gas emissions than conventional Tier-4 fracturing fleets and can be set up in hours rather than days, as with a traditional fleet.

There are fewer pieces to haul, and fewer trips back and forth from the worksite are required. The system can reach a maximum treating pressure of 11,900 psi with an average treating pressure of 9,210 psi and a maximum treating rate of 120 barrels per minute, with an average treating rate of 95 barrels per minute. Using VortexPrime™ also results in a “ninety-plus percent reduction in waste stream,” adds Moore.

Other benefits include a kill switch feature that drastically limits idle time—it takes roughly five minutes to get the system back online compared with potentially hours for conventional frac fleets—automated software, and the ability to access small, remote locales.

While it is a revolutionary product, VortexPrime™ is not currently available for sale; instead, the system, along with Catalyst crews, can be rented out on an hourly basis. Using VortexPrime™ or convention diesel equipment, the company performs hydraulic fracturing for clients.

“We’re focused on providing a service. We charge typically by the hour. The customer is not buying the VortexPrime™. They are renting our service, and we use the VortexPrime™ to complete that service,” Moore explains.

The company has kicked around the idea of producing VortexPrime™ frac fleets that customers could purchase for themselves but has not pursued the notion yet. Among other things, COVID-related supply chain woes have made Catalyst a bit wary about moving into large-scale manufacturing for the hydraulic fracturing marketplace.

“The global pandemic really upset the supply chain… We had a case a while back, where we needed a water pump for a diesel engine. That water pump took us almost 120 days to get. We had this very expensive unit waiting on a very inexpensive water pump… That’s been a challenge, being able to keep things running at a time when the supply chain has been so stressed,” Moore says.

Content to remain a technology company and service provider, for the time being, Catalyst is also firmly focused on the Permian Basin. Located in Southeast New Mexico and West Texas, the Permian Basin contains vast oil and gas deposits. Catalyst has worked on projects in other places but finds there is “so much growth potential for us here, we’re not actively marketing outside the Permian Basin. We see a lot of opportunity within our backyard,” he states.

Indeed, there is so much opportunity that Catalyst has been growing at an explosive clip. From roughly 110 employees this time last year, it now employs between 175 and 180 people. Employee benefits include dental, vision, and major medical insurance, 401(k) savings plans, paid holidays and vacations, competitive salaries, an Employment Assistance Program, and more.

“I think the VortexPrime™ has driven our growth. I think the market has driven it too. There’s an old saying that a rising tide lifts all boats,” notes Moore.

Anyone interested in joining needs to meet some high standards. The firm wants new hires who demonstrate “a desire for excellence. We also like people who are competitive, who hate to lose. These are intangibles. People can have experience, and we value experience, but it goes much beyond that. You want people to share in a vision of greatness, a vision of innovation,” he says.

It also values hardworking people who can focus on routine tasks. Transporting, installing, operating, then dismantling hydraulic fracturing fleets requires close attention to detail and consistent results. Catalyst aims to always provide top-notch service, including maintenance and troubleshooting.

Employees undergo rigorous safety training and receive regular safety updates. This makes sense, given that the firm specializes in equipment that extracts oil and natural gas. Having said that, “the most dangerous thing we do is drive. We move a lot of equipment,” notes Moore.

VortexPrime™ is not the only alternative fracking solution on the market. Electric-powered fleets or e-frac, are another contender. These use electric-powered pumps rather than diesel-powered ones. Not hugely common at present, e-frac systems do offer certain benefits; according to Drilling Contractor magazine, e-fracking drastically reduces greenhouse gas emissions and fuel consumption.

Environmental benefits aside, e-fracturing has its disadvantages, says Moore. Simply plugging an e-frac system into an electrical grid is not a practical option for large-scale hydraulic fracturing, he says. The resulting power draw would cause strain on any grid and would pose a particular challenge in Texas, which has an independent electrical grid that is not connected to grids in other states. Onsite generators can produce electricity for e-frac systems, but they are expensive and such equipment adds more steps to the hydraulic fracturing process.

Given Catalyst’s rapid growth and the launch of the VortexPrime™ frac fleet, it is not a surprise that Moore is bullish about the future. “We’re excited about the industry. We’re excited about the direction we’re headed, and we’re excited about the role we play. We are a small player and have to try hard. We look forward to continuing to grow,” he states.

He makes it clear, however, that Catalyst has no intention of resting on its laurels and relying solely on VortexPrime™ to build revenue. “We’re going to continue to innovate. This isn’t the last cool technology that Catalyst is going to release. We’re going to do other things.”

The post This Visionary Company Offers Cutting-Edge Hydraulic Fracturing Technology<p class="company">Catalyst Energy Services</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.