Or, if you’re choosing to purchase high quality tissue products, manufactured in the U.S., you may be equally surprised to learn they too began life in a forest, not in New Brunswick, but in northern Ontario, and processed at an AV Group-owned mill in Terrace Bay on Lake Superior.

Integrated supply chain management, superior quality products, sustainability – AV Group Canada, Inc., with a corporate office in Fredericton, NB, and pulp mill operations in Atholville and Nackawic, NB and Terrace Bay, Ontario, is ticking all the right boxes.

Mike Legere, the company’s Director of Government Relations and Communications, describes the path to success of the ubiquitous AV Group, which is the Canadian presence of the Aditya Birla Group of Mumbai, India.

Iconic history
The lineage of the AV Group can be traced back to no less a luminary than Mahatma Gandhi. This deeply revered visionary was well connected with India’s business community and felt strongly that it was essential for a nation to be economically self-sufficient – to be able to feed and clothe all its citizens.

Gandhi was a close confidante of G. D. Birla, the foremost industrialist of pre-independence India. Gandhi’s ideas about the economy may well have influenced Birla to research and develop methods of producing cellulosic fibre from plants other than cotton. This was when the formation of the new state of Pakistan was threatening the supply of raw cotton that fed India’s mills.

And so it was that 75 years ago the Aditya Birla company formed a subsidiary, Grasim Industries Limited, just as India gained independence from Great Britain in August 1947 and underwent the traumatic process of partitioning.

In the beginning Grasim used bamboo as its main resource for the production of cellulosic fibre (MMCF), but later began using hardwood to produce viscose staple fibre (VSF).

Today, Grasim Industries Limited is the parent company of AV Group and the flagship company of the Aditya Birla Group. Legere describes Aditya Birla, led by K. M. Birla, great-grandson of G. D. Birla, as a global conglomerate with annual revenues of over $48 billion. More than half of this revenue comes from 50 overseas companies established in 36 countries in five continents. The group has over 140,000 employees representing 42 nationalities.

What’s remarkable about the company, Legere shares, is that it “strives to be in the top three of any industry it has invested in, including agri-business, cement, telecommunications, carbon black, aluminum rolling, textiles, and the pulp and fibre business, in which it is first in the world, and of which the AV Group is an integral part.”

From deep in a forest
As Grasim Industries grew, it needed to solidify its supply chain. It turned its attention to the six million hectares of forestland in New Brunswick, comprising coniferous (softwood), mixed, and deciduous (hardwood) forests, with the latter containing a plentiful supply of the preferred grey bark species, including aspen, maple and birch.

Thus, AV Group was formed as one of four companies in the province licensed to manage forests, on crown lands as well as on industrial free-hold land, and harvest wood from them.

“When we speak about an integrated supply chain, it starts with us,” Legere explains. “We have control over the actual trees, how they grow, and what supply there will be for the future. Our professional foresters look 80 years ahead, to make sure we are managing our supply to have a sustainable input for our mills.”

But that’s only half the New Brunswick story as the harvested wood has to be processed into dissolving-grade pulp. This was achieved by the company’s acquisition of a pulp mill in Atholville on the Quebec border in 1998.

Then, in 2006, the company acquired a second kraft pulp mill in Nackawic on the Saint John River, 60 km northwest of Fredericton, site of the corporate office.

Both mills were facing serious market issues when Birla bought them up, with the Nackawic mill in receivership. Grasim invested heavily to convert them to dissolving-grade pulp mills to supply the required product for viscose staple fibre production which is one of several steps in fabric production.

“For dissolving pulp the cooking process differs from regular pulp,” Legere tells us. “It’s a chemical process where we cook a mixture of hardwood pulp species in the digester at the Nackawic mill, while the Atholville mill (AV Cell) processes about a 50/50 mix of softwood and hardwood.” The precise cooking process is what differentiates products such as viscose, lyocell, and modal.

The two New Brunswick mills combined produce about 300,000 tons of dissolving-grade pulp annually, which exits the mills in the form of two-foot square sheets resembling thick, coarse blotter paper, baled and unitized for container transport.

From there, it’s transported to the ports of Saint John and Halifax, and shipped in containers to Grasim-owned facilities in India, China, Thailand, and Indonesia. There the bales of cellulose are dissolved, reconstituted into VSF and sent down the supply chain to be spun into thread, and woven into cloth, before going to apparel and home-textile manufacturers, and finally, to retail outlets.

Since its establishment in New Brunswick, the Birla Group has added a dissolving-grade pulp mill in Domjo, Sweden (2011) and the kraft mill in Terrace Bay, Ontario in 2012.

This latter has remained as a traditional kraft pulp mill producing over 350,000 tons of northern bleached softwood kraft (NBSK).

The company ships this primarily by rail to customers throughout the U.S. midwest and as far south as Georgia and Florida, where it is converted into a variety of personal hygiene and domestic tissue products and graphic paper.

Superior products
Legere says that what makes clothing and domestic textiles produced from New Brunswick forests and mills superior is the abundance of maple wood and the cellulose extraction abilities of the mills, which is important because the quality of the product depends on the purity of the alpha cellulose.

Extremely high-grade alpha cellulose goes into Birla Modal, which is more expensive than other forms of the fabric and highly sought after by fashion designers for its natural fluidity. “Birla Modal is particularly good,” he says, “because it holds colour fast, it drapes the nicest of any material, and with its high lustre it’s the closest to actual silk but performs better.”

Other products include Birla Excel and Birla Viscose made from cellulosic fibre provided by AV Group and which go into both woven and non-woven products. Manufacturers use these in a wide variety of apparel items – pants, shirts, denims, knitwear, and more utilitarian items such as uniforms. The woven fabric is also used in home textiles, including bed and bath linens, furnishings and floor covers.

“Eventually,” he says, “some will return to North America in the form of a recognizable fashion house or brand, such as Target, Marks & Spencers, Bed, Bath & Beyond, Victoria’s Secret, Gap, Tommy Hilfiger, or J. C. Penney. All those are key brands that use Birla Cellulose products.”

Meanwhile, non-woven VSFs, branded under the Birla ‘Purocel’ line, are used in medical textiles, such as surgical gowns and masks, linens to cover patients, disposable diapers, and various types of wipes. “In fact, they’re used in a whole myriad of industrial products, including filter material,” he says.

Changing the focus to tissue and the superiority of the product that the Terrace Bay kraft mill supplies to U.S. manufacturers, Legere indicates that tissue quality depends on the quality of the pulp that goes into it and the mix of hardwood for smoothness and softwood for strength.

“Our native black spruce in Ontario’s boreal forest is well-suited in terms of the strength of the fibre extracted from it. And most of the wood chips used are residual by-products of sawmills producing lumber, so we contribute to full utilization of the forest resource – no waste.” Legere adds that, “Recycled content in tissue is a consumer option but there is a quality impact on the end product as fibre quality degrades the number of times it is repulped.”

Sustainable outcomes
Legere explains that, “Sustainability is key to every aspect of the supply chain, starting with the woodlands.”

In New Brunswick the forests which supply wood to the mills in Atholville and Nackawic are sustainably managed by AV Group, which employs professional foresters and manages forests to supply wood to dozens of other mills as well across the province.

In Ontario, AV Group contributes to the management of many of the forests which supply the Terrace Bay mill through a unique First Nation-industry partnership, Ogwiidachiwaning Sustainable Forest Management (OSFMI). It is a corporate body composed of First Nations and forest sector companies that manages nearly two million hectares of the Kenogami Forest, under FSC certification, on the shores of Lake Superior.

Legere describes this as an important business relationship that was years in the making and demonstrates meaningful economic reconciliation with First Nations. “The inclusion of indigenous knowledge and perspective into our forest management strengthens sustainable outcomes.”

AV Group has received third party certification from the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and Sustainable Forest Initiative (SFI). It holds both forest management and chain of custody certification from those international organizations, and has particularly focused on increasing its number of FSC chain-of-custody certifications.

“The latter, chain of custody, is important because we purchase wood from outside companies, and we need to ensure sustainability of the source of our supply externally as well as internally,” he says. Taking this further upstream, the Birla ‘Livaeco’ brand of fabric uses a molecular tracer and block chain technology to trace the origins of a garment all the way back to the forest and how it was managed.

“Sustainability starts in the woodlands, but it moves up through the pulping process, where we are regulated in terms of emissions and reduction of our carbon footprint. We derive, on average, for all sites, about 90 percent of heat and power from renewable energy sources,” says Legere.

Taking responsibility to the next level
“We also recover most of our pulping chemicals through a closed loop recovery boiler system and reuse non-contact water [water that has not been mixed with any chemicals but rather used for process cooling] which is standard procedure today in the industry.”

These careful procedures and emphasis on responsible use are a source of pride, not only for the woodlands team, but also for the AV Group and parent company Grasim, allowing them to brand end products as sustainably sourced.

“We want to give people confidence that the shirt or blouse they’re wearing, or the towel in their bathroom, was produced sustainably from both an environmental and a governance standpoint,” he says.

Moreover, not only are the apparel and home textile products sustainably sourced, unlike synthetics manufactured from fossil fuels, but they are biodegradable and so will not create long-lasting environmental problems.

The Birla Group has received a number of accolades and recognitions for sustainability; has been recognized by the UN for its VSF operations in India; and in 2021, was again recognized as Number 1 in the Hot Button Report from Canopy, an environmental, non-profit organization that rates companies that produce MMCF. Meanwhile, AV Group has been rated one of the top employers in Atlantic Canada (2017) and included in the Career Directory’s list of Canada’s Best Employers for Recent Graduates (2020).

This must surely be a direct result of the company’s mission to pursue excellence in people, process, and product by providing training and education opportunities, technological advances, and community partnerships.

The post From Forest to Fashion<p class="company">AV Group Canada</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

After establishing the business in its new location, Miguel still did not feel satisfied with what he was doing and, after leaving and ultimately selling the shop to his brother, took a position at Wayside Radiator, working there for years before buying the business outright from the retiring owner in the late 1980s. Miguel ran Wayside until 2004 when he turned the business over to his sons Mark and Mike.

Mark reminisces on how far the company has come from the early days in a “freezing cold” 2000-square-foot brick building to now a 10,000-square-foot building and accompanying acreage. He says that a boom in radiator sales led to a considerable surge in the oil field and fracking industries during the mid-2000s, leading to the success of both Wayside and the radiator industry at large. This boom was only briefly interrupted by the 2008 recession before coming back even stronger in 2009 and staying more-or-less steady since.

Wayside concerns itself mainly with radiator repairs and sales. “Anything with an engine has a radiator so it needs to be serviced and repaired,” Mark says. Many jobs require services like aluminum welding manufacturing, diesel particulate filter cleaning and sales, dry ice blasting, fan assemblies and parts, and even mobile radiator repairs on sites like drill rigs. The company has also added a windshield aspect to the business about three years ago, with rock chip repair and window tinting for industrial vehicles.

Mark believes that the years of experience and family history of the business are what separates Wayside from others in its market sector. Great pride is taken in the quality of its work, the turnaround time for customers, and its general understanding of the oil industry. Everyone involved with the business is determined to make Wayside the best in the industry with a focus on how to add more services and find new solutions.

For example, upon realizing that cube radiators had inherent issues in need of improvement, Wayside teamed up with temperature control product provider Thermal Solutions Manufacturing to create the PRISM cooling package. Mark explains that a typical cube radiator has two coolers, while PRISM splits those two in half to create more cooling, allowing for repairs to be done on a piecemeal basis instead of all at once. This gives easier access to technicians to make these repairs and saves customers money.

Despite its continued success, Wayside has maintained a small family firm feel. Mark stresses that this is due to respect and teamwork, an attitude that comes from the top. He credits his administrative staff and the factory line workers, all of whom enjoy taking good care of customers in whatever way possible. Attention is paid to customer service, as many clients appreciate the atmosphere created by the company.

The COVID-19 pandemic saw a tremendous slowdown in operations, but many technicians simply did not want to leave, some even offered to cut hours or even pay to stay on and keep working. Mark proudly says that the company kept all its employees successfully but that the level of commitment and selflessness shown by them is indicative of its larger culture.

The heating and cooling industry is changing a lot, as Mark sees it, but it is also continuing to grow significantly. The global heat exchange industry today is worth around $23 billion (up from $17.6 billion in 2020) and the industry has various new electrical appliances and solutions on the horizon that could boost that figure considerably. He observes that radiator shops like Wayside will need to prepare for a shift toward electrical solutions but there are still many products in need of a generator to back up an engine, so oil coolers are certainly not on the way out.

Like a great many companies in today’s market, Wayside is always seeking new employees. Although the team at Wayside is cohesive and hard-working, it can be hard to replace workers when they decide to leave. Mark feels that radiators are “a bit of a dying trade,” and it can be hard to find a good radiator technician who knows the ins and outs of the profession.

On the other hand, it is also becoming increasingly challenging to accommodate Wayside customers and their projects because workshop space is currently at full capacity. The company needs a bigger facility and more equipment, challenges it is currently working to solve, but it must keep up with the oil industry and monitor growth so that this does not happen too fast. As Mark has seen, a company can find itself in a pinch if growth happens too fast, and sometimes, “It is better to stay a small powerhouse.”

In the new year, Wayside will be looking to work on diversifying its offerings. Although it is primarily a radiator repair shop and a heating and cooling transfer business, it wants to be able to add more services and develop the business into a one-stop shop for oil companies. Newer services like the PRISM cooling system are what the company wants to continue expanding, with the idea to get the system on more frack pumps in the oil industry.

The new company building will coincide with launching a new division with three new services and necessitate acquiring both equipment and employees to effectively enact.

Mark identifies Wayside as a faith-based company in all that it does: “We are thankful and blessed [for] how we have been provided for and allowed to grow,” he says. “We have overcome a lot.” He, his family, and his employees continue to remember the sacrifices made by Miguel Loe, Sr. in the early years of the company to set it up for the success it enjoys today.

In all, it could not have happened without loyal clients. Mark recalls how, during his father’s time, a fire destroyed $100,000 worth of inventory, putting the (then-uninsured) business in dire straits. However, thanks to the help of customers and partners coming to the aid of a loyal and trusted supplier, the damages were paid off. This level of loyalty and respect within the radiator industry is one that Wayside continues to cultivate to this day with its track record of effective service and maximizing the customer-first mentality.

The post The Family History and Bright Future of Wayside Radiator<p class="company">Wayside Radiator</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

In the heart of Canada’s Energy Province, one company has emerged as the natural leader in this necessary field. With nine years in business so far, Prolium Industries offers bold new technology to make oil and gas tank cleaning and storage easier, safer and more convenient than ever before.

Company founder and President Brad Cruikshank joined several other engineers to start his company back in 2012. “We were fortunate that we had a large market in Canada’s oil and gas sector, and we just saw a niche in the industry,” he remarked when we first interviewed him two years ago.

Now, and in a very different world, Prolium has expanded beyond its headquarters outside Calgary to field offices in Newfoundland and just outside Edmonton. With this national reach, Prolium can coordinate tank cleaning and servicing efforts anytime, anywhere.

With its highly specialized staff, Prolium’s team can work with clients and inspectors to ensure all tank operations meet API653-code standards. Additionally, the company’s engineers work equally closely with all clients over design specifications. Ensuring all potential discrepancies or design conflicts are identified, Prolium can then advise the best project route in terms of safety and efficiency.

Indeed, Prolium can handle all aspects of tank servicing and cleaning in-house, thanks to its versatile staff. General contracting and construction management services ensure proper procurement, scheduling and budget tracking, as well as key performance indicators and quality control.

Qualified technicians and labourers provide both CWB and B-Pressure welding and pipefitting. Finally, Prolium’s fabrication facility ensures any needed components, such as pipes or other structures, can be fashioned to spec.

With all the services for tank cleaning and servicing available in-house, Prolium is also able to manage every aspect of projects through its industry-leading cost-control system.

Cruikshank notes how the company has earned a reputation of dependability with predictable results. “Prolium has a reputation for doing repeat business with major oil and gas producers, transporters and refiners,” he says, adding that Prolium’s ability to develop accurate estimates and consistently meet targets sets it well above industry averages. “Our cost controls system is as industry-leading as our safety program.”

Prolium’s cost control system maximises efficiency, arguably the most important project success factor in a service-based industry. “Our control system allows us to reduce the overall schedule for any given project to take place, ultimately reducing costs to our clients regardless of market conditions,” Cruikshank says. An experienced team of project managers also helps deliver consistent results on or under budget.

This experienced team is an extension of Prolium’s own business model. On each project, Prolium’s assigned team works so closely with clients that they are almost regarded as employees by completion of the task.

While these clients learn to share Prolium’s philosophy of safety, quality, and efficiency, and tend to offer repeat business, Prolium’s teams increase their reliability and efficiency with experience gained on specific projects. Over time, designated and highly specialized teams will be available for equally specialized tasks.

“This business model has been incredibly successful with many of our largest clients across Canada,” Cruikshank says.

All these in-house services occur under Prolium’s safety umbrella. Prolium’s commitment to safety remains the company’s primary motivator, and its enduring success. Over the past three years, the company’s technicians have logged over 500,000 exposure hours without a single recordable injury, lost workday, or recordable incident report.

These numbers are simply the best vindication of Prolium’s commitment to safety standards, and the workplace culture it has built to support this.

In its most recent developments, Prolium and its subsidiary Proterra Energy have expanded their service portfolio to include oil-carrying railcars. “Over the past year, the Prolium Group has increased its focus on innovative solutions for entry-less tank cleaning, which adds a huge factor of safety by eliminating or reducing risks associated with these types of work activities,” Cruikshank reports.

While there is less demand on oil pipelines, Cruikshank remarks how demand for oil tank railcars has increased to fill the gap. Without giving away insider info, he explains how Prolium can now clean rail cars containing crude oil, heavy fuel oil, asphalt and other heavy, fume-rich products mostly without the need for any human entry.

“This can be done right at a client’s job site, saving them time and money by not having to mobilize their rail cars to a fixed cleaning/repair facility.”

With Prolium’s experience in both confined-space and entry-less cleaning solutions, this was a natural evolution and extension of the company’s skill. Thanks to Prolium’s previous experience in remote cleaning, Cruikshank remarks how this niche skill sets it above its competitors.

“From what we can tell, our competition simply can’t compete with us from a safety or technology standpoint, which ultimately reduces the overall cost to our customers,” he says. The new technology not only reduces exposure man-hours, thereby reducing safety risks, but is also faster than other leading cleaning methods.

Prolium has even further intensified its commitment to worksite safety over the course of the pandemic. “We encourage a high volume of reporting of hazard IDs and ‘near misses’,” Cruikshank reports.

An internal company committee comprising representatives from the company’s offices across Canada makes constant reports and revisions “almost in real time,” as Cruikshank describes it. “With this approach, we can react proactively instead of reactively when it comes to safety, keep our employees vigilant and safe, and projects running smoothly.”

As a result, the company’s operations have been left largely untouched by COVID-19. “We were able to understand the risk; develop and implement safe working procedures almost immediately,” Cruikshank says, “and as a result, COVID has had little direct impact on our ability to keep people working.”

As experts in worksite safety, Prolium’s staff views COVID as simply another risk to its workforce, albeit a more serious one. But thanks to its track record, the company is again proving itself a beacon for others to follow.

“In many cases, our clients have looked to us as the example of how to safely perform work through the pandemic,” Cruikshank says.

In a rapidly changing labour and energy market, Cruikshank credits his team and Prolium’s business model for the company’s ongoing success. Through years of economic upheavals, pandemics and climate change, Prolium and its staff have continued to adapt.

“Since inception, we have maintained key individuals and crews who enjoy working for Prolium because of the culture and pride in workmanship,” he says. “I believe that nine years of being in business is a testament to our employees’ commitment to our values, level of safety and our approach to long-term client relationships.”

As our world enters a post-COVID era, Prolium is ready to help the energy sector regain its strength. Canada’s oil and gas industry has some of the most stringent safety and production standards in the world, and Prolium is well-positioned to help players operate in this challenging industry in an acceptably safe and efficient way.

New technologies in carbon emissions reduction, plus new energy sources such as Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) and hydrogen will provide access for new players. “We are proud to be a part of the Canadian energy industry and look forward to being involved in the energy transition,” Cruikshank says.

Canada will still need intelligent and talented individuals who will lead the nation through its energy transition, he says, and adds, “As Canadians, we simply need to continue to support Canadian oil and gas.”

The post Your Tank Experts<p class="company">Prolium Industries</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

“We’re a bit of a three-headed monster because we build a lot of our own equipment, we manufacture our own chemistries, and then we perform our own services. We also do a tremendous amount of our engineering and R&D (research and development),” says Vice President Steve Martinson.

AMGAS offers services in the areas of well activity, shutdowns and turnarounds, sulphur services, transportation and terminals, production and processing, and tank gauging. Well activity includes testing, fluid treatment, completions, and underbalanced drilling while shutdowns and turnarounds cover vacuum truck venting, nitrogen purge scrubbing, and fan assisted tank venting. Production and production cover tank venting and fluid treatment while sulphur services entail re-melt and molten sulphur operations. Transportation and terminals cover truck loading, tank venting and pipeline services while tank gauging incorporates sweet pulley and sour service pulley operations.

While the company sometimes works with contractors, the team self-performs most services, and prides itself on its ability to offer proprietary solutions. “We’ve strategically looked at partnerships, but the vast majority [of the time] we sell, brand, and use our own technologies,” Martinson explains.

Sectors served by the company include oil and gas, pulp and paper, and agriculture. Oil and gas industries generate the lion’s share of assignments.

AMGAS has branches across Western Canada, as well as Midland, Texas; Williston, North Dakota, and Sarnia, Ontario. The firm also boasts an increasing presence in Abu Dhabi the capital of the oil-rich United Arab Emirates (UAE). “We carry out a lot of operations there and throughout Europe as well,” he states.

Ammonia was the main fluid used to treat hydrogen sulfide in the company’s early days. “We put the first patent on an H₂S scrubber in 1989,” reports Martinson, adding that it does a “fantastic job protecting workers.” The process was how the firm acquired the name AMGAS. It decided to retain the original company name although it has not used ammonia in any of its processes for over a decade.

Other things have changed too, such as the scope of the firm’s operations. While the company is still proud of early products such as the H₂S scrubber, it has broadened its horizons over the years.

“For the first twenty-five years of the company, we were very focused on the safety aspect of H₂S, but as we expanded, especially into different markets in the Middle East and West Texas, [we looked more closely at] the economics of removing H₂S, doing it more efficiently. When I talk about ‘efficiency,’ I mean minimizing chemical use. Minimizing the impact on the environment really has become our focus and that’s where we’re guiding our R&D and our development efforts,” states Martinson.

This ‘green’ focus led to the introduction of the company’s cutting-edge CLEAR technology. This proprietary solution offers a chemical-free way of removing toxic hydrogen sulfide from sour crude oil, water, and condensate. This process is also called gas sweetening. “To sweeten gas is to take the H₂S out of it,” he explains.

Martinson says CLEAR technology is “very exciting because it works on both crude oil and water. The basis of CLEAR tech is that we are eliminating the requirement for chemical injection into fluids. We are mechanically separating H₂S from fluids, treating it externally. It really shrinks the chemical footprint for the client… and eliminates a lot of headaches further down the line for our producer partners.”

CLEAR technology enhances worker safety while minimizing costs and environmental harms for companies doing completions, well testing, and underbalanced drilling, among other duties. Martinson does not think it is at all unusual for a company that works in the oil patch to have such an environmental consciousness.

AMGAS wants to protect the environment because “a), we believe it’s the right thing to do, and b), I believe the oil and gas and energy industry wants to keep improving,” he says. The fossil fuel “energy industry will never be looked at as the greenest option but we’re showing people we are working toward efficiency and environmental awareness.”

Other company products and solutions include truck mount scrubbers, AMGAS capture technology, T-Series scrubbers and high gas rate scrubbers.

With a leadership team has been in place for nearly two decades now, the company’s culture reflects a strong sense of family. “We try to look at ourselves as a family company beyond the family. In the ownership group, one of my greatest sources of pride is that we have several longstanding team members who have been with us and grown with the company for years. I feel we’ve done a tremendous job of keeping good people engaged and on the team,” says Martinson.

“We’re a mid-sized company. I wouldn’t say we’re small—we’re definitely not a mom and pop operation. However, we don’t have thousands of people. We have around one hundred at our peaks,” he adds. “It’s exciting for people because we’re always pushing to bring on new technology, new ideas. I believe that keeps a lot of people excited. We continue to push. In the last two years, we’ve seen huge developments throughout the southern United States and Middle East.”

The company has worked on a slew of projects. “We have a substantial project in the oil sands, involving the removal of large amounts of H₂S to keep them within their safety and venting requirements.”

In south-eastern New Mexico, AMGAS “has a large operation treating substantial amounts of sour gas,” while in Abu Dhabi, “We have been an instrumental [partner] as they transition to unconventional oil and gas production. We’ve been a large part of controlling emissions and treating sour fluids there,” Martinson continues.

He mentions one final project, in Sarnia, Ontario. Work there does not centre on hydrogen sulfide but on “benzenes and hydrocarbons… We’ve been focusing on large-scale emission control of noxious emissions.”

The advent of COVID last year had a mixed impact on AMGAS. The firm already operated in somewhat of a decentralized manner, with teams of field staff trained to work independently and utilize technology to communicate and follow procedures. Technology-based health and safety protocols were already in place when COVID hit.

The virus also served as something of a spur, forcing the company to refocus its promotional efforts. Given that in-person trade shows and industry events were closed for the most part, AMGAS decided to enhance its online presence and create more content that engaged followers.

One thing that COVID did not affect was its commitment to charity. “We’re huge supporters of the PSAC (Petroleum Services Association of Canada) STARS & SPURS Gala Campaign. That is something we hold near and dear,” says Martinson.

PSAC describes itself as the “national trade association representing the service, supply and manufacturing sectors within the upstream petroleum industry.” The STARS & SPURS Gala Campaign is an annual event to raise money for the Shock Trauma Air Rescue Society (STARS), which trains medical staff in rural locales and transports patients to hospitals. Due to COVID, the June 2021 Gala featured an online fundraising auction.

In addition to its own rapidly expanding network, AMGAS owns a pair of Alberta-based firms: Impact Industrial, a manufacturing business in Sherwood Park, and Roundline Transport of Red Deer. Both companies primarily serve the oil sands and were acquired roughly six years ago.

“Impact Industrial gives us the opportunity to fabricate large process equipment. They also provide auxiliary fabrication services to their own clients and shared clients [with us]. Roundline Transport allows us to be larger in transport. They service both their own clients and shared clients,” Martinson explains.

AMGAS has broad ambitions that it aims to achieve within five years. “We will have a very large presence in the Permian and the Delaware Basins in West Texas and Southeast New Mexico. We will expand further offerings throughout the U.S. We will continue to innovate in Canada and expand our processing elements, and we will be known as one of the leaders on the [environmental, social, and governance] side of the industry,” he states.

The post Proprietary Solutions for Oil Patch Workers, Companies, and the Environment<p class="company">AMGAS Services Inc.</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

Since the first well was drilled a century ago, the Permian Basin, sprawling across western Texas and southeastern New Mexico, has earned its reputation as a rich source of petroleum deposits. But no matter how rich the deposits, every second is critical, machinery needs to work, and downtime is not an option, even here in the most rugged of oil-rich terrain.

Hailing from Goldsmith just outside of Odessa, Texas, Jesse Waters has been around the oil patch nearly his entire life. After attending high school and going on to renowned West Point Military Academy in 2001, he served as a commissioned officer in the Army before coming back home in 2006. Working for the family business Waters & Waters Services as a truck driver, Jesse took over operations from his dad.

Growing the business over the years, the company merged with Shores Lift Solutions, going from a staff of about 20 to 120 employees, and expanding from Goldsmith to operations in Midland, south Texas, east Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, North Dakota, Utah and other locations.

Selling the combined business to oilfield services company Schlumberger, Waters spent two years with the multinational before leaving to take over Patriot Downhole Tools. While running Patriot, he began doing work with Firethorne and met Craig Monk.

A native of Odessa, Monk is a veteran of the oilfield industry. Starting his career with Weatherford and Triumph Drilling Tools, he left to left to start his own business, Craig-O Services in 2008. Expanding the business before it was sold to HPC Energy in 2014, Monk subsequently created Firethorne Downhole Tools.

The coming together of Jesse Walters and Craig Monk was indeed fortunate, for the two men discovered that their growing companies were remarkably complementary in structure, and they took the first steps towards a merger that would take advantage of the synergies.

Proven partnership
For Waters and Monk, the business relationship proved to be ideal. “We [Firethorne] had motors, they didn’t have drilling motors,” says Waters, president of Firethorne. “We were a true motor business, and Patriot was more of a rental and directional-drilling service company.” The two companies performed their first documented partnership in 2019 before formalizing and operating under the Firethorne name in 2020, with Monk serving as Vice President.

For Firethorne, the biggest story by far is the development of its unique motors. Created with the rugged and challenging Permian Basin oil field in mind, the company spent years performing modification and upgrades before unveiling its flagship product, the Permian Tough “PTGen2” Drilling Motor, now in its second generation.

PTGen2 drilling motor
“The motor we have now is a completely new product,” says Waters of the PTGen2. Designed to be still more robust than its predecessor and with upgraded technology, development of the threads took two years. “It was built to be tough, and drill in the Permian.”

With PT representing “Permian Tough” and “Patriot,” the PTGen2 is a beefed-up version of the previous model boasting many innovative features, making it the envy of the industry. Through its oil-sealed bearing pack – a “redundant” sealing system – mud is kept out, while oil stays where it belongs.

To sustain drilling as efficiently as possible, the company maintains “a high-quality fleet of power sections.” Along with quality servicing, the PTGen2 drilling motor boasts proprietary motor threads, created primarily through Firethorne’s partnership with Odessa, TX-based machine shop Mesa Machine. Founded by Waters’ father in 1989, the diversified company started with four employees and has grown to 35. Jesse Waters is now company President.

“You’ve got to have that manufacturing/procurement piece in place,” says Waters, “and we have that primarily through our partnership machine shop, Mesa Machine. They’ve been a key part of developing the thread design and manufacturing the components.”

According to Firethorne, the PTGen2’s motor is held together with the company’s own double shoulder, high torque, proprietary thread. “To test and prove our new thread design, we deployed the motor to drill big, deep, disposal wells in the hardest rock of the Delaware Basin,” the company says on its website.

“After two years of testing, we are confident it is the toughest motor body and driveline thread in the industry.” (You can find the video the company created about the product at https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6798310260374425600/.)

While design and functionality are critical, so is quality servicing, and having the right, trained people, proper procedures, equipment, and tools – even the finest equipment needs solid maintenance.

Providing customers with the best possible service, Firethorne has its own in-house software, to track all components from cradle to grave. Following rigorous third-party auditing and best practices, all procedures are documented according to American Petroleum Institute (API) procedures.

“All those things come together to make a product and a service the best it can be,” comments Waters. “It doesn’t matter if you’re good at one or two of those things – you’ve got to be good at all of them to have that best-in-class product.”

To ensure product quality, some manufacturing is performed in Canada, while the rest of the motor is made and assembled in the United States.

Unique products
Along with the Permian Tough “PTGen2” drilling motor, Firethorne Downhole Tools is known for other innovative products and services, including its Surface to Intermediate and Vertical Hole Tool Packages.

Starting with the innovative Firethorne PTGen2 drilling motor in sizes including 9.625 inches, 8.25 inches and 7.25 inches, these packages can be built-out with a combination of Firethorne’s Integral Blade Stabilizers, Drill Collars, Monel Collars, Reamers and other products.

The company’s RSS and Curve Tool Package includes PTGen2 Motor options in 7.25 inch, 6.60 inch, 5.25 and 4.75 inch, while the BHA Iron can include integral blade stabilizers, bit subs, crossover subs, reamers and other equipment, all inspected and well-maintained for maximum efficiency.

Coming a very long way in just a few years, Firethorne has acquired an enviable client list, working directly on U.S.-based projects for large international oil companies like Exxon and Halliburton, along with local Permian Basin businesses ranging from oilfield service providers to drilling contractors and directional contractors. “Anybody who’s responsible for getting a motor in the ground, and responsible for good products, we’re going to work for,” says Waters.

As part of the prosperous future shaping up ahead, Firethorne will continue focusing on segments of the drilling-motor business where the market needs better solutions.

The start of the company, Waters notes, came with larger, extra-reliable motors able to run longer with larger bits. Now, Waters says, “The next piece we’re looking at is having a specialty motor for rotary steerable. We see there’s nobody out there meeting that need right now.”

This development will include a 5.25 inch, sealed, zero-bypass motor with a sealed bearing pack, specifically designed to run with rotary steerable technology.

Every day, President Waters tells us, he asks himself how Firethorne Downhole Tools can perform better than the competition, and how to make the best possible products for its clients. This requires outstanding design, top-of-the-line engineering that keeps pushing boundaries – like Firethorne’s patented drive line and proprietary thread connections – and a solid supply chain.

“We let the product and who we are be the main focus of sales,” he says of the vibrant business, which runs mainly on word of mouth from satisfied customers. And Waters notes that while there is competition out there, others are essentially putting out the same unimaginative equipment.

“Our product is truly our own, it’s not from anybody else. It’s not just bought from someone else selling people a bunch of different motors. We control the engineering, procurement, and the servicing – the whole thing. That is our story, and it resonates with our customers.”

The post Built Texas Tough<p class="company">Firethorne Downhole Tools</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

Two major mining companies, Inco Limited (now Vale) and Xstrata (now Glencore Sudbury Integrated Nickel Operations), founded the centre, together with Laurentian University and the Government of Ontario.

The goal of CEMI is to help the entire mining industry advance into a secure and nation-enhancing future through commercial development of great innovations. President and CEO, Douglas Morrison, recalls that the industry recognized over a decade ago that funding research projects without a path to commercialization resulted in many innovative ideas not translating into commercial solutions.

As a bridge across this innovation-to-commercialization gap CEMI has seen remarkable success, advancing new mining endeavours that address industry challenges by finding groundbreaking solutions.

CEMI pays close attention to the criteria that each solution must meet: Namely, it must be a solution which accelerates time-to-revenue, reduces capital and operating costs, and improves investment return, decreases environmental liabilities, and further increases the net present value of mining operations.

CEMI meets regularly with organizations that offer solutions spanning the entire mining value chain, from prospecting to mine closure.

CEMI further aims to speed the adoption curve of these solutions by ensuring company readiness to commercialize innovations. Techniques CEMI utilizes to this end include scouting, challenge identification, challenge solution matching, and providing fit-for-purpose commercialization business services.

CEMI has also been successful in bringing collaborative teams together to work on various projects through a network platform.

Through these methods, CEMI has successfully helped several technologies through to commercialization and on to operational integration. These technologies include a rapid mineral digestion technology by ColdBlock; advancing the commercialization of battery electric-drive trains through Future Vehicle Technologies; commercialization of the Smart Helmet by Jannatec; and advancing ventilation monitoring technologies with Maestro Digital Mine.

Working with mining corporation Rio-Tinto on a program called the Rio Tinto Centre for Underground Mine Construction (RTC-UMC), CEMI helped the advancement of technologies related to ground control in mechanized excavations.

Through the Smart Underground Monitoring and Integrated Technologies (SUMIT) program for deep mining, CEMI advanced the development of smart engineering techniques, technologies, tools, and knowledge to facilitate step-change advances in productivity, efficiency, and energy optimization in underground mining at depth.

CEMI also hosted Canada’s first Future of Deep Mining Conference that advanced dialogue and technologies under the themes of increased productivity, reduced energy consumption, digital technology and wearables, and ore and waste management.

Through the CEMI-led Ultra-Deep Mining Network (UDMN), CEMI helped fund SMEs in the mining service sector to make new technologies commercially viable. The UDMN leveraged $35 million and generated 27 projects, further enhancing CEMI’s ability to harness the “network-effect”. To this result, add the long-term benefits of network members learning from each other how to solve commercial problems as well as sharing business best practices.

One of the initiative’s biggest projects is the National Mining Innovation Commercialization Accelerator (MICA) Network, a pan-Canadian initiative. It is designed to bring together stakeholders from various fields to accelerate the development and commercialization of innovative technologies to make the mining sector more productive and sustainable.

The MICA Network has six main partners from across Canada that pool the strength of regional innovation ecosystems to support Canada’s mining sector.

The $112 million MICA Network initiative looks to use both public and private sector funding and will address areas such as an increase in mine productivity at a lower cost, and the reduction of mining energy consumption through the implementation of smart/autonomous mining systems.

This will, in turn, help to cut environmental risk and long-term liabilities. “New techniques in these areas are critical to increasing mine profitability,” says Morrison, “as well as meeting the changing environmental and social needs of local communities adjacent to mining operations. For the global mining industry to be successful in meeting all the needs of the future it must begin to adopt a whole new approach to exploration, design, production and mine closure.”

The government of Canada’s investment in MICA marks the single biggest investment in advancing mining technology to date and is evidence of a renewed interest in securing mining’s ability to satisfy the requirements of the new economy.

Now in 2021, and looking beyond, the global mining industry is resolved to produce the minerals and metals necessary to reach global climate goals, but equitably and responsibly.

Morrison recognizes this as a critical time for the industry: “The Canadian mining industry and its associated service and supply sector has realized that it can lead the world in producing low-carbon mineral and metals and in supplying the world with the tools, equipment, products and services necessary to meet the demand for clean technologies.”

Morrison mentions that mine productivity has been dropping for over a decade as the main production platforms from the early 1980s become antiquated. The industry is now in a state of decreasing production with increasing costs.

But countering this, with the arrival of the COVID pandemic there was global recognition of mining as an essential service. COVID has accelerated the infusion of all technologies that enable remote activities; these include communications, digital, automation and any enabler of remote work.

For now, the most urgent solutions to ongoing situations are those that will increase safety and reduce the major costs. These are the costs of labour and energy, both now slightly mitigated by autonomous systems. “Reducing the cost of production is critically important because this lowers the cut-off grade allowing smaller, lower-grade deposits, in both existing mines and new mines in remote areas, to be brought into production profitably,” Morrison says.

Beyond the more troublesome situations brought on in the last year or two, the biggest regular challenge for CEMI is two-fold: prompt securing of public funding to match committed private sector funding, and mobilizing the Canadian innovation ecosystem to support the mining industry.

Fortunately, the funding scenario has been improved by the Government of Canada’s introduction of the Strategic Innovation Fund (SIF) Stream 5 program. The SIF program enabled CEMI to mobilize an estimated $112 million in public and private funding to advance key technologies into the mining sector.

Secondly, the thinkers at CEMI realized that there was untapped potential in the channelling of made-in-Canada endeavours into mining, recognizing that mining was effectively missing out on harnessing broader Canadian assets.

This challenge has since been allayed with the introduction of the MICA program, enabling CEMI to respond to industry challenges by finding new solutions wherever they may be found and utilizing them to help improve mining. Part of this is finding mining companies and integrators anxious to lead the transformation of the mines of the future.

Looking ahead to 2022, CEMI will advance its commercialization services capabilities, with the MICA Network being the flagship program for supporting the innovation ecosystem. MICA will enable its members to quickly advance comprehensive solutions that will make it possible for mines to produce the metals and minerals necessary to enable the low-carbon economy.

Further, CEMI will attract private investment into MICA which will enable the acceleration of large-scale commercial adoption of validated solutions into the global mining infrastructure. CEMI will grow the National MICA Network and create connections that will enhance collaboration of the global innovation ecosystems with Canada’s mining regions and respective networks.

Worryingly, there is now a global reduction in the discovery of new deposits, coupled with the present reality that it takes upwards of one to two decades to bring new mines into production. But Morrison’s comment reflects some optimism, “There is an opportunity to make the sub-economic deposits that we know about already become profitable, and this can be achieved in five to ten years by investing in new, more productive, lower-cost technologies.”

From its inception, CEMI has focused sharply on the Canadian mining industry and how it cannot just improve it, but truly revolutionize its practices. If CEMI’s accomplishments so far are any sign, the path ahead will prove an exciting and profitable one.

The post At the Centre of Canada’s Mining Revolution<p class="company">The Centre for Excellence in Mining Innovation (CEMI)</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

The UN calls it “a lack of sufficient available water resources to meet the demands of water usage within a region,” but whatever it’s called, it’s expected to impact nearly 20 percent of the world’s population by 2025, while also affecting the entire planet and its fragile ecosystems indirectly.

That’s one reason why the management of global water supplies, whether for business or personal consumption, is moving into the capable hands not of humans but technology, where smart water management can be monitored and analyzed via the Internet of Things (IoT) to help keep the faucets flowing.

IoT technology, using predictable and efficient management, can monitor, control, and regulate the use and quality of water resources. It’s a possibly life-saving technology which also maintains related equipment through some amazing technology: the integration of systems and procedures such as sensors, meters, data processing and visualisation tools, actuators, and online and mobile controls.

From a freshwater reservoir through to wastewater collection and recycling, smart water technology delivers transparency and greater control to the whole water supply chain.

So, what is IoT?
These nonstandard computing devices connect wirelessly to a network and send data, extending internet connectivity to a wide range of daily devices like desktops, laptops, smartphones, and tablets. Embedded with technology, these devices can connect and interact through the internet as well as be remotely monitored and controlled.

These devices can, for instance, communicate with one another to automate residential and industrial processes, sending usable sensor data to users and corporations. When it comes to water, IoT can be used to better manage water resources and achieve efficient and optimal results in every phase of the water monitoring cycle.

Right now, the approach to water management is hampered by a lack of appropriate instruments for analysing trends and human behaviour, which results in ineffective water distribution plans. Consumers also lack the necessary instruments to monitor and alert them to water usage and consumption, as well as storage capacity remaining, all of which contribute to incorrect water consumption.

Up-to-the-minute usage
One of the most difficult aspects of water management and conservation in a city, for example, is determining how much water each city will use the following day. Predictive analytics can determine this with pinpoint accuracy, accomplished by keeping track of the city’s water consumption on any given day.

When it’s known how much water a city uses in total consumption on any day, it’s much easier for water authorities to keep the level of water in a reservoir/tank at a constant level and then pump the water into overhead tanks as needed throughout the day.

When it comes to agricultural irrigation practices, much water is wasted in the current process, especially if computerised scheduling patterns are used. This means the irrigation procedure takes place at a specific time and for a specific length of time, regardless of weather circumstances or soil moisture levels.

IoT can be utilised to provide the correct amount of water to the right location at the right time, only when it’s needed, with the use of specific soil sensors and weather sensors which send their results to a server that can study weather forecasts to make the best irrigation decisions. This results in the watering valve being opened and closed at optimized times and for optimized periods.

IoT technology also aids in the scheduling of pump maintenance and shutdown on a regular basis via optimization approaches that can notify people in advance about potential water shortages. This benefits the water regulatory authorities not only in satisfying the city’s appropriate water demands, but also in resource and energy saving.

Another benefit of IoT technology in water management is the lower cost and consumption of electricity, with energy prices at different times of the day being calculated using predictive analytics. This information can then be used to schedule pumps throughout the day so no further energy or resources are wasted.

Sensors make sense
Because of their wide range of uses and functions, sensors have numerous applications in smart water management, such as monitoring the quality of raw catchment water and the chemical composition of treated water and wastewater. They can measure and report on the changing quantity in the storage reservoir, the pressure on the pipes in the distribution pipeline, the wear of the equipment and machinery that process and distribute water to end-users, and more in a very basic water supply chain.

Managers at various points in the water supply chain can use data produced by IoT water sensors to gain crucial insights into the changing conditions of water supplies and equipment and execute data-driven remedial steps on demand.

Smart meters and monitoring hubs enable real-time water-consumption monitoring, as well as the identification of excessive usage and waste locations, leading to correction of usage trends and forecasting future consumption. Production and distribution managers, as well as large homes, can benefit from this water management technique by rectifying water usage habits and achieving sustainability and budgeting goals.

Companies are increasingly adopting fully automated water management strategies, as distribution systems can regulate and control water supply using environmental sensors and predetermined or machine-learning algorithms. Sprinklers, for example, give just enough water based on readings from soil moisture, air humidity, and crop condition sensors in smart irrigation.

Due to an expanding population, environmental concerns, and pressure on the food and agriculture industries, water is becoming a more precious resource day by day. In these circumstances, smart water management can use and recycle water resources in a fair and sustainable way.

It will accomplish this by improving water quality and preventing contamination by chemical waste and natural pollution; improving the efficiency of water systems such as water collectors, treatment plants, distribution mains, and wastewater recycling centres; implementing leakage control using smart water-management devices equipped with leak and moisture sensors; and practicing consumption monetisation.

Companies may use IoT and data solutions for asset management to maintain crucial parameters like water pressure, temperature, and flow close; incorporate predictive maintenance; and reduce equipment damage and downtime.

These techniques also aid in the optimization and management of water resources at various levels, from individual families to the entire globe. Water management IoT technologies also assist industry stakeholders, governments, and typical consumers in achieving sustainability and efficiency goals, by linking all systems and players in the water supply chain.

These are such varied elements as water sources, treatment plants, and industrial water management systems, distribution facilities, utility and clean energy companies, and consumers. Decision-makers get critical, real-time information about the state of water resources and equipment used in the supply chain.

Valuable insights
One of the most significant advantages of IoT-based smart water management is the increased transparency of all activities in the water supply chain. Different stakeholders gain valuable insights into their resources and system performance thanks to data collected across the supply chain resulting in more educated judgments about how to improve operations.

Another advantage of combining smart water-management systems is the capacity to detect or even predict problems and respond quickly. Real-time monitoring of water quality and chemical composition, for example, allows early detection of even minor pollution and prompt treatment before it becomes problematic.

Managers can employ IoT water management systems to partially or entirely automate some procedures and maximise the utilisation of human resources depending on the industry and individual company requirements. Smart water supply firms and utility networks, for example, can use linked meters, real-time monitoring systems, and dynamic pricing models to automate the full lifecycle of providing water to customers.

Automation, better human resource utilisation, a data-driven strategy, and a proactive approach to equipment maintenance and resource utilisation all add up to significant cost savings.

Hot topic
This is just one of the reasons why the use of IoT in water management is such a hot topic in water industry circles.

Many retrofit and innovation initiatives in the energy, construction, and logistics sectors have sustainability aims at their core, which is why smart water technologies are no longer viewed solely as a source of cost savings and increased efficiency, but as a means of achieving a variety of environmental goals, including decreased carbon footprint, pollution, and, most importantly, water preservation.

With the basic goal of using and recycling water resources in a fair and sustainable manner, it’s easy to see why smart water management is on the rise and being adopted by a variety of industries.

Ultimately, the fate of the entire planet rests on the preservation of a resource many take for granted, with much owed to researchers working on long-term water conservation initiatives. Using the data provided by IoT, water supply-management and other connected systems throughout the supply chain, researchers are building data-driven strategies to optimize the use of water resources for the benefits of communities, ecosystems and the entire planet.

The post Water World<p class="company">How Smart Tech Will Help Preserve the Planet</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

Adversity can bring out the best in people. Established in the United States in the middle of The Great Depression and six years before entering World War II – the Works Progress Administration (WPA) provided Americans with much-needed jobs.

Replacing the earlier Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA), the WPA was supported by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and billions of dollars in investment. The plan not only provided work, it also resulted in the construction of roads, highways, bridges and other infrastructure.

Over 85 years later, the WPA remains one of America’s greatest achievements. Creating some eight million jobs during one of the worst crises in history, it realized 639,000 miles of surfaced roads, about a million miles of sidewalks, 2,550 hospitals, 500 water treatment plants, almost 13,000 playgrounds, countless miles of curbs and ditches, over 1,000 airports, together with almost 1,100 libraries, schools, firehouses, tunnels and courthouses.

Lasting until 1943, it is sometimes confused with the similarly named Public Works Administration (PWA), which used private construction companies. Under the PWA, some of the largest projects created in the U.S. were built, including New York’s Lincoln Tunnel, the Cape Cod Canal Railroad Bridge, and the world-famous Hoover Dam. Bordering Nevada and Arizona, the 726 foot (221 m) high dam remains a major feat of engineering to this day.

Years after the construction of Depression-era infrastructure projects, America under President Dwight D. Eisenhower passed the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956, authorizing and funding the construction of over 43,000 miles (70,000 km) of Interstate highways.

Similarly, in Canada, major roadway construction was underway throughout the 1950s and 1960s, resulting in the Trans-Canada Highway, the McDonald-Cartier Freeway, and other major thoroughfares. These projects and others reflected growing post-war car ownership, improving access, and saving drivers billions of dollars annually in time and fuel costs.

After decades of use, many of North America’s highways, bridges, sidewalks, public buildings and other infrastructure are far past expected lifespan, and in dire need of replacement. Add growing populations and greater density in cities and suburbs, and the need to rebuild and add new infrastructure grows.

Along with the need to repair highways, tunnels, bridges and buildings, some of the biggest infrastructure needs remain sewage treatment and the provision of clean water. Whereas delaying other types of infrastructure projects poses an inconvenience, potable water is necessary for life, and one need look no further than Flint, Michigan.

To many, Flint is less famous for being the state’s largest city and seat than it is for its contaminated water crisis. Motivated by greed, the short-sighted decision was made to switch the water system to the Flint River from Detroit’s system (drawing from Lake Huron) starting in 2014.

For residents of the once-powerful automobile-manufacturing city – with its shaky economy and high crime rate – the move was disastrous. The presence of lead in the local water supply, and an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease, caused a five-year-long public health emergency, abject misery for locals, and a deep-seated distrust in government.

The switch in water supply soon saw residents complain of foul-smelling and tasting water, and a multitude of health issues ranging from skin rashes to hair loss. Way before the crisis of 2014 to 2019, the Flint River had a century-old reputation as a dumpsite for local manufacturers’ harmful waste materials, cancer-causing chemicals, and raw sewage from meat packing plants and paper mills.

According to local legend, though not reflected in written sources, the Flint River was so polluted it caught fire – twice. The more polluted the water source, the greater the need for modern infrastructure and proper processing. So, already rich in bacteria, more chlorine was needed for treatment. In time, this led to highly acidic water, which corroded older pipes, introducing lead and other heavy metals into households. A powerful poison, lead builds up in the body over years. Children are especially at risk, with lead poisoning resulting in severe mental developmental problems, weight loss, abdominal pain, fatigue, hearing loss, and seizures.

In 2017, the U.S, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) awarded Michigan’s Department of Environmental Quality $100 million to fund upgrades to water infrastructure in Flint. Provided by the Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation Act of 2016 (WIIN), they earmarked the money for the city to replace dangerous old lead pipes and make other vital improvements to its water infrastructure.

“The people of Flint and all Americans deserve a more responsive federal government,” said EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt at the time in a media release. “EPA will especially focus on helping Michigan improve Flint’s water infrastructure as part of our larger goal of improving America’s water infrastructure.”

Even today, after an estimated $400 million in state and federal improvements and tests showing Flint residents have clean water in their pipes, studies have shown many locals are still angry, and cannot bring themselves to drink city tap water.

Many of the world’s biggest cities are facing aging infrastructure, including New York, Toronto, and London. Sewers constructed well over a century ago simply cannot handle today’s population and modern-day issues.

Several years ago, workers had to remove a so-called “fatberg” from the London sewer system. Weighing about 40 tonnes, the giant blob of fat, oil, grease and modern-day conveniences like cotton pads, diapers, and unflushable wipes was the size of one of London’s double-decker buses. The nightmarish mass blocked 80 percent of the aging sewer’s cross-section and took three weeks to clear.

Echoing the Works Progress Administration and Federal Emergency Relief Administration initiatives of decades past, mid-November saw U.S. President Joe Biden sign a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill into law.

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is a top priority for the President, one which will strengthen American manufacturing, “rebuild crumbling infrastructure, create good paying jobs, and grow our economy,” according to the official media release. Among its six infrastructure priorities are ‘buy American,’ create good-paying jobs, avoid waste, and build infrastructure able to withstand climate change.

Of the trillion dollars, $550 billion will go towards transportation, broadband and utilities, another $110 billion into roads and bridges, $66 billion into improvements to freight and passenger rail, $39 billion into public transit, and billions into other initiatives such as improving America’s water systems. The President was quoted as saying: “So my message to the American people is this: America is moving again, and your life is going to change for the better.”

The infrastructure bill is not without controversy. Coming at a time when America is deeply fragmented politically, economically and racially, some question Biden’s promise of “good-paying job opportunities for millions of Americans by focusing on high labour standards… including prevailing wages and the free and fair chance to join a union,” with critics saying the scheme doesn’t go nearly far enough.

While the trillion-dollar figure is impressive, it is less than half of the $2.3 trillion he initially vowed to spend on infrastructure. Others say the money is nowhere near enough to make up for decades of unaddressed repairs to roads, bridges, and other infrastructure, some of it almost 90 years old.

In his brief paper from September 2021 entitled The U.S. Infrastructure Shortfall, Yale University Professor of Economics Ray C. Fair wrote, “The $1 trillion infrastructure bill that has passed the Senate will obviously improve matters if it is passed into law. How much will this make up for past neglect?” Discussing the 50-year-long shortfall in infrastructure investment, Fair stated that Biden’s bill is modest, and much more investment is needed.

The post Let it Flow<p class="company">The Challenge of Aging Infrastructure</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

Well into its third decade, La Crete’s credo of high-standard mill operation has proven to be a lasting and successful one. With a specialty in spruce and aspen production, La Crete boasts an annual production volume of 100 plus million board feet through a two-line sawmill with two drying kilns, a planer, and a remanufacturing facility.

Lumber is a commodity item that will always be in demand. La Crete Sawmills has stayed on top of the ever-evolving technology and has continuously upgraded to stay competitive in this sophisticated environment. The latest upgrade was in summer of 2021.

The company’s main sawmill is fully computerized, built by Canadian sawmill and planer designer and manufacturer Comact. The mill, which was activated in 2007, can cut 1”x4” boards and 6”x6” timbers from the same log as the system is guided by machine intelligence and value-driven for the mill to cut precisely and quickly.

“If a customer calls with a specific load in mind,” says Unger, “we can cut a whole profile in minutes.” He is adamant that the key to the success of La Crete is the ideal of working together, and the people who have been with the company for the past thirty years. “Any corporation, from a lemonade stand to a sawmill, is only as good as its people…you can have as much iron as you want but, without people, it’s nothing.”

Unger touts the many workers who have not only been with the company since its inception but who have also introduced second-generation workers who are, by now, fully established.

The reputation for high quality and secure management at La Crete Sawmills extends beyond its work, as it has also gained a positive reputation and awards for its consistent approach to employee health and safety. Unger explains how every position in the business undergoes a regular hazard assessment from a health and safety manager on staff who ensures standards are always adhered to. A robust internal safety program includes monthly meetings to discuss improvements that can be made to the yard, from walkway specifics to added handrails and more, and an employee handbook details various health policies the company holds.

He reports that, in the summer of 2021, the company’s head of health and safety walked through the sawmill yard and met with its 160 staff members to ensure familiarity with the handbook and the safety protocols. Additionally, when power factor correction regulations came into Alberta, La Crete was one of the first businesses to become fully compliant. Safety and adhering to standards are vital parts of decision-making for the company and contribute to its considerable longevity in the lumber industry.

The COVID-19 pandemic is still ongoing in many countries today but, thankfully, it has not hindered regular operations at La Crete; in fact, Unger admits that, as far as its threat to destabilize the business or its customers, he was unconvinced it would affect operations to any significant degree initially. The company quickly adapted and modified safety protocols to mitigate the spread of coronavirus internally with measures such as having workers sign in at the start of every shift to confirm their status, sick workers being asked to stay home, and supervisors keeping tabs on workers’ health. The office itself was locked down to regular customer visitation, and the workforce practiced enhanced sanitary measures and personal hygiene.

Not only was the company’s bottom line unaffected, but it also soon began running double shifts after the start of the pandemic because of nearby wildfires. Company workers sought to be good stewards of the forest and clean up as much burnt wood as possible, thereby increasing work volume. Sidestepping one of the biggest financial hardships of the century is something not many businesses can claim to have done in the past year and a half, but La Crete seems well prepared to adapt to any circumstance through rigorous internal measures.

Outside of its successes, Unger observes that the lumber industry is currently quite strong. Lumber prices went to a surprising high in mid-2021 which proved somewhat tumultuous, but the supply and demand for it raised the market for companies like La Crete in turn. “We have had a very good year,” he assures, and the future of lumber is looking bright thus far.

As the company sports a considerable fleet of trucks—a necessity for hauling its product to customers in the far North—new rules and regulations in the transportation industry could potentially stymie new workers who want to drive a rig right away, limiting job opportunities and potentially lessening the number of able drivers needed to ship product across Canada. As a result of an accident in 2018 in Saskatchewan that took the lives of sixteen people, incoming workers to the trucking industry now must undergo much stricter and longer periods of training than before, measures which Unger feels limits the number of people entering the industry.

La Crete will also likely continue to experience challenges due to Canadian travel restrictions based on COVID-19 vaccination status, which will make meeting with customers much more difficult than in more conventional times. Still, the company will continue addressing these challenges as they arise, and aims to be proactive in seeing them coming.

Exciting growth continues for La Crete’s facilities. The company is currently putting in a biomass burner that will burn its supply of bark much more effectively. Typically, La Crete sells off its waste and residual materials—white fibre, sawdust, shavings, and chips—for pulp; in addition, the company also purchases other mills’ leftovers to convert into wood pellets, an endeavour that produces 100,000 tonnes of wood pellets that ship across North America for use as fuel or animal bedding.

To dry the sawdust more rapidly, the new bark burner will draw the heat to the drums.

Unger notes that the company also recently installed an additional hundred-tonne truck weigh scale to complement its fleet of twenty-four trailer trucks, as part of its commitment to keep its fleet upgraded.

The company is constantly staying on top of new industry developments, be it new technology or incoming problems to solve. Its simple philosophies of working together and getting the job done properly and on time have served it well for dozens of years and are tried-and-true methods to staying relevant in a centuries-old industry.

The post Bringing High-Tech, People-Focused Solutions to the Lumber Industry<p class="company">La Crete Sawmills</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

With a fleet of four fully-crewed offshore and inshore vessels and an experienced technical team, LeeWay Marine, based in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia in Halifax Harbour, is Atlantic Canada’s leading marine data-acquisition service company.

Greg Veinott, Director of Operations, speaking from the company office in the Centre for Ocean Ventures and Entrepreneurship (COVE) tells us the company was founded in 2015 by CEO Jamie Sangster, who chose the company’s name to reflect its role.

“Lee,” is a nautical term, he says, that refers to an area of the sea which provides safety from high wind and waves because it is protected by a landmass to the windward, while the full name “LeeWay” references the vessels’ ability and scope for moving easily and efficiently. These are qualities that the clients – whether governmental or private – who charter them to conduct surveys or do research, value highly.

Sangster, he tells us, brought to the business twenty years’ experience in the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) as a marine system engineering officer and naval architect, along with extensive experience aboard major Canadian warships. Other team members also have relevant experience; some with the RCN, including Mark Decker, Vice President of Fleet Readiness, who served for 23 years as a marine engineer and radiation safety specialist.

LeeWay Marine maintains a staff of 10 on the management side, and at peak working periods, depending on the contracts it has received, could have crews at sea numbering from 20 to 45.

Welcome aboard
Veinott describes LeeWay Marine as filling a market niche, explaining that, while there are other companies doing similar work, most of them are international companies with massive ships doing large energy and pipeline projects. There are also some very small companies doing diving and construction site work that mainly operate within Halifax Harbour.

“But we have taken the position that we don’t want to be a local company and we have a vision of operating on a national or even international scale. For example, we have been operating off the east coast of the U.S. for the past two years, doing survey work for offshore wind installations, but we’re not at the scale of the large multi-national corporations. We straddle that gap between the small local companies and the multi-nationals.”

As a part of its strategy, LeeWay Marine maintains a mixed fleet of vessels. The LeeWay Odyssey was the first ship to be acquired and remains its largest research vessel, capable of competing for survey work on an international scale. It is a 38-metre, all-aluminum oceanographic vessel with a beam of 7.6 metres, a cruise speed of 12.5 knots and is outfitted for year-round coastal services.

“The Odyssey helped us build the company to where it is today,” Veinott says, “but it is old-school, built in the Seventies with diesel propulsion and mechanical operations, and our vision has always been in the direction of electrification; more efficient power plants on motorized vessels that can get to sites faster, so clients can get the work done faster, which makes it cheaper for them.”

In addition to electrification, the company is looking toward autonomy aboard the vessels, either the vessels themselves or some of the operations aboard.

A modern fleet
Two game changers for LeeWay were the acquisitions of LeeWay Striker in 2019 and RV Novus in 2021.

With a top speed of 55 knots, and cruise speed of 30 knots, LeeWay Striker is the world’s fasted research and hydrographic survey vessel. It has a 500 nautical mile range and can accommodate multi-day operations with six berths for crew and scientists.

RV Novus, designed and constructed by Abeking & Rasmussen of Germany, with a top-speed of 16 knots and a survey speed of 5 knots, is a state-of-the-art SWATH (Small-Waterplane-Area Twin Hull Vessel) with extraordinary seakeeping abilities. Its design supports near-to-mid shore survey operations for charting and mapping, offshore wind development, cable inspection, fish stock assessments and benthic surveying.

“These vessels really underscore the push toward autonomy on board and toward more efficient operations,” Veinott says. “Striker is extremely fast and able to get to the site and do the work way more efficiently than a large boat like Odyssey. It’s also a highly digitalized vessel, and allows us to monitor key control systems, such as the engines, from shore,” he explains.

“RV Novus is about achieving efficiency with power plants. It’s a diesel/electric vessel which allows us to do tests and trials with new technologies that move the vessel toward being fully electric. That’s a big win for us, as there’s no vessel elsewhere doing what we do that is fully electric.”

Rounding out the fleet is the LeeWay Venture, a lightweight, 7-metre patrol vessel, designed for near shore survey and support work. It’s small and light enough to be loaded onto a trailer and driven around to the Bay of Fundy, for example, to tackle tasks for commercial and government clients, centred around the deployment of sensors that track changes in marine ecosystem health.

In addition, LeeWay Marine crews and manages a fifth vessel, the Ocean Seeker, which is owned by Kraken Robotics, a company focused on the development of high-coverage, high resolution sensors for capturing seabed imagery.

Ocean technology trials and testing
In the beginning, the company’s focus was on ocean technology as Sangster saw a role that Odyssey could play in an already-existing market which involved testing and trialling ocean technology equipment.

“It’s what we cut our teeth on,” Veinott says. “We were surrounded by a number of new technology companies that needed to test and trial equipment, so that was our core business for the first couple of years, but it’s since become a supporting market. Our core business now is surveying, although we still test and trial in the off-season.”

During this season, November to April, LeeWay Marine works with ocean technology companies which have developed equipment in labs, but need to test its operational abilities before proceeding to production.

“We’re able to assist tech start-ups work through issues they may not have thought of. They may have great ideas, but there could be barriers in the design that hinder deployment or recovery from the water. Developers need sea time to prove their designs and ensure operability of their equipment in real sea states.”

Hydrographic & geophysical surveying
Surveying and mapping the seabed is at the core of LeeWay’s operations – important work relied upon by both government and industry. Governments use the data for navigational charts, for fish stock assessments, and for developing and regulating marine environmental policies. Industry, on the other hand, needs knowledge of the seabed to know where to install offshore infrastructure or lay cables.

As a result of flexible, modular designs, clients chartering one of LeeWay’s vessels for research and data collection can request a wide range of equipment layouts and deployment options. For instance, should the survey involve both shallow and deep water, the comparatively large LeeWay Odyssey can provide LeeWay Venture with transportation to the survey field on its deck.

For the past two summers, LeeWay has had two vessels working off the coast of New England, doing survey work for the first commercial-scale wind installations in North America.

“[North America is] 20 years behind Europe, especially the UK [in terms of offshore wind power],” Veinott says, “but now it is projected to be a huge market all the way from Maine down to South Carolina. The eastern seaboard states are all proposing various types of wind power and we see that in the next 10 to 15 years there will be work for us.”

Working 15 to 20 nautical miles offshore, surveyors use various sensors to measure water depth, to search for contour lines so boulders won’t get in the way of cable lines, to bring up samples of the seabed and if suitable for installation, penetrate the seabed up to 30 meters to locate the perfect spot to drill down and put in place pilings for turbines.

When turbines are up and running, there could be further work for LeeWay, as the company would be well-positioned to transfer inspection and maintenance crews out to the turbines.

In ocean research, LeeWay has conducted several explorations with non-profit groups, including a three-week expedition with Oceana Canada in the Labrador Sea in 2019.

The purpose of the expedition was to develop a marine protection plan for that area. The project began by working with the indigenous communities to grasp the size and diversity of the habitats around the Nain Region of Labrador and further north along the coast in Nunatsiavut.

“We were putting cameras down to the seabed and we could drag cameras along it so we could see exactly what’s down there and try to understand the habitat better,” Veinott says. “The part of the expedition that was interesting to us and the crew on-board was having indigenous people connect with science personnel as they worked together to put science and local knowledge and understanding all in one package.”

Defence is another component of the company’s business, but because of the company’s naval connection, Veinott says it’s an exciting opportunity for the team.

“We have taken on deployments with the Navy, as well as the RCMP and NATO forces. We’ve been a target vessel in exercises, and they had to track us down and we had helicopters dropping people on board and others learning how to bring a Zodiac alongside and climb aboard.”

Final thoughts
So, what’s it like to be part of LeeWay Marine? That’s a question we put to Veinott, a Certified Project Manager who came to his position three years ago with a business degree from Dalhousie University, a background in business development, market research and marketing, but no ocean experience, unlike the rest of the team. Still, it seems he acquired his “sea legs” quickly.

“I love it here,” he says. “We are a small but mighty team, the work is challenging in a good way, and everyone has each other’s back. I could have gone into banking or finance, but I am much happier here working with innovative people who push the envelope.”

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