The group became the parent organization for companies such as Specialized Maintenance Equipment (SME), a tool manufacturer and solutions provider for the international mining industry.

Marketing Coordinator for the NMT Group, Heather Johnston, recalls that in 2017 the original owner of Specialized Maintenance Equipment was having trouble keeping up with the demand for heavy-duty safety equipment in the mining industry. He reached out to Elliot for support and resources at that time, and the NMT Group immediately saw potential in SME, acquiring it soon after to expand its product offerings.

Vice President Richard DeRuiter remembers that when SME was first obtained, a diesel-powered jack was being developed: the SLT220. The NMT Group aided SME in developing and building two units and put them to work at high altitudes in the Andes in Peru. Based on what was learned from the diesel units, the path forward was to develop a similar product using battery power, as the industry slowly moved toward electric vehicles.

The next line of jacking systems after this, including the company’s signature Titan220e, was developed with battery power. Johnston has observed that over the past century, mining has transformed rapidly as production rates continually increase and trucks are larger than ever imagined.

Mine sites usually operate continuously, in extreme climates, so routine maintenance of these giant earthmoving machines is essential; however, the maintenance performed in the off-the-road trucking industry is both time-consuming and dangerous. There are numerous risks during the truck lifting process from lifting using jack extensions, running pneumatic hoses, placing additional safety stands, lateral loads, and falling debris. SME has developed products to provide better safety for the industry.

Johnston believes that the people working with SME have made it the company it is today. “We have a team of passionate individuals that have been developing their expertise in mechatronics for over thirty years,” she says. “They are driven by results and have the proven ability to identify breakthrough business opportunities in the industry.”

The companies in the NMT Group – including NMT itself, SME, and Schalke Locomotives GmbH – often collaborate with a team of experts from places like Germany and Chile. This gives the group the know-how to provide outside-the-box solutions that benefit safety, productivity, and the environment within the mining industry.

Johnston feels that the company’s customer service, plus its training and commissioning on the Titan220e, are some of its strong points. “When someone comes with a problem, they are grateful that they are being listened to,” she says. The company is passionate about eliminating risks in the industry and keeps a list of solutions that it is excited to provide to the industry.

DeRuiter says the company always does the legwork necessary to confirm that its products and components are of top quality and will be “as trouble-free as possible,” for its valued clients. Much time is spent speaking to the end-user who may be having challenges with existing technology and determining what they are looking for from a specific piece of equipment. For example, a great deal of research was done on the Titan220e to determine where an original equipment manufacturer’s lift points were, so that the Titan220e could lift trucks from these points instead of inappropriate sections. Johnston adds that, as part of the New Product Development process, all SME prototypes are tested in-field at a company facility in the western U.S. to see how they react under the conditions of the mining sector before being sent to the customer.

SME also fills two distinct roles in the supplier relationship: first, as a supplier to the end-user, where quality after-sales service and support are critical and can “make or break any company,” according to DeRuiter; second, it works very hard with suppliers to set up agreements in which there is no need for shopping around.

Supplier relationships are established early in any given agreement so that purchase orders can be issued. This is important in the mining industry because of the repetitive nature of manufacturing. SME works closely with the suppliers of its necessary tool components like batteries, drives, and control systems and researches them thoroughly. DeRuiter affirms that the company puts a lot of effort into the process, and this has paid off in spades thus far.

Heather Johnston notes that keeping up with the demand for new products in the industry is the biggest challenge currently facing SME and companies like it. The risks in the mining maintenance industry are not going away; the company must prioritize what solutions it can provide with the time and the people it has. The NMT Group leadership team holds a kick-off meeting to validate what is needed and adds time and people accordingly for each solution.

One member of the SME leadership stands out for his contributions. Global Product and Innovation Manager Wayne Desormeau is described by DeRuiter as a passionate and intelligent person who is recognized in the off-the-road (OTR) trucking industry. He has a “sixth sense for what the industry needs,” and his time with the company has been especially appreciated. Desormeau will be speaking at the Off-The-Road Tire Conference put on by the Tire Industry Association in Palm Springs, California this year.

DeRuiter confirms that SME will continue its focus on the production phase of the Titan220e for the remainder of 2020. It will also be developing two new products: a jack called the Atlas which is similar to the Titan but single-lift and smaller and a much larger piece of equipment which is currently in the preliminary stages and will be revealed “when the time is right.”

The Titan220e will also be featured at Mine Expo in Las Vegas in September 2020. It is a packed year for the company as it continues to make strides for the mining industry and further develop its much-needed product line, relying on the efforts of its valued team to keep it at the top of its game.

The post Bringing First-Rate Safety Solutions to the Mining Industry<p class="company">The NMT Group</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

In recent years, the decline of the pulp and paper industry has had a devastating effect on the forestry economy across Canada, but particularly in Québec. The provincial government is actively seeking innovative alternatives, and wood pellet production has become a key consideration for the future of the forestry sector.

Wood pellets are an organic biofuel and are made by compressing sawdust into small granular pieces that can be burned in a furnace to generate heat, and this can also be converted into green energy to generate green electrical power. This process emits fewer pollutants when compared to other forms of combustion heating, and wood is preferable to many conventional, non-renewable resources as trees can be regrown. La Granaudière is a perfect test case.

The village of Saint Michel des Saints is located on the southern edge of an immense forest, and it has a long history in forestry, lumber, and wood processing. In 1989, a wood processing company came to Saint Michel des Saints looking for a place to build a new facility, and the region became home to an oriented strand board (OSB) mill that employed just over two hundred local residents and produced roughly 500 million square feet of OSB annually.

The community has a workforce with a great deal of expertise in these fields, but in recent years, the decline of the pulp and paper industry has created instability in the local economy. Rising wood and fuel costs, combined with a steep decline in the price of OSB put the company in a poor enough position that it was forced to shut the facility down at the end of 2007, and an adjacent sawmill owned by the same company was sold off.

A mix of hardwood and softwood is harvested from Québec forests every year, and traditionally, the hardwood would be sold primarily to customers in the pulp and paper industry. As that industry continues to decline, the Québec forest ministry is left uncertain about what to do with the extra hardwood stock. To protect the sustainability of forestry operations, the policy of the ministry is to only provide permits to wood harvesting companies if there is a designated application for the entire harvested crop of trees.

As a result, large portions of the hardwood forests that would have previously been collected are now over-mature and beginning to degrade. La Granaudière will help to solve this problem by creating a new application for that crop. “They call that the frozen forest because there are no permits for how to use that wood, so we are going to defrost those over-mature areas. Then we will be participating in the sustainability of the forest by reducing emissions of GHG (greenhouse gases). To a certain extent, we are the test case for the government of Québec,” said La Granaudière Project President and Chief Executive Officer Yves A. Crits.

This project will also help to improve sustainability by providing an application for branch waste. Traditionally, tree harvesting resulted in branches being left behind on the forest floor. As they decompose, a great amount of carbon is released into the surrounding environment. La Granaudière has plans to harvest those branches so that they can be processed into wood chips. “By reusing forest chips, we are going to provide a use for low-value wood, reducing even further the impact of GHG emissions and improving further the sustainability of the forest,” said Yves.

More than a decade after the Louisiana Pacific OSB plant closed down putting more than two hundred people out of work, La Granaudière has demonstrated a plan to revitalize the local economy and community. It will be bringing approximately fifty new jobs to the area within the production plant itself and 180 total jobs including forestry operation and logistics.

La Granaudière is located on a four-hundred-acre plot of industrial land that is 1.5 kilometres from the nearest home and four kilometres from the local sawmill, with direct access to logging roads. This means that the facility will not only have a highly-skilled workforce, but it will be connected to incoming transport forest routes for renewable, competitively-priced feedstock both as raw logs from the forest and residue from the local sawmills.

As well as the proximity to logging roads for incoming raw material, Saint Michel des Saints is also an ideal location for outbound transport. The facility is located near a deep-water port on the St. Lawrence River with a shipping route connecting it to the European market. A dedicated fleet of trucks will run continuously transporting pellets between the plant and the port.

In Québec, the independent chief forester is in charge of determining the maximum sustainable volume of wood that can be perpetually harvested, and the forest ministry is then in charge of portioning that harvest to companies under supply guarantees. The ministry has granted La Granaudière a right to cut hardwood for approximately 75 percent of its needs. This agreement enables the developers to offer supply chain and competitive price security to its customers by also mitigating take-or-pay risk.

After five years of in-house development, the project began at the end of August 2019. All of the engineering, procurement, and construction contracts were already signed and activated immediately at financial close. Three contractors: Québec City-based Shuot Inc., Player Design Inc. of Maine, and Law Marrot Milpro from Sainte Hyacinthe, Québec were all hired to work on various aspects of the project and broke ground last September. Due to the thorough preparatory planning, work is now moving swiftly, and the facility is expected to be at starting capacity by September of this year and at full production by 2022.

One of the most significant difficulties facing the La Granaudière project is finding sufficient manpower. Currently, Québec’s unemployment rate is below five percent, which is the lowest it has ever been since the statistics were first compiled in 1976 and lower than any other province, and this has made finding qualified labour a challenge for the company.

The project developers have devised an innovative solution to this problem. “We are going to bring back the people who had to leave to find work outside the village when the Louisiana Pacific plant closed down in 2007. We are going to increase the quality of life for those people by having them come back home to where they were living before,” says Yves.

The La Granaudière facility will have the ability to process a range of raw materials on-site into four grades of wood pellet products. It will de-bark raw logs, chip branches, and compress residues from sawmills. For home heating, it will offer a premium quality pellet that generates very little ash. For district heating, it will offer a secondary, low-to-moderate ash grade product. Finally, for industrial power generation, it will offer two grades of moderate and high-ash pellets. All of these products will receive comprehensive screening to ensure that they meet the quality standards demanded by customers and work toward achieving Sustainable Biomass Program and ENPlus certifications.

As the declining pulp and paper industry brings ongoing economic uncertainty to many regions in Québec, the La Granaudière project is on track to give new life to the forestry sector. “There are two major activities in the village of Saint Michel des Saints: tourism and forestry. We are going to revive the village by recovering the prosperity of the area,” Yves stated confidently.

The post Revitalizing a Community With Renewable Energy<p class="company">La Granaudière</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

Since the late 1990s, Flex Energy Solutions has been manufacturing gas turbine generators for the oil and gas, biogas, and combined heat and power (CHP) markets in virtually every part of the globe. The company offers power solutions that help reduce costs and improve energy resiliency while reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The company has turbines and heat exchangers on the job all over the world, including North and South America, Asia, Australia, Europe, and Canada. Its power generators can run on “virtually any fuel that comes out of the ground, and even synthetic fuel,” according to Chief Executive Officer Mark Schnepel, and Flex Energy Solutions staff are proud to be part of an industry that powers society.

Power for industrial or commercial operations is often required in extremely remote locations. The company offers a number of solutions for grid-connected and grid-isolated power as well as options for CHP and biogas applications.

Cogeneration, or CHP, is a process in which turbines generate electrical power while using the turbine exhaust for heat. In traditional grid electricity generation, the resulting heat is usually lost into the atmosphere. Flex Turbines®, however, use the resulting heat for heating, cooling, dehumidification, and other processes, which in turn maximizes efficiency.

Grid-isolated (off-grid) power means any location can be powered by the company’s turbines. Because Flex Turbines can run on virtually any fuel, Flex’s customers enjoy best-in-class fuel flexibility. The Flex Turbine is one of the cleanest technologies available and can even help reduce emissions from the site.

Flex Turbines can also operate parallel to the utility grid (grid-parallel) and excel in areas with unpredictable power. The turbine runs at base power while connected to the electrical grid until a utility interruption occurs. Upon interruption, the Flex Turbine will automatically disconnect from the grid and keep the customer’s site operational until the utility source is restored.

Biogas applications run on fuels that would otherwise be flared or vented. The Flex Turbine is the most fuel flexible technology on the market, able to run on natural gas, propane, biogas, associated gas, and tank vapors. It can even use landfill gasses and digester gasses. This type of fuel flexibility makes Flex Turbines one of the go-to power generators for many industries.

Flex Turbines provide more than just energy savings. “Our turbines only require one scheduled eight-hour maintenance per year, which is a big improvement over other, more traditional types of power sources, such as reciprocating or diesel engines,” said Schnepel. “Additionally, other technologies require much more extensive fuel conditioning and cleanup, so we’re one of the most practical and fuel flexible pieces of equipment available.”

Schnepel said the leasing of equipment has become a huge part of Flex Energy Solutions’ business model, and the company strives for excellence in that area as well. “Leasing goes hand in hand with service,” he said. “Our sales team and our Applications Engineering team work together with customers to ensure that they receive the correct equipment for their application. Then we monitor it 24/7 to ensure it’s operating as designed and expected.”

Schnepel is proud of the quality Flex Energy Solutions provides. “We just had a major cold snap on a site in Alberta where we have equipment operating, and there were no issues at all. Everything just kept working as it should,” he said. “Meanwhile, the same turbines can also operate in places like Texas, where there is not only extreme heat but excessive amounts of dust as well. You don’t get that level of service from reciprocating engines or diesel generators or any of the older technology, and we’re really pleased to offer that level of quality and reliability.”

Every project teaches the company something new that it can apply to improve future systems. Each unique environment teaches Flex Energy Solutions about how its products can best serve parts of the world that experience extreme weather, heat, cold, salt, or dust. Even sound can be an issue, as the company found in Pennsylvania.

Near an area designated as national forest, a Flex Energy Solutions customer needed a pipeline compressor that had to operate at a very low decibel level to meet the requirements of working in the vicinity of a national forest.

“We had to engineer a low-sound package that met that goal,” said Schnepel. “It was a big challenge at first, but we solved it, and now we have that in our options list. Every opportunity presents a learning experience, and it was rewarding to be able to solve that issue and make it available for other customers.”

He said evolving products over time has served Flex Energy Solutions well. Each generation of equipment gets better – more efficient, stronger, and with better performance for customers.

Flex is even developing power systems for the cannabis industry. It helped create a mobile hemp drying unit to be used by commercial hemp growers.

Last year Flex Energy Solutions received a significant repeat order for multiple turbine units in California. The purchase will give that customer the capability to generate a combined 4.3 megawatts of power. The turbines will provide a baseload to the smart grid systems at three of the customer’s facilities and will reduce operating costs with CHP solutions.

The future is looking bright for Flex Energy Solutions. Schnepel said more and more people are adopting this technology as a way of cutting greenhouse gas emissions for their businesses. Flex Turbines are now becoming part of bigger solutions, whether in the form of micro-grids fed by solar and/or wind power, or along with existing larger grids.

“As major storms and wildfires become more prevalent, people will be relying more and more on self-generating their own grids. The small gas turbine will play a critical role in that evolution from centralized power grids to less centralized power locations.”

Flex Turbines are modular and considered ‘plug and play.’ It is not unusual to see multiple turbines connected on some job sites, depending on the customer’s needs. A wastewater authority celebrated the grand opening of a recently upgraded resource recovery plant in Bellaire, Ohio. The facility is fully powered by a Flex Turbine that converts gasses from their digesters into electricity, making the plant energy neutral. Flex Energy Solutions also helped an Australian company create an innovative thermal energy storage solution for converting biogas into storable heat that can be used to generate high-quality, reliable electric power.

Twenty-year company veteran Schnepel said he is also excited about some new technology Flex will be introducing later this year that he said will set a new high watermark for the turbine industry. “I’m proud of our company on so many levels,” said Schnepel. “Every time we build something, whenever we send something out, it makes me smile.”

The post Flexing the Power Muscles<p class="company">Flex Energy Solutions</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

Specializing in the mining, wastewater and aggregate industries, Westpro Machinery both designs and manufactures process equipment for a variety of projects globally, along with providing other services such as installation supervision, commissioning, and process and equipment auditing. The company employs a highly trained team of chemical and mechanical engineers, metallurgists and plant designers with expertise in designing processes for zinc, gold, copper, silver, nickel, lithium, diamond and graphite production, among numerous others.

Westpro President John Atkinson started the company in 1985, but showed an interest in the industry at a much younger age.

“I got involved with processing in Grade 7 when I did a flotation separation of copper for a science fair,” he says. “Unfortunately, the guy who made a volcano won.”

Atkinson was also always interested in machinery, and following university, he started a business in Vancouver, buying and selling mineral processing plants. He also did extensive reconditioning of machinery before moving into remanufacturing – completely stripping down machinery and building it up using new components, before sending it out with a full warranty.

“We started to realize the industry was changing in a lot of ways with regards to used equipment,” he says.

With the advent of the internet, customers could now go directly to a site to find machinery. Shop development also meant they were producing 60 to 80 percent new machinery, so Atkinson felt Westpro could go the extra step and start designing and manufacturing its own machinery, giving the company a better future.

“We ended up designing and manufacturing new, but we still did some reconditioning. Then we started to drop off the reconditioning and focused on new machinery,” he says. “We did new machinery and developed a product line. Basically, our approach was to develop a very extensive line so we could provide a complete plant and process.”

Atkinson ended up building one product at a time and supplying it, before expanding the product lines. Some of those lines developed by themselves, such as attrition scrubbers and thickeners, and Westpro went along with it, says Atkinson.

“These are very large thickeners, and we went turnkey on them,” says Atkinson. “Some of these thickeners can have 500 to 800 tons of steel, with a very large tank and understructure. So we would build it and supply it, and also do the install and commission. We started to develop more into those, and that took us into tailings management.”

Everything progressed from there, he says, necessitating a move from Vancouver to Ontario for production requirements. Westpro now has production in Ontario, engineering in Vernon, BC, and a new office opening in Vancouver.

“My wife was involved in the very beginning, and then we had a family, and now I have some of my kids back in the business,” says Atkinson. Daughter Marisa is the Sales and Marketing Coordinator, and son Stephen is the Engineering Coordinator. “That gives us a whole new, fresh look.” Marisa is opening the office in Vancouver by herself, and pushing forward with new development through that location, Atkinson explains.

Growth is a continual process for Westpro, with a number of exciting plans in the works, including global expansion. “We have a global reach through the industry,” says Atkinson. A lot of Westpro’s machinery is sold globally. “What we want to do is establish offices in the U.S. and Mexico, where we do a lot of work.” Westpro also has plans for expansion in South America and Australia.

The company’s 35th anniversary is on the horizon as well, competing for attention with an upcoming trade show in Vancouver and MINExpo in Las Vegas in September, so celebrations remain up in the air. “There are a number of things we want to look at doing for the employees,” shares Atkinson.

He places a heavy emphasis on the important role employees play in the daily functioning of Westpro, and how a family feel has been generated over the years. “You go through different stages, and right now it’s a family type business, which I never thought it would be,” he says. “At the Puslinch [Ontario] location we have a great group of people who all get along and have a good time. We really try to provide them with a good work environment and as much training as we can to keep them at a high level.”

Putting employees first is imperative for Atkinson, who believes a positive work environment creates quality workmanship and a sense of camaraderie. “Those are the sorts of things that matter,” he says. “You’ve got a lot of hardships that go on throughout the company and different challenges, and then you’re there in your shop and everybody’s really enjoying it, having a good laugh and putting out some really good quality machinery. So it feels like a big family.”

That level of comfort starts with the managers and trickles down to the employees, he says, and it makes a positive impact. “We put out good products and have a great relationship with our employees. We might be split up in locations, but we have a lot of good communication. One of the strong points of the company is from within – how everyone works together.”

That cooperation and collaboration allows Westpro to take on challenges presented by its customers, who often need complex projects completed quickly. According to Atkinson, about 90 percent of the machines the company designs are customized to client requirements, and Westpro is more than up to the challenge.

“Customers come to us with a project, we get everyone up to speed and everyone immediately gets to work. Having our own production allows us to take projects on and provide them in a very timely manner. Where other larger companies with more bureaucracy might take 10 months, we’re going to push that through in four months.”

It’s always an interesting challenge for the team, but one they’re set up for, he says. “That’s kind of our niche I think – customization and quick delivery. It’s never dull here, and there are always new challenges every day, that’s for sure.”

Westpro also works diligently with customers to provide the latest technology for their processes, including enduring, heavy duty machinery. “The beauty of our machinery is that everything lasts a long time with less maintenance,” and this is something customers appreciate. The team’s latest approach is reaching out more to customers who have been running Westpro machines for a number of years, providing them with any available upgrades, improvements in instrumentation, monitoring and optimizing processes.

Westpro continues to set its standards high, recently supplying a turnkey thickener on time and under budget. “That was proof that the company could pull everything together – from my process people, to our production, to our project management, and finally back around to our process people doing the final commissioning and startup of the machine.”

Atkinson has come to appreciate the fact that mineral processing is a true specialty, and one not many companies in Canada undertake, particularly in the mineral processing equipment field.

“We’re a small Canadian company,” he says. “There’s a lot of development through Canada, but the specialty has been the processing. Our competition is very large companies out of Europe which have government ownership in them… We’re a small guy, but we specialize in mineral processing in Canada.”

Westpro is now moving into the environmental aspect of processing, which Atkinson deems a “perfect thing” for Westpro, a segue into the environmental side of mining and water treatment.

“It’s a real movement forward, and without question, there’s a big need for it,” he says of employing environmentally friendly practices that protect the earth. “All these mines can absolutely operate this way; they just need to do it, and it’s going to happen.”

Atkinson is looking to add a tailing system to help eliminate tailing ponds, installing thickeners along with filters. “We’re trying to work more on those sorts of things for the environment. From there we also have other areas we’re involved in, which stemmed originally from mining, including water treatment systems and wastewater.”

Those are just some of areas Westpro is looking forward to in the next number of years. This includes really looking at taking that mineral processing knowledge they’ve acquired and making improvements.

“That’s our approach and our forward thinking in our company,” he says. “’How can we do things better in the future and have more control over anything that’s discharged from mining?’ That’s something we’re very into now, using those processes. Things are changing and that comes from the younger generation in my family. It’s very interesting and is moving us into an exciting area.”

Using technology for new development and change is paramount for Westpro, as the company embraces any process that can make a positive difference.

“Anything that’s coming out, you can scrub it and put out clean air,” for example. “If you have a process and you need to clean the air, we have the wet scrubbers. These are all great areas of development.”

Indeed, this environmental side of the business is where Westpro hopes to make a difference now and into the future – and it’s a difference all companies can make if they choose to follow Westpro’s lead.

“It’s about making it clean,” Atkinson says. “You do whatever you need to do, but any of your discharges need to be clean. It can be done! Do the process, do the mining, get the copper, get the gold; you need those things, but your discharges should be clean – and they can be.”

According to Atkinson, that’s the complete, holistic system Westpro is looking to develop: expertise in clean environmental solutions.

“That’s our passion now. The technology is there, it just needs to be applied each time. You have to have some passion to stay in this business, and it’s still there for us. We’re having fun and it’s always challenging.”

The post Environmental Passion Drives Westpro Machinery<p class="company">Westpro Machinery Inc.</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

Badinotti was founded in Italy in 1910 by a retired office worker named Giovanni Badinotti. Rather than settling into his retirement, he decided to turn his love of fishing into a second, late-life career and opened a store in Porta Vigentina, a small district in the heart of Milan, where he sold nets, floats, lines, and other fishing gear. When he was finally ready to retire, Giovanni hoped to pass the store to his son Carlo, but at first, Carlo showed little interest in fishing. Giovanni began to form a plan.

As an avid fisherman, he knew of a fishing store near the Duomo di Milan that was run by a young woman named Annunciata Colosio who had been born on the island of Montisola. Annunciata learned the traditional art of net making, a cultural staple of the island, early on. Net making and fishing were deeply important to her, and by introducing her to Carlo, Giovanni hoped to awaken a bit of that passion in his son.

His plan worked. Within a few short years, Carlo and Annunciata were married and took over the store in Porta Vigentina. Over its 110-year history, the company’s leadership has been in the hands of new generations of the Badinotti family, but the passion for net-making that Giovanni Badinotti found in Annunciata Colosio remains even now.

Today, more than a century after its inception, Badinotti is still owned by descendants of its founder. The company’s headquarters are located in Milan, Italy, but it has expanded into international markets with locations in the United States, Canada, Chile, Peru, and Slovakia. The Canadian branch of Badinotti employs 133 people divided across a main administrative office in Campbell River, British Columbia and two net maintenance service stations, called net lofts: one just north of Campbell River and the other in Port Hardy.

Those two net lofts are strategically located to support the aquaculture activities taking place from the Campbell River all the way up the coast of Vancouver Island. These operations use enormous nets that often stretch over one hundred metres and weighing many tonnes. Moving them can be difficult and expensive, so having service stations close to where those nets leave and re-enter the water makes the entire operation much more efficient.

Badinotti Services Canada provides a variety of services to its local customers which include providing new or replacement nets, as well as washing and repairing nets at its services stations, called net lofts, and the in-situ washing of nets on-site at the client’s location.

The vast majority of Badinotti’s Canadian employees are from Vancouver Island. “Most of our staff are islanders that have been in this industry for many years. We need people like that. These nets are huge, and being able to move them without damaging them is really an art form,” said Simon Proctor, general manager at Badinotti Net Services Canada.

Cleaning nets might sound like a simple process, but the reality is far more challenging. Specialized vehicles are necessary to move them; giant cranes are needed to lift them. Being able to manage and manipulate these nets to clean or repair them takes a great deal of skill and experience.

Badinotti recognizes the value of its workforce and has invested in it with opportunities for skills and equipment training. The leadership believes that the company’s strength really lies with its personnel first and foremost.

“A lot of our folks have learned these skills over many years. They’re proud of what they do. They’re proud that they’re Vancouver Islanders, and they’re really excited about what aquaculture can do for their communities,” said Proctor.

At the core of Badinotti’s business is manufacturing knotted and knotless nets. Beyond fishing, the company’s product sees uses that include safety nets for various industries and nets for sporting applications such as golf, soccer, and volleyball, and bowstrings for archery. One does not immediately think of archery when thinking about nets, but a core part of making nets is manufacturing a very strong fibre, and that fibre makes a very effective bowstring.

Recently, the opportunity arose for the company to acquire Brownell Archery, and the leadership realized that it would be an extremely good fit. Badinotti is in the process of applying its understanding of fibre manufacturing toward building high-quality bowstrings not only for hunting, but also for the competitive tournaments of one of the fastest-growing sports in North America. The company is excited to be exploring adjacent markets.

One of the most innovative aspects of what Badinotti is doing in North America is the in situ washing service it offers for clients in the aquaculture industry. In situ washing is a cutting-edge process that enables large nets to be washed without ever having to be moved. The company began offering this service just over four years ago, and it has been met with huge success.

The company’s cleaning specialists will take its fleet of state-of-the-art, super-stable catamaran-type vessels out to the nets. From the deck of the vessel, they can remotely pilot small submersible cleaning robots with onboard cameras. The robots are precise enough to move around inside the nets alongside the fish, and the crew are highly trained to operate the equipment without causing any harm or damage. The robots use spray jets to wash the netting with a specialized cleaning product called naphtha without ever physically touching the net itself.

The fact that the robots never come in contact with the nets is an important selling point for Badinotti. Typical cleaning methods make contact with the fibres of the netting which causes wear and tear over time.

“You can imagine that these nets, being so large, are also incredibly expensive. Our equipment never contacts the net, so that means the customer gets more life out of the net, which improves their competitiveness in the marketplace,” said Proctor. By taking a collection of advanced technologies and integrating them into a single, high-end solution, Badinotti has developed the most innovative net cleaning system in the marketplace.

Badinotti believes in the food security and environmental sustainability benefits of the aquaculture industry. One of the most significant challenges for aquaculture companies, and for Badinotti as an auxiliary part of that industry, is the public’s perception. According to Proctor, the general feeling among the public, particularly on the west coast, is that aquaculture has not really changed and that it continues to be a substantial burden on the environment.

In reality, the industry has made great strides to improve its environmental impact and to ensure that the fish are managed in the best possible way to minimize harm to them and to the ecosystem in which they live. “We’ve come a long way, but there’s still work to do. We need to engage with the public at every opportunity and really invite them to see the improvements that are being made. That will be our biggest challenge going forward, to change that perception,” says Proctor.

Badinotti has seen much of success recently, having grown from roughly fifty employees four years ago to 133 employees today. The company aims to continue that growth while maintaining the quality of the products and services it offers.

The willingness to invest, learn, and apply pioneering technology has enabled it to bring value to its customers. A key differentiator for the company has been its capacity to adopt the latest proven technology and incorporate it into its solutions.

Going forward, the company is excited about the growth of the aquaculture industry and anticipates potentially exploring opportunities on Canada’s east coast. “I was in Newfoundland last year listening to industry experts talk about the potential of the Maritimes for aquaculture. I think everything is in place for the industry to take that next step,” said Proctor.

The post Innovations in Net Maintenance<p class="company">Badinotti Group</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

The Richmond, British Columbia-based company started with an energy-efficient desalination technology that the chief executive officer had developed, and the industrial sector soon became the obvious direction for Saltworks because that is where it could make the biggest impact with its technology. In an industrial setting, water can be more technically challenging to treat as a result of potential contaminants and the tightening regulations of how companies must manage, treat, and dispose of wastewater. Saltworks has brought to market novel technologies that helps its customers navigate these issues using less energy and at a lower cost.

Working closely with a broad range of industrial customers over the years has enabled Saltworks to develop both expertise and an understanding of the many unique issues that those customers face. Its original desalination technology was a combination of electrochemical and thermal technology, but since then its offerings have expanded to include a range of products for diverse applications.

While sharpening its skill set and adapting to the market over the course of its twelve-year journey, Saltworks has produced a diverse portfolio of innovative water treatment technologies. “We now have multiple products that do different things, allowing us to deliver end-to-end solutions or unit processes for integration into a customer’s overall treatment infrastructure. All of our products incorporate intelligent automation, modular design, and advanced process engineering that provide treatment capabilities and lower total cost than conventional methods,” explained Joshua Zoshi, President of Saltworks Technologies.

Generally, industrial customers have two primary wastewater treatment needs. The first is to reduce the volume of the wastewater to lower disposal costs, and the second is to achieve regulatory compliance, which may also entail volume reduction or removing contaminants from the waste. A third, less common objective is retrieving any valuable material from the wastewater. In mining operations as an example, there might be minerals of value within the wastewater, and the customer will want to extract these. Saltworks is an expert in helping clients overcome these challenges, with approximately forty patents in different areas of the market to provide solutions for complex industrial wastewater.

Saltworks’ flagship products include BrineRefine, a smart chemical softening system, XtremeRO, an advanced reverse osmosis platform, and the SaltMaker, a modern evaporator-crystallizer.

BrineRefine is an intelligently automated chemical softening system. Its key advantage over conventional chemical softening is the ability to adapt to changing wastewater chemistry – a challenge in many industrial applications. It does this by measuring water chemistry and adjusting chemical dosing in real time. This reduces chemical usage, generates less waste sludge, and better protects downstream equipment from scaling. BrineRefine reduces cost and improves treatment reliability in any industry with scaling wastewaters.

XtremeRO is Saltworks’ innovative solution for reducing volume of saline wastewater, or brine. It is based on reverse osmosis, the most widely used desalination technology. However, unlike traditional reverse osmosis, it can concentrate brine to much higher levels and can treat waters with high levels of organics. XtremeRO is therefore ideal for volume reduction of oil and gas produced waters, landfill leachate, food processing wastewater, and other challenging sources.

The SaltMaker product line at Saltworks is made up of modern evaporator crystallizers that further reduce the volume of the wastewater using a novel humidification-dehumidification process. “The SaltMaker was designed from the ground up as a more reliable alternative to traditional evaporators and crystallizers. It will take virtually any wastewater and reduce its volume for much lower cost disposal. It can even squeeze all of the water out, reducing everything else down to a solid,” said Zoshi. The SaltMaker can use waste heat to reduce energy consumption. It also has advanced self-cleaning systems that prevent scaling, corrosion-proof non-metallic materials, and a highly modular design, all of which combine to provide leading reliability for challenging minimal liquid discharge (MLD) or zero liquid discharge (ZLD) applications.

The SaltMaker MultiEffect version of the technology uses a highly energy efficient process that recycles heat internally. This makes it ideal for MLD or ZLD applications with high energy costs, such as remote locations that must ship in diesel. Saltworks sold a treatment plant to a remote mine operating near the subarctic that required an extremely efficient solution.

“They are dewatering their mine, and because it’s so far north, they can’t put that water into a tailings pond. They have to treat it at the mine and then discharge the freshwater directly into the subarctic environment, so it was a very challenging application with really tough environmental regulations,” said Zoshi. Using Saltworks’ systems, customers with particularly problematic situations can operate sustainably and cleanly, and maintain compliance with environmental standards.

The SaltMaker AirBreather is a more recent variation of the SaltMaker MultiEffect. It is a higher capacity version that is well suited to treating waters with volatile organic compounds (VOCs).

“Where the AirBreather really shines is that the water being evaporated never directly contacts the atmosphere, so VOCs are safely managed. This is an industry first,” explained Zoshi.

The company tagline at Saltworks is ‘Treating the Toughest Water.’ If a customer can use some type of conventional technology to treat their wastewater, then that is likely the most economic option. However, Saltworks is the answer in cases where customers have difficult-to-treat desalination and wastewater treatment scenarios or have exhausted the more typical alternatives and are not seeing the results they would like.

By focusing its effort on the toughest challenges, the company has built an expert team with unparalleled experience. Saltworks employs roughly seventy people who are dedicated and passionate about delivering solutions for industrial wastewater. The highly technical group is made up of scientists and engineers, and because the company’s entire operation is in-house, it also has a talented team of builders. From research and development to full-scale plant assembly, this is a collaborative effort.

“We all come to work looking forward to solving some of these really challenging problems that the world is facing. And having the opportunity to build some very innovative technology and get it out into the field and actually have it provide benefits to customers,” Zoshi expressed.

Over the years, Saltworks has received recognition from the Canadian Federal Government as well as the British Columbia and Alberta Provincial Governments through technology development grants. As a clean technology company that is focused on water and energy conservation, it is grateful to be located in a country with supportive environmental programs that encourage a real effort toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Going forward, the company hopes to expand into adjacent industrial sectors where it believes its systems can help. For example, because of the usefulness of natural gas as a transitional fuel source between oil and renewable energy, the company is anticipating growth in this industry.

Natural gas extraction releases highly saline water that was originally in the ground. This “produced water” can be reused for further extraction, but when activity slows in an area, the water must be disposed of. Produced water volumes are substantial, and since disposal costs are high in some regions, such as the Marcellus, there is an opportunity to reduce its volume via onsite treatment. Saltworks has the expertise to help those companies reduce their produced water volume and make it easier and more cost-effective to manage.

Saltworks is also advancing technology for the lithium mining sector. Lithium is typically transported to a remote facility to be refined after being extracted from the ground. Moving the raw material to the refining plant is an expensive step in the process. In partnership with another company, Saltworks can provide these operations with technology that enables them to refine the lithium at the mining site, significantly reducing their overhead and improving the profitability of the customer.

Another application is treating for polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). Released In 2019, a film titled Dark Waters, starring Mark Ruffalo, told the story of a major scandal related to this class of chemical compounds that are extremely dangerous to human health, and are often found in landfill runoff. PFAS is in many household items from carpet to no-stick cookware and is a so-called ‘forever chemical’ because it tends to stay around.

Saltworks is anticipating upcoming regulations related to these compounds and expects that treating wastewater in this area will become a major opportunity to positively impact the health of affected people.

“We’re excited for the future. It almost seems like every month we come across a new inquiry from some industry somewhere in the world. It’s definitely a changing landscape, and we are committed to developing and delivering innovative and economic solutions that enable industries to successfully manage their wastewater.”

The post Delivering Solutions for Challenging Industrial Wastewater<p class="company">Saltworks Technologies</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

“We’ve since cultivated the culture of applying science to meet the technology needs of our growing industry,” says President Bryce Conway. “We engage with production companies and become a true extension of their own efforts.”

“As a technology focused company, we put a lot of effort into our laboratory testing and research and we try to rely on that to provide new solutions, new technologies that are not currently available in the market,” says Flex-Chem Senior Scientist, Scott Bailey, PhD. The company invests a considerable amount of revenue into research and development each year and boasts its own Technology Center, a state of the art facility where the team works to develop effective and economic solutions to clients’ needs.

The Center’s expert technical team has experience in a wide range of disciplines, including microbiology, biofilms, microbial induced corrosion (MIC), field inspections of corroding structures, water analysis, analytical and physical chemistry. These scientists are equipped to handle everything from flow assurance research to custom formulation, process development and the testing of oilfield biological/chemical products. In addition, the team works closely with the University of Oklahoma Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and consults with Dr. Steven Foster, the university’s Mass Spectrometry Facility Director.

With offices in Weatherford, Oklahoma, Edmond, Oklahoma and Pecos, Texas, Flex-Chem is in the center of the action, and possesses several U.S. and international patents in frac water treatment and production enhancement fluids and additives. “Our location in the midcontinent area and Permian Basin has given us access to key markets and strategic insights into technology needs and opportunities of the industry,” Conway says. “Notably, Flex-Chem led the industry in identifying a type of damage caused to shale formations by completion fluids.” In response, the company developed its patented OptaSTIM® technology, which remediates the negative impact of introduced fluids on well performance. “OptaSTIM® has been successfully applied to the midcontinent area for the exponential production improvement of over 700 wells to date,” Conway says.

The team recognized the need for a solution in 2012, when they noticed that wells in the Woodford Shale were not living up to initial production promises. “They all had really high IPs [Initial Production],” Conway recalls. But within a year and a half, production plummeted. “Their production all seemed to be going on an exponential decline. We started looking at the properties of the shale and their interaction with the frac fluids and we discovered that there was a damage mechanism that was being created subterranean by the frac fluid.” The team developed OptaSTIM® to counter this skin damage, and the solution has been a runaway success. “Even after these wells are three years old and beyond we can get production above the original IP,” says Conway.

The team’s close relationship with clients helped them create OptaSTIM®. “Our operators brought a description of the problem to us,” Conway remembers. “They had been unsuccessful in finding a solution with other service providers. Working with them in our laboratory, we developed a kind of understanding of the symptoms of the problem and then we used our research to identify what… the problem was, what was causing the restriction in the flow of these wells. And once we were able to understand what was causing the damage, we were able to develop a technology to go and remove that damage and allow the wells to perform more with what the reservoir potential was.”

Flex-Chem is also a lead innovator in water treatment and conditioning for the oil and gas sector. Bailey says there has been an increased need for comprehensive water management strategies in recent years. “A lot of the water use practices really suffered from lack of stability of the water for reuse in completion operations,” he explains. “Flex-Chem developed a process to address some of these challenges. Using our background in biotechnology, we developed a process based on biological oxidation to treat the water, make it more stable for storage and reuse… Once it’s treated, we can prevent undesirable growth of harmful bacteria, we can meet higher quality reuse standards, and we can also provide what we feel is the lowest total water reuse cost in the industry.”

In 2009, Flex-Chem worked with Linn Energy to use this technology on the world’s first frac water recycling facility, located in Wheeler County, Texas. “It was successful,” Conway shares. The solution took off from there and today Flex-Chem’s water recycling technology is used by most of the water recycling facilities in the midcontinent area. “So far, we’ve used our process to treat more than 135 million barrels of water for reuse in the oil and gas industry,” says Bailey. “We believe that’s a significant achievement.”

By working closely with the industry, the team stays abreast of the market’s evolving needs. “Over the last year or so, we’ve noticed that a lot of the operators in the industry have really been doing some retooling and it’s been reflected in the guidance that they’ve given us,” Bailey says. “A lot of their field development plans have been dialed back in large part due to the market conditions.” In response, the team worked to create a solution to meet the logistical requirements of smaller operations. “We identified a need for water conditioning systems that are more flexible, easier to maintain and, of course, at the same time keep our price point down in the same area as we’ve been able to deliver with our large treatment systems,” Bailey says.

The team’s new solution is a portable, multipurpose water-conditioning unit. “It provides broad flexibility for water conditioning and treatment,” Bailey explains. The unit aerates the water to create conditions favorable for biological oxidation, “which is by and large the most cost-effective way to improve the quality and stability of water. It supports chemical amendments and mixing. It has water transfer capabilities and we can use it to provide water quality management throughout the water distribution system.”

Traditionally, mega water recycling facilities with a capacity of 1.5 million barrels or more utilized Flex-Chem’s water recycling technology. Now, with the company’s portable water-conditioning unit, the team can service much smaller operations. “These modular systems have a transportable design that is adaptable really to any pit or tank or water impoundment,” Bailey says. “It’s a very efficient, scalable system, so really it’s applicable to any type of water source.” The team sees a use for the system for everything from treated municipal water to industrial reuse water and well water.

Flex-Chem continues to roll out innovative solutions for the oil and gas industry. Currently, the company is in the process of launching OptaSTIM® E, a frac additive to prevent skin damage from forming. The new product could be utilized by “all the major shale plays across the United States,” says Conway, and the team has begun performing field trials with OptaSTIM® E with promising results.

Flex-Chem is eager to continue leading the market with innovative solutions. To make this happen, the team plans to maintain their close connection with clients. Both OptaSTIM® and the water treatment solutions “are examples of very strong, market demand technologies that were identified through close relationship with our customers,” Bailey says. With those two major accomplishments already under its belt – and strong industry connections firmly in place – Flex-Chem is ready to tackle the next challenge.

The post Science-Driven Innovators<p class="company">Flex-Chem</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

While that remains the core of its business, Terrapex has expanded its clientele and service lines consistently over the years, all in keeping with a diverse and experienced company that continues to grow and diversify.

Some of Terrapex’s other areas of proficiency include geotechnical design, construction inspection and materials testing, building condition surveys, building science/engineering, environmental regulatory compliance and expert witness testimony. With thousands of successful public and private sector projects under its belt, the company continually strives for innovation and exceptional service for its diverse clientele.

Established in 1995, Terrapex’s origins were in handling contaminated real estate, focusing mostly on the petroleum industry. The company expanded geographically both within the province and across the country, with registered offices now also located in Smithers, British Columbia, and Calgary, Alberta.

“For most of the past 25 years we’ve grown very slowly, cautiously and steadily,” says CEO Mike Osborne. “We’ve flown under the radar; we’ve been a little consulting firm that nobody’s ever heard of. A few years ago we realized that if we want to grow the company to the next level, we have to raise our profile.”

In 2017, Terrapex started a hydrogeology service line to complement real estate development, followed by ecology and health and safety service lines in 2018. “All of these things go along very well with our core business, either complementing or relating to contaminated real estate or development,” says Osborne. He adds that expanding service lines even further is a priority for the company.

Being a member of the Inogen Environmental Alliance has also given Terrapex an impetus to provide new services for clients across the country. Inogen, an international alliance of environmental consulting firms that provides multinational organizations with high-quality and cost-effective environmental, health, safety, energy and sustainability solutions, assists clients by resolving past liabilities, addressing requirements and delivering solutions. It boasts more than 200 offices located on every continent, with projects completed in more than 120 countries.

“We’re the primary Canadian associate for Inogen,” says President Jennifer O’Grady. “That gives us access to multinational clients doing work in Canada, which is huge for an Ontario-based company with about 80 employees.”

Inogen has been interesting for Terrapex in many ways, says O’Grady, including informing the company’s strategic plan. Inogen enables Terrapex to see trends coming from Europe and the U.S., which tend to be precursors of what the industry does in Canada.

“The Inogen model is also something we’ve been able to mimic in a small way within Canada in order to provide services to our clients,” she says. “We’ve developed partnerships with a number of local, or specialized consultants, and that’s how the Inogen model works.”

One consultant will get a project, and if it’s a multinational project then Terrapex retains consultants in the geographic locations where the work needs to be done. “We’ve been able to develop partnerships with other similar like-minded consultants, some of which offer different services and projects,” she says.

Osborne adds that attending Inogen’s associates meetings twice a year around the world has also been extremely beneficial for Terrapex. Inogen conferences mean two solid days in a room with the leaders of various well-renowned consulting companies across the world, says O’Grady. Associates talk about issues they’re all facing and how to market each other’s services, and attend workshops.

“It’s a really good experience,” she says, “especially the connections you make with other people. We’ve actually had opportunities for employees as well. We’ve ended up hiring people looking to relocate to Canada.”

Members meet each other on a regular basis and get to know each other, says Osborne. “I think there’s a more personal connection, strange as that might seem, between the 70 associates than you might find in a typical global consulting firm.”

That’s one of the reasons it was started, adds O’Grady – to deal with dissatisfaction and communication gaps felt by clients with projects in multiple geographic locations.

“Being part of Inogen informs our strategic planning, because we see the work that’s becoming important and common in Europe typically first, and then in the United States, and our experience has been that the things that become important in the States follow shortly thereafter in Canada,” says Osborne. “Ideally we’re able to position ourselves with those things.”

Sustainability is one of those issues they see growing both around the globe and within Canada. “We’re definitely seeing a demand,” says Osborne, although it’s not yet one of the services Terrapex offers in-house. At the moment, the company has associate companies in Canada that are a go-to if clients need it, but it’s a goal Terrapex will strive to reach itself as it expands.

As O’Grady mentions, the company is relatively small, especially in comparison to competitors, so continuing to grow is a priority in the coming years.

“It has always been our philosophy that for our company to succeed it has to grow,” says Osborne. “If you want to keep your people you have to provide them with opportunities.”

While Terrapex has not grown at a tremendous pace, it has always grown consistently, he says, citing geographic growth and service expansion as examples. But Terrapex’s smaller size has also been an advantage over the years.

“One thing that sets us apart from our competitors is our mid-size company feel,” says O’Grady. “We compete against a lot of very large firms in this space and one thing we hear from our clients is that there’s a lot of bureaucracy at those firms. They end up talking to different people all the time, which leads to inconsistent quality.”

“At Terrapex, we strive to have all clients call and speak to the same point of contact directly each time,” says Osborne, adding that it’s difficult to maintain that consistent quality when you’re not a traditional niche company. “We struggle to be mid-market in terms of price but top-market in terms of quality, and that’s our agenda,” he says. They both say that maintaining quality and meaningful relationships with both clients and employees is key.

“We wouldn’t have any relationship with our customers if we didn’t have really good employees,” says Osborne. “More than a third of our employees have been with us for more than 10 years, and some have been [with us for] 20 years or more.”

“Quite a few people have spent their entire career with us so far,” says O’Grady. “These are people who have worked in the industry a long time and haven’t felt the need to leave after a few years. It’s actually been a challenge as well for us to accommodate the growth of these people. We want to provide more opportunities.”

Employee engagement is very important to Terrapex, which means creating autonomy at the senior level and giving people responsibility to do their own work. Even as the team grows it’s important to maintain a small company feel, says O’Grady. Terrapex has worked hard to have an open door relationship between all levels of staff, creating a family atmosphere that includes team building events to foster healthy relationships.

“We’ve had feedback that we’re not a company that makes clients feel anonymous,” says Osborne. “We offer personal service, because we believe client communication is key and we pride ourselves on that.”

Terrapex also prides itself on strong employee retention, but the test lies in meeting employee needs as they grow and continue to advance their careers, says Osborne. “It’s a challenge to keep them challenged and engaged. It’s a good problem to have, but it’s still a challenge.”

Another ongoing challenge throughout the industry at large is finding good people, he says. The environmental industry has been growing for as long as Osborne has been in it, and he doesn’t think there has been enough resource development to support it. An industry-wide problem, it’s one that Terrapex has handled exceedingly well. “I think we’ve done a very good job of hiring very good people,” he says. But there are other more pressing challenges to address, he adds.

As the core business of contaminated site assessment is increasingly commoditized, It’s become – for some – cookie cutter, and has also driven the prices and the margins down.

“It’s not something we want to abandon; we’re good at it and it’s what we know, but we have to adapt our business to remain competitive in those core areas,” he says. “It’s one of the things that has driven us to diversify our services so that we can continue to do that work, but augment it with other less commoditized, more cerebral work.”

One of the things Terrapex has been able to maintain is quality. “That’s something that tends to slip as you get bigger,” says O’Grady. “Finding the right balance between having those systems in place to maintain quality and stifling people with those systems is something we’ve always had at the forefront of our mind, as well as various checks and balances. We know we did a really good job of that with our core businesses, and we can extend that quality as we grow.”

And managing to compete with larger companies in this field is a source of true pride. “There’s been a lot of consolidation within the industry,” she says. “We don’t have the recognition or the brand power, but we do win jobs and get clients.”

“We punch above our weight,” adds Osborne, who says that the company’s low profile sometimes leads to a misperception of its work and purpose. “Some people think we’re tree huggers while other people think we’re slaves to the corporate dollar and trying to help big corporations duck their responsibilities,” he says. “My perspective is something in between. I think a lot of people who look to us are motivated by the belief that they’re doing good work for the environment, but we also do work for big corporations. There’s no denying it, but the reality is that large corporations have some fixed dollars or resource level that they can devote to environmental issues. Our job is to get them the greatest environmental benefits for the dollars that they have to spend.”

As the company reaches its 25^th anniversary, exciting changes are in the works, including restructuring and positioning for growth, plus a chance to reflect on the past and look to the future.

“It’s kind of like a turning point for us,” says Osborne. “Our very first client almost 25 years ago is now our biggest and best client. We’ve kept that client and many others for a long period of time. We work to develop relationships; it’s a service industry and it really is all about personal relationships. Even though we keep a low profile, we do a good job developing and maintaining relationships and plan to keep doing that in the future.”

The post Clean Sweep — Terrapex Takes On Contaminated Real Estate<p class="company">Terrapex</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

ShalePro offers midstream and production services for natural gas and oil companies working in the Appalachian Basin – Marcellus/Utica shale play and basins nationwide. Services are grouped into two categories: operations/maintenance and projects/construction.

It currently operates seventeen compressor stations, services hundreds of miles of gas system pipeline, and operates and maintains nearly one thousand wells. The company’s midstream operations/maintenance team keeps compressor stations “up and running and operating. We also have a pipeline group that does maintenance and operations services on the pipelines that make up the main infrastructure of midstream companies,” states ShalePro President and CEO Bill Johnson.

“On the project or construction side of midstream, we’re not really a long-haul pipeline construction company. We do more of the mechanical piping work at facilities such as compressor stations and gas processing plants. [We work on] small interconnect pipelines. These aren’t the pipelines that are going across the country. These are small diameter pipes that go around these facilities,” he adds. Specific midstream duties include pigging, welding, fabricating and installing equipment, pressure testing, and repairing leaks.

“On the production side, in operations and maintenance, we have a group that handles what’s commonly referred to as well-tending. When a well is up and producing, we have a route of wells that a well-tender goes around to daily, to make sure things are okay, make sure there are no safety issues and everything is operating at optimal performance. They do various pressure and flow readings at the well and other support equipment to make sure everything is operating properly and nothing is in need of repair. They have daily reports they have to fill out,” says Johnson.

As for project or construction work on the production front, the company does not drill or frack, “but once the well is in place, we do all the above ground piping and interconnect work. So, there are tanks, sand traps, gas production units, dehydration units, filters and heaters,” he says. “All this aboveground apparatus that in one shape or form is basically filtering what’s coming out of the well.”

Despite the recent downturn in gas and oil prices, he remains optimistic about the company’s fortunes. He attributes the company’s rapid rise to a combination of factors.

“Number one, the company got established early enough in the boom here that we’ve been able to kind of ride the wave with the growth of gas production in Appalachia. During our history, gas production volumes have significantly increased in the region,” he says. “Number two, we made a few acquisitions. That certainly helps the growth rate. And three, if you look at the services we focus on, they are services that seem to be in demand consistently and don’t fluctuate much with the price of gas. I also think we have a great team in place.”

It all began in the summer of 2014 when Johnson partnered with a Richmond, Virginia-based private equity group called Turning Basin Capital and acquired four companies in the natural gas and oil sector. Pigging and compressor operations firm ProActive Services was purchased first in 2014. A year later, the fledgling outfit bought Starett’s Well Service which does maintenance and operations work. A well-tending and production company called Appalachian Production Services was merged in 2016. A year later, Katko, a company that does fabrication, well hook-ups and installations, was acquired.

“Each of those companies had been in business for various periods of time, with the oldest company being Appalachian Production Services which was started in 1994. So, we have roots that go back to 1994,” he says.

Initially, these acquisitions were placed under the auspices of a holding company called Basin Energy Group. Two years ago, the business structure of this parent company was altered, and its name was changed to ShalePro Energy Services.

“We just thought ShalePro was a better name. At that point, we also decided to consolidate all the brands. Whereas Basin Energy Group was more of a holding company, we’ve rolled everybody into ShalePro now. So, the subsidiary names have basically disappeared,” states Johnson.

From roughly thirty-five employees at the start, the company now boasts more than 350 workers. It likes to hire people who are self-driven, hard-working, and flexible. “We don’t tend to follow an eight-to-five schedule in this industry. You have a lot of odd shifts. You have night shifts. You work long hours, and you have weather to deal with,” he explains. While experience in the oil and gas industry is a bonus, the firm has a good track record of training people for any vacant position.

ShalePro has earned industry kudos for its speedy rise, and Johnson has also received personal honors. Thanks to his position at the helm, the company was included on the 2020 University of Florida Gator 100 list which salutes firms run or owned by University of Florida Alumni that have demonstrated impressive global revenue growth.

This growth has been complemented by attention to quality. Quality standards are maintained through a combination of employee efforts, inspections, and customer input.

“Quality is tied to our frontline supervisors and the training that they get and then the inspections that take place from upper-level management, plus client feedback. If we think we’re doing a good job [we want to know if] the client agrees with that. If there’s a difference of opinion, we sit down with the client and figure out ways to fix things,” states Johnson.

Safety is handled in an equally comprehensive manner by ShalePro Energy Services’ seven-person safety team, “which we think, for the size of our company, is best-in-class,” he reports.

The safety team goes to job sites to engage in inspections and offer in-the-field training. Staff members are expected to take part in safety training programs required by both the company and clients. ShalePro conducts drug screens and background checks on all new hires, holds weekly mandatory safety training sessions, and sets a maximum number of work hours per day “so people don’t get fatigued,” Johnson says.

While focusing on natural gas and oil, ShalePro is “always looking at expanding the services we offer. Right now, we’re looking at expanding our operations and maintenance pipeline services,” he continues.

One of these operations is a 33,000-square-foot fabrication shop ShalePro runs in Steubenville, Ohio. “We’re looking at how we can support other industrial applications out of that fabrication facility, beyond just oil and gas,” he says. It is also “evaluating other basins that we could move into that we really aren’t doing much in.”

As for the biggest challenge at present, Johnson names, “the low price of natural gas. That puts extreme pressure on our clients, which then flows downhill to us. It’s looking for ways to not just cut costs, but to be more cost-effective for our customers – how we can help our customers survive in a low-gas price market.”

Market conditions are likely going to cause the company’s growth to temporarily plateau. On top of this, the 2019 to 2020 winter was mild, meaning not as much natural gas was used for heating as usual.

“We’re seeing, for the first time, a slowdown. If you look at gas production, it’s forecasted to be flat in 2020, which would be the first time ever in Marcellus/Utica it will be flat. I think our fate will somewhat follow that. We’re looking at this being more of a flat year for us,” he says.

While the recent precipitous drop in oil and gas prices is disconcerting, such price fluctuations are to be expected in the resource sector, he adds. “This tends to be a cyclical industry. So [to an extent] you’re not too worried about it. I think what’s a little different is that we’re so oversupplied with gas this time. You look around and say ‘Where is the demand going to come from to suck up that supply?’ and it’s not clear there’s much of a really big demand increase coming.”

Nonetheless, Johnson offers a positive forecast for the near future. “I think in three years, we’ll be into a different phase of the market cycle. I can see us potentially adding a few more acquisitions in the company and continuing to execute on our growth plans which will probably take us to other parts of the country in meaningful ways.”

The post Well-Earned Recognition for Speedy Growth<p class="company">ShalePro Energy Services </p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

From environmentally friendly sources of energy such as solar and wind to thermal power, biomass, hydrogen and hydroelectric, renewables are proving themselves to be cleaner alternatives to fossil fuels like oil, natural gas and coal.

Producing far fewer emissions such as sulfur dioxide, mercury, greenhouse gases (GHG) carbon dioxide, ozone, nitrous oxide and methane from burning fossil fuels, renewable options are fast becoming the choice for investors who care about the future of the planet.

Significant growth
According to recent data from New York-based Kenneth Research, the Global Renewable Energy Market is set to hit US$2,152.9 billion by 2025, a significant increase from $1,486.3 billion just three years ago, and a growth rate exceeding 4.90 percent.

According to market analysis, factors behind the increase include governments and public administrations worldwide making significant investments in renewable sources such as solar and wind because of their viability. There’s also a “rising awareness about carbon footprint management,” namely, curtailing GHGs and reducing pollution.

Worldwide, research institutes are optimistic about renewable energy as sources of electricity on their own, and with other sources like natural gas, which is much cleaner-burning than coal. The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) predicts the increase in this global energy mix to rise from 19.2 percent (in 2014) to 36 percent by 2030.

With Kenneth Research far from alone in predicting massive growth in alternative energy investment, worldwide multinational professional services company Deloitte’s 2020 Renewable Energy Industry Outlook shares the optimism over green energy.

Renewables were responsible for generating 966 billion kWh of electricity in the United States in 2019 – second only to natural gas at 1,582 billion kWh – breaking coal’s record.

Wind and solar provided 23 percent of America’s power generation compared to 20 percent for coal, says the report. “In the first half of 2019, wind and solar together accounted for approximately 50 percent of total U.S. renewable generation, displacing hydroelectric power’s dominance.”

Improved technologies
Part of the reason for the increase in wind power, solar, and other greener sources, comes down to the improved ability to store electricity from renewable sources in batteries.

Published less than a decade ago, the book Investing in the Renewable Power Market: How to Profit from Energy Transformation discusses the then-obstacles to renewable energy storage. Written by Tom Fogarty and Robert Lamb, the book discusses the benefits and risks of investing in green energy from “both an academic and a practitioner perspective,” outlining the pros and cons of alternative energy back in 2012.

“Solar power and wind farms produce power only when the sun shines or when the wind blows,” states the authors. “Often, they must spill off extra power if it cannot immediately be used in production. Science does not yet have giant new technologically innovative fail-safe batteries necessary to store huge amounts of wind or solar power overnight. Thus, by themselves, solar and wind power usually cannot be used for a financial loan guarantee covered by ‘liquidated damages’ for a seven-day-a-week, 24-hour-a-day continuous stream of energy necessary for the vast majority of investors or bank leaders.”

In recent years, the energy storage landscape has changed dramatically with disruptive battery technologies. From bulky and potentially dangerous lead-acid to nickel-cadmium in the past, the planet today works on lithium-ion batteries to power everything from our cell phones to home energy storage devices containing energy captured from the sun.

While lead-acid batteries have been used for years in alternative energy storage, they have a much shorter lifespan compared to lithium-ion batteries’ five to 15 years (depending on usage and maintenance), and which also function much more efficiently, and are compact.

And, with other battery types emerging including silicon-based, proton-exchange membrane (PEM), aluminum-ion, magnesium and others, it won’t be long before lead-acid based batteries are a relic of the past.

Practical and political factors
Trends reveal that significant demand for renewable power comes from not only environmentally-conscious investors, but residential, commercial, and industrial consumers.

According to Deloitte’s renewable energy industry outlook, American corporate contracts for renewable power broke records in 2018 (the most recent data), “as corporations signed power purchase agreements (PPAs) for 5.9 gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy in the first half of 2019,” adding that an estimated 99.6 percent of net new-generation capacity additions (~74 GW) this year is expected to come from solar and wind energy.

Other factors in favour of investing in renewables are the downturn and increased political uncertainty in fossil fuel markets, particularly in Canada and the United States.

That’s not all that’s weakened investor confidence in oil and LNG in Canada. There are ongoing rail blockades over the 416 mile-long (670 km.) Coastal GasLink natural gas pipeline project in British Columbia. Teck Resources Ltd. has walked away from a proposed $15.7 billion U.S. Frontier oil-sands project in Alberta.

And then there’s the recent decision by Warren Buffett-led company Berkshire Hathaway to pull out its $4 billion investment in a $9 billion liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant by Quebec’s Port of Saguenay.

Meanwhile in America, despite President Trump’s pledge to resurrect the coal industry from its decade-long slump, coal-fired power plants are closing at a record rate, including the massive Navajo Generating Station (NGS) in Arizona late last year.

The outlook of energy
From slowdowns and cancelled oil and gas projects to backlash over coal-fired plants and increasing concerns about climate change, markets worldwide are ripe for renewable energy investment. Worldwide it is estimated trillions of dollars will be spent in the coming years on solar, wind, water and other sources of clean energy.

Comprising power generation, heat and transportation, the opportunities for green energy investment are many, encompassing manufacturers and installers, utilities, biofuel producers, independent producers, and many others.

For investors, sources of information on renewables and opportunities include Invesco WilderHill Clean Energy ETF – which holds dozens of renewable energy stocks – and Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs). Like investing in oil, natural gas and coal, there are perks and potential pitfalls to putting your money in renewables, such as increased competition bringing-down prices of solar panels, for example.

States go renewable
Despite this potential hurdle, more and more states across America are mandating reduced GHG emissions, and focusing on renewable sources of power. In March of this year, the Virginia Legislature joined TK when it passed Senate Bill 851. Requiring the state to obtain all power from renewable sources and nuclear, the move puts the state on the path of becoming 100 percent carbon-free by 2045.

At present, 24 states have joined the United States Climate Alliance, and are committed to lowering greenhouse gas emissions 26 to 28 percent by 2025.

In recent years, renewables consumption of hydroelectric power, solar, wind, ethanol, and other green energy sources has steadily increased across America. In late February, the U.S. Energy Information Administration announced that wind generation surpassed hydroelectric generation in 2019 for the first time, generating 300-million megawatt hours (MWh).

And according to the EIA’s Annual Energy Outlook 2020, it is predicted electricity generation from renewable sources like solar and wind are poised to exceed generation from nuclear and coal in just the next year, and natural gas by 2045.

Anticipating that renewables in America’s electricity generation mix will soar from 19 percent at present to 38 percent in 2050, the report goes on to say that wind and solar power – which already accounts for approximately half of the U.S.’ renewable electricity generation – will continue to lead the way, expected to account for almost 80 percent of the renewables market in the next 30 years.

No longer the pipe dream of scientists and hobbyists, clean alternative sources of power will keep gaining ground in the months and years to come. As the cost of manufacturing components for wind farms and solar arrays (multiple solar panels consisting of cells and modules) continues to drop, and with governments worldwide investing in green energy technologies, the opportunities for investing in renewables will continue to grow.

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