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.”

The post What Lies Beneath<p class="company">LeeWay Marine</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

“Within North America, we’re selling the largest, most complex cranes,” says General Sales Manager Gavin Mills.

Weighing roughly 125,000 kilograms, the HAW66-300K was sold to Davie Shipbuilding of Quebec “for installation on the CCGS (Canadian Coast Guard ship) Vincent Massey. The crane will be used as an aid to navigation—also known as buoy tending—in Canadian waters,” he says.

This giant piece of equipment has wireless remote controls and a load moment indicator (LMI) that continuously monitors work functions. If the LMI system detects a hazard, it gives an audio alarm and warning light.

Hawboldt is currently building another offshore marine crane that Mills refers to as “the smaller sibling,” of the HAW66-300K.

This 150K Series crane comes with a thirty-five-metre reach, 150 metric tonne capacity and a weight of 90,000 kilograms. This ‘smaller sibling’ will be “shipped out to the West Coast to be installed on a Coast Guard vessel very shortly. It will also be for aid to navigation/buoy tending work in Canadian waters,” states Mills.

These offshore cranes were built under the auspices of the National Shipbuilding Strategy (NSS), a government initiative to build up Canada’s combat and non-combat fleet. While delighted to take on NSS projects, the company would like to expand its scope and find other clients for its gigantic offshore marine cranes.

Besides buoy tending, these mammoth cranes have capabilities ranging from vessel-to-vessel transferring and boat launching to vessel-to-platform transfer, vessel-to-sea-floor transferring, and shipboard services. The offshore cranes are built tough and function fine in both extreme cold and inclement weather.

The company does not just make enormous offshore cranes; Hawboldt offers a full suite of marine services and products including launch and recovery handling systems, ocean science equipment, marine crane, fishing equipment, hydraulic power units, integrated full-deck solutions, propellers, underwater gear, and anchor and mooring deck equipment. The firm also provides propeller repair and excels at electrical, hydraulic, and mechanical engineering. Customers can be found in commercial shipbuilding, fisheries, offshore oil and gas, aid to navigation, ocean sciences research and national defence sectors.

Hawboldt Industries was founded in the early 1900s in Chester, where it is based today. In the beginning, it primarily “supported the burgeoning mechanized fishing industry here when there was a transition from sail to engine-powered vessels,” recalls Mills.

The company sold equipment such as winches and provided services such as propeller repair for local fishing boats. Over the decades, it grew and expanded its range of products, services, and clients, and today, Hawboldt occupies a forty-thousand-square-foot building. Office space for sales, administration, management, quality control, project management, and engineering accounts for a fifth of this space.

“We’re so busy we’ve had to rent a couple of mobile office units that are outside to house more office staff. The office is quite full,” states Mills.

The facility also houses space for manufacturing and repair work. The ISO 9001-certified firm operates a foundry, machine shop, hydraulic and welding shops, and does its own assembly and testing. Testing is mostly conducted outdoors on company grounds.

The propeller department “can cast new propellers, and we can also repair propellers that have some damage. That’s a pretty consistent business that supports almost exclusively the local fishing industry around these parts… We’ve been doing that type of work for a long time,” states Mills.

Hawboldt’s product line includes launch and recovery systems (LARS), scientific winches for ocean research projects, trawl winches for fisheries, marine cranes, propellers (the firm can work with propellers made from a variety of materials including manganese bronze, aluminum, and nickel aluminum bronze), and anchor-related products.

“We have a large engineering department. Designing custom equipment and manufacturing it is what we aim to do whenever we can,” he says. Being centrally located and performing most of its manufacturing gives it an edge over competitors, he says.

From its base in Chester, Hawboldt can utilize resources offered by its parent company, the Timberland Group. Timberland, which acquired Hawboldt in the early 2000s, operates other firms and “has a much bigger shop,” says Mills.

“Certainly, within North America, we feel local support is very important to our customers. Also, we have everything under one roof. A lot of our largest competitors might have offices and work centers in different parts of the world, but we have [everything] in one facility. We’re a lot quicker and better able to get down to the bottom of any questions or issues and get back to our customers in a timely manner,” he points out.

For all this, the company has an international focus. Hawboldt recently shipped an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) launch and recovery system to the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, for example. The recovery system is being used in a high-profile scientific project.

Swedish researchers will be “travelling down to Antarctica. They are taking their AUV, going under an ice shelf that’s as big as the UK. There’s some concern that once [the ice shelf] lets go, it will have a pretty big effect on water levels. We sold a launch recovery system for that AUV, which is their prime piece of science gear. It goes underneath the ice shelf and measures freshwater flow, melting [rates], temperatures, and things like that,” says Mills.

Like all other North American manufacturers, Hawboldt had to adjust to the conditions surrounding COVID-19. When the virus became widespread in March 2020, the company was swift to respond.

“We addressed it early. We sent home as many employees as we could who could work from home. We’re building here, so we’re forced to have people on-site for production and production support, but we have lots of space in the shop. We kept workgroups small and kept them separate from other groups and staggered lunchtimes and start times and whatnot. We also did things like more frequent cleaning, wearing masks whenever you’re away from your desk, sanitizer at key positions, and things like that. We haven’t had any COVID cases since the pandemic broke out, so we think we’re doing pretty good,” states Mills.

The company is proud to be based in Nova Scotia, a part of Canada that’s “not really known as a big OEM hub,” he says. “We’ve been able to grow and provide some really interesting new products, all while based in an area that really doesn’t have that [manufacturing] backbone that you would see in Ontario.”

Regional pride does come at something of a price. “Getting enough qualified employees here to fill the demand we have,” represents the biggest challenge facing the firm. “It’s a struggle in any rural area. We’re just far enough from Halifax that it can be challenging to entice people to come down here, but a lot of times, when people do come down here, they stay, because it’s a beautiful place. We have a huge backlog which we will have for many years, but it’s tough sometimes to get the right people,” notes Mills.

However, Hawboldt’s workforce is on the rise. There are roughly sixty-five workers currently employed at the firm, up from “probably low fifties,” this time last year, he says.

“We’ve got some really good talent here. I’m really excited about what the next few years will show for us,” adds Mills.

The engineering department has been a steady area of growth for the company. The firm also wants to expand its service capabilities. The goal is to be able to provide in-house maintenance for cranes and other products going to national clients such as the Royal Canadian Navy.

There has even been talk about increasing the company’s hometown operations. “We are looking at expanding this facility, especially as equipment like the offshore cranes becomes bigger for us. We need more space. We need heavier lifting equipment. There are no formal plans on when [expansion] will happen, but it’s necessary for us to grow in the future,” he says.

He sees positive things ahead for the firm.

“I think we’ve gained a lot of great experience from the National Shipbuilding Strategy (NSS), not only for large offshore cranes but also for science equipment for whole ship sets. We want to take that experience and be successful outside of Canada and [go beyond] government work, whether that’s through research organizations, research ship builds in the US or globally, or an offshore crane line in offshore energy services, whether that’s oil-and-gas or offshore wind. Those are big areas of focus for us,” says Mills.

The post A Venerable Maritime Firms Goes Big<p class="company">Hawboldt Industries</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

MacArtney was founded in 1978 by Martin MacArtney, after which it entered a handshake deal with marine connector manufacturer SubConn and continued its journey toward being a global force in the ocean technology industry. Over three decades later in 2012, entrepreneur Tom Knox began a subsea fibre optic telemetry company, EMO Marine, in his garage in Eastern Passage. These subsea multiplexer systems accept electric inputs with different signalling formats from ocean faring sensors and convert, combine, and compress the information into a single signal comprising bands of light, which are transmitted through a single glass fibre. The process also involves a “dry” de-multiplexer on the receiving end that splits the fibre signal into its original electrical protocols so they may be accessed.

In 2016, EMO was sold and began a new life as MacArtney Canada Ltd., the Canadian regional sales office of parent company MacArtney Underwater Technology in Denmark. MacArtney Canada operates in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia with a small yet agile team of nine people.

With multiplexer and cable workshops, the company now serves the Canadian market with subsea cables, connectors, and terminations, as well as built-to-order multiplexer systems. As the designers and manufacturers of the EMO multiplexer line, MacArtney Canada also serves the many other MacArtney offices worldwide with their multiplexer needs. MacArtney’s line of products extends beyond connectors, cables, and telemetry systems. They also offer products ranging from winches and handling systems to off-shore cable-handling equipment, ROTV platforms, cameras, lights, and much more.

Multiplexers have diverse uses across the industry, usually involving situations where the use of very long cables can lead to electrical signal degradation. Another benefit of incorporating a multiplexer is that data can be transmitted for kilometres using one cable instead of multiple lines for each sensor.

System Sales Manager Matthew Dempsey purports that it is MacArtney Canada’s agile ability to make bespoke multiplexer systems, along with the team’s in-depth understanding of these systems, that separate the company from others in its field. “Other [companies] supply these types of systems,” Dempsey explains, “but they are not as agile as us.”

MacArtney Canada’s office is located within the Center for Ocean Ventures and Entrepreneurship (COVE), a home base for marine technology partners and ideas. Dempsey details that COVE recently commissioned a multi-sensor seabed platform dubbed the Stella Maris. The platform is an instrumentation test bed for the tenants and partners of COVE, outfitted with over twenty-five different sensors and located nearby the onshore installation in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. For this commission, MacArtney designed a custom multiplexer system to power and facilitate the telemetry of the two dozen sensors.

Pre-pandemic, the company also entered a partnership with scientific consulting firm and OEM JASCO Applied Sciences in a project commissioned by the Government of Canada. The commissioned systems took the form of sensor platforms and custom multiplexers and were deployed in the Boundary Pass strait in British Columbia to track the acoustic signatures of Southern Resident Killer Whales, local ship traffic, and how the two interacted.

Both jobs were very high-profile for MacArtney and have helped to define its role as a key ally to the industry.

The spirit of partnership has endured ever since Martin MacArtney’s handshake deal with SubConn decades ago and is instilled in company culture. The company operates with a collaborative mindset and is always actively seeking new partnerships with companies and institutions. “We like to meet people, get to know their challenges and requirements, and come up with solutions,” Dempsey says of the importance of business relationships as opposed to more clinical or impersonal relations.

Dempsey has been particularly impressed with the amount of top tier talent available in the company’s home of Atlantic Canada. Although he refers to a ‘brain drain’ of local talent moving away some years ago, the pendulum has swung the other way in the last several years with more people sticking around and wanting to be involved in work around the province. He credits this to the growth continually occurring in STEM fields today and, specifically, within the marine sector.

Even during the height of the pandemic in 2020, MacArtney managed to avoid much of a downturn in business and operations. Although some of their clients were affected, many industry organizations were unable to go out to sea and enact research trials or use equipment, leaving little choice but to switch into planning mode. This in turn led to MacArtney and other original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) being commissioned for equipment, keeping things quite busy.

The biggest challenges for the business lie ahead. Dempsey describes the recent leap in the price of raw materials such as copper and lengthening lead times across the sector. This hurdle has been challenging to clear thus far, and has led to many in the company trying to think outside the box to find ways to bring lead times and prices down, potentially using different suppliers or different types of materials.

A problem that has been felt among its workforce is how to maintain relationships in the face of COVID-19 restrictions. The company’s typical approach to business relationships has been hampered by ongoing constraints to deal with the coronavirus, and although digital meetings and work-from-home has become the norm, many employees feel it is not enough to keep the company’s personable approach alive. Dempsey recalls a refreshing trip that he and General Manager Andrew Palmer took recently to the Oceans Conference in San Diego, which both took as a hopeful sign of things to come.

As 2021 draws to a close and a new year looks to begin, MacArtney Canada will continue to explore new opportunities to get out, meet new people, and grow, taking on more staff and capability. Dempsey emphasizes the size and depth of the entire organization’s product line, noting that a small but important part of that offering is in its Canadian office.

There is a palpable sense of optimism for MacArtney Canada as coronavirus restrictions slowly begin to lift in both Eastern Canada and the rest of the world. The future is exciting and hopeful for Dempsey and the entire team, who are eager to hit the ground running and get the MacArtney name back out into the industry in a big way.

The post Staking a Claim in North America’s Maritime Industry with Technology & Collaboration<p class="company">MacArtney Canada </p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

The industry faced tremendous pressure during the global pandemic, and SWANA has been there to support members through the tough times. “SWANA and the industry have overcome a lot of adversity over these last eighteen months,” says SWANA Applied Research Director Jeremy O’Brien. Residential waste spiked by twenty percent at the onset of the quarantine, and commercial waste plummeted, as people stayed home from work.

The industry had to navigate the shifting landscape while meeting the challenges of operating safely to reduce the spread of the virus and coping with a high number of COVID-related employee absences. “That’s created some delays in the collection of waste in certain areas and some concern, especially the residential sector,” O’Brien says. “They are used to having their waste picked up on a regular and efficient basis, so this is a new thing for them. But, I think through all of this society, in general, has really begun to recognize how important and essential solid waste management is as a public service and how much they depend on it. It’s just one of those things where, I guess [like the singer] Joni Mitchell said, ‘you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone.’”

Now, the public has developed “a renewed appreciation for good solid waste management systems and services, and we appreciate that as an industry, especially our workers because their work is hard and often overlooked and underappreciated.”

An ongoing focus for SWANA is waste-to-energy (WTE), the thermal treatment of solid waste that produces baseload electricity and/or steam. WTE is “universally ranked above landfill disposal in every waste hierarchy,” O’Brien reports. He explains that the technology is commercially proven and reliable for a community’s non-recycled residual waste and that “many WTE facilities in the U.S. have been operating reliably, safely, and consistently for over forty years.”

WTE reduces the volume to be landfilled by a whopping ninety percent. The residue, or ash, is stable, inert waste and does not generate methane or create acidic conditions—which can cause serious problems for the environment. And, WTE goes a step further to eliminate harmful substances. The thermal process destroys pathogens, pharmaceuticals, and hazardous chemicals that remain in waste disposed of through traditional methods.

One substance that does remain in the residue is metal and aggregates, which can then be recovered and reused. “More metals are recovered than from source separation recycling programs,” O’Brien reports. WTE also enables recovering the energy value of discarded waste products, conserving fossil fuels.

However, there is opposition to WTE throughout North America, particularly over concerns that thermal treatment harms the environment and public health. O’Brien explains that SWANA is focused on “overcoming the negative public perception of WTE,” and is working hard to win over environmental groups through education. He points out that, according to the EPA, WTE “generates electricity cleaner than coal and almost any other source,” and that “WTE emissions are 70 percent below MACT standards.” O’Brien also shares that, in 2007, the National Research Council found “no association between human health impacts and the operation of WTE facilities. Health benefits may outweigh health risks.”

Over 96 percent of residual waste in Europe is diverted through WTE, but there are some key challenges to implementing the method in North America. In addition to environmental concerns, there is the fact that setting up a facility is “significantly more expensive than landfilling,” O’Brien says. “[It] requires large upfront capital cost investment.” Another problem is that the energy sold by these high-cost WTE facilities is bringing lower prices due to competition from low-priced natural gas recovered by fracking.

There is also the concern that low-income populations might be negatively affected by any new WTE facilities. In the past, people with more privilege typically pushed these sites out of their neighborhoods into the backyards of the underprivileged. “Siting of new facilities is always difficult, but will be more so due to the need to address environmental justice concerns,” O’Brien says.

SWANA’s role in promoting WTE begins with educating local government policymakers, solid waste managers, and the general public about the benefits of thermal treating solid waste before its disposal in landfills. The organization also provides performance and cost data on other residual waste management options—such as mechanical-biological treatment and sending untreated waste directly to landfills—so that communities can choose the best option for them. It conducts and publishes applied research on all waste management options to ensure members and the public has access to reliable data and analysis.

O’Brien predicts low growth in WTE facilities over the next decade due to the relatively low cost of landfill disposal and low energy prices coupled with the high cost of building new WTE facilities. “Most activity will center around the replacement or rehab of the seventy-plus existing WTE facilities which are reaching the end of their service lives.” But, he believes there will be “renewed interest in WTE/thermal treatment over the long term as the drawbacks of other options—long haul disposal, mechanical biological treatment—become more documented and recognized.”

Protecting public health from a group of manufactured chemicals known by the acronym PFAS is another important SWANA initiative. PFAS are found in a wide variety of products from antilock brake systems and firefighting foam to nonstick cookware and stain-resistant carpet. These highly durable chemicals have incredibly strong bonds that do not break down easily, so they remain in the environment. “It is showing up in our drinking water, and pretty much every human on the planet has a little bit in their bloodstream because it’s so ubiquitous,” O’Brien says.

The issue has been given a considerable amount of attention at both the state and federal levels, and Congress has passed the PFAS Action Act requiring the EPA to designate these chemicals as hazardous within one year. SWANA is issuing two reports on PFAS in WTE emissions and landfill leachate this year to keep the industry abreast of the issue.

Another notable SWANA report that came out this year promoted opportunities for women in the industry. “We produced a report on the need for women to get involved in solid waste collection, how it could be a good option for them,” O’Brien says. The report highlights a couple of communities that are making a special effort to promote woman drivers—an effort worth recognizing in an industry in which fewer than three percent of drivers are women.

In yet another initiative, SWANA helps the solid waste industry in other regions of the world to overcome challenges. “We have an interest in helping developing nations modernize systems, and we have a focus in Latin America,” O’Brien says. “Over the last couple of years, we’ve received a grant to aid Colombian solid waste managers in developing their systems, and we developed a course on landfilling for them and also brought them over to the U.S. to tour some of our facilities.”

Another SWANA initiative is to improve safety throughout the industry. “Safety is a big priority for us, and the pandemic has increased our focus on health and safety,” O’Brien says. A specific issue the organization is addressing involves lithium-ion batteries, which are used in a wide variety of commonly used items including smartphones, tablets, laptops, digital cameras, electronic cigarettes, power tools, and electric vehicles. “Unfortunately, some people put these batteries in their recycling bins and when they get to the materials recovery facility they hit the concrete on the tipping floor and they can tear open their packaging and it can cause a fire,” O’Brien says. “It’s a growing problem, so we’re trying to address that.”

SWANA is developing a new five-year plan this fall. Moving forward, the organization will help the industry become more sustainable and support its role in the circular economy. SWANA will also help the industry address new challenges such as food waste diversion, plastics recycling and litter management, extended producer responsibility initiatives, and materials recovery facility automation and robotics. The industry has overcome a lot in recent years and has many challenges yet to overcome, and SWANA is committed to leading the way through it all.

The post Leading the Solid Waste Industry<p class="company">The Solid Waste Association of North America (SWANA)</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

This family-run business has recently experienced exciting growth, including the company’s role as a distributor for products including MTU, Waukesha, Motortech, and Scania – in particular, expanding territory in Alberta as a distributor for MTU/Rolls Royce Power Systems for oil & gas systems and natural gas power generation.

Launched in 1986 by Steven and Lorna Collicutt, the company has gone through a series of changes during its 35 years in business. Starting off performing compression service work, the team expanded to manufacturing compressors and some power generation when it went public in 2000. Now, the company has a new engine-based focus that featured well servicing, fracking, pumping and rigs, along with power generation and gas compression.

“Anything with an engine, we’re into it,” says Ryan Krutzfeldt, Vice President Operations.

The company is the distributor for a diesel power generation product line in the state of California, and also distributes gas power lines in California as well as Oregon, Washington, Idaho, North Nevada and Hawaii. In Alberta, it sells gas-powered gensets to companies such as greenhouses, food processing facilities and independent power producers.

Collicutt also offers the Waukesha product line — another engine manufacturer — in both Canada and California.

“In this case we’re focused on the engines as well as the alternator end, and we’re what Waukesha calls the gold power generation solution provider in California, as well as in all of Canada,” says Dave Taylor, Vice President Operations Canada.

On the MTU side in California, the company has provided approximately two gigawatts of power in the state, selling both smaller units from around 30 kilowatts – which could go into a residence – all the way up to a 3250 kilowatt unit which would go into a data centre or back up a hospital.

“We have provided backup emergency power for data centres, hospitals, NASA, colleges, universities, pretty much across-the-board for all industries,” says Taylor. “Our business is basically like a four-legged stool. We have new units that we sell, but we also have a service side of the business. We service any make and model and it’s not just power gen, but any large engine.”

Collicutt also has a rental fleet that provides rentals to customers to ensure they have emergency power for facilities.

“The big power grid in California is pretty unstable,” explains Taylor. “We get involved especially in the fall when the wind and fire season starts. During the normal course of business — whether it’s repairs to existing generators or maybe even a new construction site — we’ll provide rental power for our customers.”

The fourth aspect of the business is parts, which goes hand-in-hand with service, says Taylor. “Whenever we go to provide repairs or maintenance, obviously parts have to go along with the technician, so that’s the other major leg of our stool.”

While the U.S. is primarily focused on power generation, the majority of the company’s Canadian business revolves around service. “We overhaul their engines, overhaul transmissions, do any work required on frack units whether it’s chassis down, or chassis up – we do everything,” says Krutzfeldt. “From a servicing perspective that’s what we do, but we also manufacture. We’re a custom fabrication shop here for anything that involves an engine. We build to suit clients’ needs.”

That work also includes providing power generation to utility companies. “These might be remote communities that we power direct, or [provide] backup power to always make sure they have power,” says Krutzfeldt. “If they have downtime for maintenance on their primary source, our engines will pick up and run. It’s highly customized in that there are a lot of requirements, and being in Canada, a lot of cold weather considerations.”

Collicutt offers a multitude of engines including MTU, Scania or whatever a customer may desire, with the capability to take a big engine and tear it down, and completely rebuild it, says Taylor.

“We like to be a one-stop-shop and not put our future in somebody else’s hands,” says Krutzfeldt of the company’s dedication to buying and refurbishing or rebuilding engines to have available for customers. “When their unit goes down, we’ll have a unit ready to go so we don’t have to take two to four weeks to rebuild their unit. We can have it sent out the next day, and then we’ll start rebuilding theirs and put that into our inventory.”

That swing program keeps customer downtime to a minimum. Collicutt also has its own accessory shop where it can rebuild cylinder heads and water pumps. “If we [were to] go to a machine shop to do that, it might be a month out. However, we can rush an order and get it in the next day and get the customer back up and operating.”

Collicutt technicians work on both diesel and natural gas engines, overhauling and doing “whatever it takes” to make it like new, says Taylor.

This not only saves customers valuable time, but money as well. This impressive dedication to customer service is one of the numerous qualities that set Collicutt apart from competitors.

“We’re very service-focused, not just in servicing engines, but servicing clients,” says Krutzfeldt. “We’re solutions-focused. We sit down with clients and collaboratively figure out the best way to do what meets their markers of time or cost, and we figure out the best way to do it for them.”

The company has provided custom solutions literally all over the world, adds Taylor, from the Arctic Ocean to the border of Mexico, the Caribbean, Europe, Africa and Asia. These companies ship engines to Collicutt, especially if it’s not conducive to rebuild it in-house at their location.

“It’s pretty economical for them to ship their engine to us,” says Krutzfeldt, who says to get an engine loaded on a port and shipped to Red Deer, Alberta one way is $5,000 – very reasonable when talking about an overhaul on a large engine.

Adds Krutzfeldt, “We like to be almost a cradle to grave company. We want to sit with them and design and build it together, and make it work for them. Then we want to be the service provider for them once the unit is operational.”

Collicutt has also been the Scania distributor since 2011, a European engine line that’s world-renowned. “We’ve been looking for opportunities to put Scania engines in various applications,” says Krutzfeldt. “We’re also the OEM, the original equipment manufacturer of our own Scania-powered gensets.”

Collicutt has built two 450 Tier 4 Final Scania-powered prototype units for its U.S. rental fleet, and shipped them to California where they’ve been “working really well,” says Krutzfeldt. “Their emissions are top notch and their fuel efficiency is leading class. It’s a very reliable system.”

The company is also building a dual pack of two of the 450s mounted in a single trailerized unit, resulting in a one megawatt power generator for product release, likely early in 2022, adds Taylor.

“With the new EPA regulations, there are few engines out there that can offer a megawatt Tier 4 Final solution that is mobile-ready so they can be on a trailer,” says Krutzfeldt. “To make sure we have a solution for the market, we’ve put these two twin units together and have them paralleling together so they’re both producing 500 kilowatts. Together they produce a megawatt of power and still keep their Tier 4 Final rating.”

The company continues to evolve with its foray into the fracking industry, where it rebuilds engines and equipment. Collicutt has also invested in a frack test stand which essentially mimics real-world scenarios for clients, pumping 15,000 pounds of pressure, what they would see at a site.

“When the engine rolls in we put it on our frack test to make sure we capture all the issues with the engine,” says Krutzfeldt. “It comes into our shop and we fix those issues. It rolls back out to the test stand where we make sure we fixed all the problems and it’s not going to fail on the field.”

In an effort to offer even greater customer service, the company also became a commercial vehicle inspection company (CVIP) shop, allowing the team to perform inspections themselves instead of sending units out to a heavy-duty automotive garage. “We’ve become more of a one-stop shop for them. We’re trying to take away all the reasons customers would go somewhere else,” shares Krutzfeldt.

Collicutt has also recently been working with bitcoin mining companies to get them set up with the power generation they require. “We ran a number of systems for our customers over the last few months, with the natural gas feed that allowed us to fire these units up and let them run,” says Taylor.

As Collicutt continues to grow, expand and tackle new areas, its core premise of putting customers’ diverse needs first will remain at the forefront.

“What sets us apart is that we are a very solutions-oriented company,” says Krutzfeldt. “One thing I really communicate to our leaders in the organization is if it’s in our wheelhouse, if it has to do with an engine, we don’t say no. We find a solution.”

The post Problem Solvers<p class="company">Collicutt Energy</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

Located in Quispamsis, NB, not far from the port city of Saint John, The Smart Energy Company is a member of the Canadian Renewable Energy Association, and the province’s leading solar developer, whose projects account for over 50 percent of all grid-tied solar installations in New Brunswick.

The company was founded in 2016 by CEO Mark McAloon, with a vision, the company says, to “accelerate the world’s transition to clean energy” and a mission to “create the most compelling renewable energy packages for commercial enterprises globally.”

To learn more about this impressive vision and mission, we spoke with McAloon who explained that the company had begun as a residential solar energy business, “but because I am an entrepreneur by definition, I am always looking to see what we can do to grow the company, where there’s a need, and what we can offer that has value.”

A need for new ideas
A major issue for homeowners attempting to achieve solar-energy efficiency and predictability, he learned, stems from placement of the panels on the roof. The energy generated for one home may be quite different from that generated on a neighbour’s roof, either because the panel had to be placed in a different position in relation to the sun or because of differences in the roof’s pitch.

But, he realized early on, “if you take solar panels off the roof and put them on the ground, you have much better control of the panel and can optimize the angle it is facing into the sun.”

And that’s not the only benefit, because if the solar array is installed on the ground there is the option of utilizing bi-facial solar panels which produce electricity from both front and back of the panel, angled to get maximum light hours. The end result is considerably higher efficiency and predictability than most roof-top systems achieve.

However, while ground solar arrays were impractical for small residential urban lots, they could be eminently suitable for spacy rural areas, and of particular value to farmers.

This is where McAloon turned the company’s attention in 2017, engaging in research and development and partnering with community leaders, all of whom were intrigued by the potential of solar as a viable option.

Designed to work here
For the company’s first large-scale solar utility project, no equipment was available in Atlantic Canada, so it was all purchased from outside the province.

“But after a year of operating we found that we had to replace many of the components and modify the system. We modified it so much that there was barely anything left of the original system. We were forced to innovate and become more of an engineering firm, taking a product and learning how to design it to work in our environment.”

The products had to be modified structurally to withstand the north-east gale-force winds and still be attractive. Howling winds weren’t the only problem, either, because the wet and sticky snow of Atlantic Canada’s long winters threatened electrical components.

The solution was the NOREASTER®, a ground-installed solar-energy system specifically designed to withstand all that wind, snow, and freezing rain. But that wasn’t all. The system was also designed to make it easier for farmers, who are used to setting up generators themselves, to assemble the system on site, since the NOREASTER® is really just an electrical generator powered by sunlight instead of diesel.

Farmers can order a package online, receive all the materials, components, and instructions, and assemble the entire system themselves up to the point of commissioning it and connecting it to the grid, which requires a certified installer.

Going global
An added plus of NOREASTER’s® portability is that it can be marketed and sold not only regionally but nationally and internationally, bringing McAloon’s mission to be a global supplier a step closer to reality. “It’s really a solar farm in a box,” he says.

Today a number of New Brunswick farms, including dairy and cattle farms and greenhouse operators whose owners were looking for ways to reduce their carbon footprint, are utilizing the NOREASTER’s® power and reliability.

One example is McCrea Farms, an eighth generation New Brunswick family farm. Since John McCrea arrived in Shannon, NB in 1821 the family has stayed to live and farm in the area. With a herd of beef and dairy cattle, forestry, maple syrup, a hatchery and farm tourism among the list of their offerings, this is an incredibly busy farm.

Seventh generation owners Bruce and Nancy Colpitts (nee McCrea) worked with The Smart Energy Company to implement a grid-tied solar system that would offset their energy costs and to align with their mission of being good stewards of the land that their family and community rely on. McCrea Farms are now the first customer to install The Smart Energy Company’s Solar Farm in a Box. After receiving the materials, an instructional video, and a manual, Bruce, Nancy and their sons built their very own 100kw solar farm on their property.

In the weeks following the McCrea’s project, two other New Brunswick businesses have followed suit in building their own NOREASTER® in a box. The company is readying itself to supply customers and electrical contractors in other parts of Canada and New England.

Urban, commercial, industrial
New Brunswick leaders took notice of The Smart Energy Company’s products and their success in farming operations which led to opportunities to install variations of solar arrays in public schools, and in a number of small to mid-size businesses.

While ground installations have definite advantages over roof-top installations, McAloon has by no means given up on urban needs and the company has designed installations that work well on flat roofs.

Another ‘first of its kind’ installation is currently generating energy for the Social Enterprise Hub, a facility in uptown Saint John where land space is at a premium. Instead, an innovative system is installed on the building’s flat roof. It effectively faces both east and west, picking up rays from the rising sun, and on the other side, from the setting sun.

“That was a really good project for us to gather data from and compare with other systems,” says McAloon of the project which received an Environmental Recognition Award from the City of Saint John in 2017.

The success of the installation in Saint John also shows that solar energy systems do not need a huge amount of sunlight to function, as the port city is wreathed in fog as often as not. All that’s needed is light.

The Smart Energy Company™ has also developed a rooftop and canopy solar energy system for the Saint John Regional Hospital.

Better and better
But its innovation doesn’t stop there. When Day & Ross, Canada’s second largest transportation company, with over 8,000 employees, drivers, and owner-operators in Canada and the U.S., considered how they could achieve their sustainability goals, they turned to The Smart Energy Company™.

The result is that their state-of-the-art terminal in Moncton is now powered by the largest net-metered solar installation in Atlantic Canada. The 100 KW NOREASTER® solar array will save Day & Ross thousands in utility bills and offset 34.5 tons of equivalent CO₂ emissions a year, which equates to 3.2 hectares of carbon-absorbing forest.

Kevin Chase, CFO at Day & Ross, says, “The Smart Energy Company™ completed the project on time and to our satisfaction. We have been impressed with how they have adapted to working during this pandemic and have provided great overall project management and guidance. They have helped improve our understanding of renewable systems as this solar installation in Moncton is a key step in our larger sustainability strategy.”

Just as the Day & Ross project was wrapping up, work was beginning on a 1.63 MW community solar farm in the Town of Shediac. In partnership with NB Power, The Smart Energy Company™ is building and installing over 4,000 solar panels and several hundred NOREASTER® arrays, connected to an energy storage system, making it the first utility-scale solar farm in Atlantic Canada.

It is scheduled for completion at the end of 2021 and is an important component of the Smart Grid Atlantic Energy Program being implemented by NB Power together with Siemens Canada, Nova Scotia Power, and the Town of Shediac.

“This clean energy project will offset the electricity used by a few of the industrial buildings in Shediac, and will be an important signature project for both our company and our province,” McAloon said.

The right direction
McAloon says that in 2017, when the team started researching and developing ground solar installations for farms, they didn’t intend this product to be competitive with large-scale projects such as Day & Ross or the partnership with NB Power to build in Shediac.

“But now it is, and companies all across Atlantic Canada are calling us and asking, ‘what is this solar farm in a box?’ It really simplifies things for them, as they don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time an organization asks them if they can put solar on their property. We can offer them a full turn-key package.”

McAloon grows reflective when he starts talking about climate change and how we can reduce our carbon footprint. “There is no absolute solution for everything, but there is a need for us, as a society, to take steps toward the right solution and that is where this small piece in the large puzzle comes in. Renewable sources of energy like the NOREASTER® won’t change everything, but it is moving us in the right direction,” he says.

“We can’t continue the way we were, so the shift starts when people and organizations start taking a leadership role. It’s people like the Pownings [sculptor Peter Powning and author Beth Powning, early adopters of the NOREASTER® on their property near Sussex]. It’s the farmers, like McCrea Farms, businesses like Radical Edge (outdoor outfitters in Fredericton) or ALIVE Kombucha in Moncton who put our logo on their beverage bottles. It’s large organizations like Day & Ross, or Saint John Energy or NB Power [which awarded its Energy Efficiency Excellence Award to The Smart Energy Company in 2018],” says McAloon.

“It is all our partners who are making a difference and for this, our little grassroots company is very grateful.”

In addition to solar energy systems, The Smart Energy Company is also a source for Generac PWR CELL Clean Energy Storage Systems and is an approved installer for Tesla Fast Charging Stations.

The post Sustainable Energy Wherever There's a Little Sun<p class="company">The Smart Energy Company™</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

Some businesses have become so desperate for staff they are turning their backs on humans and embracing technology, while others are being forced to slash their hours or cut products or services, knowing they can’t meet their obligations to clients with insufficient, untrained workers.

Some businesses are blaming the COVID-19 pandemic and – in the case of Canadian business – the federal government’s initial payment of $2,000 a month before taxes through the Canada Emergency Relief Benefit (CERB) to employed and self-employed Canadians affected by the pandemic. Now paid through the Canada Recovery Benefit (CRB) and set to extend until October 23, the amount paid out has decreased to $600 every two weeks, or $540 after taxes.

For some students, entry-level and unskilled workers, these amounts are more than they received in pre-pandemic wages. Business owners, notably in the hospitality sector and construction, are blaming “generous” government incentives, claiming they have “spoiled workers” who are staying home, and still receiving money.

Even with well-intentioned aid programs providing financial relief, no government or business could have predicted COVID dragging on for so long, with the two-year mark on the horizon. Meanwhile, some former employees have moved into higher-paying jobs with other companies, claiming if they had had better working conditions and pay before the pandemic, the current worker shortage wouldn’t be an issue.

Opportunity for change?
Founder and Chairman of the World Economic Forum, Klaus Schwab, believes the pandemic offers humanity the chance to forever change our economic and social foundations, as outlined in his book, co-authored with Thierry Malleret, COVID-19: The Great Reset.

Some believe the book is a positive guide for the years to come; others are viewing it as an updated version of George Orwell’s 1984, forcing us to live a brain-washed dystopian future where we are mindless drones and slaves to the government, owning nothing.

In the United States, some aren’t calling it a labour shortage, but a “great reassessment of work.” Even with President Joe Biden signing a $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill in March to provide much-needed financial help and get America working again, employers still have hundreds of thousands of positions to fill, from entry-level jobs to skilled positions.

A major factor in the overall equation is job uncertainty. In the early days of COVID, many office staff transitioned to working from home with nary a blip, while others in the hotel, restaurant, and travel and tourism sectors saw their industries decimated as many borders were closed and flights halted.

Owing to a lack of work, many left those roles for better-paying, more stable employment in fields like warehousing, real estate and others less likely to be affected by future pandemics.

And some, seeking to upgrade their skills or learn new ones, have returned to colleges and universities taking micro-credential courses to gain new abilities in computer programming and other areas in hours instead of years.

Addressing shortages
As in restaurants and retail, there is a shortage of skilled workers in oil, gas, and mining. Governments worldwide are scrambling to address the shortage through programs and initiatives. In the United States, some organizations like Ohio-based RecruitMilitary LLC are hosting in-person job fairs focused on veterans country-wide.

And in Canada, after years of uncertainty, some Alberta oilfield services are once again putting out the call for skilled staff with experience in construction, drilling, and fracking.

In its June report The New Reality, Clean Energy Canada devotes a section to job opportunities in wind and solar, citing higher wages than many other industries, with expected growth in the electric vehicle (EV) market.

“While most industries in Canada’s clean energy sector are forecast to grow, one in particular stands out,” says the report. “Jobs in electric vehicle technology are on track to grow 39 percent per year, with 184,000 people set to be employed in the industry in 2030 – a 26-fold increase over 2020.

Much of this growth is due to the rapid adoption of electric vehicles. With EVs set to make up 18 percent of all new passenger vehicle sales by 2030, more clean energy sector workers will be employed building, driving, and operating them.”

Fueling the future
As COVID cases go down and economies open, the shortage of skilled labour in resources and other sectors will get worse unless immediate, permanent changes are made.

A recent study by Deloitte and Manufacturing Institute estimates just one sector, manufacturing, will be short a staggering 2.4 million workers by 2028, despite gaining back 63 percent of jobs lost during the COVID crisis. And while there is no ‘one size fits all’ solution, there is much that can be done today, from education to diversity hiring and bringing more women into the resources-sector economy.

It is no surprise that women are underrepresented in the oil, gas and mining industries compared to men. COVID cannot entirely be blamed for this, but it has exposed hiring discrepancies which have existed for years.

As far back as 2016, an industry action plan from Women in Mining Canada – referencing research from the Mining Industry Human Resources Council – stated that “mining companies have a lower representation of women compared to the very same occupation in other industries… whether the occupation is traditionally associated with a higher… or a lower representation of women.”

This lack of female representation from field to boardroom puts Canada’s mining sector “in the bottom tier of TSX-listed companies in both the number and percentage of women directors and women in senior executive positions. Modest gains are happening, particularly on mining boards, but familiar obstacles remain,” according to the report, 2020 Diversity Disclosure Practices: Diversity and leadership at Canadian public companies from Osler.

In 2019, the industries with the highest number and percentage of women directors were utilities and pipelines – number of women directors, 3.1, percentage of women directors, 30 percent; oil and gas – number of women directors, 1.0, percentage of women directors, 12 percent; mining – number of women directors, 0.9, percentage of women directors, 13 percent. At the bottom is energy services – number of women directors, 0.9, and percentage of women directors, 11 percent.

To reach potential job pools, including women, Indigenous Canadians and recent immigrants, some mining companies are turning to job fairs and trade shows to fill skilled positions ranging from geologists to mechanical engineers and licensed mechanics. Some companies are forced into hiring outside Canada, from as far afield as the Ukraine.

The other side of the employment coin, of course, is retention strategies, which include enhanced health and safety protocols to assure workers they are protected – and higher pay, greater benefits, and daycare subsidies. Initiatives like these are vital to ensuring that the world’s resources sector can keep up with demand in a post-pandemic world.

The post Powered by People<p class="company">Finding and Keeping a Skilled Workforce</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

While this may seem dated, there’s a current application of this political theory in the context of resource projects. In fact, many of the ramifications of these ideas are still working their way through our entire society and politics today.

What is the social contract?
Sometimes named social contract theory, it is a value-based approach to moral and political philosophy regarding three primary conditions of man: the state of nature, equality, and liberty. The major theorists in this school of thought had very different views on each of these subjects; on the legitimacy of the state’s authority over individuals; and on their natural or legal rights within these power structures.

For Hobbes, everyone would have unlimited natural freedoms in a state of nature where political order and law is absent, but that would result in lives he characterizes as “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short,” due to the propensity for discord in a society where everyone is left to their own devices. This is the reason, he argued, that people originally contracted to establish a political community and civil society where the imposition of structure and order is for their own good.

While law and political society are not natural, they are necessary, and if the government in question is not effective, citizens do not have to submit to its power. In the state of nature, there is no authority to adjudicate disputes. In its absence, justice is impossible to achieve. This is the motivation behind the choice to relinquish rights to the civil authority, or state.

Subjects maintain their freedom to act within the confines of the established laws, but if the power of the authority collapses, the civil society ceases to be, and everyone returns to the state of nature which is characterized by fear, mistrust, and the potential for unrest.

Locke, on the other hand, argues that in a state of nature, humankind is equal and free to do as it pleases. The absence of a higher authority does not mean the absence of mutual obligation, but the motivating factor in establishing a social contract with the state is self-preservation. The right to life, liberty and possessions is protected by the law of nature, which is God-given and precedes civil society.

Under Locke’s social contract, the establishment of a state or authority agreed upon by the people has the power to punish when it serves the benefit of the society. He also believed that when government fail to satisfy the best interests of the people, the government loses its legitimacy. This was the thinking behind the American Revolution which laid the foundation for the U.S. Declaration of Independence.

For Rousseau, the state of nature was a primitive state that preceded socialization. It was morally neutral and peaceful state where solitary individuals satisfied their basic needs and urges in the interest of self-preservation.

Rousseau took a collectivist approach. He believed that individuals voluntarily forfeited their rights for the benefit of the collective, what he referred to as ‘the general will’ and the state served as a form of risk management in this regard. Individuals contract with the state as a form of self-preservation to protect their life, liberty, and property.

The deliberate setting of rules, principles, or institutions as a necessary means to an end, only as far as they are legitimate, serves the general will, or the public interest. This is especially true in the context of resource development.

The social contract in a resource context
Social contract theory received a much-needed update in 1971 when American philosopher John Rawls published A Theory of Justice. His work rejected the concept of a pre-social or pre-political state of nature, but he agreed that a just society is one where rational citizenry voluntarily accept the principles of authority or government. He believed that the best way to assess and appreciate the value of social institutions was to imagine life without them.

Looking at the resource industry and the role of government in its regulation, one can only imagine what it would be like without a civil authority overseeing the management or extraction of resources. Would it be a state like Hobbes imagined, where life was very adversarial and difficult, or would it be a state of peace, where everyone had the same rights and obligations?

In this context, the discussion around the social contract has to do with collective versus individual rights and the role of the state in protecting those rights. This can also be considered in the context of public versus private interests, where communities engage with private corporations which have the means to extract resources and do so based upon an established contract which sets out rights and obligations.

These relationships are governed by the authority of the state because when left to their own devices, private entities will tend towards unfettered growth and development, which is in the best interest of the profit motive and not necessarily in the best interest of the society.

Free-market thinkers would argue that without this development the economy would cease to be competitive, and the true capacity of resource projects could never be fully realized, as there are ways to be competitive and practice corporate social responsibility (CSR).

CSR is a self-regulating business model that helps a company to be socially accountable to all parties to the agreement, including stakeholders and the general public. It is a form of corporate citizenship whereby the private interest can maintain principled social, economic, and environmental actions.

However, it should be noted that even those with the most advanced CSR programs have been the source of gross societal and environmental violations, so trusting that CSR can be self-regulating in practice is not justified. Therefore government regulation of the private sector, and in particular, resource companies, is ever important. So too, is stakeholder engagement.

Stakeholder engagement as the social contract
As there is collective interest in the extraction, use and value of natural resources and environmental sustainability as natural rights, there is the assumption that social contract would also hold true in this regard. Private obligations are dependent on an agreement with stakeholders, the terms of which are established through consultation.

A fitting example is consultation with Indigenous Peoples when it comes to resource development or extraction projects. Indigenous people often live on, or near, resource rich lands and have an intimate connection to these lands as the keepers of the land through their cultural and traditional practices.

Indigenous rights are inherent and inalienable. They include the right to self-government (self-determination), land rights, and the right to practice their own cultures and customs, which are unique depending on the nation in question. In Canada, these rights are protected under Section 25 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

To uphold these rights requires stakeholder engagement on the basis of clear, consistent communications to establish project objectives, map out the development process, improve knowledge bases, increase mutual understanding, create feedback loops, and establish mutually beneficial terms.

Projects built around engagement take the principles of nature, liberty and equality into consideration and give people who have a stake in the projects a chance to have a voice in the matter and the opportunity to benefit from their extraction, in a social, environmental, and economic way.

For instance, mining projects up north are often accompanied by training agreements, to ensure that local people are trained and employed for the work being done. If, in a less desirable scenario, workers are brought in, not only is the value extracted from the land, but the money made by the labour force also leaves the local communities.

When the money stays local, it can strengthen the local economy and community in several ways from reinvestment to higher standards of living. This is why it is important to consult, to ensure that both the resources and the benefits of their extraction are not external to those who have a stake in their development.

Social contracts and project success
Commonly, individuals and communities lack the financial means to develop resources projects as private interests typically do, which makes these agreements helpful from a market and societal perspective. Agreements like these allow for the reduction of risk and increase the value and competitive advantage of large-scale resource projects.

Stakeholders, when consulted early and often, can help to influence a project’s advancement by providing expertise, identifying challenges or risks to mitigate, increasing project success, and creating a groundswell of general will and acceptance that will help the project benefit all parties to the agreement. However, one could argue this is more Utilitarian in nature, which was a newer school of thought, coming to prominence after social contract theory.

When this consultation does not occur, projects are met with protests and often result in social and environmental harm, the state of nature that the likes of Hobbes hoped to avoid by contracting with authority, such as the state, which is there to protect a person’s life, liberty, and property in exchange for rights.

Perhaps it would be wise to rethink the social contract by adopting alternatives which are not concentrated in the private sector, like community-based resource management, or smaller-scale projects that ensure the benefits are realized by all.

Cooperative models, community-based developments and the like could be an effective way to manage resource projects to ensure mutually beneficial outcomes for those who have an interest in their development, those who stand to benefit from it without doing so at the expense of others and the environment.

The question is, what is the best way to regulate such a relationship? The answer is likely to remain the social contract, regulation by an authority and extensive stakeholder engagement to ensure accountability and optimal outcomes for all.

Without an established authority or agreement, life would be characterized by a lack of social order and certainly no mutual benefit.

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With its prominent motto – Better Fluids Equal Better Wells – AES Drilling Fluids would be cruelly exposed if it didn’t live up to these aspirational words as well as it has since the company was founded. AES was built upon the foundations of several smaller mud companies, and is today led by President Richard Baxter.

With an Associates of Science and Engineering from Tyler Junior College, and a Bachelor of Science and Master of Science in Petroleum Engineering from Texas A&M University, Baxter served as a senior drilling engineer for one of America’s largest energy companies before joining Fluids Management Ltd (FMI) in 1997. Originally an engineering firm that focused on providing mud consultants, drilling fluids and office engineering support to operators, FMI was one of the companies that evolved into AES Drilling Fluids in 2010 when parent company CES purchased them. From day one, Baxter was focused on product and technical development and sales support, becoming the President of AES in 2014. Today, almost 25 years later, Baxter remains hands-on with fluid product development, innovation and blending.

“AES has been a technology leader for years – from satellite connectivity on rigs and creating our own Rig File Reporting System, to now developing technologies such as AES ANALYTICS and streamlining processes through automation. We have always had a proven record of rapid product development to meet customer needs,” says Baxter.

Growing to four offices, eight warehouses, and a staff of 350 to 400, AES is recognized for its products and experienced, committed workforce.

“We have very little turnover at AES,” says Mike Provada, IT Manager with the company for 17 years. “There’s lots of experience in all these products. Our people have seen it all; they’ve been in the field, worked with all different products, and they keep making them better. We have some really smart engineers working very hard, and it shows,” he says.

“Technology on its own is never a complete solution, it is just a tool,” he continues. “You always hear throughout the industry how AI will displace jobs, but at AES our mindset is if we can free up our users from repetitive tasks with automation and AI, they can focus on more stimulating work and provide our customers with an even better service. AES keeps up with the latest technologies, not only to stay competitive, but also to attract talent and provide value to our employees as well as our customers.”

“Automation will simplify processes, eliminate errors, and make operations safer. It means that our talented work force will spend more time using their gifts to serve our customers and less time performing basic, repetitive tasks,” agrees Director of Technology and Marketing Matt Offenbacher.

When it comes to recent challenges, AES was well-prepared the pandemic and able to get out in front of it with technology such as VPNs, collaboration software, and cloud-based web applications. “‘Always Expect the Unexpected’ was instilled in me at a young age, and COVID was a perfect example,” shares Provada. “Through collaboration software, we can deliver faster insight between each other and generate more value for our customers all over the country. It has aided in stronger connections among our employees and our customers. From the pandemic, AES as a company is even stronger than before.”

Customer service and innovative products are just some of the reasons customers keep coming to AES for all their drilling fluid needs, and to continue delivering in these areas, the company invests in advancements in technology, automation and a robust IT infrastructure.

“The AES IT Department not only supports our business and users within, but also focuses on how we can save our customers time and money through advanced technologies and custom applications,” says Provada. “When developing any application, we are always ensuring it is mobile/tablet friendly for today’s user. As we have many generations in the field, our main focus, along with security and value, is simplicity.”

The team’s Mud Engineer Portal is one example of technology meeting service. A web-based application, the portal connects all parties, from the setup of the well through to invoicing. “Mud Engineers can place their orders via the web,” explains Provada, “and orders are automatically loaded into our ERP system for picking and staging. Trucking kiosks at the location are automatically pre-loaded with pick-up numbers so they never have to get out of the truck and can efficiently get loaded. As soon as the truck leaves, a text is sent to our mud engineer on location letting them know the order is on the way and a delivery ticket is emailed,” he shares.

“All daily reporting on the rig is submitted through the portal which feeds our Rig File Database to provide our customers with daily analytics via AES ANALYTICS, another custom application which not only provides detailed well information, but also makes recommendations through advanced AI,” continues Provada. “Once the well has completed, the approval workflow is triggered with notifications and the billing process begins. This includes automatically packaging up all files, notes and anything else pertaining to the well for simplified billing.”

AES also provides service to its customers by way of education, reaching out through different channels including its popular online podcast, The Flowline and its YouTube channel, which hosts a variety of drilling fluids Tech Tips.

Since going live in March 2019, The Flowline has garnered an attentive audience of oil and gas industry specialists across America and worldwide. Brought to audiences by Offenbacher and Account Manager Justin Gauthier, this year has featured episodes on “Weird Mud Tests,” “Nanotechnology,” “Surfactants,” and “Drilling Fluid Selection,” to name a few. Priding itself on being an industry leader in technology and a resource to its customers, the company provides these free technical channels to help anyone interested in drilling fluids or basic oilfield processes and procedures.

A relationship-based business, AES Drilling Fluids keeps pace with the needs of its customers as it continues developing and improving products and technologies, such as AES Analytics. Focused on leveraging detailed data obtained during drilling, AES Analytics maximizes information for clients, resulting in improved performance.

By allowing operators to compare wells “and identify outlying cost and performance data quickly and easily,” according to the company’s website, up-to-date prime options can be considered, including the best treatment solutions and drilling fluid properties.

A comprehensive tool with custom visualization dashboards and the ability to benchmark and compare offset performance, AES Analytics can be analyzed anywhere. Open as always with its documentation, including case histories and technical papers, AES has more information available at www.aesfluids.com/aes-analytics/, including AES ANALYTICS Optimizes Mud Weight, Eliminates Wellbore Instability, and A Data Analytics Platform Dedicated to Drilling Fluids. By adding value, AES helps clients maximize their returns on investment through careful analysis of evolving needs, identifying, recommending, and producing effective chemical treatments based on exhaustive laboratory studies.

When customers aren’t familiar with AES’s wide range of products and solutions including fluid systems, oil-based mud, water-based mud, synthetic-based mud and HDD/Trenchless Systems – the company provides information and resources on water-based mud additives, invert emulsion additives, and more.

“We experiment a lot to help customers be educated and familiar with our products and services in ways I think other folks haven’t encountered,” says Offenbacher, “and then, I think, with respect to Mike’s side of things, streamlining so many elements where we make it easier for our customers to see why they would want to work with us,” he says.

“They see the value we bring through with AES analytics and the performance benchmarks that we use, and we make it easy to pay bills and reconcile information through our sales portal and tools that Mike has put together.”

With a strong, established brand identity, AES Drilling Fluids has seen its market share in the United States grow to about 18 to 20 percent. “It’s a very competitive business, and depends on how many rigs are out,” says Offenbacher. “The market share actually grew during the downturn, so as a percentage of the market it got bigger.”

When customers let AES help with the first rig, it is usually the beginning of a long-term, mutually beneficial relationship. Through hands-on involvement, the company keeps redefining service, which becomes apparent to clients right away.

“As we get closer and grow our team, we are helping each other out in every way possible,” says Offenbacher. “It’s pretty low-risk to give AES Drilling Fluids a shot, because the reward on the other side has been great for customers who have tried it.”

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