“Our sustainability program is based on three pillars: environment, social, and governance,” says New Age’s COO Josh Urlacher. Last year saw the release of the company’s second annual Sustainability Report, where the company highlights its many impressive initiatives.

Through special designated collection bins, New Age has diverted thousands of aerosol cans from landfill, these being sent instead to a facility that can properly recycle them. In the past few years, about a ton of wood pallets and spools have been repurposed, with local artisans transforming them into tables, chairs, and outdoor porch furniture. And instead of it taking up space, the company has recycled 148,000 pounds of steel.

“These are mostly downhole items that could end up in landfill, or sitting in customer lay-down yards onsite, rusting away,” says Urlacher. Believing even modest changes make a big difference, the company’s switch to hand dryers in its facility has brought a 25 percent reduction in paper towel use. And by using half a dozen digital apps and making fewer colour copies, the company has saved thousands of sheets of paper.

Ethics and safety
Making positive changes benefits not only New Age but its many customers. Focused on the economy and business ethics of the industry—including recycling and reuse—the company introduced a successful clamp refurbishment program in its shop. “We sell our customers new clamps,” says Urlacher, “but we also push the reuse of these products.”

Working with two of the world’s biggest clamp / protector manufacturers, New Age maintains a large inventory of new and refurbished clamps, along with tubing, instrumentation, and cables.

“Customer clamp refurbishment increased over seven percent from the previous year,” says the company in its Sustainability Report. “The more we refurb, the less impact on the environment for New Age and our customers, a partnership in reducing the impacts of mining for raw materials. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle is not just a catchy tagline, it’s an action!” Through specialized testing and in-house engineering, New Age proves to customers they can reuse clamps a set number of times based on scientific data gained from their clamp testing equipment.

“We all see that the direction the industry is heading,” says Urlacher. “COVID kind of put oil and gas in focus again. All eyes are on the industry, and it’s time to take a look at our practices and try to create awareness among employees about what we’re doing, and what we can do better, to be a sustainable part of society. So we include our staff,” he says. “The report is created by a few people, and we have regular meetings throughout the year where we pull staff from all divisions to get involved, and provide ideas and suggestions.”

Safety, like sustainability, is integral to New Age’s beliefs and practices. With full-time safety staff, the company prides itself on a top-tier safety program comparable to much larger oilfield service businesses.

“At New Age Oilfield, we believe that safety is an integral part of the company’s operations,” says President Mark Rhodenizer. To date, the New Age has an impressive Certificate of Recognition (COR) Audit score of 97 percent, and well over 2000 days since its last lost-time accident.

With memberships in ISNetworld (ISN), Avetta, Partnerships in Injury Reduction, and other safety-related organizations, New Age practices the old saying, “Safety is everyone’s responsibility.”

This includes managers, supervisors, all employees, and others on job sites, and encompasses everything from identifying safety requirements to communicating and investigating hazardous conditions; providing competency training and taking part in safety training programs; wearing personal protective equipment (PPE); and much more.

“When you’re in the oil patch, safety is number one,” says Rhodenizer, “and we need to maintain a safety program that ensures our employees return home safe from every job, and above industry standard safety stats that make us attractive to our customers. Many of our customers use online safety monitoring platforms that are even managed outside the country. If our stats meet the approval of those monitoring companies, we are free to work for the oil companies, so in the interest of providing our employees a safe place to work and the workload to support steady growth, focus and attention on our safety program must be paramount.”

With an all-inclusive training and competency program, new employees benefit from multiple in-person and online training courses and orientation programs from oil companies. This ensures they get a good background in New Age’s safety requirements before even setting foot on a rig site. Even customers and new crews are provided training on installing clamps and the safe handling of ESP power cables that transmit power to the downhole ESP equipment.

Engineering in-house
Primarily focused on Alberta and Southeast Saskatchewan, New Age’s coverage area also includes Northern British Columbia and Southwest Manitoba.

To further meet client demand, the company created its own in-house engineering department in 2017 after hiring Peter Lang, New Age’s Vice President of Engineering. Previously, the company had third-partied its engineering support but realized it needed more as it grew, including equipment design, builds, and continuous improvement on servicing equipment. When Lang became available around 2016, they knew the timing was right.

“Having engineering capabilities allows us to be a one-stop shop in many cases with our clients,” says Rhodenizer. “It also allows our customers to discuss conceptual ideas with our team, knowing that from all angles New Age has them covered. The other big benefit is that our customers do not have to deal with multiple companies to get the same result, which we know can lead to more invested time, higher cost, and open up room for overlap or errors.”

Growing to a staff of 60 , New Age’s varied talent pool includes employees with experience in mechanical engineering, artificial lift (including ESPs and pump jacks), electrical, production testing, cementing, downhole oil tools, and other relevant areas.

Perks for new employees include hiring and referral bonuses, company-paid benefits, and an RSP program. The way the company treats its staff and customers has resulted in a solid retention rate and great reviews.

“Our reputation exists in this field because we’re focused on quality, providing quality trained employees and products, and having our equipment look 100 percent at all times,” says Rhodenizer. “Oil companies have hired our competitors, but when we show up on site, it’s a big difference for them.”

Space age
In 2020, New Age built its own 10,500-square-foot full Heavy and Light Duty Maintenance shop. This way, the company doesn’t waste time, money, and fuel delivering units to third party shops. “We also have our own wash bay in our main shop so our field employees can wash their units upon returning after their jobs are completed. By doing this, we also lower our risk because it’s less unnecessary travelling, with lower wait times and cost savings,” adds Rhodenizer.

“In 2017 we went from a 12,000-square-foot shop to a 26,000-square-foot shop and we house all our divisions in one location, which allows us for future growth, for future service offerings, and we’ve been focusing on efficiency because of it. It also increases our on-site reliability and reduces potential loss of jobs.”

Recently, New Age expanded into pump jack servicing and is working on transformer refurbishment. Until now, step-up transformers for ESP were often left in a field and forgotten after being used. To address this, the company is purchasing, refurbishing, testing, and supplying these warrantied refurbished units, making them look and function like new.

Patent success
Along with servicing and rebuilding pump jacks, New Age has also designed a locking sleeve for fittings downhole, and thermal applications to deal with heating, expansion, and contraction experienced on SAGD (steam-assisted gravity drainage) wells.

“We were recognizing some failures that were occurring because of this, so we designed a locking sleeve apparatus that slides over the fitting and makes it impossible for the fitting to come loose,” says Rhodenizer. “That’s in the works of becoming patented. And we also have our encapsulated multi-point thermocouple strings, pressure rated wellhead systems. We manufacture and test these in Leduc, and install them on our winter observation well projects for all of our heavy oil customers, who utilize the temperature sensor arrays for reservoir monitoring. That way, our customers have multi-point temperature readings throughout their observation wells in a small and durable package.”

As the privately-owned company looks forward to turning 20 next year, the team is looking forward to what the future will bring.

“Our business is very diverse,” says Rhodenizer. “Based on requests over the years, we’ll continue to be diverse. Any time we’ve grown, it’s because a customer called us and said ‘Can you do this?’ and we would take it back to the table and discuss it and ‘Yes, actually, we can do that.’ And here we are.”

The post Smarter Thinking for a New Age<p class="company">New Age Oilfield Services</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

As a leading supplier for emergency response and standby protection for upstream and midstream oil and gas operations in Western Canada and the territories, Trojan Safety Services proudly embraces its role in supporting a variety of industries in the energy sector. At all levels, Trojan Safety strives to ensure that organizations meet health and safety compliance regulations and that above all, workers are always protected on job sites.

Guided by values
Trojan Safety was founded in 1994 in Fort St. John, BC by Al Kirschner, and grew from a single Mobile Decontamination Shower Unit to providing a full suite of industrial safety services. Today, with the day-to-day operations being run by one of Al’s two sons, Jeff, as General Manager, the company remains in the family and remains true to those values that have guided its success.

These values, says the company, are “non-negotiable,” and include: ‘Show you care,’ with a team that takes pride in going the extra mile; ‘Keep learning,’ by remaining curious and seeking innovative solutions; ‘Always on time,’ which emphasizes an approach of respect for your workplace, clients, and co-workers; ‘Dependable,’ being part of a team that can be counted on; and ‘It’s all about relationships,’ which speaks to the heart of the company’s commitment to the safety of its employees and the communities in which it works.

“It’s our family business, but it’s more than just our direct family,” Jeff Kirschner shares. “It’s the people who have been part of it with us. They’re part of the family; they’ve been here forever,” he says.

“Most of the people within our Fort St. John office are people who started working at the company around the same time I did; we all just grew together. We’re incredibly fortunate that in an industry where turnover is typically high, we have people who have been with us for as long as I have, coming up on 18 years.”

Key services
Today, the company’s offerings today include industrial firefighting, first aid & paramedic services, H2S (Hydrogen sulphide) safety services, blowout & well control, portable & standalone gas monitoring, mobile air quality monitoring (AQM), infrared gas detection, decontamination shower units, and a training division located at the head office in Fort St. John offering industry standard courses to the public.

One of Trojan Safety’s core service lines is provided by the H2S Safety Supervisor, whose primary responsibility is the safety of all personnel on site. Crew safety is supported during the threat of H2S gas by utilizing state-of-the-art equipment such as air trailers containing compressed breathing air, electronic gas monitoring, and personal gas monitoring equipment. Pack training and Man-down Drills are conducted on a regular basis to ensure that all crew members know the proper procedures and the roles they will play in the event of an emergency.

In addition, Trojan Safety has also been growing further into performing plant turnarounds. “We’ve been slowly growing our plant turnaround business and growing our expertise in it,” Kirschner says. “We’ve been extremely successful in that [area] through exceptional management of our safety personnel on site.”

Turnarounds are scheduled events that involve an industrial plant’s whole process unit—such as a refinery, petrochemical plant, power plant, pulp and paper mill, et cetera—being taken offline for an extended length of time for renovation and/or renewal. These events could involve inspection and testing, debottlenecking projects, revamps, and catalyst regeneration projects, along with shutdowns and outages. Turnarounds are expensive both in lost production while the process unit is offline and in terms of direct costs for the labour, tools, heavy equipment, and materials used to execute the project. They typically represent a significant portion of a plant’s yearly maintenance budget and can affect a company’s bottom line if mismanaged.

As such, “working with clients during preplanning to ensure the proper amount of personnel and equipment is available for each phase of the progress is essential to ensuring a successful operation,” says Kirschner.

Challenging perceptions
Along with its many successes, the company has also faced its share of challenges over the years, but has always done what’s necessary to remain productive and successful. Now, the team is focused on getting back to growth.

“We’ve faced the same challenges as the rest of the people in the industry for the last eight years,” Kirschner says. “It’s really just now that the industry is coming back online, but we continue to face challenges with governments that seem to be anti-oil and gas.

“Now let me be clear,” he says, “I believe that regardless of anything, as a species capable of doing so, we should be striving toward zero impact. That’s across all areas, whether air, water, or land. I believe we’ll get there, but we have to accept that just like trying to get a plant to grow, you can only water it so much, and after that, time does the rest.” To this end, while Kirschner is a supporter of Oil & Gas, he is also in support of all realistic energy projects including renewables.

Building a labour force for the future
Certainly, growth can be a challenge in an industry that is facing a growing spotlight on its practices, practices that are subject to a slew of misconceptions, says Kirschner.

“There seems to be a lot of misinformation about the oil and gas industry, which is really unfortunate, especially considering Canada has the very best practices in the world when it comes to Oil & Gas development. Everything from the way we extract to our human rights and environmental protection is the best of the best, and yet you see our own government creating policies that restrict our ability to extract these resources, and somehow support getting them from other nations. When you understand that Oil & Gas is necessary not just for Canada to survive and thrive, but for every nation in the world to do the same, you must realize that it’s not going anywhere any time soon,” he says.

The ongoing stigma surrounding oil and gas has also led to struggles finding labourers within the industry, he says, coupled with how schools haven’t made students aware of the potential for growth and employment in the industry, particularly for those living in large, urban areas.

“I think about these people living outside of oil and gas cities who probably have no idea about the industry,” Kirschner says. “They have this misconception of it. They don’t realize they could come out to an industry that’s not what they think, and change their lives for the better… They could come to a resource town and purchase a [home] for probably less than $300,000, while making over $100,000 per year in a career they can enjoy for the long term. How many young people in the city can claim a six-figure salary?”

He does recognize that it is a labour-intensive industry. “There’s certainly a sacrifice that people will make to be here, but it’s a sacrifice in order to better your life and get ahead and have an opportunity to do more.”

Reaching people with this message is his goal, he adds, in an effort to help them understand the potential possibilities and opportunities available in different areas of the country, particularly those looking for a change and younger people looking to enter a career they may never have considered before.

“You can come to the oil patch, make great money, and live a good life and get started from there,” as part of the Trojan Safety family,” says Kirschner. “If you do a good job and want to be out there and want to be part of the team, you create unlimited opportunities for yourself. Trojan is a company that provides opportunities for people, and people create their own destiny.”

The post Safety on Site<p class="company">Trojan Safety Services</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.”

The post Leading the Field<p class="company">AES Drilling Fluids</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

The company’s mission is straightforward and customer-focused. The team’s commitment to an effective chemical application means always going the extra mile. “It’s more than just trying to create a product,” summarizes Director of Laboratory and Research and Development Services Justin Disney. “We are providing a service associated with that product.”

By solving customers’ problems, the team creates a mutually beneficial situation. “The bottom line is, if our customers don’t make money, then we won’t make money,” Disney says. “And so our goal is to try to understand what issues our customers have, whether or not we can solve them chemically or whether there are other options for solving their problems and then trying to come up with the best solution.”

The team’s commitment does not stop there; they have to prove the solution works as intended. “How do we show that value by validating that our products are working or that our customer is getting the value that we hope they’re getting?” Disney asks. “We do lots of testing, a lot of analytical work, and we invest very, very heavily in our R&D and technical capabilities to make sure that we are subject matter experts, not only on our products but also on our customers’ equipment. Many times they rely very heavily on us to be experts on what goes on with their equipment and to help them understand their failures and things like that.”

Jacam Catalyst nurtures employee talent to ensure they deliver the best solution to customers. “Our company culture tries very hard to unleash the potential in our employees,” Disney says. “We do have some corporate controls and things like that but we try hard not to stifle ingenuity and [not to] stifle creative thinking.”

The company’s relatively flat organizational structure helps make this possible by avoiding “layers and layers of bureaucracy,” which can “stifle people’s ability to get things accomplished,” he says. “So I think that people will find that it’s very refreshing here. If you need resources, if you need help, you don’t have to go through eight levels of management to try to get those resources. We can rapidly respond to our customers’ needs.”

Safety is another important part of the company culture. Jacam Catalyst makes sure that all employees have the opportunity to participate in and take ownership of the responsibilities associated with a healthy and safe workplace. The company provides all necessary training and continually invests in new safety programs, updated training classes, and new resources to reach the company goal of an accident-free workplace. The management actively leads each project and process with the specific goal of protecting the health and safety of all involved and of minimizing the impact on the environment.

Jacam Catalyst has enjoyed dramatic growth recently. The current company is a combination of three chemical companies that were acquired at different times to create one unified business. Each acquisition was carefully chosen based on where it was located and what value it would bring to the organization as a whole. Then, after the acquisition, the team made sure to keep that company’s strengths intact.

“We tried very hard, when we merged, to look at best practices for each company and then take the best of each, rather than be a merger of unequals,” Disney says. “Due to that, we’ve had a lot of success because we can capitalize on all the different products in our product portfolio, all the different technical resources we have, and try to pool all that collective knowledge and apply it as needed for each individual field. I think that that’s been very successful because it’s allowed us to take that shared collective knowledge and try to think differently in each particular region we’re located.”

The company’s expansion has been so successful that Jacam Catalyst has had to build a brand new, state-of-the-art laboratory to keep up with all the work. In the past, the team has added to its laboratory located in Texas’s Permian Basin, but eventually, the rapid growth required a more substantial solution.

“We eventually exceeded the reasonable capabilities of our existing infrastructure,” Disney says. In 2020, it broke ground on a brand new facility “that was designed from scratch with pure intent as a first-class laboratory environment.” At 11,000 square feet, “It’s the largest laboratory in the Permian Basin.”

This location is key because it allows the team to bring their technology and expertise to the field as rapidly as possible. “By having our resources where the oil field is… we can interact with our customers in a very timely manner versus trying to send something to a major metropolitan area,” Disney points out.

The company is eager to continue expanding. “We are always looking to grow into new shale plays where our customers are,” he says. “We are probably number three or number four in production chemicals in North America, and we think that there are still a lot of opportunities to grow.” He sees a particular advantage in cultivating prospects where the company already enjoys a solid presence. “We try very hard to capitalize on areas we’re already in. There are a lot of opportunities.”

To keep growing, the company has recognized the need to expand not just its presence but its brand as well. “One of the issues, the challenges we always face, is we don’t necessarily have the name recognition based on our size,” Disney explains. “It’s because we started as fairly regional companies. Most people don’t realize that we have a national presence, and I think that’s where we’re trying to get more and more education to our potential customers. We are a national chemical service company, and we are present at all the major oil fields throughout the U.S.”

With so much growth and success under the company’s belt, it is only a matter of time before the name achieves the recognition it deserves.

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Since its founding in New Orleans back in 1978, the non-profit (IRS 501-6C) AADE has grown to 11 chapters across America. A strong, volunteer-led organization, the AADE serves to educate thousands of people in the sector, including students and former workers.

From its website with hundreds of archived papers presented at past Fluids Technical Conferences and National Technical Conferences, monthly chapter meetings, all-day forums, and regular newsletter updates, to the upcoming 2022 Fluids Technical Conference & Exhibition and more, members keep up with the latest technologies and industry developments in forums that are both informative and social.

“It’s a great way to be involved, learn things, and meet people, all while doing some fun activities as well as work,” says Mary Dimataris of membership in the Association. “I think it’s the best buy in the industry. You’re not asked to put out tons of money, but there’s a huge value that comes your way. We have a great knowledge base that’s continually growing, from technical papers to meeting people, and tapping into those resources.”

A veteran oil and gas industry consultant, Dimataris serves as Conference Technical Program Coordinator at the Houston Texas-headquartered AADE, and continues to play an important role in the Association. One of the driving factors in creating the AADE was to address the needs of people in the industry which were not being met by other associations, such as the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE).

“It’s not that we wanted to compete, but we wanted to fill some gaps,” explains Dimataris. “And so, there has always been a very strong field engineering component to our membership, keeping people who’re out in the field in the loop of knowledge, providing the chance to share information, meet other like-minded people. Education, too – from students to your average field engineer and keeping them up to date – has always been a huge priority.”

Inclusive, not exclusive
One of the greatest strengths of the American Association of Drilling Engineers is its many volunteers. Knowledgeable and passionate about the industry, these volunteers have a key role to play in the Association’s success and growth.

As a drilling and completion engineering manager with ENI Petroleum US LLC, Jeff Bruton serves as one of the at-large directors and president of the national board of directors. Enthusiastic about the AADE’s role – freely sharing and disseminating drilling information – he says that wasn’t always the case before the Association’s founding.

“Back in the late eighties, it wasn’t a very free flow of information,” comments Bruton. “It was more specialized, and felt more exclusive. The AADE was set up to be a very inclusive organization, to share and disseminate information, and promote drilling technology and investment of drilling practices in the industry.”

Along with Mary Dimataris and Jeff Bruton, one of the biggest advocates of the American Association of Drilling Engineers is Ahmed S. Amer. Product line director for digital solutions at Newpark Fluids Systems, he is fluids management group vice-chairman and conference co-chair at the AADE.

Like many others on the committee, Amer volunteers with more than one organization, and is also active with the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE), and the American Petroleum Institute (API).

With chapters in New Orleans, Lafayette, Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth, Rocky Mountain, West Coast (Bakersfield), the Permian Basin (Alaska), Anchorage, Mid-Continent (Oklahoma City -Tulsa), the Appalachian Basin (Coraopolis, PA) and Central Texas (San Antonio), membership in the AADE stands at about 3,000. The Association expects to see an increase this year as things slowly return to normal.

Best value in the industry
One of the many ways the AADE attracts and keeps people is through its extremely low membership rates. Known as one of the best value professional organizations in the oil and gas industry, reasonable annual dues bring in members who find the dues of other professional organizations, charging six to seven times more, exorbitant.

“With AADE, all technical publications and all the quarterly meetings and content are available for free online,” says Amer, “and all the quarterly events are free for members. You only pay for the conference.”

At the AADE, there are no limits to membership eligibility. While many members are active oil and gas workers, some are retired and want to keep-up with the latest industry developments.

Also popular with students in engineering and other disciplines, the AADE provides information on how to establish a student section, and offers school listings and links on its website.

A long-time advocate of women in the industry, (the first president of the Houston chapter was a woman), the AADE continues to take a leadership role, actively promoting membership to women. “We’ve definitely seen far more women entering, and it’s a wonderful thing,” says Dimataris. She says that the number of women joining regional chapters and attending national conferences has doubled in the last five years.

Upcoming Fluids Technical Conference & Exhibition
For months, the team at the American Association of Drilling Engineers has been working on the 2022 Fluids Technical Conference & Exhibition. Scheduled for April 19-20 of next year, attendance in person is encouraged, but the event will also have a hybrid virtual option of recorded presentations featuring recorded keynotes and certain topics available online.

Conferences alternate every other year between the Fluids Technical Conferences and National Technical Conferences. “Every other year, we have a fluids-centric or focused conference, as we are going to have in 2022,” says Bruton. “On the alternate years, we have a national tech conference.”

Whereas previous conferences have averaged about 700 in attendance, the 2022 event – to be held in Houston at the Marriott Marquis – will be limited to 450 delegates, with about 25 percent being university students. Expected to be sold-out, the Conference numbers are being limited for planning purposes. “If you miss that registration and we hit the maximum number of people that can attend, there is a virtual option available,” says Amer.

Presently working on keynote speakers, the AADE has put out a worldwide call for abstracts, and is looking at about 35 suggested topics. Once papers are received, the best will be selected, and grouped into categories which will become session topics for the Conference.

“We have a broader overview of the direction we would like the conference to take, which is the transition to greener drilling,” says Dimataris. “It’s an unwritten topic, but we think it’s a direction for innovation we would like to see.”

A popular event with students from first year to grads, the AADE is promoting the conference by contacting petroleum engineering departments, student sections, and announcing the University Student Poster Competition. Involving a poster, presentation, and now a recorded presentation, posters and presentations are due on April 1, 2022.

Working with different departments to pre-register students for the conference, it is not unusual for local universities to send buses of students to the event, which also has a scholarship portion. In previous years, some even flew in from the University of Alaska.

“We put a lot of energy into our student sessions,” says Bruton. “Our chapter members make an effort to get up there and interact with student sessions and support some of their activities.”

Respecting those who have dedicated years of their lives – if not their entire careers – to the sector, the Conference also features a Hall of Fame, which honors about five to six men and women, including those who have passed away.

Learning and growing
Open to industry workers, students, former oil and gas employees, retirees, and anyone with an interest in the sector, the American Association of Drilling Engineers continues to be an ideal place to learn and grow.

“It’s a great opportunity for those starting off in the industry, and for those looking to go from graduation and network into internships,” says Strategic Marketing Specialist Adelaide Nortier from AES Drilling Fluids, LLC.

“That’s a big selling point for a lot of our student sessions as well. They get a lot of those opportunities post-grads have with a bit of free time outside of their studies, to network and to use their chapters to get that experience ahead of the game. The AADE provides a lot of opportunity, room for growth, and networking.”

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