Alberta Oil and Gas Industry Innovation Inspires Optimism – Part 3

This is the last article in a three part series about innovation in Alberta’s oil and gas industry. The first article covered examples of recent Alberta oil and gas innovations and shared insights on innovations under development to reduce GHG emissions. The second article addressed alternative ways to unlock value from bitumen and clean water initiatives.

This article covers innovation in the areas of transportation, oil spill clean-up, digitalization, green financial products, seismic, industry initiatives and closing comments.

Transportation

Pipelines are a safe way to transport oil. However, to improve safety of rail transport of bitumen, Canadian National Railway Co. has been working on a technology that mixes and coats oil sands bitumen with polymer plastic, creating pellet-shaped pucks called CanaPux (How Canadian sounding is that eh?) that will float if spilled into water. The pucks are designed to be transported in open rail cars and ships to customers around the world. 

Oil Spill Clean Up

Engineers at the University of Calgary have come up with a nanotechnology "super sponge" which absorbs oil spills. It's non-toxic and biodegradable,

Digitalization

Goeffrey Cann writes articles, blogs and has a podcast series on digitalization in oil and gas. Geoffrey’s article published by EnergyNow describes how artificial intelligence will impact oil and gas.

Green Financial Products

“Green” financial products such as Clean Transition Bonds (CTBs) will boost the long-term viability of the oil sands with low carbon products. Corporate Knights and the Council for Clean Capitalism have drafted guidelines for CTBs which they hope will be adopted by the Government of Canada. The idea is to create a pathway for oil and gas producers to tap into a growing pool of capital for energy-transition projects that investors may be avoiding. (2)

Seismic Shifts

David Yager’s article on technological advances in the seismic sector of the oil and gas industry provides more insight on several seismic innovations. A relevant quote from the article: “It is amazing what new seismic technology can do to make Canada’s upstream business more competitive and investments more attractive. Hopefully, at some point E&P companies will quit cost-cutting their way to prosperity and return to using technology and science to make money…”

Industry Associations

The Petroleum Technology Alliance Canada (PTAC) has 21 active projects and another 350 “related to the development of smart policies, regulations and best practices for the sustainable development of Alberta’s world class hydrocarbon resources which have been launched through the Alberta Upstream Petroleum Research Fund (AUPRF)”… The Alberta Upstream Petroleum Research Fund (AUPRF) “is a unique collaborative platform between the Government of Alberta, the Alberta Energy Regulator, and industry, and is led by the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP), the Explorers and Producers Association of Canada (EPAC), and managed by PTAC. AUPRF was launched with the idea that through innovation and collaborative R&D, we can minimize the environmental impact of our industry economically.”

The Clean Resource Innovation Network (CRIN) “is a group of forward-thinking oil and gas industry professionals, innovators, financiers, policy makers, incubators & accelerators, academics and students committed to the success of the hydrocarbon energy sector, the people and communities that it touches, and a strong, carbon-competitive and diversified Canadian economy.” Their research areas include (and may overlap with other technologies mentioned in this series):

• Digital Oil and Gas
• Hydrocarbon Extraction
• Methane Monitoring, Quantification and Abatement
• Low to Zero Carbon Hydrocarbon End Use
•  Land and Wellsite Remediation
• Water Technology Development

The Canadian Energy Pipelines Association (CEPA) members collaborate on innovations as does the Canadian Gas Association (NGA) whose members produce, transport and distribute natural gas. Their $3 million Natural Gas Innovation Fund (NGIF) was created to support the funding of cleantech innovation in the natural gas value chain. It seeks to “fill a technology development gap in the sector and invest in innovation enabling natural gas solutions for current and emerging challenges facing Canada’s energy system.”

Oil sands innovation is summed up very well by Dan Wicklum, Chief Executive of COSIA, who discusses how collaboration and open innovation of environmental technologies is transforming Canada’s oil sands. "Oil sands has always been one of the most innovative sectors around…If you look at any of the more than 300 projects in COSIA’s current project portfolio, there is no one project that only benefits cost reduction or only benefits the environment. In each case, the goals of innovating for cost and for the environment are closely connected.”

Closing Comments 

After you are finished reading this article, check out the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) virtual reality tool to help inform and educate Canadians about the country’s oil and natural gas sector. Educating the public on these topics is important because there is an abysmal lack of understanding about Canadian energy matters which was one of the motivating factors for writing this article.

Alberta’s oil and gas industry is leading the way in Canada and the world with innovation.

In a speech to the Calgary Chamber of Commerce, President and CEO of RBC, Dave McKay says he “believes we have a historic opportunity to build a world-leading technology centre in Calgary that can transform Canada’s energy sector and also help the world transition, smartly and sustainably, to a lower-carbon economy. If we invest strategically – in tech and the talent that will power it – we have the chance to transform our flagship industry.”

The amount of innovation going on in Alberta’s oil and gas industry inspires optimism. However, revenue generated by exploiting Alberta’s hydrocarbon resources will be needed to pay for ongoing innovation. It also requires a much more supportive political environment than what currently exists across Canada. Special interest groups, with the help of foreign funding, have been allowed to hijack the Canadian energy agenda. The resulting oil price differentials are costing billions in lost revenue due to lack of market access. The lost revenue inhibits the ability to pay for much needed innovation as well as health care, education and infrastructure. In that context, the funding given to ENGOs who oppose pipelines needed to export Alberta’s oil products is wasteful. That money could be better used to develop and implement badly needed solutions. As stated in the introduction (see Part 1), innovation applied to fossil fuels could be the “master key” to unlocking sustainable solutions to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, global poverty and Alberta’s economic diversification ambitions. Some of the technologies covered in this three part series may never come to fruition while others could turn out be game-changers for humanity.

Please comment to share any Alberta oil and gas innovations under development that were missed in this three part series.

Editing contributions by Matthew Hamer

References

(1) Oilpatch Innovation Continues Despite Shortage of Capital (David Yager - EnergyNow)

(2) Bitumen Beyond Combustion (Deborah Jaremko - JWN Energy)