VAPEX Engineering and Economics Project – Phase 3

CHO Forum a Success

Call for New e-Business Case Studies

Oil & Gas e-Business Conference

Options for Vent Gas Utilization and Mitigation – Technology Information Session

Flare Gas Incineration Forum

Prairie Falcon Habitat Project

COURSE $3M 2001 Funding Competition

Driving Safety Workshop Planning

Reservoir Monitoring and Fracture Diagnostics – Technology Information Session

EDTEWEB Website Access to Energy and Research Information

Petroleum Society/Society for Petroleum Engineers (SPE) 4th International Conference and Exhibition on Horizontal Well Technology

Heavy oil recovery in Saskatchewan and Alberta with the VAPEX process is the focus of the $300,000 Phase 3 project planned to be completed in nine months, including pilot plant design and costing. Seven heavy oil producers are participating in the project with funding from PTRC (Petroleum Technology Research Centre) and AERI (Alberta Energy Research Institute) / Alberta Innovation and Science. An application for funding has also been submitted to NRCan. Additional industry participants are welcome. Reservoirs in Saskatchewan and Alberta will be nominated and selected by project participants for VAPEX physical model experiments and numerical simulation. This will lead to calculation of commercial scale supply cost economics, with design and cost estimate of field pilots. PTRC is the project operator, supported by the Saskatchewan and Alberta Research Councils (SRC and ARC). This is the first research collaboration of this type between these organizations. The other research performers are CERI (Canadian Energy Research Institute), Nordic Engineering, Computer Modeling Group (CMG), National Centre for Upgrading Technology (NCUT) and Arkril Enterprises (project manager of Phases 1, 2 and 3).

Contact: Roland Moberg, PTRC
phone: (306) 787-8290
moberg@src.sk.ca, or

PTAC hosted a successful CHO R&D Forum on June 20, 2000 that was attended by 40 representa-tives from industry and academia. Presentations were made on eight ongoing CHO R&D projects followed by group discussions on new initiatives to meet producers’ needs. The following five R&D priorities emerged:

1. Field Tank Design

2. Alternatives to Gas Compression

3. Artificial Lift Systems

4. Rodless Pump Drives

5. Assessment of Current Oil/Water/Sand Separation Technologies

The forum notes and other related information is available on PTAC’s website at www.ptac.org/techchof.html or by contacting:

COURSE (Coordination of University Research for Synergy and Effectiveness) is calling for applications for funding for energy resources research at Alberta universities. $3 million in funding is being provided by Alberta Innovation and Science via AERI (Alberta Energy Research Institute). The closing date for applications is January 29, 2001. The range of energy resources has been expanded to include conventional oil and gas, oil sands, coal, coal bed methane, biomass, electricity, hydrogen, fuel cells, petro chemicals, environmental and renewable energy (wind, solar, hydro).

This will be the third COURSE competition in 18 months. The first two competitions resulted in 35 new fundamental energy research projects valued at $7.9 million of which $3.5 million was from Alberta Innovation and Science with the remainder ($4.4 million) from industry, NSERC and others. Inter-university/department collaboration and industry participation, along with importance and quality of the research, are the four main areas for application evaluation. COURSE is also accepting nominations from industry for the technical evaluation panel that will review and make recommendations on project funding.

For detailed information please visit www.ptac.org/course1.html or contact:

Richard Luhning,
Managing Director, COURSE
phone: (403) 268-7553

For information regarding applications and membership, contact:

Beth Hill, University of Calgary
phone: (403) 288-2737
bethhill@telusplanet.net, or

PTAC is calling for new upstream oil and gas e-business case studies to be presented at an event to be held early in 2001, and to be posted on PTAC’s website. Ven-dors are welcome to submit case studies, however case studies must be co-authored or endorsed by the appropriate producer or customer involved with the case study.

If you are interested in submitting an e-business case study, please contact:

PTAC is pleased to announce that we have reached agreement with International Communications for Management Group (ICM) to be the Association Partner for the conference "O&G e-Business – Profiting in a Global Market." This conference will help you to build a network of oil and gas industry professionals involved in maximizing e-Business potential, and to reduce the investment and time needed to research the most effective way of utilizing e-Business in your company. Participants will have the oppor-tunity to interact with 11 case study presenters who will reveal e-Business road maps of what works and what doesn’t.

The ICM Group organizes in excess of 1000 international conferences and seminars annually. PTAC members are invited to register at a discounted rate, which is available only by faxing the registration form on the conference brochure to ICM. The conference brochure is available from PTAC.

If you are interested in obtaining an ICM conference brochure, please contact:

Sponsored by:
New Paradigm Engineering Ltd. and Husky Oil

To register, or to obtain technical information please contact:

PTAC hosted a successful Flare Gas Incineration Technology Forum on September 27, 2000 that was attended by 70 representatives from industry and government. Five 30-minute presentations from a variety of technology suppliers provided an update on key aspects of current technology. These presentations are available on PTAC’s Website at www.ptac.org/techenvf.html.

October 30, 2000 Forum Upcoming

A second forum is planned for October 30, 2000 to provide an opportunity for those technology suppliers that could not be accommodated at the first forum.

If you are interested in presenting or attending please contact:

Prairie falcons (Falco mexicanus) are a large diurnal raptor similar in size to the Peregrine falcon. In Canada their range included the prairie regions of Saskatchewan, Alberta and central British Columbia. In spite of their widespread occurrence, loss of native prairie habitat and subsequent potential reductions in prey populations, throughout their range has increased the risk for a decline in this species. The World Wildlife Fund of Canada recently listed the Prairie falcon as a species of concern in their Prairie Conservation Action Plan.

The provincial wildlife authority in Saskatchewan is currently funding this research project. The project focuses on the breeding period since this is the time that this species depends on a small number of native prairie species, primarily the Richardson’s Ground Squirrel, for prey. Since this project deals with the quality of native prairie as it affects prey species, it is expected that results will be applicable to the management of other prairie raptors such as the Swainson’s hawk and the threatened Ferruginous hawk.

PTAC expects to host an information session in the near future to solicit support for a research project investigating the critical habitat requirements of breeding prairie falcons.

Sponsored by:
Advanced Geotechnology Inc . and Engineering Seismology Group Canada

To register for this session or to obtain technical information, please contact:

PTAC hosted a highly successful EPR workshop on September 26, 2000 that was attended by 70 representatives from industry, government and academia. COURSE collaborated with PTAC in organizing this workshop in order to identify EPR R&D priorities for the $3 Million COURSE January 2001 funding competition.

A total of 22 presentations on proposed or ongoing EPR R&D and six presentations on funding sources were made. These were followed by breakout group discussions, which identified the following EPR R&D priorities:

1. Greenhouse Gas, CO2 and Sour Gas Collection, Transport and Sequestration and Reservoir Characterization Group:

a) CO2 Source Inventory Update

b) Validation and Monitoring of CO2 Sequestration

2. Improved Conventional Light and Medium Oil and Natural Gas Recovery Methods Group:

a) Non-hydrocarbon Injection of GHG’s (oil)
        Water Coning (natural gas)

b) 4-D Reservoir Description (oil)
        Artificial Lift Technology Transfer (natural gas)

c) Low Pressure Production Methods (oil)
        Unconventional Gas (natural gas)

3. Improved Conventional Heavy Oil Recovery Group:

a) Monitoring – Integrate Techniques

b) Recovery Process

c) Accessing Trapped Oil

ETDEWEB is now available free online to Canadians. The ETDE is an international consortium with participants from19 countries. The CANMET Information Centre (CIC) at Natural Resources Canada co-ordinates Canada’s non-nuclear input. Approximately 3,400 Canadian published articles are submitted annually to ETDE. The CIC purchases material from a wide variety of sources.

Papers on horizontal well technology and applications in all areas of hydrocarbon exploitation will be presented. In addition, the Program Committee has solicited 20-minute presentations (GEMS) that feature recent advancements in horizontal technology. These GEMS will be published in the proceedings.

Roger Bailey has retired from Alberta Energy Research Institute (AERI) and has resigned from PTAC’s Board of Directors. We wish to acknowledge Roger’s significant contributions to PTAC since our inception, including his assistance in launching PTAC.

We welcome Laurier Schramm, Executive Director, Petroleum Recovery Institute (PRI), Alberta Research Council Inc. and Paul Swinton, Technology Consultant, Gas Business Unit, BP Canada Energy, to PTAC’s Board of Directors.

20 organizations and individuals have joined PTAC since May 2000 bringing our membership to a total of 154. We welcome the following organizations and individuals:

• Gascan Resources Ltd.

• AGRA Earth and Environmental Ltd., Calgary ESU
• Amtech Aeronautical Limited
• Arkril Enterprises
• Bowridge Resources Group Inc.
• Digital Oilfield Inc.
• ElectroBusiness.com
• Global Industrial Solutions Network Inc.
• Governors Technologies Corporation
• IVRnet
• Lockheed Martin Ness – Mitchel Field
• Macleod Dixon (Technology Enterprise Group)
• Oilpro Industries Inc.
• Prolift, a division of CEF Technologies Ltd.
• Real Time Measurements Inc.
• Universal Separations System Inc.

• Province of British Columbia
• Saskatchewan Energy and Mines