When the money was rolling in oil companies weren’t quite as concerned as they are now when it comes to finding new innovations to improve the bottom line. Mark Stanley with Themark Corporation says he used to have trouble just getting in the door a couple of years ago to try to sell oil executives […]
Battling low prices with new ideas
The energy industry has fallen on rough times as of late causing a spate of layoffs, stacked rigs and budget cuts. But despite the market climate and reduced spending, production levels are holding steady, evidence of the ongoing technological advancements being applied to oil and gas production, allowing producers to do more with less. The […]
Comment: The Age of Innovation and How Ingenuity Became a Necessity by Neil Poxon
Neil Poxon, CEO of ProSep looks at the spur to innovation created by a low-price environment and what it means for the global oil and gas industry worldwide. On May 25, 1961, President Kennedy announced to the U.S> Congress that America would land a man on the moon and return him to Earth before the […]
Spill clean up a messy business
Marine oil spills can be extremely difficult to deal with. In the sea of Cardiff, Wales engineers from a European research project are testing a new prototype that cleans oil spills quickly, efficiently and more cheaply than existing methods. “What we’ve developed is a net which can float on the surface of the water, without […]
Award winning innovations
GE vice-chairman John Rice has announced the first winners of its GHG Ecomagination Challenge. The goal of the challenge is to come up with ways to reduce emissions in the SAGD process. Twenty-five entries were submitted. None of the six from Canada made the cut. The four winners came from India, Italy, Holland and the United […]
Comment: Realize the opportunity and take advantage of it
With less than half a percent of revenues spent on R&D, the oil and gas industry has one of the lowest levels of R&D intensity of any sector. Nevertheless, with the shift in focus towards unlocking the vast reserves in unconventional formations — which we define broadly to include tight oil and gas, oil sands […]
What’s good down under, true for Canada’s petroleum industry too
The Australian mining industry must accept “the new normal” and accelerate its ability to implement innovative thinking in order to survive the higher volatility of the global market, says a report released by Deloitte. The report details the 10 key trends facing the global mining industry in 2015, highlighting the imperative for companies to break […]
One researcher’s innovative tailings pond solution is getting some attention
Rob chats with University of Alberta Professor Mohamed Gamal El-Din about their research into faster, better tailings pond reclamation.
This oil absorbing sponge could change everything
Rob chats with EMPA researcher Philippe Tingaut via Skype about the oil-only absorbing sponge they’ve developed.
Comment: Time to invest in better protections for Canada’s intellectual property
Recently in Report on Business, General Electric Co. CEO Jeffrey Immelt outlined his company’s ambitious plan to enter the Canadian energy marketplace and make the oil sands globally competitive in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. He even suggested his company could take a co-operative approach to the management of their intellectual property rights (IPR) and […]