Just like commercial airlines don’t make headlines for the thousands of flights that reach their destination safely each day, you won’t see much media coverage of the stellar safety rate achieved in all segments of North America’s oil and natural gas industry. But it’s a reality with direct bearing on public policy. The continents liquid […]
The importance of being ‘Bear Aware’ in upstream Oil & Gas
Kim Titchener from bearsafety.com talks with Rob about the importance of training upstream oil & gas workers about the dangers of wildlife encounters and how they can protect themselves.
Quest to sequester, a Shell Canada first
To paraphrase a famous observation, “Everybody talks about climate change, but nobody does much about it.” Indeed, media reports and scientific publications may be thick with discussion of this extraordinary environmental phenomenon but practical proposals for directly dealing with it are thin on the ground while full-scale initiatives are even more scarce. It is worth […]
Comment: Canadian crude is an attractive alternative to imported oil
Canada has the third-largest oil reserves in the world, but we import large volumes of oil from foreign sources into Eastern Canada, including Quebec, every day. Oil refineries in Quebec and Atlantic Canada import more than 600,000 barrels per day from foreign sources. But with Canadian oil production growing, using Canadian crude oil in Quebec, […]
Can a new sponge soak up an oil spill?
Is it possible a sponge has been made to soak up an oil spill? That’s what researchers say they have done in Switzerland. Empa Materials Science & Technology has created a highly absorbent sponge like material which is capable of separating oil from water. The good news continues as the sponge is made in an […]
Damage worse than thought
Some regions in the Gulf of Mexico affected by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill are still feeling it’s affects. It was four years ago when BP’s well ignited and pumped oil into the Gulf of Mexico for three months. Six months after the spill, a survey showed severe damage was done to coral up to […]
Comment: Fox Guarding Henhouse
How did it get missed for the last ten years?” That was the question Deborah Hersman, chair of the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), posed to a panel of industry representatives back in April about how the rail industry had missed the fact that Bakken oil is more explosive than traditional crude oil. “How do we […]
Social license requires integrity and follow through
If the oil industry isn’t going to operate on a zero spill mandate, when there are issues at sites and cleanups are not done quickly enough to satisfy area residents, a companies social license can be in jeopardy. That’s what’s happening in Louisiana. Many landowners in the southern state have been locked in a battle […]
Earthquakes spur more fears about fracking
A jump in the number of earthquakes in Oklahoma, and across the north central U.S. from Colorado to Ohio. Is it just a coincidence the increase in seismic activity if happening along with oil activity? That’s what scientists and regulators are trying to determine. Some seismologists believe waste water injected back into the ground is […]
Comment: Jeff Immelt is the right guy to make changes in the oil sands
General Electric Co. chairman and chief executive officer Jeff Immelt is just what Canada needs to develop its oil sands — an American leader with stature in Washington, on Wall Street, in the oil patch and in Silicon Valley. He said this week that GE will help companies clean up the oil sands so that […]