Estevan – After a trial run last year, a full-fledged “school” was held in Estevan on Nov. 27, an event referred to as a “Day of Measurement.”
The event was put on by the Canadian School for Hydrocarbon Measurement, which is in turn operated by the Canadian Institute of Hydrocarbon Measurement.
The Day of Measurement was held at Southeast College’s Estevan campus. One of the stated aims of the development of that campus, formerly known as the Saskatchewan Energy Training Institute, was to bring high-quality energy-related education to southeast Saskatchewan, so that workers didn’t have to travel great distances to Calgary or Edmonton. That was definitely the case with this event.
The keynote address was by Kendall Netmaker, who spoke about overcoming adversity and thriving. He was followed by a session from the Ministry of Energy and Resources, speaking to the whole group.
The rest of the day was broken up into four and at times five concurrent training sessions broken up by knowledge level – novice, intermediate and advanced. Roughly half were at the intermediate level, but don’t let that fool you. For someone who doesn’t work directly in instrumentation, the novice level sessions could seem plenty advanced.
Some of the topics included measurement, navigating the regulator changes in uncertain times, custody transfer meters and wellhead technology. One session was called, “High cost has nothing to do with measurement uncertainty.”
Pretty much every square foot of available space within the lobby and upper level was filled with exhibitor booths, 20 in total.
Doug Martens of Estevan Meter was one of the organizers and acted as MC of the event. He said, “I think it went pretty well.”
In his opening comments, he said, “The political reality is we’re being forced to be better at what we do.”
He noted last year’s event was more ad hoc. This was their “first official stab at it,” he said.
There was just shy of 200 people in attendance. The maximum capacity would have been 240.
“We try to appeal to varying levels of expertise,” he said. Attendees included oil company personnel, service company workers and even regulators from the Ministry of Energy and Resources, several of which were present in the measurement 101 session. Martens noted that part of the point of the event was so those involved could have dialogue and open communication.
One of the underlying themes was the final implementation of Directive PNG 17, which is to be fully in place by April 1, 2020.
Martens noted that similar schools have been going in in Alberta about 15 years, and the International School of Hydrocarbon Measure has been held in Oklahoma since 1924. To that end, Martens said, “There will be another one next year.”
Watch for extensive coverage of this event in the January edition of Pipeline News, and online at pipelinenews.ca.
