Enform emerges as new leader in safety and training
Putting time limits on environmental assessments
Enform emerges as new leader in safety and training
By Jim Wong
Two organizations well recognized for leadership in the areas of training, certification and health and safety services in the oil patch merged recently.
The Petroleum Industry Training Service (PITS) and the Canadian Petroleum Safety Council (CPSC) combined their resources, talents and expertise to form a new organization – Enform.
Enform provides the upstream petroleum industry with a “one window” approach in training and safety.
“With over 60 years of experience between the two organizations, it seemed like a natural fit to bring together safety and training under one umbrella,” says Paul Schoenhals, president and CEO of Enform.
In early 2004, representatives from the six trade associations met to explore different approaches to improve the delivery of safety and training services. Industry felt that there needed to be more effective communication within the group, as well as a more focused approach to delivering safety initiatives.
“We asked Art Hibbard (board chair of CPSC and CEO of Herriman Consultants Ltd.) to lead a study on how we could address the concerns of the industry group,” recalls Schoenhals.
In the fall of 2004, Hibbard reported back to the group and proposed a merger between the two organizations, under the direction of a single board of directors representing the six trade associations.
“Under the direction and guidance of the petroleum industry itself, they were looking to build one integrated, focused and driven organization that could manage all training and safety needs,” states Schoenhals. “Enform is the result of bringing together the best both organizations offer into one integrated company, offering training, certification and health and safety services to the oil and gas industry.”
“This merger will be of great benefit to the industry, as we will now have a much broader presence, be able to deliver services more cost effectively, and with greater focus on the areas we have expertise in.”
Hibbard is equally as enthusiastic about Enform and its benefit to industry.
“I am absolutely thrilled with the creation of Enform. I have every confidence that industry will be substantially better served both at a corporate level, and most particularly at the field worker level. Enform is the embodiment of the promise that industry is making in training and safety.”
Enform offers courses in safety, environment, technology and career development, as well as customized and international courses. Programs are offered at training centres in Calgary and Nisku, through partnerships with colleges and franchised instructors, as well as through computer-based training.
Enform also offers a number of safety services including Industry Recommended Practices (IRPs), the Health and safety Certificate of Recognition Program (COR), Petroleum Industry’s Annual Safety Seminar (PIASS), Safety Stand Down Week and Awards of Distinction.
In addition, Enform manages Western Canadian Spill Services (WCSS), which is committed to spill preparedness and environmental protection.
In conjunction with the Petroleum Human Resources Council of Canada, Enform oversees a competency assessment program. This program addresses the need for job standardization and occupational recognition within the oilfield service sector.
Like its predecessors, Enform operates as a non-profit organization that is owned, directed and partially funded by six upstream petroleum industry trade associations – the Canadian Association of Geophysical Contractors (CAGC), the Canadian Association of Oilwell Drilling Contractors (CAODC), the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP), the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association (CEPA), the Petroleum Services Association of Canada (PSAC) and the Small Explorers and Producers Association of Canada (SEPAC).
“Enform is the petroleum industry’s commitment to training and safety and we will work our hardest to live up to their expectations,” says Schoenhals.
Contact Enform at 1-800-667-5557 or visit www.enform.ca
Putting time limits on environmental assessments
Environmental and social hearings on future energy projects need strict timelines lest they bog down in the same red tape that has plagued the much-delayed Mackenzie Gas Project, Canada's federal and provincial energy ministers agreed August 29th.
“Many of the projects that we’re facing now, not only in the North but across the country, are in jeopardy as we see open-ended regulatory review processes that don’t necessarily improve the environmental threshold,” said Brendan Bell, industry minister for the Northwest Territories.
“It's too late on the Mackenzie Gas Project. We can’t interfere now, we have to let it run its course,” Bell said.
“But on future projects, I think we need to have the minister step out and indicate what the time frame for the environmental process will be.”
Bell’s jurisdiction is currently studying the giant Mackenzie Valley gas pipeline, expected to cost at least $7.5 billion. The panel conducting the environmental and social review of the project announced earlier this summer that it would take an extra five months of hearings plus additional time to compile its report.
The pipeline, which would stretch about 1,220 kilometres down the Mackenzie Valley and into existing gas infrastructure in Alberta, is key to unlocking large gas reserves that have been known about for more than 20 years but stranded in the ground with no way to get to markets.
While Imperial Oil (TSX:IMO) is the lead player behind the Mackenzie project, partners include Shell Canada (TSX:SHC), ConocoPhillips (NYSE:COP), Exxon Mobil Corp. (NYSE:XOM) and the native-owned Aboriginal Pipeline Group.
In Yellowknife last week, Prime Minister Stephen Harper asked why northern resources projects take so long to get approval.
After discussing the issue at a meeting in Whitehorse earlier this week, the ministers decided time limits are needed.
“Ministers were also strongly supportive of setting timelines for the environmental assessment and permitting of energy projects,” said a communique issued late Monday.
“There's a strong consensus this is an area we could improve and it’s something I’m prepared to push,” said federal Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn.
He said setting time limits on assessments would actually improve the work they do.
“Because you’re focused, you can get a stronger result out of it.”
There are at least three departments that are regularly involved in conducting hearings on energy projects – Natural Resources, Environment and Fisheries and Oceans.
Lunn promised to take the proposal and try to win his cabinet colleagues around to it.
Bell said the time limits could be set by legislation or by ministerial direction and vary according to the complexity of the project. The limits could also extend to the permits and licences issued by various northern regulatory boards.
Others, however, are wary.
“The World Wildlife Fund isn’t opposed to a clear, doable schedule that doesn’t compromise the process,” said northern director Pete Ewins, who has appeared before the Mackenzie Valley panel several times.
“What tends to happen, of course, is that you have a tight schedule and certain things can’t happen.”
If the government wants panels to report within a deadline, they have to be given the resources to do it, said Ewins. And those concerned by the project have to help set those deadlines.
Otherwise, it's “a scam or a greenwash for completing some filter on the sustainability of the given proposal,” Ewins said.
But Pius Rolheiser, spokesman for chief pipeline proponent Imperial Oil, said the company would approve moves to add certainty to northern development.
“We would welcome changes that would bring greater clarity to the regulatory process,” he said.
“We're not interested in taking shortcuts, either. We want to follow due process.”
Bell said northerners also want greater certainty.
“You have people in the North with the pipeline who have staffed up, who have made investments in capital, only to find out there are going to be delays that seriously affect their business plan.''