Juno News - April 25, 2024


How technology is shaping the future of Canadian oil and gas


Episode Stats


Length

8 minutes

Words per minute

172.23953

Word count

1,511

Sentence count

4

Harmful content

Hate speech

1

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Reene Abiro of Secure Energy Services joins me in this episode to talk about the importance of the oil and gas industry taking a leading role in the fight against climate change, and why the industry needs to do more to reduce its environmental footprint.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 joined by renee abiro of secure just start with a basic question for people that aren't as familiar
00:00:16.260 with the ins and outs of the industry what are energy services and how do you fit into this
00:00:20.360 landscape yeah great great question in in terms of we've been around for all of 17 years you know
00:00:28.340 started in 2000 will be 17 years next year started in 2007 and March 2007 and and really try to develop
00:00:36.860 a company that was there to help the oil and gas industry and which is now involved into many
00:00:43.980 industries mining and industrial but the premise was that we wanted to be an environmental company
00:00:52.680 we wanted to be involved with waste management the byproducts of the oil and gas but we also
00:00:57.960 want to be involved in some of the proactive practices of how do you actually reduce your
00:01:03.040 environmental footprint and this was back before esg was sexy long before the paris agreement all
00:01:09.140 all all the above but to give the testament to our customers they were also willing participants in
00:01:18.060 that they could see the old practices of 30 40 50 years ago were causing you know liabilities that
00:01:25.620 they didn't want to you know have in the future so there was all i think a mutual interest there how
00:01:31.000 could we work together we also wanted to help them in just the day-to-day production so you know the
00:01:37.340 simple things that that that look simple but are complicated is you know as you produce the oil and
00:01:43.340 natural gas there's also water byproducts there's waste that gets built up and and so handling that day-to-day
00:01:49.680 production waste as well and then final finally we're helping with some of the remediation and
00:01:55.180 the reclamation of of their wells as they became suspended to abandonment and finally putting it
00:02:01.360 back to what nature was there before the narrative we hear today certainly from a lot of people in
00:02:06.880 government and even more so in environmental NGOs is that the industry is the problem to the environment
00:02:12.860 and the government is the solution so that doesn't square with the story you've just told that the
00:02:17.860 industry taking a leading role on this so what are people missing in this discussion yeah first of
00:02:23.700 all you know reading headlines or reading biased statements versus getting out there and actually
00:02:31.280 seeing what's going on is you know perception versus reality and and so i've had the luxury of
00:02:36.320 because secure has been very successful wanting to expand all around the world and whether you go to
00:02:43.260 texas or you could go to kazakhstan or you go to the middle east it doesn't matter colombia um canada has
00:02:50.980 not only the best regulations but the best regulations that are followed there's there's a lot of countries
00:02:56.600 that have good regulations but they're not enforced so it's all about not only not only having good
00:03:02.760 regulations but also following but the great thing about our industry was that right from day one
00:03:08.780 industry had an input and bought into the new regulations so they didn't fight them and so
00:03:15.700 as time developed they could see the benefits of environment you know stricter environmental
00:03:21.280 regulations was actually better for the business long term so before the whole esg theme started to
00:03:28.000 come about our customers were thinking asking us to help them be more proactive with any type of
00:03:34.440 environmental uh aspects of the business and you look at the environmental footprint that that was
00:03:41.660 around 50 even 15 years ago versus today the you know drilling 8 to 12 wells on one pad versus you
00:03:50.340 know having 8 or 12 leases all that is now on one lease you know so and then the pipeline coming
00:03:57.500 from there to get the oil or gas to to the processing plant to get it to the market huge smaller footprint
00:04:04.780 everybody's worked together in terms of reducing emissions we've been doing a lot of things a lot
00:04:10.760 of product was moved by truck now that's pipeline connected so you're taking trucks off the road that
00:04:15.880 burn diesel but you're also from a safety aspect you're not worried about all these trucks on different
00:04:21.280 roads and highways so all these little things are adding up to reducing the overall emissions intensity
00:04:27.080 it's also reducing their long-term liabilities so it's a win-win there's there's not this is
00:04:32.180 costing us more business it's actually the right thing for not only the planet earth but for their
00:04:37.600 business and we've been able to create a business where we're adding value to the customers and so
00:04:42.200 that that's where it becomes a win-win i know the words themselves are fraught but we have the
00:04:46.540 government articulating this so-called just transition that basically imagines a future without
00:04:52.000 the oil and gas sector and there are very real world consequences to that and really the stated
00:04:58.520 objectives i go back to what we were talking about a few moments ago or things that you're saying the
00:05:02.180 industry has already been committed to so where is the breakdown here and and why has that work not
00:05:09.400 really been rewarded by governments not just in canada but but around the world we're seeing a lot of
00:05:14.420 the same yeah i i i think when you know right i i i i look at it no differently than someone picks up a
00:05:20.860 new religion i'm not going to be able to convince them to change religion so if you have open-minded
00:05:27.260 people that want to get away from the big cities and and come and walk you know in in footsteps you know
00:05:37.600 and and and actually see what's going on and and most most of uh uh our visitors that have come from
00:05:45.820 other countries are astonished to see that the cleanliness the the uh how we how we have all this
00:05:53.880 environmental protection we we do sometimes two three different liners to protect the earth you know
00:05:59.940 we have all these gas blanket system to reduce emissions and so and make sure that they don't go in
00:06:05.800 the atmosphere so when people actually get out there and touch it and feel it they come away with
00:06:11.420 a whole different story and this even goes to the investment world which you know you hear about you
00:06:16.360 know not wanting to invest in oil gas a lot of our investors we encourage them to go to the field and
00:06:22.040 see what's going on and come away with a totally different perspective as opposed to reading headlines
00:06:27.420 in a newspaper or a tv show well and i think that's why this series has been so valuable in these
00:06:33.100 conversations because there there are a lot of canadians that i don't think know one way or
00:06:37.620 another so they're they're probably open-minded and the first person or the loudest person to give
00:06:42.120 them their position is probably the one that they'll take so i'll ask i guess more of a general
00:06:46.540 question here i mean what is it you think canadians who are not connected to this industry need to know
00:06:51.180 about it well i think first of all they can they can uh sleep at night knowing that they're the
00:06:59.020 canadian oil and gas industry has the best environmental regulations and the best standards
00:07:03.700 in the world so bar none bar none i've seen them i've been there bar none second of all you know
00:07:10.180 this this industry is not resting on its laurels it's saying okay we're going to stay number one
00:07:16.880 for a long long time so how do we capture co2 how do we reduce further emissions how do we make
00:07:22.520 things more efficient and that's been a market-led process yeah and and and that has nothing to do with
00:07:27.840 government that has to do with the dna of of our oil and gas industry and then secondly as we've seen
00:07:35.020 and and you know we we have the coastal lng pipeline going to kitimat we have the tmx coming up we're
00:07:43.300 going to be able to not only do that for north america but if you can start exporting that around
00:07:50.460 the world it starts to begs the question that if you can get more canadian energy around the world
00:07:57.320 i.e exported then you're not only having high environmental standards but you've got lower
00:08:04.060 emissions and you're replacing production from a nigeria or venezuela that does never mind all the 1.00
00:08:12.260 ethical boundaries around uh being a democratic versus a tongue democratic and and suppressing
00:08:18.400 freedom so i mean i would just you know all i ask is people to get the facts just get the facts
00:08:26.120 and if you if you want you you know uh please come out and see it but just get the facts and and then
00:08:32.800 at least then make your judgment we're at amiro secure thank you okay thank you thanks for listening
00:08:38.680 to the andrew lawton show support the program by donating to true north at www.tnc.news
00:08:45.860 you