With low and volatile prices, market access and diversification challenges and continuing regulatory issues it wouldn’t seem like Canada’s oil and gas would have much to celebrate.

But behind the scenes, work goes on to meet these challenges head-on and come out stronger on the other side. The Daily Oil Bulletin’s inaugural Energy Excellence Awards were created to surface all the incredible efforts under way to help the industry prosper in this era of global competition on prices, while setting Canada apart when it comes to producing the lowest carbon, more environmentally-friendly oil and gas.

With tremendous industry participation and many compelling industry stories on community and business collaboration, environmental performance and supply chain sophistication, the Daily Oil Bulletin (DOB) received just over 90 nominations in three broad awards categories — Operational & Project Excellence, Innovation & Research Excellence, and Exporting Excellence. The nominees were further broken down into 12 subcategories within each of the three groupings, before being judged by a committee of seven industry leaders.

Starting in mid-April, the DOB will publish the Best of Nominees series, providing greater insight into each of the finalist nominations below.

Here are the finalists across all categories:

Operational & Project Excellence

Oilsands

• Suncor and its partners for the Water Technology Development Centre
• Imperial Oil for its Cyclic Solvent Process
• Canadian Natural Resources Limited for its Advanced Carbon Capture & Reduction in Tailings projects

Oil & Gas

• Modern Resources for its Modern Ultra Low Emissions (MULE) sites
• Ambyint and partners for its AI-driven artificial lift project
• Canadian Natural Resources Limited for its methane emissions reduction programs

Pipelines & Facilities

• Canadian Natural Resources Limited for its Area Based Reclamation process
• HiFi Engineering for its high fidelity dynamic sensing (HDS) system for pipeline leak detection
• Integrated Sustainability and partners for the Whitefox Pipeline Effluent Conveyance project

Industry Accelerator

• Alberta Energy Regulator and partners for its Area Based Closure project
• The Petroleum Technology Alliance of Canada (PTAC) for its Fugitive Emissions Management Program Effectiveness Assessment (FEMP EA) Project and its Innovation Ecosystem
• Bluesource Methane ULC for its Bluesource Methane Reduction Program

Innovation & Research Excellence

Cleantech

• AMGAS Services Inc. for its CLEAR technology that removes H2S from sour fluids
• Clean02 for its CARBiNX CleanO2 Carbon Capture Technologies
• GHGSat Inc. for its Satellite Monitoring of Oil & Gas Greenhouse Gas Emissions technology
• Keymay Industries for its AutoBond Field Joint Coating system
• MGX Minerals for its commercial petro-lithium facility

Digital Oilfield

• GuildOne Inc. for its Energy Block Exchange (EBX) use of block chain technology
• HiFi Engineering Inc. for its high fidelity dynamic sensing (HDS) system for pipeline leak detection
• Osprey Informatics Ltd. for its AI-powered Visual Monitoring for Oil & Gas
• Pandell for its Invoice-to-pay workflow solution (VP-AP-JV)
• VizworX Inc. for its Panoptica augmented reality solution created specifically for engineering design reviews

Drilling through Completions

• AMGAS Services for its CLEAR technology that removes H2S from sour fluids
• Evolution Engineering for its Unified TelemetryTM MWD technology
• Thruster Energy Corp. for its Universal Jet Thruster technology

Power, Transmission & Storage

• Borealis Wind for its wind power de-icing system
• E3 Metal Corp. for its petro-lithium technology

Production

• Birchcliff Energy for its Montney science and technology pad
• Compact Compression for its No-Hassle Casing Gas Compression technology
• MGX Minerals for its commercial petro-lithium facility

 Exporting Excellence  

Advanced Technology

• Blue Spark Energy for its WASP® (Wireline Applied Stimulation Pulsing) well stimulation technology
• Citadel Drilling for exporting its advanced technology drilling rigs into the U.S. market
• Sandintel for increasing its exports for its Vapor Lock technology by 100 per cent into U.S. markets

Professional Services

• Aon for its work on surety bond issues in the oilsands
• Cadeon Inc. for exporting training and consulting services and software
• Chinook Consulting Services Ltd. for professional services to oil and gas operators and service providers in over 13 countries

Oilfield Services and Manufacturing

• Arnett & Burgess Pipeliners Ltd. for its expansion into the North Dakota Bakken shale play
• Citadel Drilling Ltd. for its growth in U.S. shale plays
• Sandintel for its Vapor Lock flowback sand removal technology

Champions for each category will be chosen at the Energy Excellence Awards Reception on May 2, at the Devonian Gardens, Calgary. Join your fellow industry members at this interactive reception to learn more about their nominations. Limited tickets are available via the awards website.

In May, the Daily Oil Bulletin will publish the Champion Editorial Series — highlighting in more depth the champion nominations.

In addition, the DOB will compile insights from all the nominations and publish the Excellence Insights Report — showcasing not only great stories, but commonalities across the industry that lead to our continued success.

For more information on the Awards program visit the website.