Startup Pushes for Better Cleanup in the Oil Patch
Vancouver, Canada, December 10, 2014 (Newswire.com) - Summit Liability Solutions and software startup Ark Platforms today announced a unique, long-term partnership to help Canadian oil and gas companies leverage new cloud technology to improve environmental outcomes.
The multi-year partnership will connect energy producers more closely with their ongoing environmental commitments, and pioneer innovative new software to provide a better picture of their wellsites, pipelines and facilities to achieve more efficient cleanup and compliance.
Our industry faces a large backlog of inactive and abandoned well sites, and a lack of coordinated systems to manage those processes. There are around 85,000 inactive wells in Alberta, and 47% are non-compliant with Alberta Energy Regulator directives. The AER's most recent liability report estimated over $33 billion in wellsite liabilities for producers in the province. For oil and gas companies, that represents an expensive and complex challenge to solve, and for the community it's a really serious environmental concern.
Chris Kam, Co-Founder and CEO, Ark Platforms
“Technological advancements in our field continue to improve at a fast pace, and it was only a matter of time before someone created a software platform to give oil and gas companies a visual representation of our environmental work,” said Robin Weseen, Summit’s VP of Operations.
Ark Platforms is a Vancouver and Calgary-based software startup on a mission to transform how Canada’s energy industry works. Announcing the partnership, Co-Founder and CEO Chris Kam explained that Canadian oil and gas companies face growing pressure to better manage environmental liabilities.
“There’s an awful lot of environmental work waiting to be done.
“Our industry faces a large backlog of inactive and abandoned well sites, and a lack of coordinated systems to manage those processes. There are around 85,000 inactive wells in Alberta, and 47% are non-compliant with Alberta Energy Regulator directives. The AER's most recent liability report estimated over $33 billion in wellsite liabilities for producers in the province. For oil and gas companies, that represents an expensive and complex challenge to solve, and for the community it’s a really serious environmental concern.
“That’s a big opportunity we see for our software, to empower industry leaders like Summit to work more closely with energy producers, to find new ways solve these problems, and ensure safe and timely land reclamation for all Canadians.”
Summit Liability Solutions is using Ark Platforms’ cloud software, called ARKit, with oil and gas companies to help them better manage their environmental projects and work with site data in new ways. The software uses new technologies to make complex environmental and geospatial data simpler to manage, and leverages the power of the cloud to let energy producers and environmental professionals work more closely together.
“It gives us a visual representation of work both on a large scale view of Western Canada, but also on a site specific scale complete with aerial imagery,” explained Weseen.
“This visual representation works on many levels. It can allow for efficiencies to be captured while coordinating field activity on multiple projects for several clients in a region. On a more micro level, it allows us to potentially see geographic evidence of past and recent disturbances at a location as well as to accurately map surface and subsurface investigations, complete with sample point criteria compliance and exceedances.”
Weseen believes that for oil and gas companies, ARKit serves as a powerful new kind of project management software, giving them a much more efficient way to handle their sites and address problems.
“We’re excited by what can be accomplished together, in terms of efficiency, cost tracking, and real- time, site-by-site problem solving,” Weseen said.
“And we see this as an incredible way of allowing us to share our information with our clients as we work toward common environmental goals on their behalf.”
“Those shared goals are our ultimate focus,” Ark Platforms’ Kam explained, “to support the Canadian oil and gas industry so it can continue to be a world leader, not only for successful exploration and ! production, but also to serve as a model of efficient environmental success.”
