You could call George Conroy the “map master,” except his domain extends far beyond the boundaries of paper. His maps are made of data.

Conroy is chief executive of The Proactive Group of Companies, which specializes in computerized digital mapping and data management of surface facilities for oil and gas companies and other clients. For the petroleum industry, those facilities include key assets such as wells, pipelines, compressor stations, natural gas plants and roads.

“We do surface asset management through technology,” is how Conroy describes his company’s work. “We don’t do anything on paper here. Everything’s done digitally.”

Take a Proactive map of a major oil company’s emergency response plan, for example. One click of the mouse on a laptop pinpoints within two metres the location of a farmhouse in the foothills. Another click tells you who lives there and how many family members there are, their home and work telephone numbers, and whether any of them would require special medical attention in an emergency.

David Lazarowych, Business Edge
George Conroy says the need for better data on oilfield facilities has intensified.

Another mouse click brings up a brief video of the farmhouse as it would appear to an emergency response worker driving up in a vehicle.

Proactive’s maps are, in fact, powerful, interactive and modifiable databases. The need to have better information on oilfield surface facilities has intensified since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the U.S., Conroy and industry experts say.

“I think that everybody is heightening their awareness level as to making sure that they know where their assets are and they are able to manage them in a plan,” says Jarvis Olsen, safety engineering adviser for ExxonMobil Canada West.

The increased security needs are one reason why Proactive, with 26 full- and part-time employees, has tripled in size during the last year, Conroy says. The company recently advertised to hire 40 staff for field offices covering the entire province, and is recruiting another half-dozen computer specialists for its head office in Calgary.

Olsen notes that ExxonMobil’s emergency response plans cover nine different geographic areas. Proactive’s “Rapid-Emergency Response Plan” product has allowed the company to bring all the plans together in one standard format that makes for consistent training and can be universally updated at any time. “I think it’s very leading-edge stuff,” Olsen says.

Compiling a large digital file and learning how to use it costs more initially than using conventional “flat file” printed plans.

However, Olsen says ExxonMobil’s cost-benefit analysis showed that by going digital, “we’re going to save money in the long run by streamlining the process, by doing the work once instead of doing it nine times” for nine separate plans.

Another driver for better oilpatch information is the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board. The EUB now requires companies to do more initial and detailed planning, and consult meaningfully with landowners before even applying for new wells or other developments.

To build the database for a major emergency response plan or an environmental assessment, Proactive sends staff into the field for weeks at a time.

They’re equipped with laptops, digital and video cameras, GPS (global positioning system) units, notebooks and – just as important – a personable attitude and a “good ear.”

Staff knock on people’s doors and talk to them to obtain the kind of vital information that’s crucial to producing an effective plan, Conroy says. All personal data is kept confidential within the database unless it’s needed. “The only way employees can ever see a resident’s name is by declaring an emergency.”

Everything Proactive does entails gathering data, administering data, managing data and distributing data, Conroy says.

If that sounds like a lot of data, it is. Consider that an emergency response plan recently completed for Petro-Canada encompasses more than 2,300 square kilometres and 650 homes. It includes 42 separate emergency planning zones or EPZs for wells, 16 EPZs for pipelines and three more EPZs for other field facilities.

Add 1,400 kilometres of roads and hundreds of farmyard gates, including 98 that are always locked.

Locked gates are clearly colour-coded on every digital map. Including a set of bolt cutters in a vehicle in the field could mean the difference between life and death in an emergency response, Conroy says.

GPS technology, plus GIS or geographic information systems, form the backbone of Proactive’s databases.

GPS uses satellite signals to calculate the precise co-ordinates of any oilfield facility, home, bridge, road or other object in the field.

GIS is a technology that seamlessly combines often very different sets of data – geographic, topographic, GPS, photographic and other types – into one map or spatial database.

“GIS is the world’s best filing cabinet,” Conroy says. “We can update it and manipulate it a thousand ways . . . that’s the power of what we do.”

Conroy says his company is the only one in Canada, if not North America, offering digital databases that, for example, distinguish between locked versus unlocked farm gates and include photos and videos of facilities and homes.

Proactive’s maps even show local traplines, along with phone numbers for each trapper.

Conroy has expanded the company’s technology to a new product for notifying residents and landowners about oil and gas flaring in the field. With an estimated 30,000 flaring operations each year in Alberta, some companies aren’t doing all the required notifications and the EUB is cracking down, he says.

Proactive’s software, by plugging in four numbers, will tell the company’s field staff what is required for flare notification for a specific well or other facility. The software automatically generates and e-mails a map of the area to the person in the field. Using a portable GPS unit, the person can then locate the facility, notify the nearby residents, gather their feedback and e-mail the data back to the EUB field office and the well’s operator.

Conroy predicts his “Rapid-Flare Notification System” will cost companies half of what they now spend to dispatch a land man from Calgary or Edmonton to do the job.

Other applications for digital databases include producing better forest-fire response plans, managing roads for natural resource extraction and municipal districts, and improving a city’s response to hazardous chemical fires and spills.

“These concepts can be applied to any industry, anywhere,” Conroy says.

Web Watch:
www.proactive-surf-sol.com