Posted on Fri, May 11, 2012 @ 10:17 AM
What the heck are “oil sands”?
The term oil sands refers to loose sand / sandstone containing mixtures of sand, clay, and water, and saturated with dense petroleum known as bitumen. Almost three quarters of global oil sands are found in Canada, with the next largest reserves located in Kazakhstan and Russia. Utah is home to the largest deposits of oil sands in the US, but its total concentration is insignificant on a global scale. In terms of overall global crude oil reserves, Alberta, Canada ranks third only behind Saudi Arabia and Venezuela.
Oil sands are as old as the dawn of time. Why all the recent discussion?
Oil sands have figured more prominently into recent headlines for two main reasons:
- Higher oil prices.
- New technology allowing them to be extracted and converted into usable products.
How is oil created from oil sands?
Crude bitumen is a sludgy, extremely viscous substance that doesn’t flow; it is mined from the earth. Converting liquid fuels from oil sands involves energy for steam injection and refining. Approximately two tons of oil sands are required to produce a single barrel of oil.
In situ recovery is used for deposits that are buried more than 75m below the surface. The two main methods of in situ recovery are cyclic steam stimulation (CSS) and steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD). In both cases, sand remains in the ground, only the bitumen is removed.
Developers are required to restore oil sands project sites to their original state or better. After reclamation is complete, a lengthy regulatory and environmental review takes place to ensure that the land has been restored to its original state.
Posted on Fri, May 04, 2012 @ 10:36 AM
Mining jobs are always sought after because they pay very well. And the mining industry is booming right now, even as the global economy has slowed. Here’s a short list of some great resources if you’re currently looking for work in the mines.
Where are the mining jobs?
Mining jobs can be found worldwide, but today they’re predominantly found in Australia, Canada, Africa, and South America.
Where can I find job listings?
Searching the web will yield thousands of results. Westjobs.com.au, for example, currently has 2006 listings for mining, oil, and gas jobs in Perth and Western Australia alone.
InfoMine is always an excellent resource for job listings and industry information. The InfoMine Careers Page shows a current tally of 36,819 job listings worldwide.
For you “social” (media) butterflies out there, these Twitter accounts post open mining positions frequently throughout the day:
@AustraliaMining
@CareersMining
@MiningOilandGasJobs
What are some of the big mining companies?
Barrick, Cementation, Freeport-McMoRan, Hatch, Kinross, Redpath, Stantec, TetraTech, and Total E&P, to name just a few.
I don’t have any mining experience. Can I still find a job in mining?
Many companies are hiring for both skilled workers like doctors, engineers, surveyors, and technicians, and unskilled workers like laborers and cooks. Unskilled workers often fill temporary positions or work on a trial basis for permanent positions. Some unskilled positions may require certain certifications, but there are many that do not, aside from their own company specific training.
If, career-wise, you've been looking to "make mine Mining," there's no time like the present! Dig?
Posted on Fri, Apr 27, 2012 @ 12:17 PM
Mining has been in the news this week as firms review their Q1 numbers and make necessary spending changes moving into Q2 and the remainder of 2012. The long and the short of their findings show movement in three main areas: staffing changes, funding, and the one we’re most interested in for purposes of this blog post, cost controls.
Mining companies must take measures to manage cash flow and conserve spending, while ensuring that projects stay on schedule. Controlling costs and managing mining resources requires a robust tool. HD Project Cost Management (PCM) removes common hurdles from cost controls, allowing mining companies to make project decisions that easily avoid cost overruns.
HD PCM offers detailed, timely project status data. This data immediately shows what was estimated and budgeted, versus actual project performance. Through customizable daily reports, an entire project overview is displayed, clearly showing variances and forecast at completion.
Inefficiencies in production are easily corrected with HD PCM - project information is displayed in real-time. The entire project controls staff can evaluate the impact of spend levels over time and take appropriate action to avoid overruns.
Owners, EPCMs, and contractors can collaborate and track project information simultaneously with the HD multi-user network across remote locations. HD for Mining keeps everyone connected to the people and information required while offering an intelligent change log that allows everyone to see project changes.
With HD, overruns are reduced and total visibility is increased, creating profitable, sustainable mining projects.
Posted on Fri, Apr 20, 2012 @ 03:53 PM
So what is STO, anyway?
STO is an acronym for "shutdowns, turnarounds, and outages." In a word, STO is a more detailed way to describe the sum total of process industry “maintenance.”
All major process industries, including oil & gas, utilities, industrial, environmental, etc., require regular maintenance. But what happens at the power plant when that maintenance needs to be performed? We all know that the right way to change a light bulb is to turn off the power to the lamp (shutdown), remove the old bulb and install a new one (turnaround).
Same goes for the power plant, albeit on a much larger scale.
The section of the plant requiring maintenance is "shut down" so that the maintenance work can be completed. During this period, the plant is "turned around" so that it may return to normal operations following completion of the maintenance work. (And ideally, the power plant customers aren't even aware that the turnaround is happening.)
The "turnaround" portion of STO also includes the large buildup ahead of the actual work. While the actual labor-intensive maintenance work may only take a few weeks to complete, planning out the STO project may take many months or even years.
Solutions like HD Project Cost Management exist to make the STO process as streamlined and efficient as possible. HD tracks historical project data, a priceless resource when it comes to planning STO projects. Project productivity is tracked daily, and resource and commodity rates can be accessed instantly, in real time. STO schedules can be cost and resource loaded, and the constant project visibility prevents major delays or snags once the actual work begins.
Or, revisiting our acronyms: STO + HD PCM = win!
Posted on Fri, Apr 13, 2012 @ 04:24 PM
You know a topic has gone mainstream when it hits the Huffington Post. And fracking is the Lady Gaga / Justin Beiber of the moment. Heavy hitters are literally lining up to weigh in: President Obama announced a new “Fracking Oversight Group” today, Matt Damon has co-written and will star in an anti-fracking film, and fracking even has its own rap hit on YouTube. The U.S. Department of Agriculture drew major fire recently, when it reversed its position on requiring rural housing loans with drilling leases to comply with an extensive EPA environmental review.
So, why is fracking so controversial? To oversimplify, fracking can affect drinking water, which is one of the most basic needs on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (the base = breathing, food, water, sex, homeostasis, and excretion). Perhaps the perceived threat to our basic well-being is generating the hyper attention.
Can fracking be safe? Hard Dollar believes so. Increasing natural gas production in America and reducing dependency on foreign suppliers is a cause we (and our Oil and Gas customers) strongly support. President Obama pledged to safely develop this energy source during his January State of the Union address, and commented on the additional benefits to the economy, “Experts believe this will support more than 600,000 jobs by the end of the decade.”
State lawmakers are taking hydraulic fracturing safety seriously. Since October 2010, more than 100 bills across 19 states have been introduced to enforce the monitoring and full disclosure of fracking chemicals. Other states are proposing well regulation and inspections, air quality protection, and accountability measures.
So, why the bad rap? MJN blogger, John Stoddard, refers to an Energy Institute study whose findings reported the media is driving the public perception. Two thirds of articles and stories on fracking were negative, with only 19% of national and 25% of local coverage deemed "neutral."
Stoddard tells readers, "The technology has been in use for decades, but several factors have increased the potential opportunities to deploy it, including improved technology, the rise in oil and gas prices and, most visibly, the fact that the new shale-gas deposits in the Southeastern and Northeastern U.S. can be recovered by only that method."
So, the temptation to close with the obligatory "fracking" reference must be overcome. Time to give it a fracking rest.
Posted on Wed, Apr 04, 2012 @ 03:40 PM
It was just another normal business trip for Hard Dollar CEO and President, Doug Nicholas. His agenda was ordinary: tour the new Hard Dollar office and network with employees, customers, and a few prospects. First, he was off to Edmonton, Canada; then over to Calgary; and finally, head home the same day.
Eventually, Doug found himself with a little extra time to kill in the Calgary Airport (YYC). Within the main concourse, there was a hubbub of preparation - setting up chairs, banners, tables, TV camera crews, radio station broadcasting, and crowd-control roping. The airport was preparing to launch their first “Shave for the Brave,” to raise funds to send cancer-stricken kids to summer camp.
As the crowd grew, Peggy Blacklock, Manager of Service Quality Assurance for Calgary Airport Authority, took the mic, and announced the Young Adult Cancer Canada (YACC) program goal: to raise $25,000 to send 25 kids to summer camp. Peggy and her group had recruited 39 employee volunteers from the airport, and had raised an impressive $22,000 so far in donations (donated hair goes to Wigs for Kids - Hair for Kids). Unfortunately, that meant that three kids were potentially at risk for not participating in summer camp. Nicholas asked a woman at the reception table if passengers could participate. “Why, I don’t know, we were not planning on that,” she responded.
Undeterred, Nicholas approached Ms. Blacklock. “I’m the President and CEO of a software 
company from Arizona, and I’m just passing through. But, if you have room, I want to ensure you meet your goal. You can shave my hair off - and my company will donate the remaining $3,000.” Momentarily shaken by the surprise act of generosity, Peggy wasted no more time in accepting the offer. She immediately moved Nicholas to the front of the line for shaving.
At age 51, Nicholas admitted this was the first time he ever had his head shaved. “Giving up my hair for a couple of months to pay tribute to the kids, and my many friends who have dealt with this disease, is hardly worth mentioning compared to what they have endured. Hard Dollar has gained a lot of support from Canadian businesses, and this is the least I can do to give a little back and help a few Canadian kids have a great summer experience,” stated Nicholas.
The “Shave for the Brave” ended up getting several more walk up volunteers, and at last count was close to raising $30,000 from the one-day event. Peggy Blacklock said that next year they plan to make it an airport-wide event and encourage employees and passengers alike to donate their hair. Who knows? Maybe the Calgary airport will become THE destination spot for getting a cool haircut and a giving a piece of your heart to kids who could use a cool summer vacation.
Posted on Fri, Mar 30, 2012 @ 11:54 AM
While preparing for this week's Project Cost Management webinar, "Oil & Gas: Balancing Scope, Cost & Time" (here's a link to the recording and slides), we came across some great research and resources. These sources discuss the increasing complexity of capital project planning, including budget and scheduling overruns. Sexy, right?
If you are lucky enought to be in or near sunny Miami, Florida next week (April 2-4), say 'howdy' to Scott Kirshe at Booth 16 at the 2012 Fiatech Technology Conference!
Posted on Thu, Mar 22, 2012 @ 03:08 PM
FutureTech Reader Survey Reveals Hard Dollar as Leading Project Cost Management Solution
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Scottsdale, Arizona – (March 22, 2012) Hard Dollar Corporation, the category creator and worldwide leader in Project Cost Management software solutions for capital projects, announced the inclusion of Hard Dollar in the Engineering News-Record (ENR) FutureTech newsletter article “Hot Tech Topics” published March 12, 2012.
In the ENR reader survey, open-ended questions prompted readers to suggest which products they considered “the best new tech tools they use now as well as the tech tools they would like to see in the future.” Hard Dollar was the only Project Cost Management system recommended in the entire survey.
The group, comprised primarily of IT project managers, listed Hard Dollar as one of the 159 recommended software products that “they are now using with good results that have potential to improve their jobs, or even the entire industry.”
The inclusion as a top technology tool supports Hard Dollar's consistent record growth, and mass adoption worldwide by owners, EPCM's and contractors, as the single choice to build cost model estimates, cost and resource load schedules, measure progress, and forecast completion in capital projects.
About Hard Dollar
Founded in 1989, Hard Dollar Corporation is the category creator and leader for Project Cost Management (PCM) solutions. Over 800 Owner, EPC, and Contractor customers worldwide within infrastructure, mining, oil & gas, STO, power, and process industries utilize HD software. Hard Dollar’s PCM solution centralizes project cost and productivity - connecting estimates and budgets, schedule, progress, and forecasting. Customers routinely reduce project costs by 15 percent and increase salaried worker productivity up to 300 percent. HD software has been used to construct over $1 trillion in capital projects and is sold and implemented around the globe. For more information, visit www.harddollar.com or call 800.637.7496.
Posted on Fri, Mar 16, 2012 @ 01:53 PM
Join Hard Dollar at the MS Project Conference 2012, March 19-22, at the Phoenix Convention Center in Booth 680.
As a Microsoft Certified Gold Partner, see how the HD Project Cost Management solution integrates the schedule with the project, keeping the detailed budgets and schedules in sync.
Real-time integration with Microsoft® Project allows you to make changes and simultaneously update the project budget and schedule. No more copying and pasting, no more importing and exporting!
Stop by and say 'howdy' to HD experts, Chris Wright, Scott Kirshe, and Shannon Corgan. You can register online at http://www.msprojectconference.com/pages/register.aspx or visit us at http://harddollar.com.
Posted on Fri, Mar 09, 2012 @ 08:59 AM
Spreadsheet Confessions! Before it's too late
An anonymous spreadsheet user confesses to the simple mistake that ruined his life.
No matter how careful your company is, there always exists the possibility of errors when working with spreadsheets. From the wrong address in the wrong field to less outstanding errors like formatting or equation errors, these tend to be a common occurrence and can happen to anyone. As we discover in the above video, these mistakes can lead to catastrophe. Now, most mistakes will likely not result in the same drastic effects but the possibility still remains. Here at Hard Dollar, we live by the motto “Stamp Out Spreadsheets”, not only for the benefit of our own company but also for that of our clients and partners. Tell us about your spreadsheet errors or errors that you have heard of, we want to hear your stories. Be sure to visit our youtube channel or video portal for more videos!
