Field Trip to Lloydminster

Class of 2010 Petroleum Engineering

           On March 22, 2010, a field trip to Lloydminster had been organized for the fourth year petroleum engineering students. The students were given opportunity to discover and explore the Canadian’s heavy oil industry within Lloydminster region with tour to Tangleflags and Pikes Peak fields. Visit to well site, rig, battery, thermal site project of SAGD and CSS, sand cavern, steam generation plant accompanied by few Husky Oil’s employees were parts of the trip. Husky Oil Ltd is the main player in Lloydminster’s oil industry and the company has heavily contributed to the development of the region since 1950’s and this will continue for the next few decades with still large amount of oil is available to be extracted and produced.

           Lloydminster is a very unique and special city. It is the only municipality in Canada that is situated within two provinces, where half of the city is in Saskatchewan and the other half of the city is in Alberta. Not only that, Lloydminster also is blessed with huge amount of oil reserves. It is estimated that the total reserves range as high as 30 billion barrels of oil in place in all formations within the area. This has attracted oilmen and oil companies to Lloydminster since 1900’s in effort to make fortune of the oil. Although the city was primarily an agricultural based centre, but today the city accepts oil industry as part of its economic prosperity.

Husky Oil Ltd is the major operator in Lloydminster’s oil industry. The company built their first oil refinery back in 1947 and since that, they have made a lot of changes to increase the capacity of the plant production. With the latest upgrade that was done in 1992, the refinery plant is capable to process 82 000 barrels per day of heavy oil and most of oil is shipped for United State’s market.

The trip started with a tour to one of the well sites in Tangleflags field. Overview of the field operation was given to our group by three Husky Oil’s employees. Then we were shown to a new well site. The drilling process was just finished and perforation for the completion of the well was going on when we arrived there. The oil rig for the well is quite small and the blowout preventer that is used for the operation is the smallest that I ever seen. This is due to the small risk for blowout to happen in heavy oil operation. The target formation for the operation is unconsolidated sandstones where usually big amount of sand will be produced. In order to reduce the amount of sand produced, progressive cavity pump is used for most of the operation in the field area. The progressive cavity pump is specially developed in Lloydminster due to the natural characteristic of oil formation in the area. The pump can tolerate extremely large amount of sand and viscous oil. However, other problem raises, high wear associated to sand production causes pump to wear out or damage. This leads to frequent services and work over for replacement of worn or damaged pump.

The trip then continued to Tangleflags battery. The facility is a cleaning and treating plant for the heavy oil that is produced within the field area. Heavy oil that is extracted from the formation is brought to the facility by using truck. In heavy oil operation, trucking is the main operating cost. Pipelines are not suitable for heavy oil operations due to the extremely viscous oil, which is hard to mobile. The facility cleans and treats the heavy oil by removing all the unwanted impurities, utilizing both an atmospheric and pressure treating system. This facility cleans about 3000 m3/day of emulsions and disposes about 1500 m3/day of produced water from the well sites. The resulting products from the process are then injected into the earth formation to reduce the environmental impact.

After that, our group was brought to the next field tour, Pikes Peak. Pikes Peak field is the most successful heavy oil operation with Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD) and Cyclic Steam Stimulation (CSS) method. Due to the extremely high value of viscosity, oil in this area is basically immobile. In order to produce the oil, viscosity needs to be reduced to a certain value where the oil will start to move. This can be done by thermal process such SAGD and CSS. These two types of technology are heavily being exploited due to the increased oil prices.

SAGD is considered as an advanced form of steam stimulation technique. In this method, a pair of horizontal wells is drilled into the targeted formation, one about 4 to 6 meters above the other. Through the upper wellbore, low pressure steam is continuously injected to heat the oil resulting the oil viscosity to reduce. This then will cause the heated oil to drain into the lower wellbore, where it is pumped out to the surface. SAGD actually is a costly method due to the horizontal wells that need to be drilled, but it is preferred in this area as horizontal wells could reduce sand production and this will reduce the need for treatment of oil which finally help to decrease the cost in a long term period.

On the other hand, CSS which also known as “Huff and Puff” method, consists of three stages: Injection, soaking and production. In the first stage, steam if injected into a well from an injector for a certain amount of time to heat the oil in the surrounding reservoir to a temperature at which the oil will flows. After that, the steam is usually left to “soak” for certain period of time. For the final stage, the oil is produced out to the surface, at first by natural flow since the steam injected will increase the reservoir pressure. Once the oil stops being produced naturally, artificial lift then might be used. Production will drop as the oil cools down, and once production reaches the economically limit, the steps of this method are repeated again.

Besides thermal process, other types of enhanced oil recovery (EOR) such as water flooding and solvent flooding are also being applied in certain area of the field where the well characteristics might be suitable. For example, well with viscosity about 24000 cp, solvent flooding would be preferred, while water flooding would suit well that contains oil with viscosity ranges 100cp to 700 cp.

The trip ended with a tour to the sand cavern, which is located south of the Husky Lloydminister Upgrader. The facility is used to dispose the sand and waste produced from the heavy oil production. Mixing with water, the disposal will be injected 1500 meters below the earth surface into caverns created in a salt formation. This will help to prevent the waste polluting the fresh water sources and soil, resulting less environmental impacts.

Overall, the field trip was a huge success. I have learned so much about Canada’s heavy oil industry from the trip to Lloydminster. The industry is a big industry especially in Alberta and Saskatchewan provinces, which has become the main driving force for the development of this region. The technologies used in the industry too are advanced and evolve from time to time for a better change.

Interview with Bumi Armada

Ananda Krishnan is the major shareholder of Bumi Armada

  After my graduation, I applied for a lots of job related to the oil and gas industry. Most of them, I did online, basically just send a cover letter or letter of inquiry to the interested company with my resume and a letter of recommendation from my previous employer as attachments. Unfortunately, most of my applications ended up wt no response.

  So, I thought I have to change my plan of action. Luckily, last 2 weeks, my best friend from UTP told me that there would be a career placement week on the next day. I decided to attend the event since few reputable oil and gas companies would be there setting up their booth for exhibition.

  My new plan worked, it was worth driving 2 hours from my house to UTP since I got a very good response from Bumi Armada Berhad. The exhibitor for the company asked me to call him back on Monday to schedule an interview. Sounds biasa je kan but for me, that was a huge stepping stone cz it was a pretty good improvement for my job hunting and it helped me to keep myself motivated to continue looking for a job.

  On Monday, as requested, I called him and he asked me choose the date and time for the interview. I chose Wednesday morning cz I thought I need a little bit time to prepare for the interview. Actually, it was my first “professional interview” and I didn’t want to screw it up and lost my chance to be employed.

  I took bus from Parit Buntar to Bkt Jalil on Tuesday morning. Once arrived at BJ, I took LRT and transited at Bandar Tasik Selatan to take Komuter to my last destination, Serdang where my friend picked me up. I stayed at his house at Putrajaya for a night.

  On the next morning, I woke up pretty early to get ready for the interview. From Putrajaya, I took KLIA transit at 7:30 am and arrived at KL Sentral around 8:00 am. It was still early since my interview was scheduled at 10:00 am. So, I took some time to read the newspaper,.I actually expected that the interviewer would ask me about current issues especially about the Commonwealth Games that was going on that time at New Delhi, India. Our athletes did have pretty good performance, tallied few gold, silver and bronze in the first few days.

  At about 9:00 am, I brought all my stuffs and locked them in a locker. I paid RM 5 for it and I just took all the necessaries to the interview such as resume, scroll, recommendation letter and few other certificates. The interview would be held at Menara Perak. Based on map that found in the web, the building is not that far from KLCC. So, I rode Putra LRT to KLCC and then I took cab to the building. It was better to take cab just to make sure I won’t get lost finding the location.

  I arrived at Menara Perak around 9:15 am and since it was still early,  I just hanged out at the lobby and read all my notes for the last minutes. However, I felt a little bit nervous and that caused me to lose focus reading my materials. I decided to just go to the office at level 21.

  “Hi there, I have an interview wt Mr dot dot at 10:00 am”, I said to the receptionist once I arrived at the office. Then, she called Mr dot dot and asked me to wait for a moment.

   After few minutes, another HR officer that I met at UTP came and from this moment, I knew the interview had started. I had to impress her. I talked to her before. She was nice and quite friendly.  I greeted her properly and she told that the interview would be held a room on the lower floor. So, I just followed her to the interview room.

  Once we entered the room, she asked for all the documents that I brought. She went out to photocopy all the documents and call another interviewer from the engineering department. The view from the room was quite impressive. I can see Petronas twin tower from that point. If I can work there, it would be great. haha

  After few minutes, she came back and started to converse with me. How did you get here? Where did you stay last night?

  While answering, another lady came. She was introduced as an engineer from the engineering department. She was pretty serious. I guess I was being rude. I did not stand up enter the room. I knew I suppose to do that. Busy answering the previous questions made me forgot. Shooot!!

Time to get serious. The first lady asked me few questions just in a sentence.

  Tell me about your self, your expectation and so on. It was pretty easy, normal stuff.

Then the other lady started. What do you know about Bumi Armada? I knew the answer cz I did my homework.hehe

  Where do you see yourself fit into our organization? Damn it, it wasn’t hard but I didn’t really prepare for it.

  After hearing my answer, the lady explained to me about engineering department and what kind of works they do. Basically, they more focus on the design, front end engineering desing (FEED).

“ You are the first petroleum engineering student that we interview,” she said to me, I still can remember the sentence precisely, bugging my ears.

  “ Do you think you still fit into our organization?” Shot! Arghh, what to say. Luckily, the first lady saved me. She explained to the second lady that I came for the graduate development program which I heard about it but I didn’t that I was interviewed for the program..haha. The first lady started to talk about the development program. It’s pretty interesting program and I really hope that I could join it. The second lady also added few things about the program, she talked about how important to ask question if we need clarifications.

  “Exactly, for me, there is no stupid question. If you are curious about something, just shot and ask,” I said to her in response to her explanation. Pretty cool response huh?..hehe

  “Is processing engineering similar to petroleum engineering?,” the second lady asked another question. Honestly, I was not really sure. I guess, it’s different cz processing is downstream and petroleum is more toward upstream.

  Finaly question, do you have any question?hehe..Once again, I guess I blew my biggest chance to impress them here. I knew I should and could have done better.

  What are the next steps for the selection process? Usually, how many persons will be chosen to join the development program? That’s all my questions, simple and not challenging at all.

  The interview took roughly about 1 hour. I guess I did ok but I didn’t expect too much for the position. Let just wait and see, but don’t forget to pray.

HONEY VS COUGH SYRUP

    If you go the clinic or hospital cz of coughing, doctor usually will give you cough syrup or scientifically called linctus; a medicinal drug that used as an attempt to treat coughing. That’s what happens to me and I believe to most of people. For me, it’s not really effective medicine and it does have side effect, cause the taker to feel sleepy depending on the amount of the liquid taken.

   Recently, a research by an American scientist found that taking a spoon of honey for cough treatment is more effective than taking cough syrup. Based on experience, I strongly agree wt the finding. I am kinda of person who have cough regularly especially when the temperature is pretty cold. Normally, I just buy the syrup or get it from clinic/hospital but after awhile, I realized that taking syrup doesn’t help me anymore. I drink more syrup and end up sleep more than I should have. Few people suggested me to drink hot milk mixed with few spoons of honey. I gave it a shot and it worked quite well. I can feel that I cough less than I used to.

    However, the research suggests that this prescription is not suitable for children below 1 year old because honey may contain bacteria that can cause food poisoning or worst, can cause dead. Besides that, if you cough with a lot of sputum, do not use honey for treatment and as rule of thumb, if you cough for months, please go and see doctor for detailed examination cz coughing for a long time is one of tuberculosis symptoms.

5 Most Expensive Watches: More Than A Car

  While surfing the internet couple days ago, I came across this website showing among the most expensive watches in the world. Can you guys imagine cost of buying the watches is more than cost of getting a Ferrari car! Let me repeat, more than cost of a Ferrari, not an ordinary car! This is beyond my belief, I totally never expected that such kind of watches exist in this world. Even if I’m a billionaire, I don’t think I would spend so much money just to get a watch. I would rather invest the money into a unit trust or buy a stock market. c”,)

  The watches are very complicated, more than calculus course that you learn at school and you probably need an engineering degree and instructional tome to figure out how they work. The watches also have more history than you could learn in a lifetime. Regardless, all these watches are ridiculously cool and stylo, make it really attractive to be owned by ridiculously rich guys. (^_^)

1. Patek Philippe Ref 5016P – $762,000 [roughly around RM 2, 286, 000]

2. Jaeger-LeCoultre Gyrotourbillon 1 – $400,000  [roughly around RM 1,200, 000]

3. Rolex Submariner – $234,000  [roughly around RM 702, 000]

4. Split Seconds Patek Philippe Reference 1436 By Tiffany & Co. – $214,000 [roughly around RM 642, 000]

5. The Patek Caliber 89 - $5,120,000 [roughly around RM 15, 360, 000]

This the most expensive from the list. Can you believe it? RM 15 millions. Even if I work for my whole life as an engineer, I dont think I can afford to buy it.

Source: http://coolmaterial.com/roundup/expensive-watches/

Advice From Imam Shafie

     Last week, I received an email from one of my x primary school friends. The content of the email is pretty interesting and I would like to share wt others. I am pretty sure everyone knows Imam Shafie, world’s top Islamic scholar and the founder of Mazhaad Shafie. Below are the advice from him based on what he has been practicing in his whole life, check them out and try to learn and apply them in our daily life.

§  4 perkara menguatkan badan

1. makan daging

2. memakai haruman

3. kerap mandi

4. berpakaian dari kapas

§  4 perkara melemahkan badan

1. banyak berkelamin (bersetubuh)

2. selalu cemas

3. banyak minum air ketika makan

4. banyak makan bahan yang masam

§  4 perkara menajamkan mata

1. duduk mengadap kiblat

2. bercelak sebelum tidur

3. memandang yang hijau

4. berpakaian bersih

§  4 perkara merosakkan mata

1. memandang najis

2. melihat orang dibunuh

3. melihat kemaluan

4. membelakangi kiblat

§ 4 perkara menajamkan fikiran

1. tidak banyak berbual kosong

2. rajin bersugi (gosok gigi)

3. bercakap dengan orang soleh

4. bergaul dengan para ulama

§  4 CARA TIDUR

1. TIDUR PARA NABI: Tidur terlentang sambil berfikir tentang kejadian langit danbumi.

2. TIDUR PARA ULAMA' & AHLI IBADAH: Miring ke sebelah kanan untuk memudahkan terjaga untuk solatmalam.

3. TIDUR PARA RAJA YANG HALOBA: Miring ke sebelah kiri untuk mencernakan makanan yang banyakdimakan.

4. TIDUR SYAITAN: Menelungkup/tiarap seperti tidurnya ahli neraka.

[snOwbOarding:my new passion:]

snowboarding with my gf at Grouse Mountain, Vancouver

 Snowboarding is among the most popular winter sport and it have been played by millions of people in every winter season around the globe even in Dubai where indoor ski resort using artificial snow is built. When winter is coming, lots of people would get really excited waiting for the local ski resort to be opened so that they can enjoy the excitement and thrill of snowboarding.

  Snowboarding is a sport that been played by riding down the snowy slopes with snowboard attached to a rider’s feet using special boots and bindings. By the definition, it seems that snowboarding is quite easy sport, but in reality this sport need lots of determination, courage, energy and time to fully master it and eventually become an expert.

snowboard that i used for about 3 years before had to let it go

  In order to play this exciting sport, three basic things need to be prepared are the board, a pair of boots and bindings. Besides that, proper attires also are advised to wear because of the cool weather condition during winter season. A snowboard normally is made of a core wood sandwiched with few layers of fiberglass. It provides contact between the rider’s feet and the surface of the run. There are many variations of design of snowboard available nowadays for the riders to choose based on the style, physical and financial. Basically, in choosing a snowboard, the height, width and flexibility of the board must be considered carefully so that total satisfaction of riding could be achieved. After choosing the right board, it is time to choose a pair of suitable bindings and boots. First of all, both of boots and bindings should be comfortable enough for the rider and size of the binding should be fit with the board so that it can be mounted properly to the board and the size of the boots should match with the binding size. Boots are used to transfer energy from the rider into the board and protect rider’s feet by keeping them warm. Meanwhile, binding would function to hold rider’s boot tightly. According to Jim Smith, a snowboarding book writer, “good gear can make all difference in a snowboard’s ride”.

  Once all the necessary gears are ready, it is time to learn about the basics of snowboarding. Fundamentally, there are only two basic things of snowboarding which are stance and carving. Both are quite easy to understand but pretty hard to master especially the carving. Stance is the position of the feet while standing on the board with boots and binding attached. There are two types of stances that are recognized as regular and goofy. Regular stance is when the left foot of the rider is at the front of the board while goofy would be when the right foot of the rider is at the front. Both stances basically have no difference in terms of skill or method involved, it is all purely matter of what make the rider feels much more comfortable and natural while snowboarding. In order to decide what kind of stance for the rider, few method could be used like which foot is used for kicking soccer ball or which foot lead when start walking. However, the best way to determine the stance is by testing both ways and fell which one is more natural and comfortable. Carving is the most important basic for a rider in snowboarding. Every rider must fully master this basic before another difficult technique could be mastered. Basically, the way to do this basic while riding is by shifting body weight forward a little bit to initiate the turn and then edging the board to the direction of riding by pushing using the feet, and do another turn till forming like S-shaped path. While doing this, control the centre of gravity for the body so that stability could be maintained and fall could be avoided. At the beginning, almost everybody who is trying to learn snowboarding would be hesitate to do carving because of the feel that such action would cause to fall. In order to master this technique, this kind of feeling should be overcome and do practice as many as could. It is not a bad idea to start with skidding, a slightly different technique which would form like z-shaped path. After awhile, when there is enough courage and gut, rider could give a try to do carving.

            There is no doubt that snowboarding is an amazing sport that full with excitement and sweet sensation. It also could be the way to fill the time during winter to get physically active instead of just staying in door. However, safety concerns should not be forgotten, ride safely and stay active. 

had a lot of  fun with my friends when snowboarding