I saw these two news articles on Wall Street Breakfast (which you can have Seeking Alpha send you each day.
Calling it a “crazy economic policy”, Prime Minister Stephen Harper says that Canada will not impose new carbon emission rules on its oil and gas sector in a time of falling oil prices. Canada’s critical energy sector has been slammed by the recent collapse of world oil prices, and a number of Canadian producers recently have announced plans to cut spending and dividends.
North Dakota regulators ordered producers pumping oil from the Bakken shale field to strip explosive gases from their product in an effort to make crude-by-rail transport safer. The rule, which will take effect on April 1, 2015, is the first major move by regulators to address the role of gaseous, volatile crude oil in railroad accidents which have been linked to several fiery explosions, including one last year in Quebec that killed 47 people.
The first may account for some of the fall in PFIE’s price. The second may be very good for it.
North Dakota regulators ordered producers pumping oil from the Bakken shale field to strip explosive gases from their product in an effort to make crude-by-rail transport safer. The rule, which will take effect on April 1, 2015, is the first major move by regulators to address the role of gaseous, volatile crude oil in railroad accidents which have been linked to several fiery explosions, including one last year in Quebec that killed 47 people.
And I pulled this off their Transcipts from the last earnings release.
As you know, the registration states that by May 1st of 2016 any combustion device in Colorado needs to have an auto ignition system. So, there’s a bit of a lag there, but there’s a fairly hard stop. Now, as you know in the oil and gas space there will be those producers that will fight that or will try to interpret what auto ignition means. They will see if the regulatory bodies actually have any teeth in penalties if people aren’t complying with this but, from what we’ve heard is that if people aren’t complying with the regulation and the best practices of having safe technology if it’s available, that it will likely damage their permitting applications in future submissions that they would have in the state.
Regulations meant to reduce volatility of crude oil transported from the state were passed Tuesday by the North Dakota Industrial Commission.
he rules outline a series of standards for pressure and temperatures for production facilities to follow in order to separate volatile gases from crude oil. Companies are already required to have equipment, such as separators and heater treaters, for those tasks at well sites. North Dakota crude oil will not be allowed to exceed a vapor pressure of 13.7 pounds per square inch; national standards require 14.7 psi. The 1 psi margin is meant to address any margin of error in testing equipment. One concession to industry was requiring crude at facilities to be heated at 110 degrees, down from 120 degrees in the draft order.
HHelms said nearly two dozen staff are being recommended in the agency’s 2015-17 budget — more than half are for inspectors in the oil patch.
Helms said staff conducted 300 inspections in the past three weeks at facilities in the oil patch. Of these, 56 percent were in compliance, 31 percent were heating oil below 110 degrees and the rest weren’t heating oil at all.
North Dakota regulators ordered producers pumping oil from the Bakken shale field to strip explosive gases from their product in an effort to make crude-by-rail transport safer.
The oil industry uses “heater-treaters” to strip gas from oil. Heater-treaters have been used in the oil industry for decades. To get a sense of the “market opportunity” all one has to do is Google: “heater-treaters + burner management systems”. An hour or two of perusal will reveal that there are several large dawgs in this space (e.g. Siemens, National Oilwell Varco, Natco, etc.) and more than just a few smaller, hungry dawgs.
'Nuf said.
Disclosure: No Thesaurus was used during the preparation of this post.
Siemens, National Oilwell Varco, Natco, etc.) and more than just a few smaller, hungry dawgs.
According to Pfie’s latest 10k.
Some larger conglomerates, such as Siemens, Honeywell, and others, manufacture BMS for very sophisticated refinery environments and some larger (E.G. forced-air) systems in the oilfield. But they have not, historically, emphasized sales for natural draft smaller - and mid-size oilfield applications). We had previously included TitanLogix as a competitor, but their recent voluntary recall of their FGI 351 burner management system - together with their recent announcements of additional products in other areas of the industry - suggest to us that they currently do not have a directly competitive position in our area of the industry.