is beautiful
Grizzly Oil Sands CEO John Pearce is building a new player
and a new approach to SAGD
by Melanie Collison
Within the profound resource base available to in situ oilsands producers, in a sector dominated by major operators, continues to lie a wealth of opportunity for a juniorplayer with the right strat- egy and experience. That is the conviction of a
number of firms, including Grizzly Oil Sands, which recently solidified
its presence in the industry by submitting the application for its Algar
Lake steam assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) project.
Grizzly president and chief executive officer John Pearce believes
a small, agile company can slip in between the big boys’ shoulders
and produce relatively smaller resource pools with numerous SAGD
installations of 5,000 to 10,000 barrels per day.
Pearce, who is the former manager of thermal heavy oil for Devon
Energy, calculates each project could be online within five years of
identifying the pool—or even three years, if the Energy Resources
Conservation Board (ERCB) takes into account that the central processing plant would be replicated from one location to the next.
The concept calls for optimizing the design of the plant and completing all the engineering before construction begins, so that units
could be built in modules in central Alberta and snapped together in
the field. The predictability heightens cost certainty.
for years, Pearce has been kicking the idea around with his good
friend ken James, president and chief executive officer of front-end
engineering design (fEED) contractor kemex.
