Cord WorleyParsons is an
open-shop merit contractor,
o;ering extensive expertise
in engineering, procurement
and construction (EPC) across
Canada, specializing in modular
fabrication and on-site assembly
and erection in market segments
such as power, gas, pipelines,
and heavy oil including SAGD.
www.worleyparsons.com
Cord WorleyParsons Ltd.
Calgary Main Of;ce: (403) 258-8660
Tr
Celebrating
31
Years
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Pearce sketches out a small footprint: the main processing plant
and 10 well pairs drilled from a single pad, closely spaced for thorough, fast production. The idea is to shorten drainage time significantly, which would have a number of benefits, including reducing
heat losses to the overburden and quicker time to reclamation.
Reliability would also be improved by field operators having close and
centralized engineering support.
“Making the operation a collaborative approach between engineering and operators is a bit of a different paradigm,” says Pearce.
The Pearce-James vision of these multiple small-scale modular
projects gained substance two years ago when Grizzly Oil Sands
bought in.
Connecticut-based investment partners Wexford Capital had put
Grizzly together with Calgary consulting support in 2006, and by
2008 had achieved some major milestones.
The company had compiled a promising portfolio of leases and
permits, one of the largest in Alberta—211,609 net hectares within
the Athabasca and Peace River oilsands regions. The portfolio comprised 100 per cent ownership of 22 areas and shared ownership on
two more. Two seasons of preliminary delineation drilling had been
conducted.
It was time to hire a chief executive officer, so they approached
Pearce and asked him to build a Calgary team to spearhead the engineering and regulatory application process for the inaugural Algar
Lake project.
“We are moving from reliance on myself
as the principal technician to creating a
complete company of individuals who will
all be singularly focused on developing
this new way of doing [SAGD]
technology that’s already in place.”
John Pearce, President and CEO, Grizzly Oil Sands
Eighteen months later, the conceptual engineering and FEED were
complete and the application was on the ERCB table.
Now detailed engineering is going ahead while Pearce hand-picks
his leadership team in anticipation of project approval within the year.
He recently told Oilsands Review, “2010 is a really exciting period
for Grizzly Oil Sands because we are moving from reliance on myself
as the principal technician to creating a complete company of individ-
uals who will all be singularly focused on developing this new way of
doing technology that’s already in place.”
At 51, Pearce shoulders the leadership mantle comfortably by
braiding together his three experience streams: environment-driven
thermal heavy oil engineering, organizational management, and tech-
nology development.
He got his feet wet in heavy oil and has amassed managerial experience and technological skills throughout a varied career.
Spending the extra years required for the co-op stream of engineering at the University of Alberta not only carried him past the industry slump of 1983, it yielded him a position in Esso Resources’
thermal heavy oil division upon graduation in 1984. As he points out,
those early exciting days in thermal-oil development produced the
sector’s leaders of today.
