President’s Letter

Change happens quickly in the oil and gas industry. At Enform, we work hard to keep up with new developments to ensure we’re responding to the needs of our stakeholders and the industry at large.

This commitment means that we collaborate with all our partners to offer the most up-to-date and relevant course offerings, to ensure our students are as prepared as possible to work safely. This year, we are redeveloping two of our most popular courses, H₂S Alive® and Petroleum Safety Training (PST), to maintain their high quality and relevance to the continually evolving upstream oil and gas industry.

I’m happy to report on some of the other projects and initiatives that we unveiled this past year. The new Enform Connect system is launching, and is set to improve the service we are able to deliver to our stakeholders. Our new website is another exciting improvement, which I hope you’ve already been able to benefit from.

Enform Connect – Keeping You Connected to Safety

Enform Connect marked a major change to our service offering this year, with its fast and easy-to-navigate online environment. It’s the culmination of a lot of feedback from you, our partners and stakeholders, and a firm goal towards improving the efficiency and effectiveness of your interactions with us.

We’re confident that this shift will make contacting and interacting with Enform much more simple and straightforward. To be clear, this is not a facelift; it’s a significant overhaul that positions Enform to provide even greater service to our partners.

Celebrating 50 Years of Keeping our Industry Safe – 1961-2011

As our anniversary celebrations wind down, I want to once again pass along Enform’s thanks to our partners—industry, government and Workers’ Compensation Boards—for the positive role you have all played in the evolution of safety over the past 50 years.

Safety is everyone’s responsibility – but it cannot be achieved alone. To our current and former students and instructors, our industry trade associations and regulatory partners, our volunteers, suppliers and employees, I sincerely thank you for working with us to help companies achieve their safety goals.

I am proud to be part of an industry with such a long history of commitment to safety and training. I invite you to share in this pride and read our 50th Anniversary Publication, which you can view here, or order your free copy at 1-800-667-5557.

As Enform’s 50th year comes to a close, we not only take a look back on the progress we’ve made within the upstream oil and gas industry in that time, but also look ahead to what we hope to accomplish in the next 50 years. Enform’s commitment to innovation and safety means we will continue to find innovative ways to work with the industry to help companies achieve their safety goals.

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Training That Changes Lives

Not every certificate from Enform is received with such beaming smiles, high fives among the graduates and a few tears from the crowd and media. But this isn’t a regular course.

The graduates were refugees and new immigrants that had just completed a 15 week Drilling Rig Hand training program that provided them with career opportunities that they couldn’t access before. Selected by the Calgary Catholic Immigration Society (CCIS), this group received training from CCIS and Enform to ensure they had the skills and safety training needed to work in the oil and gas industry.

To say it is a successful collaboration is an understatement. With growing encouragement from industry, the 15 graduates this fall received 68 job offers.

Since the beginning of the CCIS & Enform collaboration in 2001, more than 400 immigrants have been trained. 2011 in particular has been a busy year as we successfully ran eight CCIS training programs – five sponsored by the Government and three by Savanna Energy.

Christian Scagliati from Venezuela, who graduated from the Drilling Training Program in November 2011, was thrilled to get several job offers himself after he completed his training. “The people from CCIS and Enform gave all the best tools, training and resources to make me and all my classmates a very successful group of graduates,” said Christian. “I want to thank them for putting their hearts into the program because now I have a very good job that really rewards all the hard work that is involved.”

Besides the drilling rig training, the service rig-hand and seismic training programs are also offered as a result of the successful collaboration between Enform, CCIS, Canadian Association of Oilwell Drilling Contractors, (CAODC), Canadian Association of Geophysical Contractors (CAGC), Alberta Human Resources and the Government of Canada. The demand for hardworking, well trained and safety orientated workers for the oil and gas industry is as high as ever. These programs help match highly motivated new Canadians to long term career opportunities while providing trained workers for the oil and gas market.

Anthony Goring graduated from the Drilling Rig-hand Training Program in September 2011 and credits “CCIS and Enform for doing everything in their power to give us a dream for success”.

This year Enform also received the prestigious Getenergy Award for advancing education in the Oil and Gas Industry. Nominated by CCIS, the international award recognized the contribution to training provided by Enform.

Further information on the training programs provided by CCIS and ENFORM can be found at http://ogtp.ccis-calgary.ab.ca

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The H₂S Alive® Life Saver Award – Two Heroes Honoured

In a potentially deadly situation, H₂S Alive® training helped save three lives.

In February 2011, the training provided by H₂S Alive® saved the lives of three men. The two men who performed the rescue were recently presented with Enform’s H₂S Alive® Life Saver Award.

The H₂S Alive® Life Saver Award was established to recognize people who have applied their training to save lives. On November 2nd, 2011, Jim Shaffer of Enform presented the Award to Steve Mason and Shpetim Spiro of Bankers Petroleum. These two men used the training they received from Enform’s H₂S Alive® course to save the lives of workers in danger. It had been 15 years since the Award was last given out.

H₂S Alive® is the Canadian upstream petroleum industry standard for hydrogen sulfide (H₂S) safety training. The course covers the properties, locations, and health hazards of the chemical compound, as well as H2S equipment and initial response strategy. Each year, over 120,000 students take the H₂S Alive® course, taught by more than 400 Enform certified instructors around the world.

The H₂S rescue was performed in Albania on February 19th, 2011, by Steve Mason, an H₂S Alive® instructor, and Shpetim Spiro, who is H₂S Alive® certified. The incident occurred when a worker was quickly overcome by H₂S gas and fell unconscious. Two other workers tried to rescue him, but were subsequently affected by the gas. Steve and Shpetim were called to the scene. They used their H₂S training to assess the situation, and were able to act quickly while maintaining their own safety. Using a self-contained breathing apparatus and proper rescue techniques, they were able to revive the men who had been affected by the H₂S gas. All three men survived the incident.

When presented with the H₂S Alive® Life Saver Award in November, Steve Mason and Shpetim Spiro were very appreciative. Jim Shaffer of Enform noted that these sorts of incidents don’t just happen overseas; all workers in the upstream oil and gas industry benefit from H2S Alive certification, to assist them in protecting themselves and others from the hazards of H₂S.

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Increasing Chemical Safety

The upstream oil and gas industry uses and produces a variety of chemical products on its work sites. If not handled properly these chemical products can cause serious accidents and health problems. Even if workers are aware of safe handling procedures and exposure limits for some chemicals based on their individual properties, once chemicals are mixed their properties change, thus changing the procedures and limits. There’s a lot for workers to know, and a lot of possible risk for workers who don’t know enough.

“Industry and Government regulators recognized a need for more education and awareness surrounding the use of chemicals on oil and gas lease sites,” explains Roy McKnight, Manager of Enform’s Industry Initiatives, “and they approached Enform to develop a comprehensive guide for controlling chemical hazards. In conjunction with subject matter experts and industry input over two years, we are in the final stages of publishing the guide and an interactive web program.”

Enform has previously prepared bulletins for specific hazards, like chemical exposure and safe handling of silica. These compiled reports, examples, and templates, as well as a comprehensive overview of developing a chemical control program, will be available in one guide called Controlling Chemical Hazards in the Oil and Gas Industry. The comprehensive guide is now available for industry review here, and will be published in early 2012.

The guide will:

• define the process for managing chemical risks at oil and gas lease sites.
• explain the various responsibilities regarding Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) and their importance to the employers and employees of an oil and gas site.
• provide background on chemical hazards specific to the oil and gas industry.
• provide value-laden, easy to use templates to assist the employers and employees on oil and gas lease sites when evaluating their chemical concerns (e.g. exposure control plans, chemical guidance sheets, etc).

An accompanying interactive web program will assist companies with finding the right guidance sheets for the particular chemicals and mixture of chemicals that they are working with. The web program will also help provide direction as to what modifications may be required for their safety program, depending on which different chemicals and mixtures are used. This will be a huge advantage for companies that may not have a hygienist on staff who can direct their individualized safety program.

 

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Enform’s 2012 Petroleum Safety Conference

The upcoming Petroleum Safety Conference (PSC) will be held in beautiful Banff, Alberta from April 30th to May 4th. It’s a fantastic opportunity to join colleagues from across Canada to learn, network, and reflect on safety and your role in it.

The theme for the conference is “Safety 360” with the focus on continuous improvement – taking a 360 degree view internally and externally. This sort of perspective will help everyone, from green hands to industry leaders, to evaluate situations and find opportunities to improve.

In response to feedback from delegates, the Trade Show will feature four NEW Innovation Rooms. These four exhibit spaces will feature cutting-edge innovations in safety. We are in the process of selecting candidates now and are looking forward to delivering the latest technology and products.

Last year we rolled out a new post conference session – The Employers Forum. Response from delegates to this programming was overwhelmingly positive. In harmony with our theme of continuous improvement, we are building on our success and making improvements. The forum is now called – The Industry Knowledge Exchange. Organizations can use this opportunity to share their safety program successes, new processes or solutions to unique challenges. The session is run by a facilitator and presentations are kept deliberately short with plenty of opportunity for Q&A. Those interested in presenting are encouraged to submit an abstract outlining their best practices. Abstracts will be reviewed by the Program Advisory Committee.

For more information on the 2012 event, please visit www.psc.ca

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Enform Connect™ Launches

We’re excited to unveil Enform Connect™ – the suite of web based tools that will improve the efficiency and effectiveness of your interactions with us. Over the past year, Enform actively surveyed the industry and engaged our stakeholders. Many we contacted generously provided feedback and we listened. The insights we gathered helped us determine some key areas we could improve to serve you better.

Enform Connect will provide users with a fast and easy-to-navigate online environment. This shift will make contacting and interacting with Enform much more simple and straightforward for all of our stakeholders. To be clear, Enform Connect is not a facelift. It’s a significant overhaul that will position Enform to provide even greater service to our partners.

The Fast Track portal will be replaced by Enform Connect in December, which will mean a few small changes to the way users are used to interacting with the system. Taken together, these little differences will mean big improvements in our ability to serve you.

For example, students will benefit from faster certification processing speeds due in large part to the simplified marking and database system we will be putting in place as a part of Enform Connect. For instructors and franchisees, Enform Connect will make registration and exam results much easier to process which is just one way the system will reduce the amount of time spent on administrative duties.

Enform Connect will also reduce the time it takes to certify students by sending certificates directly to the address provided by students. This one change will allow for other improvements which will significantly reduce the certification turnaround time, furthering our collaborative focus on getting students in the field and working as quickly as possible. We understand that many of our industry partners require documentation.

Enform Connect’s revised certification process will also improve security by allowing for only one version of a certificate to be valid at a time. This will help to address industry concerns of reported misuse of certificates. In addition, the improved certification process will assist employers with validating certificates presented by their employees.

We want to ensure that the transition to the Enform Connect system is as simple and smooth as possible. Tutorials and more information will be available at www.enformconnect.ca or email connect@enform.ca with any questions.

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The MECOR: Supporting Growth in the Oil and Gas Industry

The Certificate of Recognition (COR) program is built on the premise that companies with effective health and safety management systems, as demonstrated through an audit, will have lower incident and injury rates. Companies that earn a COR are also eligible for WCB rebates, decreased premiums and may benefit from increased contracting opportunities.

Enform’s COR program has always had a distinct track for companies with 10 or fewer employees, known as the Small Employer Certificate of Recognition (SECOR) program. SECOR recognizes that health and safety management systems are configured differently for smaller companies that typically do not have dedicated health and safety resources on staff. What happens when these small companies start growing past 10 employees, but aren’t yet ready to achieve a regular COR?

To help companies bridge the gap between SECOR and COR, Enform is introducing the Medium Employer Certificate of Recognition (MECOR) process in 2012. The MECOR process starts with the usual SECOR audit, but is performed by an external auditor. Once a company is SECOR certified, the annual maintenance of the certification is done with the regular COR audit protocol with gradually increasing passing requirements (50% on first maintenance year, 70% on second maintenance year). At the end of the three year MECOR process, companies should have the health and safety management systems in place for a successful standard COR certification audit.

With the introduction of the MECOR Process, Enform is supporting smaller industry employers as they transition from SECOR to COR. MECOR is another process in support of Enform’s visions of no work-related incidents or injuries in the Canadian upstream oil and gas industry.

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Growth in Saskatchewan

Due in large part to its vast natural resources, Saskatchewan is quickly emerging as an economic leader in Canada. Saskatchewan accounts for 28% of the country’s primary energy production, and is Canada’s second largest oil producing province. With over 100 drilling rigs currently in operation throughout the province, these production numbers are set to increase. The Saskatchewan petroleum sector is one of the major contributors to the provincial GDP and is seen as a direct industry partner working in conjunction with government.

Saskatchewan’s Bakken formation, situated in the south east corner of the province, has become one of the hottest oil plays in the country. The perfection of horizontal drilling and multi-fracturing has directly enhanced the production side of the industry, and also allows for re-entries into existing wells. Add to that over 23,000 kilometers of pipeline crisscrossing the province, and a world class petroleum research facility at the University of Regina, it’s easy to see that the petroleum industry is focusing on steady growth within Saskatchewan.

Since Enform Saskatchewan opened its doors in April 2009, the number of employers has grown from 2,955 to 3,340, accounting for 3,200 more employees working in the patch. These numbers don’t accurately represent the countless jobs indirectly associated with oil field work; some estimate that for every job in the patch there are five to seven more jobs created elsewhere, in other industries.

Enform Saskatchewan’s focus has been on tapping into the 50 years of experience and knowledge held within Enform Canada. The petroleum industry knows no borders, so by utilizing Enform Canada’s resources, we are able to provide safety services and training that can be used anywhere in the country, while still being able to customize these services to accurately reflect the legislative and geographical requirements unique to Saskatchewan.

Saskatchewan is growing and the petroleum sector is helping to lead the way. With Enform at the helm of safety and training services in the upstream oil and gas industry, this strong growth can continue alongside a strong record of health and safety for all workers.

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