Inaccurate Media Criticism Comes as Regulator Considers Shell Asset Transfer to Pieridae
A lone media story this week portrayed our company as ‘financially weak and lacking the ability to safely operate its assets’.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
With the close of the acquisition of Shell’s Alberta Foothills assets last fall, Pieridae is poised to increase its net operating income tenfold in 2020 and nearly triple production. As one of the largest Foothills producers and the largest foothills midstream owner in the country, we continue to grow and prosper.
Safety remains our top priority. No job is too important to jeopardize your own safety and the safety of property. Bringing 200 former Shell employees on board makes that commitment even stronger. Many of these employees were involved in building comprehensive safety, compliance, and maintenance procedures for these gas plants in a multinational corporation with global reach. We are continuing with these processes and all Shell field employees were transferred to us in October are part of the deal.
“These are very talented, experienced team members,” said Pieridae’s COO, Tim de Freitas. “They have operated our newly acquired gas plants and other assets for decades, and some of them are from international midstream projects and large petrochemical plants. We are fortunate to have them as their experience complements our senior leadership team that has worked together for over 15 years in deep sour exploration and development in the Foothills and northern BC.”
Managing the integrity of Pieridae’s assets is a Chief Inspector with 35 years of experience, leading a team of accredited inspectors in the field, many of whom spent years operating the assets when they were owned by Shell. This team is further supported by a core group of engineers in Calgary with a broad knowledge of sour gas operations. All communicate daily to ensure the safeguarding of the assets, neighbours, and environment. Finally, Pieridae employs independent third party experts to provide supplementary expertise, while auditing the company’s processes, safety systems and equipment.
Yvonne McLeod, our Senior VP of HSE and Drilling, points out that Pieridae’s Emergency Response Plan (ERP) is similar to what would have been used in the past, with exercises and drills held throughout the year to ensure Pieridae personnel would respond quickly and efficiently if an emergency should unfold. We also use third party consultants within the ERP process, the same that was used by Shell.
The inaccurate criticism levelled by some in the media article comes during a normal course process where individuals and companies can voice their opinions as the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) considers the transfer of all of Shell Canada’s Foothills assets to Pieridae.
“We respect the AER’s review process – an established framework for evaluating and monitoring the compliance by companies with their respective environmental obligations arising from the development of hydrocarbon resources in the province,” concluded McLeod.