The Canadian oil and gas industry is facing a myriad of challenges, including, but not limited to:
Limited access to capital due to the consumer demand for cleaner energy and shareholders shifting their investment to greener investments, or an altogether lack thereof.
Short-term lower demand for energy due to COVID-19, and the possibility of a drop in demand for gasoline/diesel in the long run due to changes in consumer behaviours, such as working from home.
Potential lower long-term demand for oil and gas as a result of governments’ policies to achieve net-zero by 2050; with the expected increase in electric cars and electrifications, energy efficiency technologies, competition in capturing market energy share with renewables (wind, solar, etc.), penetration by SMR’s, and threat from potential breakthrough technologies such as fusion.
Against the above challenges, the main opportunities for the Canadian oil and gas sector are to use existing and emerging technologies, such as the following technologies, and to develop breakthrough technologies through collaboration towards net-zero:
Reducing GHG ‘footprint’ of the petroleum production sector:
- Methane Detection, Quantification, Monitoring and Mitigation; currently many such technologies are applied at negative cost.
- Carbon Capture Sequestration and Utilization (CCSU) along with other innovative solutions.
Adding value to petroleum feedstocks:
- Creating value from Asphaltene/Beyond Bitumen Combustion; replacing combustions as major culprit for use of hydrocarbon.
- Creating hydrogen using low emissions process from methane.
Soheil Asgarpour, Ph.D, FCAE, FCIM, FCSSE, P.Eng.
Soheil Asgarpour is A Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering (CAE), the Canadian Society of Senior Engineers (CSSE), and the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy, and Petroleum (CIM). He has over 35 years of diversified technical, business, and operations experience in the oil and gas industry, marked by providing strong leadership to several profit and not-for-profit organizations. Soheil has served Petroleum Technology Alliance Canada (PTAC) as President since April 2007 where he was instrumental in launching and providing oversight for over 500 R&D projects in order to develop best practices and help policy makers. Soheil formed, and has provided oversight, for a consortium of lab and field testing facilities where 14 producers and 16 universities/research centres have dedicated lab and field testing facilities for several consortia. These facilities are worth over a billion dollars and already have developed, field tested, or commercialized 17 methane mitigation technologies, that collectively have the technology capacity to reduce the oil and gas sector’s methane emissions by 30%. Prior to joining PTAC, Soheil successfully led the overall management of the Crown’s oil sands interests in his position as Business Leader of Oil Sands for the Alberta Department of Energy (ADOE). Prior to working for the Department of Energy, he held executive positions with mid- and large-size oil and gas companies. He has published papers with reputable Canadian and U.S. journals in the areas of reservoir engineering, production engineering, enhanced oil recovery, horizontal drilling technology, risk analyses, reserves estimation, economic evaluation, statistical analyses, heat transfer, solar energy, and nuclear technology. He is a distinguished author of the Journal of Canadian Petroleum Technology (JCPT) and co-author of the first Petroleum Society Monograph - "Determination of Oil and Gas Reserves." Soheil’s commitment to the future of the oil and gas industry has been demonstrated through the numerous awards he has received over the course of his career. Soheil earned his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Rice University in Houston, Texas. He has served the Petroleum Recovery Institute (PRI) as First Vice Chairman, CIM as President, the Petroleum Society of CIM (PSC) as Chairman, CAE as President-Elect, and the Canadian Institute for Photonic Innovations, Clean Resource Innovation Network (CRIN), CIM, PRI, PSC, PTAC, and CAE, as a Director.