Carlyle– Nalco Champion is reinvigorating its operations in Saskatchewan, with a grand opening coming up soon for a revitalized Carlyle location, and improvements in Estevan and Lloydminster.
Senior vice-president Terry Burleson was in southeast Saskatchewan on Feb. 23. He spoke to Pipeline News via phone regarding the changes.
“We’ve survived the downturn like everybody else,” he said. “When you go through something like that, you’ve got a couple choices – roll up, hunker down, or reassess where you’re at. What we’ve chosen to do is invest more in the area. We’ve done that with upgrading our facility in Carlyle – a new facility, with a new lab that’s coming in next week. We’re also upgrading our lab in Estevan. Over the last six months we’ve made some strategic hires, really trying to bring more experience back into the area.
“During the boom time, we had lots of young folks come into the industry. You go into the downturn, and sometimes, the younger folks, if they get burned, they don’t come back. We took this time to really replace with more experienced people.”
Murray Millar and Mike LaCoste were two of those recently hired by Nalco Champion.
The company is looking at adding staff in the Shaunavon area. In Estevan and Carlyle they have 24 people combined. There’s seven in Shaunavon, three in Weyburn, and about 40 people in Lloydminster.
“We do have a brand new facility we opened in Lloydminster probably about a year-and-a-half ago,” Burleson said.
In the southeast they’re into production chemistry and frac chemistry as well. Water treatment, for recycle/reuse is another product line.
“We had labs in the area, but a lot of stuff was going to Calgary. To shorten the turnaround time, we’ve brought the labs more local. There’ll still be some testing that will take place in Calgary, but we’re trying to do quicker turnaround time in the routine analysis we do – wet chemistry and solids analysis, as well as emulsion breaking,” he said.
It should mean a five-to-seven day turnaround time will be reduced to two-to-three days.
“Overall, we’re trying to increase market share for all customers,” Burleson said.
Each area has a warehouse, and the company has in-house chemical delivery.
Burleson said he wanted to highlight
Nalco Champion's leadership in problem areas such as paraffin, H₂S, corrosion, water management and CO₂ flooding.
Burleson thinks the business will be stabilized and improving in 2017. “Everybody will get stabilized. Service companies will be able to rebuild a little bit. I see even better times for 2018. I think there is some speculation on the supply and demand balance. If we bring up production between Canada and the Lower-48, will Saudi Arabia pull back on their cuts? That’s probably the only worry out there. If the economy shows improvement in the U.S. and elsewhere, that will take care of itself.”
A grand opening in Carlyle is planned for some time this spring.
