As provincial energy regulations and emissions standards grow more complex, Canadian E&P companies are seeking practical ways to carry out compliance monitoring, management and reporting. In a highly competitive thin-margin market, producers can’t afford to let compliance activities ratchet up operations costs.
How are producers streamlining the effort of regulatory compliance with and making monitoring and data gathering efficient for field foremen and superintendents?
What regulatory compliance requirements apply to field operations?
Depending on the location and size of your Canadian field operations, you may need to comply with these regulations:
- AER Directives such as D-13 Suspension, D-55 Tank Storage and D-77 Pipelines including pigging requirements
- Technology Innovation and Emissions Reduction Regulation (TIER)
- Methane Emission Reduction Regulation (MERR)
- Alberta Boilers Safety Association (ASBA) inspection audit
- Multi-Sector Air Pollutants Regulations (MSAPR)
How are producers currently managing regulatory compliance in the field?
For most producers, compliance in the field is a manual inspection process, done on top of field team’s regular daily activities. Consider pigging. There may be four field teams monitoring more than 800 pigs a month. Foremen and field workers generally use print outs of Excel sheets to log data on paper in the field, then re-enter into Excel back at the office.
That Excel spreadsheet then goes to the head office compliance coordinator where they convert and evolve that data into a monthly report. That process can take 4-5 days which means operations teams spend a quarter of every month without current information for decisions.
What’s wrong with this current approach?
Compiling compliance data is taking too long for field team. Producers estimate that field teams are using one-third of their time on compliance tracking. That leaves inadequate time to take proactive measures to reduce emissions or optimize production.
The cognitive load of managing compliance is piling up on field operation teams. Operators are stressed, juggling multiple priorities – while being forced to do more with less. This increases the risk of compliance issues falling through the cracks.
The reporting lag leaves operations without current data to make decisions. The manual tracking and reporting on spreadsheets consumes too much time for field and compliance teams. In the field, a quarter of each month, compliance is managed without current information.
Resolving compliance issues is inefficient, with progress unclear at head office. When compliance issues emerge, there’s no efficient cross-team communication in place, and field teams must spend precious time looping in head office on progress, versus solving problems.
Manage regulatory compliance in the field with compliance software
Producers are looking for a simpler way to manage compliance – one that doesn’t take days for reporting, saves monitoring time for field teams and helps resolve issues fast.
An ideal compliance management program would include:
- An easy-to-use system that simplifies how operators track and resolve compliance issues;
- Pull accurate reports when needed from one system; and
- Real-time access to compliance data for field operations all the way up to head office, giving visibility on progress and confidence compliance management is done right.
A practical compliance solution for the field exists. With EZ Ops regulatory compliance management software, producers can proactively manage all regulatory compliance activities including monitoring and reporting.
Management and HSE and compliance leaders get consistent and reliable data accessible from one-system. And on the field operation side, operators save hours on field monitoring and management as well as reporting effort. EZ Ops also helps eliminate the cognitive load of field teams worrying about catching every compliance issue by ensuring compliance is managed by the software itself.
Here’s how EZ Ops streamlines regulatory compliance:
- Simplified data entry, centralized in one compliance management system
- Proactive scheduling ensures compliance management and maintenance tasks get done routinely in the field with efficient effort
- Ensure leaks and other compliance issues are detected and resolved rapidly across field teams, with head office getting real-time visibility on progress
- Automated audit reports can be pulled at any time by management or operations
- Emissions and well data is report ready – MSAPR data and AER data is combined with relevant well data and ready for export for reporting
See how one mid-size E&P company uses EZ Ops compliance management software to make regulatory compliance hassle-free and consistent across operations. Get the case study.
Meet your regulatory compliance requirements with EZ Ops compliance management software
See firsthand how EZ Ops makes it simple to manage compliance in the field and at head office with one system, accessible by management, HSE and operations teams. See a custom demo.
We’ve earned 100% adoption in the field because EZ Ops was created by experienced operators who understand all the activities field teams juggle and how to streamline their day.
