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good morning this is uh jeff cameron and on behalf of our team at rdiec we would like to welcome michael hengen michael is here this morning to discuss the work that he does as a pipeline engineer and all the characteristics the environmental characteristics and everything that goes into his profession just a reminder before we begin uh if you're a student out there after you watch this presentation please complete the survey found on our website either by using the qr code or go to .rdiec.ca and by completing this survey you're automatically entered to win a fifty dollar gift card which will be drawn uh at the end of every month okay mr hengen uh it's all on you take her away and thank you so much for joining us perfect thanks for having me i uh i was telling jeff the other night that i sit on the uh the board for the esteban bruins sjhl team and i i forwarded yearling to their team because um i was kind of lucky i kind of always knew what i wanted to do in life but i played with a lot of hockey players in the past that weren't really sure and i think these videos and spotlights that you're all doing is a great great thing for students and athletes that are looking for a career path so kudos to y'all um so my name is michael hanging i'm from esteban saskatchewan um grew up here all my life got four brothers we were family of six my parents both worked in the oil field my mom retired fairly early to take care of four boys um my dad ran an electrical business in the oil field so i kind of always looked up to him um i guess everyone kind of looks up there to their dad but always idolized him he was my hero growing up throughout young my young years i played hockey and golf mainly so hockey excelled to major triple a the middle triple a league here in saskatchewan and the sjhl and golf i was the band and provincial champion so those are my two sports that i focused on in school i always excelled fairly easily at math and science those are what i enjoyed especially physics and calculus so i always wanted to be in the oil field and i figured a petroleum engineer was kind of my fit so um that was the route that kind of elected to go so i applied at university regina for me it was more of a logistical thing they also offered petroleum engineer not many schools do so got in there did my full undergrad and with an internship so after my third year of schooling they have an internship program there where they work with other companies to find you a placement i was lucky enough to be placed with crescent point in weyburn did 16 months in the operations engineering group learned a lot about down hole engineering service productions um a lot that i learned in school so it went together nicely they also have co-op programs for students if they're interested in doing a more term so the internship's a 16th month stint and between your third and your fourth year and co-op starts after your second year and you rotate four months of work four months of school four months of work basically until you graduate so that's a nice one for students looking to earn a couple bucks too while you go to school it's another way to bring in some cash flow while you're doing your studies [Music] so regina offers software engineering electronic systems engineering industrial engineering and environmental engineering so there's different programs that they offer petroleum like i said was the best fit for me i always wanted to be part of the oil field things about it um if you walk into the st joseph's hospital in esteban you don't get too far without seeing uh someone's big donation sign there's red head equipment mill grimes torque line gas crescent point energy um the oil industry has given a lot back to my area so i always want to be a part of it because i really look up to those people that give back so engineering like i said focuses on math and sciences the schedule is quite intense you have a full schedule so five classes plus usually every class is a lab sometimes a lab is a full-on whole another class because along with the lab you have a lot of homework and studying to do as well u of r does nine semesters you have asked us six if someone was to go there so the the extra semester is a one summer semester and that's after your second year so you do your second year september to april and then a summer from may to august and you go right back to school in september so you do 20 months of school so that was a pretty long stretch like i said there's internship and pro co-op programs available for students so in your fourth year there's a ritual called the collin of the iron ring so the whole class goes to a conference center and there's a process that you go through to get your iron ring what an iron ring is basically is a it's a small ring you wear in your working hand and it's to remind you that engineers hold a large responsibility to the public and the environment and you know being incompetent in an area making a decision can affect things fairly seriously it was started after the quebec bridge collapsed in montreal in the early 1900s and it was built again the second time and collapsed again and many people died so that's where that all comes from um and then i put in the bottom there part of being an engineer is the other code of ethics our engineering acts and our bylaws so um and i put in there 20-2-a so that's the first um first section of the code of ethics we hold paramount to safety of the health and welfare of the public and the protection of the environment and promote health and safety within the workplace above all so our number one priorities dedicated to the public and the environment and um yeah it's if you get put in a tough situation where you know it's it's you might put your career on the line even if if it's the right thing to do is to protect the public and environment where we took an oath to uh make i guess hold that accountable to ourselves and make the right decision so um within the engineering um programs and i'll talk about the uh how regulated later on but um there is punishment for not following our code of ethics so back to myself so during school i had a couple summer jobs and an internship so after my first year i did a summer job with t-bird oil and fire skies so i was a field operator in the area like i said my second year i had to stay in school but then i did that internship with crescent point which is a great experience great opportunity to network with people in the area i still talk to a lot of the people i worked with at crescent point i've been there for five years now but um the oil industry is a really it's a small world once you meet a couple people you really find out how intertwined everybody is and then after graduation i was lucky enough to get a battery operator position with crescent point so they hired me back which was nice um i felt that internship i don't think that was impossible so i would encourage students to take advantage of that internship and co-op opportunity because it really makes getting a job after graduation quite easier in october of 2017 i um applied for a job in esteban for it was tundra energy marked at the time but now king submits stream we've changed your name since then so i was just looking for uh get my foot in the door with a company to be do actual engineering work and was lucky enough to get in with kingston since then i've been a part of three different departments in the group so the operations engineering group the pipeline integrity group and the prop and where i am now is the project group so majority of my work i'm a project manager for very variety of projects i have done pipeline abandonments leak detection projects tool runs integrity digs tms which is um truck unloading or transfer management systems facility piping repairs and locked upgrades and elact is a lease automated custody transfer so at a battery there's a small little building it has a variety of instruments and a meter and that's basically where the oil goes from the producer to the pipeline that's the transfer um i i just put the pipeline code there at the bottom csa is at 662. so that's what all our pipelines are designed to that's a national um pipeline code so all pipeline companies pembina enbridge transcanada or tc energy they'd all follow z662 that's the industry standard and that can be found on the csa website so leak detection so often people ask me well um you know pipelines kind of have a negative um what's the word i want to use negative they're visually negative right now um in the public eye they're seen as you know possibly can leak and no they're not good um so people often ask me what's your opinion i say it's the safest way to transfer resources the stats are there to back me up on that and we also have 2021 leak detection so what is leak detection leak detection is a multiple or yeah multiple systems of detecting pipeline leaks and ensuring that line balance is achieved what line balance is is if i ship 10 cubes at point a i want to receive 10 cubes at point b how you accomplish that you can use back pressure valves pressure monitoring continuous line balance um so there's softer simulations there's manual simulations and we do pipeline hydraulics to kind of build bring it all together so how a back pressure valve works is if you have a valley um you know when you ship some oil then you shut down obviously with gravity the oil is going to all fall down so what a back pressure valve does is it keeps the line full and then if you if you have a leak you would know right then and there continuously detection uses pressures and meters and that actively continuously monitors it as soon as you know a portion loses pressure if the meters are off by you know the slightest volume flags the alarm shuts down the valves everything's isolated and we go when we find it pipeline hydraulics is a simulation that uses again flow and pressure to simulate certain situations and see if you could over pressure so we do all that as kind of preventative maintenance to really avoid a bad transient scenario smart tool runs so as part of the imp which is our integrity management program we run smart tools that's a picture of one right there very incredible technology we run those through the pipeline and those things in the middle there they're little sensors and they basically record they send data back to the engineer on site and they go through and analyze the data so there's different types of smart tools i listed the ultrasonic track detection and magnetic flux just because that's where i have my experience but there's also different types there's depth to cover um different gauging tools to look for dents but the ultrasonic crack detection is basically um same as getting an ultrasound at the doctor just sends tiny little pulses reads reads reads um you can pick up the tiniest little crack you wouldn't see it with the naked eye to put into perspective like our mainline pipelines are 7.1 millimeters thick and these things can pick up something less than a millimeter deep and say 50 millimeters long so very very small cracks magnetic flux is a tool that it magnetizes the pipe and then as it goes through if there's any leakage you'd find leakage in corrosion or a dent the tool reports that back and then we would go and repair that so kind of the system how it works is we run the tool send with the integrity engineers they analyze all the data pick up they kind of set big plans send it to our project team and we would go and execute the project integrity digs so this is where my job comes into play so there's two types of integrity digs that we do there's cutouts and pipeline sleeves so on all our smaller pipelines we do cutouts um we purge the pipeline with nitrogen why we use nitrogen as it's an inert gas so it's non-explosive um purge the pipeline lock it all out go to the site cut the pipeline put a new joint to pipe weld it back up and get it back in service pipeline sleeve is more for mainline pipelines where they're quite a bit bigger longer more crucial to the company so we like to keep those in service sometimes and what it basically is is in that picture that's a spark test technician so a group would come out um they do nde on the features so they go in they size them all whether it's crack corrosion a dent tell us all what the situation is and then we put a sleeve on which is basically like a pipe cut in half but it's bigger than the pipe obviously set it on top weld it all together well to the pipe and then we re-coat backfill and get it going i put the kind of the process of how we do digs so typically we call the land owner get permission to survey go survey the dig and then with the new regulations we do environmental pre-disturbance assessment so we hire an environmental consultant come out check out the land let us know what if there's any hazards mitigation measures um example is say if it's native prairie they don't like construction in the summertime because of you know all the birds and the sensitive land there so we do that in the winter another example would be if there's a wetland near the environmental consultant would go out scope out the site if there is a endangered bird they let us do construction outside of the nesting time so we don't affect their fish species and their habitat other stakeholders first nations we make sure we follow all the engagement some procedures with uh first nations peoples and um private landowners typically are you know fairly you know it's quite simple they usually if they say they have a crop in the in august that they're harvesting we say well wait till the crops off well we'll definitely accommodate you pipeline bores so if a feature is found underneath a road typically it's not very practical to open cut a highway a lot of people would be mad so what we do there is we um bore the road with pipe and we tied on either ends and then we would abandon the pipe under the road tms facility piping and locked upgrades so at our truck unloading terminals we automate all the truck terminal the truck unloading now so there's different instruments meters we can use now that it's all automated on software so part of my group is to go to all these sites and the picture there is a picture of a tms building so instead of the trekker unloading coming in the building taking a sample he just goes in that building and there's a couple computers that he punches in his data and unloads and it's all automated doesn't really require many employees on site and i put up there to comply with directive 17 so director 17 is a measurement standard in saskatchewan just so all the metering is fair to the producers unto us and we're following all the up-to-date rules facility piping repairs so typically older pig traps headers any kind of facility has you know aging pipe so we have programs in place where we do preventative maintenance on these pipes to prevent um any release so if uh you know if a trap is put in in the late 50s um we would be monitoring that now for the last couple decades we monitoring it and there's different methods of identifying corrosion issues so they text will go to site um do some ut or magnetic particle see if there's any issues in that pipe and if there are then we go and replace it locked upgrades so those again i said uh alexander's release automated custody transfer so we have lots of um quite a few batteries in the southeast area and that's where the oil officially becomes ours or we um are responsible for at that point so the there's a shipping pump or sorry a common pump from the producer's tank senzuo to the left goes through all the metering we take a sample to provide the justification if we find problems with it like water in the oil or a density fluctuation goes to relax goes in the shipping pump and then we ship it off to our terminals and all our all our oil goes to chrome or manitoba and from there it goes into the ambridge system and makes its way to the states mostly likely somewhere so so some rewards and benefits to being an engineer it's a high pace high energy career constantly learning always something new some days you'd come into work and say oh i got not much on the go today i'm going to do some catch up that would be the day when a new project comes up or a new issue and you spend your whole day putting out fires but that's just kind of the way it is um but it's exciting it's never boring not very not many days do i you know watch the clock and say oh it's almost lunch time it's usually oh it's 1205 i better go home for lunch great benefits great companies to work for you're part of protecting the environment and the public so again all those projects the uh the main goal is to prevent the or protect the environment and the public we you know our goal is to keep that oil in the pipe um keep it if 10 cubes ships from point a like i said we want 10 cubes at point b um and it's in a resilient industry a lot of hard working people and a really generous industry in my opinion like i said if you go around to the hockey you're in the hospital many many um you know there's lots of proof of giving back to the community from our industry challenges stressors so it's high pressure high responsibility high accountability you can be a new grad at a university and also be laid a million dollar project on your hands and if it gets out of control well it's you know it's on you it's your responsibility so there is some pressure there challenging schedule and deadlines um you know we run our budget annually so you know depending how you know things happen sometimes you're issued a late project and you got to get it done by the end of the year and that's up to you long hours not you know not too much overtime associated with with uh this job but during construction um like i said you're accountable so i like to be on site when things are going on and sometimes you know we're restricted to a 14-hour work day but sometimes you hit that 14 hours and you miss a little bit of your own time but it's worth it to me to make sure when i leave the site that things aren't gonna you know there's not gonna be a mess tomorrow and things are done properly remote locations so i was lucky enough to find a job in esteban but there is a possibility a lot of pipeline systems are northern alberta northern bc so someone's going to follow the pipeline engineer road just be aware of that and of course like we all know the last five or six years have been pretty tough on the industry so it is volatile but that being said things can get better as soon as they get bad so other careers so i took petroleum engineering where you can go with that is there's lots of reservoir engineering drilling engineering facility exploitation completion so those jobs would be more with the producer crescent point type so i worked with a lot of those type of engineers in my internship but a lot of my friends that i went to school with even though they took petroleum engineering they work at potash mines or coal mines or you know any kind of really mine there's a lot of opportunity out there you're not limited to just the oil field if you want and integrity engineers um many of our integrity engineers took petroleum engineering from the ufr so that's also an option and i just googled what the average salary is off of glassdoor 62 to 139 000. so professional development so i kind of touched on how we are a regulated profession um so when you graduate you're an eit or an engineering training you receive your iron ring um you're required to get four years of work experience as an eit before applying for your png your professional engineer status during those four years you do competency assessments so um there's i think 40 competencies you have to complete and they all be approved by a png and then you submit those competencies to apex their review if they're not satisfied they send you back comments you got to touch them up and send them back in for approval again once you're done that you must write your ppe which is a professional practice exam this is not a technical exam it's actually an ethical and a regulatory exam so it's more to do with um they're testing you to see if you would do the right thing like i said the code of ethics is a huge part of being an engineer so a lot of it's situational examples and tough examples asking you there's a situation what do you do making sure that you handle this situation correctly and to ensure that you know the regulatory processes and the legal processes after you receive your pn status you receive your engineered stamp what your stamp is is it's just a little it's literally a stamp it's got your name your um your apex number your apaga number and when we design facilities or pipelines we have drawings and you stamp your drawing saying that an engineer has approved this drawing for construction example there would be a facility engineering or a facility repairs project if we were to go to site and replace the traps and the headers i would work with the drafting department they'd draft up a design i'd go through make sure everything's to code um run some calculations like the hoop stress calculation to make sure that the pipe went over pressure make sure everything's decode like i said once it's complete um we usually have someone else check it that's kind of an engineering standard is even though on the png i'm doing the drawing i always have another engineer check it because they might catch something i don't or else it's good to always um work with everybody and because everyone has different you know ideas in their heads and stuff so it gets checked once it's checked then i stamp it send it off the construction we build it so there's different um organizations that regulate engineering so a couple examples there apex is saskatchewan i'm a member of apega if you're in alberta and then apagam if you're in manitoba basically the same acronym just different letter at the end there for the province and then as part of being an engineer we're required to complete continuing professional development hours and that's just to make sure that we we uh maintain our competency they don't want us working on something that you know we're not familiar with so part of that is professional practice counts formal training example that would be um you know if i do a pipeline design course or something um informal training can be a code course so say i took uh asb section nine last year's example so i can review welding procedures now it's most of them are fairly intense courses about a week long sponsored by the company typically another course would be there's a csa's 662 course that we're all required to take because that is our governing code and other examples are volunteering and mentoring other engineers but again of course there's always a work-life balance um i know it's easy to get caught up in things i was told a good quote when i was uh in school they use the the metaphor the light switch so um when you're at work the light switch is on that means that you're dedicated you're working you're focused on your work but when you go home turn the switch off and you know really get away from work enjoy your family spend time with the ones that you love and really enjoy and enjoy the experience because time flies i also remember being an intern saying well i can't wait till i'm a png i can't wait till i'm an engineer like you know and someone said you know what just slow down and enjoy life because it all goes so fast and every single step along the way has its own benefits and um you know i'll never be an intern again so you know i'm glad someone said that to me because i really you know enjoyed my time as an intern enjoy my time as needed eit now a p engine i enjoy it too but um it's all good so now open up for some questions and hopefully i have some answers i want to thank you michael that was a very good presentation i appreciated the the post-secondary slant that you did initially i think students really need to see you know the route that you took and what they would need to do to get into this profession and i also appreciate how you address the reputation of your sector um i mean i i i'm in the farming sector with my husband and there's a lot of bad press that comes with that and i think the oil the mining the forestry i think everything that makes up saskatchewan has a bad reputation right now and i appreciate the fact that you mentioned all the the checkpoints that are in place to make your industry safe uh so thank you for addressing that yeah the bad rap that the pipelines have is is really unfounded and you address that very well i hope a few science classes uh definitely take this up and and watch us as well so thank you very much that was a great presentation thank you mike i'd just like to uh thank you on behalf of our team it was a very thorough presentation the students out there that will be watching this will have a great idea um of what this is all about and the different fields that they can go into and just touching on what ranette and and gord mentioned the whole iron ring uh being a part of a team and that the number one priority is the protection of the environment and the public from all of the pipeline blockades uh to the to the downplaying of the farming that were not mentioned um we're in such a seems like a bitter society today and that i really and truly hope that not only a lot of students can watch this but adults can watch this i mean when you mention such words as integrity uh pipeliners cutting the pipeline to see if it's fine and the just the different terms that i'm not familiar with i think you said line balance if there's 10 cubes going in there has to be 10 going out and if you look at the rail car um you know fires and and so on and some of the various things that happen uh in in comparison to a pipeline um you know i didn't know a lot of the things that you mentioned today and i believe the most important thing in the world is to know what you don't know and a lot of these people a lot of these anti-pipeliners a lot of the various people across canada just don't know and it's always better to be slow to criticize and and quick to praise i think that's a good way to go through life instead of criticize and slow to praise and i'm just going to touch on finally i just don't want to make this political but the other point that really stuck out to me is the hospital nest van the hospital out here all of the medical facilities all of the recreation facilities for for the students and and for the young kids have been oil sponsored heavily and and majorly by the oil companies and it's just a crime that the farming and the oil and these sectors take such a bad rap so i just want to thank you from the bottom my heart for your presentation today it was very informative and very eye-opening i'm hoping for a lot of people so thank you again yeah you bet jeff actually said i could quote me one time when i was in school i always remembered it he uh quoted winston churchill he said the the key to being genius is uh her preparation if not is the key to being genius the key to sounding like a genius so that really stuck with me um i always you know as an engineer too when you're young and inexperienced you all you often get put on the spot to answer a lot of questions as long as you're prepared if you're not a genius you can be sound like a genius so that really stuck me so thank you jeff yes