Chilling system targets oilfield flare gases
Toronto firm sees room to grow
CALGARY Don Berggren wants to freeze the amount of natural gas flaring that happens in the oilfield.
Berggren is president of family owned, Toronto-based Berg Chilling Systems, a company that designs and manufactures refrigeration units for a wide range of markets including hockey rinks, plastics plants and bakeries — to name a few. The oilfield, he said, is a relatively new market for the company, but could be a source of growth for years to come.
Berg Chilling partnered with Billings, Mont.-based Gtuit LLC four years ago to develop truckmounted refrigeration units that can be easily towed to oil and gas wells and used to capture, chill and store gases that would have otherwise been combusted and released into the atmosphere in a process called flaring that is heavily criticized by environmental groups.
Berg Chilling, founded 45 years ago, and Gtuit have now sold 30 of these units to companies operating primarily in North Dakota’s prolific Bakken oilfield, where flaring is rampant, and Berggren said the truck-mounted fridges have already captured 200,000 tonnes of carbon gases and diverted five billion cubic feet of flare gas.
“We would comfortably be able to handle four million cubic feet of gases (that would otherwise be flared from a single well),” Berggren said.
In practice, an oil company could truck the cooling system right up to a well where it would be used to divert, compress and chill unwanted gases that come up from the well alongside the targeted oil. Once those associated gases — propane, pentane and butane — are compressed and cooled into a liquid state, they can be trucked away and sold, earning the company money and reducing emissions and waste.
The system has not yet been deployed in Canada, but Berggren is hopeful that will change in the near future as more stringent environmental regulations come into force.
Gtuit has already signed an agreement with Finning International Inc. to supply the company with the systems in Canada.
Recent agreements between Canada, the U.S. and Mexico to reduce methane emissions from each country’s oil and gas industry could lead to more units being sold in the U.S. and a possible entry into Berg Chilling ’s home market of Canada.
“There’s need to reduce methane emissions,” Berggren said.
“We believe that this solution is ideal.”
In addition, more stringent carbon prices in Alberta, the largest oil and gas producing province in Canada, could further grow the company’s market share.
Those regulatory changes, however, have caused many other companies offering competing cleantech solutions for unwanted flare gas to move more aggressively into the Canadian market.
Calgary-based Questor Technology Inc., for example, is marketing a system that captures flared gas and waste heat to create on-site electricity.
Questor president and CEO Audrey Mascarenhas told the Financial Post earlier this year that companies that can offer the cheapest solutions, like $2 per tonne in the face of a $20 per tonne carbon tax, will dominate the market.