Ridgeline Energy Services Inc. is an energy services technology and consulting company focused on waste management in the oil and gas industry.  Through our subsidiary Ridgeline Water Inc., we are applying proprietary technology to treat the large volumes of contaminated water generated by oil and gas production. We are working with energy majors in the application of this technology for the recycle and reuse of produced and hydraulic fracturing (“frac”) water, enhanced recovery chemical flood water and oil sands process water. As well we are utilizing this technology in the testing and treatment of commercial and industrial waste water. Through our environmental consulting and remediation subsidiaries, Ridgeline Environment Inc. and Ridgeline GreenFill Inc., we have built a reputation as an established provider of environmental services to North America’s oil and gas industry.

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Economic Challenge

The cost associated with waste water disposal and fresh water usage is significant and, as production increases, provision of water treatment is becoming a critical service required by the upstream oil and gas industry. At Ridgeline, we are focused on developing low cost water management systems that meet the growing needs of the oil and gas industry. In the future we will also be expanding into treatment of commercial and industrial waste water. Our initial testing has shown our technology to effectively treat numerous water families in this market.

Ridgeline’s Solution

Since 2009 we have been advancing a revolutionary technology capable of efficiently treating large volumes of contaminated water at low cost with low energy consumption. To date we have signed multiple agreements with major oil and gas producers in North America for effective treatment and recycling of hydraulic fracturing flowback and produced water.

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Industry Relationships

Since our inception as an environmental consulting company over ten years ago, we have established a solid reputation serving over 40 oil and gas companies - including such energy majors as:

• Canadian National Resources         (TSE: CNQ)
• ConocoPhillips                                    (NYSE: COP)
• Nexen Inc.                                             (TSE: NXY)
• EOG Resources                                  (NYSE: EOG)
• Enbridge Inc.                                        (TSE: ENB)
• Husky Oil                                               (TSE: HSE)
• Devon Energy                                       (NYSE: DVN)
• Talisman Energy Inc.                          (TSE: TLM)
• Apache Corporation                           (NYSE: APA)

TAQA North                             (ADX: TAQA)

Backed by a strong leadership team and an ambitious development strategy, we endeavor to become one of North America’s leading waste water treatment providers to the oil and gas industry.

Tony Ker, CEO and Director – With over 25 years of experience building and operating companies in natural resources and manufacturing sectors in North America, Tony has lead and developed management teams to support growth and continuity in the organization. He has an extensive background in forest products, manufacturing, printing and startup of junior resource companies. As well he is experienced at dealing in an international environment.

Dennis M. Danzik, Business Development / Commercial Installations – An engineer by profession and the inventor of the water treatment and distributed energy technology, Dennis is a noted and published expert in polyolefin design and application with 28 years’ experience in scientific investigation, financial and technical presentations. He has strong patent experience, with U.S. and foreign patents issued. As well Dennis is an MIT Alumni [Sloan] and Member of the MIT Product Development Group. and U.S. Defense contractor (retired).  

Tyler Heathcote, President, Director – Tyler oversees all business units of Ridgeline Energy Services, including Ridgeline Environment Inc., Ridgeline Water Inc., and Ridgeline GreenFill Inc.  He has owned and operated companies in the energy services sector for over 20 years and has strong industry relationships.

James Yeager, Chief Financial Officer – James brings over 30 years’ experience in senior management positions in finance and accounting with both public and private companies. He has held the position of CFO in multiple publicly listed companies managing yearly revenues into the hundreds of millions. His experience with rapidly growing companies is well suited to manage the expected growth in all of Ridgeline’s business divisions.

Douglas Johnson, Chairman – Doug has over 30 years of experience in the financing of public and private companies. Since 1982, he has been President and Chief Executive Officer of Canfund Ventures Corp. 

Brian Straub, Director – Brian is recently retired as President, Shell Canada Limited and Canada Country Chair, Royal Dutch Shell.  He has over 32 years of diverse Canadian and global oil and gas experience, his previous executive responsibilities have included oil sands, exploration and production, major construction and technology development/application.

Richard Gagnon
Director

Mr. Gagnon brings 25 years of experience in corporate development, strategic marketing, sales and operations. Currently President of Aerospace Research Ltd., he serves in a mergers and acquisitions advisory capacity for several multi-billion dollar private equity firms. A graduate of Boston College, Mr. Gagnon has held senior management, sales and marketing positions at Varo Corporation, Imrex Company, Inc., Electro Design Manufacturing, Inc., Sun Chemical Corporation, and Lockheed / Sanders.

Richard Carrigan
Director

Mr. Carrigan is a seasoned entrepreneur and an active investor in the alternative energy field, focusing on wastewater technologies. Mr. Carrigan has specialized in discovering emerging proprietary technologies, leading their development for commercial use and personally directing corporate acquisitions, operations and marketing strategies.

From cooking oil to hydrocarbon

Over seven years ago, Dennis Danzik, an American engineer, developed an innovative technology capable of extracting usable biofuel from used restaurant fats, oils and grease (“FOG’s”) at low cost with minimal energy consumption. The by-product of this process was decontaminated clean water. Ridgeline, in its search for a water cleaning solution demanded by its clients, viewed this innovative technology as the possible answer to the growing environmental challenge of waste water generated by unconventional oil and gas production.
A proprietary formula

After a number of successful bench tests in 2009, Ridgeline and Dennis Danzik’s team came together to form Ridgeline’s water division and advance the electro-catalytic technology. By using this technology at the beginning of the water treatment process, we are able to maximize the effectiveness of certain existing technologies such as cavitation, filtration and reverse osmosis. By implementing our technology up front, for example, membrane fouling and rejection rates of a reverse osmosis system are drastically reduced. As this technology was originally developed to extract usable biofuel from FOG’s it is particularly suited to extract any usable hydrocarbons from the waste water we treat.

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■ DIFFERENTIATION THROUGH INNOVATION
Ridgeline electro-catalytic process

Using very low energy input and catalysts our system is essentially based on a unique multi-step reaction process and several key trade secrets to “crack” water at the sub-molecular level to separate the contaminants from water at sub-molecular level. This process causes the water to repel contaminants allowing for efficient separation and removal. Our technology has the unique ability to control an electro-catalytic process in water and avoid the production of excess heat. It allows the targeting of reagents, and mechanical processes to reduce suspended and dissolved solids, chlorides, and other harmful contaminants. Our technology also utilizes advancements in ion exchange to target heavy metals, which clarifies and allows the definition of a “Water Product”.  While using small incremental power “shots” to cause a catalytic reaction, the system “inventories” larger amounts of power that can be used at, or near, the site of the water treatment.
What’s unique?

Our system is an innovative variation of electro-catalytic technology that successfully produces ion exchange / oxygenation in fuels for precipitation of ions (heavy metals) along with colloids (organic and inorganic). Key aspects of the technology include a proprietary stepped reactor / processing tank design, use of micro-energy bursts, and introduction of additional water treatment actions in one unit (i.e. activated materials to treat dissolved solids and gasses, settling, conventional filtering, membrane technology).

The electro-catalytic process can occur at ambient temperatures (2˚C to 240˚C) and no additional energy is used to bring the fluid to a working temperature, resulting in very low energy requirement. The technology produces a cleaned “Water Product” that not only can be reused, it can be adjusted as desired (for a specified Water Product preferable to sourcing fresh water).

⇒ Example: This is seen in applications in Northern British Columbia, where clients need chlorides reduced to 600ppm for safe storage in unlined holding pits. In areas such as New Mexico, clients can work with water still containing 30,000 ppm chlorides for use in frac’ing or down hold disposal.

Further reduction in the levels of components is achieved by completing a secondary treatment or “polishing” so that potable water standards could be achieved, if required.  This is facilitated with standard water cleaning technologies such as reverse osmosis.

Continuous development

To date, we have invested over $6 million to develop and bring our technology from bench test to commercial operation in the oil and gas industry. We will continue to invest in R&D to enhance, refine and develop our systems to meet our clients’ needs and solve their problems.

In the first year of development process flow rates increased from 400m3 per day to over 2000m3 per day on our core four-train system. As well process energy consumption was reduced from 300 watts per 800L to 300 watts per 7000L. We are expecting further increases in efficiency as we develop and refine our process.

Turning waste into valuable resource

The electo-catalytic process was initially developed to extract usable biofuel from fats, oils and grease laden waste water. Where hydrocarbons are present in the water, it is possible to extract 100% of them. Taking advantage of this, we are now looking to develop our operations into the biofuel extraction market as we expand.
Technological challenge

When extracting fuels from FOG’s it is essential to have very low energy input in the solution to avoid heating and hydrogenating the oils. This aspect makes our electo-catalytic process well suited to treat oil and gas production fluids that require the addition of polymers. Polymer flooding is an enhanced oil recovery method using water soluble polymers to increase the viscosity of flood water, for the displacement of crude oil from porous reservoir rocks. Use of the polymer flood adds value through increased production, higher recovery factors and increased reserves. When subjected to excess heat, these polymers can become unsuitable for reuse and negatively affect the extraction process.

■ Process Benefits

Ridgeline can effectively treat polluted water to variable water quality levels with the following results:

• Oxidation (removal / recovery) of heavy metals
• Removal / recovery of grease, oils and fuels
• Removal / recovery of chlorides
• Elimination of unwanted bacterial contamination
• Elimination of entrained and dissolved gases
• Major reductions of TDS, and TSS

Adaptable process

An aspect of the waste water treatment industry is a wide variability in the types of input water. This is seen in the oil and gas industry where water can come from surface sources, aquifers or flowback and produced water. Due to this there is currently no black box one-size-fits-all technology. A key benefit of our technology is the ability to analyze and treat a wide variety of input water.

Managing the vast amounts of produced water generated by oil and gas exploration and production, and acquiring substantial new volumes of fresh water constitute a considerable cost and a mounting environmental challenge for oil and gas companies. But this issue also presents a growing market opportunity. The ability to recycle and reuse waste water is becoming essential.

■ WATER, A PRECIOUS RESOURCE

Sustainable solutions to address strains on our water sources are imperative. Protecting existing fresh water sources while managing the world’s increasing volumes of waste water produced by industrial activity and hydrocarbon production will require innovation. Experts expect the global market for water treatment to reach $38.2 billion by 2015

■ GROWING INDUSTRY NEED

Increasing crude prices and  growing energy demand have pushed the oil and gas industry in recent years to consider hydrocarbon deposits that were once deemed too risky, difficult or expensive to exploit. This sector is now worth billions. Between 1999 and 2010, hydraulic fracturing grew from $2.8 billion to $13.5 billion, but poses some obstacles.

■ PRODUCED WATER

“Produced water” is water originally trapped in underground formations that is brought to the surface along with oil or gas during the production process. It is by far the largest volume by-product or waste stream associated with oil and gas production. In the United States, about 15 to 20 billion barrels (2.4 to 3.2 billion m3) of produced water are generated each year. The worldwide estimate is about 70 billion barrels (11.1 billion m3) per year. The primary constituents in produced water that limit its disposal or reuse are: salt content, the presence of organic materials measured as oil and grease, various toxic chemicals, and naturally occurring radioactive materials. Inappropriate produced water management can lead to environmental problems. In mature oil and gas formations, the produced water that is extracted in the production process can be multiples of each barrel of oil produced. In 2007 estimates of water-to-oil production ratios were:

• Worldwide                2:1 to 3:1
• USA                           5:1 to > 8:1
• Some older USA wells can produce up to  50:1

Managing produced water constitutes a huge economic burden and environmental challenge for oil and gas companies.

■ HYDRAULIC FRACTURING

Hydraulic fracturing is a well completion technique used to increase oil and gas production. Hydraulic fracturing requires tremendous amounts of fresh water to be used and disposed of. Fracture fluids, primarily water with sand proppants and chemical additives, are pumped into the well under pressure to create fractures in the impermeable formation that will then allow trapped oil or gas to flow to the production well.  Unconventional oil and gas production is under increasing scrutiny regarding the potential environmental impact from hydraulic fracturing.

The application of the fracturing process uses significant quantities of water, with a typical range of two to eight million gallons for a horizontal well, and an average of three million gallons (CLSA, June 2010). Additionally, unconventional wells may need to be fracture-stimulated several times to keep the oil or gas flowing, with each frac requiring more water than the previous one. Some horizontal wells are re-fractured as many as 10 times, or more.

The availability of water for hydraulic fracturing, given the quantities involved, is essential to support projected growth of the unconventional resources. Water is generally sourced from surface or groundwater that may be publicly or privately held. Regulatory requirements for the sourcing, treatment and disposal of water are important factors shaping both availability and costs for unconventional resource developers. 

After each fracturing stage, the fracturing fluid, along with water originally present in the shale formation will, “flowback” through the wellbore, to the surface.  Flowback water can also contain naturally occurring formation water that is millions of years old, often displaying high concentrations of salts, naturally occurring radioactive material (“NORM”), and other contaminants including arsenic, benzene, and mercury (NRDC, 2007).

Depending on the well, the flowback period can last from hours to weeks, with some injected water produced for several months after production begins. The percentage of frac water injected that flows back also varies. 

Other issues associated with handling flowback water include temporary storage and transport prior to disposal or treatment.  Waste water is often stored in lined or unlined open evaporation pits which could lead to seepage into soil resulting in potential contamination.