Environmental liabilities

One challenge that the team faced was the ambiguity of the liabilities of an 80-year-old oilfield. What was the potential financial impact to the company, how was the risk being assessed and managed? In typical fashion, much of the data was located in spreadsheets, hard copies, and shared drives—liabilities were calculated by understanding only a small sample of the over 200 sites.

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Outdated software

The issue with their database was a lack of context. Project managers would have to jump between various spreadsheets to find relevant information when looking for information regarding any particular site. Where is the site located? What is the project status? Who are the contractors involved in this particular project? What is the site's risk? Which pipelines and facilities are impacted? How can they optimize contractors and consultants? Where are the cost savings?

To effectively manage the retirement program, the team needed to understand the aggregate of the inventory. Prior to Fieldshare, the team found themselves managing data rather than addressing the Asset Retirement program. The short-term, midterm and long-term strategy required a more sophisticated management tool.

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Looking for a solution

The search. In 2018, the environmental department decided that they required a new tool to improve their workflow. The main prerequisite for their solution was the ability to accumulate and manipulate all or most of their data in one place. With previous exposure to expensive GIS software, the database needed to be visual. The software must include mapping, photos, site overlays, polygons and other site-specific data. Several software programs were reviewed and trialed.

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Making the decision: what matters. The Fieldshare team demonstrated their technology with the Environmental team in person. The highlight of the meeting was Fieldshare's ability to provide a  software that the Aspenleaf team could customize to suit their needs.

The main driver behind that decision was the customer support that FIeldshare team was ready to provide. Going up and beyond a boxed software solution, the teams worked closely together to ensure successful onboarding. Together, they focused on building a database that included quality data, oil and gas specific licensing data, automated AFE management and budgeting.

Results. Fieldshare data management

After Aspenleaf started using Fieldshare as their primary solution for data capturing and manipulation, the results were profound. With every past and present site plotted on a map, accessing information became convenient and quick. Aspenleaf was able to add potential areas of concern, estimate volumes of contamination, categorize sites by phase and priority. The options seemed to be endless and provided clarity on complex liabilities.

Soon the Aspenleaf project managers were using Fieldshare for project packages, and the database became a communication tool for field teams and external contractors. The project's daily communications and data sharing, budgeting, and soil volumes became almost real-time. That meant that managers at the head office would get faster and more organized daily updates. In turn, that reduced the time required to plan and execute all environmental projects.

In turn, accessible and timely data meant that reports were prepared more efficiently and stored in one database. Apart from that, Aspenleaf was able to include consultants in the process as external collaborators. Consultants were able to look into their portfolio of sites in detail as needed, without having to have a back-to-back email correspondence with Aspenleaf staff all the time.