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New use for old idea Devon Canada-led partnership of Alberta companies makes headway with innovation that permits separation of surface and subsoils, hastening reclamation Gary Park Petroleum News Calgary Correspondent
Taking an old idea and pointing it in a new direction is changing how E&P companies approach the removal and reclamation of frozen topsoil, say partners in a new innovation.
Devon Canada, working with three other Alberta-based firms, is attracting widespread response in North America after only a year of testing the so-called Roto Trimmer in the Peace River Arch area of northwestern Alberta.
Recognition has also come from the Alberta Chamber of Resources which issued its major reclamation award for 2005 to Devon Canada for the development of a Best Management Practices program.
Kevin Stark, the company’s manager of surface land and construction, told Petroleum News that the Roto Trimmer is a “great tool” for salvaging frozen topsoil and solving a challenge for the oil and gas industry of separating topsoils from subsoils while reducing the need for additional mixings to return the topsoil to its original condition or better.
The idea stemmed from adapting front-end loaders used to clean-up tree stumps.
“The technology had been there for a long time, but it has never been applied to our industry or the proper equipment,” Stark said. Test stage in Peach River Arch To move to the test stage, Devon Canada collaborated with Earth Core Industries of Spruce Grove, Alberta, to mount the Roto Trimmer on a Caterpillar bulldozer and put the machine to work in the Peace River Arch, where the farm soils pose some of the toughest separation challenges in Alberta.
Until now, the conventional method has involved simply using bulldozers, which have problems separating surface and subsoils.
By attaching the Roto Trimmer to the front end of the dozer, the operator is able to set the head based on the depth of the topsoil for either a well lease site or pipeline right of way.
Roy Larson Contracting and N.E.C. Contracting have also been involved as preferred contractors in the trials, which now involve experiments to operations to the Lloydminster heavy oil area of eastern Alberta.
Stark said that when the Roto Trimmer is used in forested land it is able to eliminate the traditional process of removing stumps and burning them.
Instead the stumps are ground up and integrated into the surface soil, leaving native seeds and grasses to re-vegetate.
Although the cost benefits are “pretty much a wash,” the gains in reclamation more than justify the front-end costs, Stark said.
He said the Roto Trimmer heads are already proving popular in the United States.
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