FAQ

With the initiation of saskatchewan Directive PNG-017 Measurement Requirements for Oil and Gas Operations PNG-028 Initiating and Operating the Enhanced Production Audit Program (EPAP) PNG-076 Enhanced Production Audit Program (EPAP)

Meeting regulatory requirements provides minimum (at best) confidence for avoiding costly measurement and reporting uncertainties. No Directives promise accuracy by organizing EPAP controls, control evaluations or conclusions for annual declarations. Yet, as your company maximizes production in a field of pumping oil wells, adequate controls are in place with well tests to evaluate economics for wells that should be shut in or worked over.

You can avoid paying exorbitant costs for someone working for weeks in a back room to handle your company’s EPAP requirements. While cost-effective measurement accuracy is essential for reliable operating expense choices to optimize production, regulatory compliance should not cost more than the resulting value. Meetings and administration effort to document EPAP steps should not take your company’s focus off production targets.

From proven experience with annual declarations for more than 25 companies, Dapenco Inc. evaluates controls and prepares an annual EPAP Declaration for signing in less than two days per operating area at a cost not to exceed $2500. A summary of findings and recommendations will be included. Travel costs are extra.

Dapenco client companies have received Alberta EPAP Declaration approvals in short timeframes year after year since 2011. Improvements result as people work in the measurement process with better understanding of requirements and exemptions.

Accuracy within +/- 1.0% should be defendable and easy to prove for all of the volume, density and watercut devices in use. We have more than 75 years of combined experience working with Alberta Directive 017 requirements. Additional considerations that pertain to error sources and their mitigation include:

1. Grab samples do not provide an accurate representation of density throughout the duration of an entire offload; therefore, a proportional sampler should be used and verifications should be performed following the lab analysis and offload, to multiple flowing density readings during the offload
   2. A density meter should be removed for repeat factory calibration when reproducibility between diagnostic verifications cannot be maintained at +/- 0.25%, among others…