The Canadian oil and gas industry is facing a myriad of challenges, including, but not limited to:
- Limited access to capital due to the consumer demand for cleaner energy and shareholders shifting their investment to greener investments.
- Demand impact of COVID-19, and the possibility of a drop in long term demand for gasoline/diesel due to behavior changes such as working from home.
- Impacts of: governments’ policies to achieve net-zero by 2050; the expected increase in electric cars and electrifications, energy efficiency technologies, renewables (wind, solar, etc.) competition, penetration by SMR’s, etc.
Against the above challenges, the main opportunities for the Canadian oil and gas sector are to use existing and emerging technologies, such as the following technologies, and to develop breakthrough technologies through collaboration towards net-zero:
- Reducing GHG ‘footprint’ of the petroleum production sector (Methane Detection, Monitoring and Mitigation; Carbon Capture Sequestration and Utilization (CCSU))
- Adding value to petroleum feedstocks: Creating value beyond bitumen combustion; Creating hydrogen using low emissions process from methane
Soheil Asgarpour, Ph.D, FCAE, FCIM, FCSSE, P.Eng. Soheil has over 35 years of diversified technical, business, and operations experience in the oil and gas industry, marked by providing strong leadership to several profit and not-for-profit organizations. Soheil has served Petroleum Technology Alliance Canada (PTAC) as President since April 2007 providing oversight for over 500 R&D projects in order to develop best practices and help policy makers. Soheil formed, and has provided oversight, for a consortium of lab and field-testing facilities where 14 producers and 16 universities/research centres have developed, field tested, or commercialized 17 methane mitigation technologies, that collectively have the technology capacity to reduce the oil and gas sector’s methane emissions by 30%. Soheil earned his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Rice University Houston, TX. He has served the Petroleum Recovery Institute (PRI) as First Vice Chairman, CIM as President, the Petroleum Society of CIM (PSC) as Chairman, CAE as President-Elect, and Director at the Canadian Institute for Photonic Innovations, Clean Resource Innovation Network (CRIN), CIM, PRI, PSC, PTAC, and CAE.
