Watch above: The expansion of the Pipe Flow Technology Centre at the Saskatchewan Research Council is now complete. Meaghan Craig has more on how the unique centre will benefit the oil and gas sector.
SASKATOON – It’s hard to know just by looking at a multi-million dollar expansion to Saskatchewan Research Council (SRC) what the centre will do. The Pipe Flow Technology Centre is now one of the country’s only research facilities equipped to test light and heavy crude oil.
“Oil fields transport fluids a great deal from one place to another or part of the process of recovering them from the ground and during the transport there are lines of various sizes and in order to design those you need to have good information about the fluids and the flows within them,” explained Lesley McGilp, manager of new centre at SRC.
The company still needs to dot a few i’s and cross a few t’s but expects everything to be up and running by later this month with clients invited to do project work shortly thereafter.
“Our facility allows you to test industrial conditions in a controlled environment with very accurate instrumentation and that data can then be used to design industrial systems within the field,” added McGilp.
“This will improve efficiencies, reduce energy use, improve yields at times and so it can be very valuable for industry.”
Experts say what makes this facility unique world-wide is the combination of its capabilities.
“We can test volatile materials, we can test at high temperatures and high pressures and we can also tests slurries which are a mixture of liquids and solids in the line.”
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The expansion will be formally known as the Shook-Gillies High Pressure High Temperature Test Facility named after two pioneers in slurry testing and research. Dr. Clifton Shook and Dr. Randall Gillies provided their expertise to the centre over the past 55 years.
“It’s nice to see his legacy will live on not just through the naming of facility but also through its operation and the work that’s going on and through the people that he mentored during his career,” said Kevin Shook, son of the late Dr. Shook.
The new centre is an exciting milestone for the company and the province.
“What this is going to result in, is more efficiency in our oil and gas sector which ultimately will hopefully result in increased revenue for government and from that better services for our citizens,” said Jeremy Harrison, Saskatchewan minister responsible for innovation.
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