Sounds like these guys have something to offer:
Dutch trade mission offers to clean up oilsands
'We are very organized and very clean'
Gordon Jaremko
The Edmonton Journal
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Dutch trade mission visits Edmonton, trying to break into oilsands. Shown with the Dutch flag are, from left: Marco Van der Jagt, Arthur Magnee, Mick McAward and Piet Derikx.
CREDIT: Bruce Edwards, The Journal
Dutch trade mission visits Edmonton, trying to break into oilsands. Shown with the Dutch flag are, from left: Marco Van der Jagt, Arthur Magnee, Mick McAward and Piet Derikx.
EDMONTON - A Dutch treat on offer to the oilsands by a Netherlands trade mission this week promises to make industry tidy, efficient and safe.
"We are very organized and very clean," Dovianus B.V. general manager Marco van der Jagt said in an interview Monday as the 22-company group began visits to Edmonton, Fort McMurray and Calgary.
"For everything there is a procedure. Typically in Holland, if there is an issue, we set up a commission to find a solution," van der Jagt said in describing the Dutch industrial style.
The Netherlands places more emphasis on order than Alberta and big oil areas of the United States such as Texas, he said.
"In Holland it's totally different and we're used to that," van der Jagt said.
A nation of 17 million living in 41,526 square kilometres -- less than one-third the 140,200-square-kilometre area of the oilsands -- has no remote places for sprawling industrial sites to operate out of public sight and mind, he said.
That goes a long way toward explaining why Canadian environmental concern has been mild by Dutch standards, van der Jagt said. "The country is so large that a lot of things were not issues until people became directly involved."
Now an emerging "elevated awareness" of industry effects is creating an Alberta market for services and supplies such as the production-line sampling systems his firm exports to oil, gas and chemical plants around the world, he says.
"In a technical sense, the sky is the limit," said Piet Derikx, whose Eijkelkamp Agrisearch Equipment B.V. has worked in environmental services such as soil reclamation and land restoration for nearly a century.
Products on offer to the oilsands include water use and quality monitoring programs for industry and communities, Derikx said.
Complete systems keep track of river or lake levels, monitor plant emissions and generate detailed records, Derikx said.
"We are interested in the oilsands because of the industry's large scale and the impact it can have on the environment."
He hopes to establish long-term service relationships in Alberta, he says.
The number of industrial injuries in the province also point to opportunities for Dutch expertise, said Arthur Magnee of Arger, an international firm specializing in safety services for the oil, gas and petrochemical industries.
"If you don't have a plan, you get dead people," Magnee said.
With about five times the population of Alberta and an array of hazardous industries from offshore oil to seaports and heavy trucking, Holland had only 27 on-the-job fatalities last year. But even that was considered too high and stirred new workplace safety improvements, Magnee said.
Professionals in any technical field are available from global Dutch networks, said Mick McAward of international recruiting firm Burdock Project Consultants B.V.
An oilsands developer only has to ask for a specialist, McAward promised. "If he calls me, I've solved the problem."
The hard part of finding scarce experts for Alberta industry is working through Canadian immigration red tape, he said. "It's not the quickest moving country in the world."
Putting a foreign specialist to work in Alberta takes two months. In Saudi Arabia importing an industry expert can be done in two weeks, said McAward.
Like peers on the trade mission, McAward said his firm has a toehold in Alberta, thanks to Royal Dutch Shell. Burdock has recruited foreign technical specialists for Shell's Athabasca Oil Sands Project.
The global oil giant spreads Dutch products and services around the world by hiring firms from its homeland to work overseas, said van der Jagt.
Alberta industrial connections to the Netherlands include an international blue-collar trades network, said Henk ten Wolde.
His Dutch Western Canada Connection Ltd. brings in foreign talent such as heavy equipment operators, cooks, welders and truck drivers to Alberta.
"But it's very important to know how the red tape works," he said. To obtain work permits for skilled jobs in Alberta, the Dutch have to work through Canada's embassy in Germany, said ten Wolde.
Dutch Prime Minister Jan Pieter Balkenende is scheduled to join the trade mission today for meetings in Edmonton with Mayor Stephen Mandel and Premier Ed Stelmach followed by a trip to Fort McMurray.
