A common theme could be heard from salespeople on the floors of the Oil Sands Trade Show this week: our technology does more faster and with less people. The sales pitches were carefully honed.

“Drones can inspect pipelines, flares, reach anywhere where you would usually need to hook a worker up to a harness, they also have applications in mapping and surveying,” said Aaron Cook with Aetos Group Inc.

A small, grey four-rotor drone with a high-definition camera sat at Cook’s Table, as he listed the highlights: range of up to five kilometres, savings on fuel, faster deployment.

“The technology, at this point, is just more practical. It’s not just a military thing anymore,” he said, adding a similar model was designed for the Canadian Special Operations Regiment.

Nearby, a sensor attached to a large tablet rolled across a 30-centimetre pipeline, using ultrasound to measure the line’s thickness and test for corrosion.

A salesperson with the Mistras Group said manually measuring thickness across a similar distance would usually take up to 45 minutes, weather permitting.

Last year’s vendors and group talks focused on environmental efficiency, improving workplace productivity and lamenting the lack of pipeline access. After a year of unpredictable oil prices, thousands of layoffs, cancelled projects and billions in lost revenue, the focus this year was on saving money and improving efficiency by replacing the workers themselves.

During one panel titled “Preparing for the Rebound: Insights from the Leaders of Canada’s Oil Sands,” Scott Fawcett, global account manager for General Electric’s heavy oil division, passed around a golf ball-sized sphere, made from a titanium lattice and made using a 3D printer.

The object served no useful purpose other than demonstrating that 3D printing has moved beyond plastics, and in the near future could print tools and spare parts. Fawcett said 3D printing would replace thousands of warehouses - and the costs associated with maintaining them.

Ray Smith, an operations manager with Haliburton, said new technology will make Alberta more attractive to oil companies. After oil prices crashed precipitously last year, development in landlocked northern Alberta is still too expensive, he said.

"We need automation. We're not going to survive without it, so it is inevitable," he said. "We need to do things faster and cheaper, and in this environment, it means using less people."

Neal Dikeman, a senior venture principal for Royal Dutch Shell, argued the oil industry was too slow at developing new technology.

“No other industry with this many engineers runs this slow at bringing in new technology," he said.

The panelists agreed no company enjoys laying off workers, but Reegan McCullough of the Oil Sands Community Alliance pointed out that replacing jobs with technology is inevitable. But, new economies bring new jobs and training opportunities.

There was a sense of urgency at this year’s show, as the impact of last year’s oil price crash was visibly evident. Last year’s panel and keynote luncheon was held in a packed banquet hall. This year, there were less than 40 people. Organizers said the number of vendors stayed roughly the same size as last year’s, but there was a noticeable drop in attendance on the trade floor.

Keyano College, which had one of the largest exhibits, promoted themselves by focusing on their new heavy equipment simulators.

College staff boasted the simulators were accurate down to the specific unit model, and the virtual landscapes were modeled after real mining sites.

In the past, teaching larger classrooms usually meant hiring more staff. But there is an irony in letting technology create an incentive to hire fewer instructors to train more people faster.

Chester Parisian, an instructor with the program, admits the future of most heavy hauling and driving jobs in the oilsands will be automation. And as more companies experiment with automation, the biggest twist for Keyano could be that the fate of the program, and students, can already be seen on the horizon.

“There’s still a part to play for people,” he said. “We’ll get there eventually.”

Wednesday, September 16, 2015/Fort McMurray Today