Award Winning Intersects - Wapiti River, Alberta, Canada

In a remote northern section of Alberta, Canada, two difficult crossings were successfully completed by careful engineering, planning and a lot of teamwork. Mears Canada Corp. was contracted, through the engineering firm Entec Engineering Technology Inc., by ConocoPhillips Canada Resources Corp. to install two horizontal directionally drilled intersect crossings in March of 2007 at the Wapiti River near

Beaver Lodge in Alberta, Canada. The first of the crossings was drilling under the Wapiti River itself. This crossing was about 1,487 meters. The second was drilling up the hill, taking the pipeline out of the valley; this was 900 meters in length respectively. The purpose of the two HDD intersect crossings was to tie together a new raw gas gathering pipeline that was being constructed from the existing Elmworth processing plant to the pipeline coming from producing wells across the river. The Elmworth plant is operated by major gas producer, ConocoPhillips Canada Processing. The project came with its challenges, but with the combined effort of Mears Canada Corp. and Entec Engineering Technology along with the help and cooperation of Conoco Phillips management and project engineers the project was successful and recognized as a major accomplishment by organizations such as the NASTT. In 2007 the drilling contractor, along with the engineering firm and Conoco Phillips, were presented with the award of the "2007 Project of the Year" by the Northwest Chapter of NASTT at their annual Trenchless Symposium in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.