Maverick Natural Resources is an independent Oil & Gas development and production company serving East Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana. Their Health, Safety and Environmental (HSE) Specialist, Kaleb Foster, is a hardworking innovator who was looking for an efficient way to ensure compliance with environmental regulations such as OOOOa.
In late 2019, Kaleb was looking into ways to improve Maverick Natural Resources’ (MNR) environmental compliance programs. For environmental regulatory services like Leak Detection and Repair (LDAR), Maverick’s program had traditionally relied on hiring out to third-party environmental service companies to ensure compliance with federal and state regulations. In their instance, they felt that 3rd party outsourcing presented significant costs and uncertainties. Kaleb recalls this when he stated, “We would hire out to third parties and that comes with a pretty substantial cost. You’re at the mercy of the contractor. They build the pricing model and tell you how much the service costs and you may not entirely understand what it is that you’re getting.” Additionally, Kaleb wanted to improve Maverick’s reporting capabilities, without losing track of steps in the LDAR process or slowing down inspectors, repairmen and verifiers.
Kaleb touches on other areas of improvement in Maverick’s LDAR program when he recalled, “Doing LDAR Programs with their inspections and reports is a manual application that is tedious. A nightmare really. Dealing with stacks of paper from contractors’ invoices and reports got to be unmanageable for an efficient company like ours.” In order to increase Maverick’s LDAR reporting capabilities while being as cost-effective as possible, Kaleb decided to bring the work traditionally hired out to third-party environmental service companies, in-house. However, Kaleb knew that taking on this work while still ensuring environmental compliance was going to be challenging. To accomplish this, Kaleb needed a solution with processes and the actual regulations built into the system’s guided steps to reduce the upfront regulatory knowledge required for his LDAR crews to be successful in their work. Kaleb also wanted a system that would automatically push the LDAR process forward, from inspections to repairs and then final verification, without losing any data or any steps in the process. After researching a number of different systems, Kaleb and MNR realized what they needed was Krinkle LDAR Tracker Pro®.
Krinkle LDAR Tracker Pro® enables seamless and automated OOOOa compliant work order sharing (we call it “Shared Work Orders”) between LDAR program managers, Infrared (OGI) camera inspectors, repair techs, and OGI verifiers. Even client executives who must decide how to handle leaks on “Delay of Repair” status are supported. This ensures that every required step of the OOOOa regulation (as well as any additional state regulations) becomes a simple, guided process for users. The end result is consistent workflow in the field for all users, assured compliance and a system that drives the process through to its full completion.
When considering what led him and his colleagues to choose Krinkle LDAR Tracker Pro® over other software solutions, Kaleb had the following to say, “I felt like it was really intuitive and I liked that Krinkle was a guided process. It allows for an easy user experience and reduces the opportunity for errors. In this business, when you’re trying to be good stewards of the environment, there is no room for error.” Not only did Kaleb immediately see the improvements in reducing human error and the regulatory knowledge required for users to succeed in their work, but Kaleb also found that Krinkle LDAR Tracker Pro® had automated professional reporting that would ensure environmental compliance. Kaleb states, “There’s definitely a time-saving aspect to using [Krinkle LDAR Tracker Pro®] versus a traditional paper report. When you’re out [in the field] using the app, you’re essentially done when you leave, whether you’re inspecting, repairing or verifying, you don’t have to go back to the office and crunch numbers or transfer info over to another piece of paper for reporting. It’s all done in real-time.” When asked about his experience training users and deploying the software, Kaleb stated the following, “It was an intuitive process. The support by Mobile Epiphany/Krinkle was very thorough. [They] helped each user understand the process, the app and how it functions…You could tell that they were clearly subject matter experts.”
Over the last year, Krinkle and Maverick Natural Resources have continued to advance their partnership and improve the mobile app and reporting system. When asked for his advice to companies facing similar challenges as Maverick, Kaleb had the following to say, “The benefit of using [software] versus using paper is substantial. You may be hesitant or reluctant to transition, but it will pay dividends in cost and time. At our company, we try and embrace technology, because it’s something that’s going to drive efficiency.” With the new, in-house LDAR program established, Maverick Natural Resources has been able to ensure compliance with state and federal environmental regulations while being as time and cost-efficient as possible.
Mobile Epiphany, and its Krinkle brand of mobile apps, enable businesses to create and/or adapt existing mobile solutions rapidly and cost-effectively. Contact us today to see how Mobile Epiphany can help solve your business challenges.