Nekaneet Joint Venture Recently Formed

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The Nekaneet First Nation and Buffalo Inspection Services are very pleased to announce their recent formation of a Joint Venture and long-term partnership.

Nekaneet First Nation (NFN) is a self-governing Indigenous community in Canada with the traditional territory that it has occupied since time immemorial. It is now described as being located in southwest Saskatchewan, including the Cypress Hills area. After contact, Nekaneet were signatories to Treaty 4 signed at Fort Qu’Appelle in September 1874, for as long as the sun shines, the grass grows, and the river flows. NFN is entering into agreements with industry partners (like Buffalo) to: (i) steward the Nekaneet traditional lands, (ii) promote, preserve, and protect Nekaneet languages and cultures, and (iii) improve the self-determination, health, safety and well-being of Nekaneet members by creating the conditions for greater health and prosperity at the individual, family and community levels.

As one of Canada’s largest independent provider of Non-Destructive Testing (NDT), Buffalo Inspection Services (Buffalo) has the capabilities, geographic reach, and experience to fulfil new construction, Integrity, and shutdown NDT requirements. Buffalo has been providing a full range of NDT services across Western Canada for more than forty years.  Buffalo is proud to support a wide range of upstream, pipeline, midstream, and downstream operating entities with cost-effective, certified, and experienced NDT professionals.

Nekaneet creates Joint Venture with Buffalo Inspection Services“We’re excited for this partnership and the opportunity it presents for our Nekaneet community in terms of training and employment opportunities for our members as well as a long-term investment in our community.”

-Chief Alvin Francis, Chief of Nekaneet First Nation

“We are proud of forming this new relationship with the Nekaneet First Nation, and it represents a positive milestone on Buffalo’s commitment to collaborate with the Indigenous communities in the areas in which we operate.”

-Mike Ciprick, CEO of Buffalo Inspection Services

 

For Further Information:

Mike Ciprick, CEO
Buffalo Inspection Services
m.ciprick@buffaloinspection.com
PH: 780-222-6752

 

TFM/PAUT Inspection

Announcing: TFM/PAUT Inspection for On-Stream Monitoring

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Industry experience has shown that most companies are only able to inspect approximately 3-5% of their equipment a year. When the cost of inspection weighted against the cost of down time is incidental, cost effective approaches to inspection can be undertaken. Expensive emergency outages, the costly impact of spills on a company’s environmental reputation, or a very serious process safety event with potentially catastrophic endings can be avoided. One common theme heard is “we don’t know how to monitor {insert asset here} so we just wait until it washes out or fails”. Corrective Based Maintenance strategies like this can now be advanced to Condition Based with Buffalo’s new technology.

Through our industry experience, we have been able to assist clients in determining key locations for inspection, to enable them to pursue an online condition based assessment.

Buffalo Inspection has been utilizing cutting edge equipment, combined with best in class PCN PAUT training, to provide a complete inspection package to our clients. This isn’t a standard data collection inspection. We are in this to ensure not only the integrity of the asset, but to save our clients time, money, and headaches. Through our

industry experience, we have been able to assist clients in determining key locations for inspection, to enable them to pursue an online condition based assessment.

TFM/PAUT Inspection

We have developed inspection methods for specific client requirements such as Choke Valves, Flange Face Corrosion, Internal Current Transfer Corrosion, HDPE inspections, and an ever increasing variety of previously uninspectable situations. Conventional ultrasonic methods experience limitations that modern phased array technologies have been able to overcome. Permanent, Auditable data, has established itself as a necessity for integrity management.

Working with our clients, has allowed us to alleviate issues that hadn’t been solved for them in the past. It has also allowed clients to increase the integrity of their assets. Code minimums are exactly that, minimums, but what if it was faster, better, and cheaper, to get more? That is exactly what we at Buffalo Inspection Services are striving to provide.

Red Deer

Buffalo Expands Operations with Addition of Red Deer Office & Inspection Crews

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Here We Grow Again!

We are pleased to announce the addition of Dustin Strabel to Buffalo Inspection Services as our corporate representative for Red Deer and area. Dustin brings many years of NDT experience to Buffalo and will be responsible for building our presence and adding additional resources to support the area. For all of your NDT needs please contact Dustin.

Buffalo Inspection Services is looking for additions to our corporate and contractor teams across Western Canada.

Laptop

Buffalo Has First Paper Presented at CINDE Conference

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Executive Summary

This paper documents the development of an alternative ultrasonic testing (UT) technique for examination of structural welds as per CSA W59.

The purpose of developing a new technique is to bring CSA W59 into the 21st century, allowing for modern techniques, equipment, and to provide a pathway for future development not permitted by the current 1960’s-era practices. The existing techniques were part of the 1969 edition of AWS D1.0. They were not developed from scientific principles or empirical evidence, yet have remained the “line in the sand” for structural UT in North America for nearly 50 years. Since then, exponential changes have taken place in technology and in the general UT world, yet Canadian and U.S codes have failed to keep pace. This has resulted in awkward techniques that many technicians misunderstand and circumvent. Ultimately, these outdated techniques fail to serve the purposes of repeatable and accurate inspections they propose to facilitate.

The existing fixed attenuation, or “FA” technique is shown to be based on assumptions of sound attenuation and inspection angles which do not hold up under scientific scrutiny. There is a philosophy of “one probe to rule them all” and angle-specific procedure tables which were installed to achieve consistent inspection results. However, the practices involved in limiting one’s options does not produce the consistencies intended. A new technique is presented which is similar to those used elsewhere in the UT industry. This is written as a true alternative to the existing technique, offering adapted acceptance criteria that retain the existing quality levels. Mathematical models and experimental data are presented which were used to generate the new criteria. Equivalence is also demonstrated through modeling. Variation in results is also significantly reduced.

The proposed alternative technique is under public review for inclusion in CSA W59-2018. The techniques developed in 1969 have served industry well for a very long time, but change is inevitable. To progress in a world of rapidly advancing technologies, it is important to adopt less regressive, more forward-thinking practices that can adapt and suit the needs of today.

Download the entire paper by clicking the image below:

Sa-W59 Ultrasound Inspection

Sonar Inspection Estevan

Buffalo Inspection Services Inc. acquires Sonar Inspection Ltd. in Estevan, Saskatchewan

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EDMONTON, Alberta, June 11, 2015 – Canada’s largest non-union Non-Destructive Examination (NDE) services provider, Buffalo Inspection Services (2005) Inc. (Buffalo Inspection Services), has acquired Sonar Inspection Ltd. (Sonar), a well-established NDE company in southern Saskatchewan, to continue its expansion into under-served locations. The deal is effective June 1, 2015.

Sonar’s primary operation is strategically located in Estevan, Saskatchewan, a growth market for oil and gas, pipeline and mining development and expansion. The acquisition provides Buffalo Inspection Services with the capability of increasing its presence in Southern Saskatchewan and Manitoba, working in partnership with an experienced and capable team.

“Buffalo Inspection Services has had a presence in Saskatoon for many years, but we saw this acquisition as an opportunity to expand our footprint to southern Saskatchewan and Manitoba, and expand Sonar’s existing operation to include radiography and mainline crawler NDE disciplines,” says the Chief Executive Officer of Buffalo Inspection Services. “We are excited about working with Sonar. They have a strong reputation in the surface and integrity disciplines, and also have exceptional relationships with clients across a broad range of industries. We strongly believe that Sonar’s team will be an ideal platform for growth in the region.”

Sonar’s operations will now operate under the Buffalo Inspection Services brand, and the company has established its Saskatchewan base of operations in a shop in Estevan.

Taylor Gardiner and Wayne Naka, the owners of Sonar, will lead the Saskatchewan and Manitoba operations for Buffalo Inspection Services.

About Buffalo Inspection Services

Buffalo Inspection Services is the largest non-union NDE company in Canada. Headquartered in Edmonton, Alberta, Buffalo has been providing NDE services primarily to the oil and gas industry across Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and British Columbia for the last 39 years. The company offers a complete suite of NDT services including Radiography, Mainline Gamma Crawler, Magnetic Particle, Liquid Penetrant Examination, Visual Inspection, Phased Array, Ultrasonics, Ferrite Testing, Positive Material Identification, Hardness Testing, Tubing Inspection and Time of Flight Diffraction. The acquisition brings together the teams of Buffalo Inspection and Sonar to create a 250-strong workforce comprising skilled and certified professionals.

Public Domain Mechanical

Buffalo Inspection Services acquires Corrpro NDT

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Buffalo Inspection Services is happy to announce that we have closed the deal with Corrpro Canada NDT and have successfully acquired all NDT assets from Corrpro.  This is part of Buffalo Inspection Services‘ expansion of our NDT operations in Western Canada!