2012 Grace Li
Mentor Company - CNRL
My Operation Minerva Experience
Operation Minerva are two words that sound nothing out of the ordinary, but in fact, a wonderful program designed to encourage Gr.8 girls to think about choosing careers in science. When I first heard about this from my science teacher, my curiosity perked up. I signed up and, luckily was one of the six girls chosen from our school to take part in this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. On April 26th, 2012, I would job-shadow a great woman. Now, a century ago, our society was led and still is, by men. Scientific discoveries were mainly made by men as well. What happened to all the women? Did society doubt a woman's capabilities? Now a century later, women are accepted into society and are treated equally. They are proven to be just as capable as men. Some women choose to pursue careers in science and even though these numbers are increasing, women are still a minority in jobs related to the science department. How did they do it? I was excited and anxious at the same time. Soon, I would be able to find out more about them!
When I finally received an email confirming that I was taking place in Operation Minerva, I was ecstatic. By random draw, I was chosen to job shadow a lady named Kim Mohler, who would be my mentor for the day at Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. Not only did I get to miss school but I also got to visit a company related to some of the most important resources in Canada that kept our economy running!
Today, we live in an energy based society. Many items essential to our living depend on the existence of natural resources such as oil, coal and gas. Canada has the third largest oil reserves in the world, in which 97% are found in the oil sands. Canada is major producer and exporter of petroleum and it is very important to our country's economy. So many of the products that we use are derived from and based on petroleum. Things in our everyday lives like plastic, electronics, personal items and even clothing. The list simply goes on and on. Without these natural resources, our society would just fall apart.
My day started out quite early, I had to arrive at the pick-up centre for the bus that would take me to a Girl Guide’s centre and then downtown to C.N.R.L. at 7:45 a.m. I was so nervous! I started thinking about the questions that I would ask my mentor when I arrived. My friend parted ways with me as she had arrived at her job-shadowing site. There were only eight girlsleft on the bus, including me. After I got off the bus, I soon met my mentor, Ms. Kim Mohler. I learned that she was an exploitation engineer and that she had almost 3o years of experience after graduating from the University of Alberta. Kim also completed a 4 year petroleum engineering degree. My mentor really enjoys her work and it had opened up many opportunities for her. She had traveled to many different places such as the United States, France, London and Venezuela. Her work hours at the office were quite flexible and she had to work just a set amount of hours a day with Fridays off.
Exploitation engineers worked closely with geologists, geophysicists, reservoir engineers. As a team, they figured out where to drill their wells to find deposits of oil and the most efficient way to extract the petroleum from underground. Throughout the day, Kim and her colleagues talked about their work in the Oil and Gas industry. An experiment was conducted by Kim N., ageologist, using candies such gummy bears and nerds to illustrate that the nerds were like the oil, and that the gummy bears represented the rocks. Their job was to extract the “nerds from the gummy bears”. The experiment was very fun and definitely tasty as well. I learned that to find out where the deposits of oil were, geologists used wire line logs to study the rocks in the subsurface using gamma rays. Two core samples from previously drilled wells were brought in and we examined them. !0% hydrochloric acid was also brought in and squirted on the shale of the core samples, resulting in a chemical reaction of fizzing and bubbling on the rock. I could clearly see the different layers of shale and bitumen. The bitumen under the ground was the goal and one core sample showed a dry well, while the other showed a thick layer of bitumen under the shale. I never knew that and it was very intriguing indeed! Geophysicists used seismic methods to find deposits of natural resources deep below the surface of the earth. Shock waves were set off at the surface of the earth by vibrator trucks and penetrate the ground. The returning echo is recorded by devices called geophones and sent to a recording truck for analysis. Using this method, geophysicists can distinguish what is below ground. After gathering the necessary information, contour maps can be drawn using the recorded information and the information of previously drilled wells to determine possible deposits of oil. A short game using this method was played and we “drilled” wells for oil deposits for a chance to become “millionaires”. We were put into groups of two and I learned how to contour map and update it after even more information was gathered. We drilled holes for oil in the game in a matter of seconds, while in real life, it could take three days! In the end, we finished second place in the game and, and it was quite enjoyable.
Lunch was a great feast of pizza, salad and popcorn chicken, so delicious! During this time, Kim shared her experiences of visiting on-site, where samples of bitumen could be collected off faces of the banks of rivers. She also stated that in the hot summer the bitumen could be just pulled right off since it got so soft and melts in heat. I was shown different examples of bitumen. A lady named Wendy also came in to talk about different methods of recovering oil sand, which were mining and drilling. The mining method was to use shovels and trucks, while the drilling method used pump jacks to pump the oil out. We were all shown miniature models of the drills, which consisted of a metal tube with rubber within it and then a metal screw twisted to transport the oil up to the surface. With the advancing technology, wells could be drilled horizontally to disturb areas surrounding the well as less as possible. Steam could also injected deep underground to heat up and liquefy the hard bitumen under the ground so that it could travel up the drill. After extracting the petroleum, it is refined and sold to other companies that make them into different products. Out of all the money made from extracting the petroleum, only around 40% is left for the company. The rest goes to the government, as taxes and also for covering equipment cost. That was a big amount of information to take in over lunch!
Kim then talked to us about choosing careers in math and science that could support our needs
in the future. We took a survey as a group and the answers were a combination of all the people in the room, which I found quite amusing. The last event of the day was a cake that was made by the amazing staff. It was modeled to be exactly like the game we had played in the morning when we were “drilling” for oil, with a chocolate layer to represent bitumen and vanilla to represent rock. The cake was very delicious! Thank you very much!
The day passed by so quickly, it was a blur! I had so much fun and I had learned so much! This program inspired me and I think that I’ll be choosing a career related to math or science when I grow up. I really wish that the program was longer than a day, I think I would have learned even more. It was such a wonderful experience to spend my day at CNRL. I would really like to thank my mentor for the day, Kim Mohler and all her colleagues and mentors for the day and of course, Operation Minerva. Thank you for providing me with this once-in-a-lifetime and unforgettable experience. As one of Kim’s colleagues, Liz said, “ I realized that I had more potential than the men around me, so why not work for it, choose to be an engineer and prove myself that I can do what they can, or even better?” Science is a wonderful thing, and this program really has encouraged me to think more about science and relating it to my future!
