Tag: Features

B&A Global Energy sets sights on ending flaring in Bakken

Photo by Jonathan Pezza / Special to The Press Jack Kelley, president and CEO of B&A Global Energy of Tulsa, Okla., left, speaks with Michael Wu, inventor of the Energy Capturing Operating System (ECOS) at a well site in Mongolia in this undated photo provided by the company.
Photo by Jonathan Pezza / Special to The Press
Jack Kelley, president and CEO of B&A Global Energy of Tulsa, Okla., left, speaks with Michael Wu, inventor of the Energy Capturing Operating System (ECOS) at a well site in Mongolia in this undated photo provided by the company.

Jack Kelley and Skip Bennett are an unassuming duo with a big idea.

The entrepreneurs, together with a Taiwanese inventor and engineer, have a plan to capture natural gas, eliminate flaring at the wellhead, create a viable commodity from that gas, and pay both energy companies and royalty owners for their share.

B&A Global Energy, a small company based in Tulsa, Okla., has acquired the rights to the Energy Capturing Operating System (ECOS), a portable refinery able to be placed at a well site. The ECOS captures and processes methane gas produced in the hydraulic fracturing process into liquefied natural gas (LNG).

“This is a game-changing technology to the oil and gas business,” said Kelley, B&A Global’s president and CEO and a 25-year veteran of the energy industry who is also a retired U.S. Air Force pilot and a licensed architect.

B&A Global wants to bring its ECOS technology to the U.S. — specifically to North Dakota’s Bakken and Texas’ Eagle Ford shale formations — after witnessing the technology work in Asia.

“We have chosen the Bakken as our focus,” said Bennett, B&A Global’s board chairman and founder.

The idea, they say, is simple.

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Co-op store vital to Regent

The Regent Co-Op Store’s facade has barely changed over the years. It opened in 1936 and continues to serve the small community today.

REGENT — Darrel Remington remembers when Regent supported three grocery stores.

“All were important, of course,” he said as he looked over a mostly quiet Main Street on the morning of Feb. 5. “Then it narrowed down to eventually the one.”

The one, thanks to sustained community efforts, has fought through the tough times and still provides an essential service to the small southwest North Dakota town of less than 200 people.

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Men of steel: Mott’s Roadmaster makes impact for energy, ag industries by fabrication

Roadmaster manager Corey Johnson stands in the shop the company moved into last December.

MOTT — Mott sits on the outer edge of western North Dakota’s Oil Patch. Still, the small town of about 800 people has found ways to contribute to the bustling energy industry.

The company making perhaps the biggest impact is Roadmaster, a subsidiary of K&K Construction in West Fargo.

Though its name can be deceiving — a remnant of about a decade ago when its primary task was fabricating and welding metals for asphalt paving equipment — Roadmaster is contracted to fabricate and weld structural steel used on electrical substations that end up being used on oil rigs and at major substations throughout the country. Along with that, the shop also makes cattle creep feeders.

“A lot of this goes nationwide,” manager Corey Johnson said. “It’s a big process.”

Video: Jim Ferderer explains what Roadmaster does.

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Fisher Group strives to be ‘best in class’

Four years ago, Mike Fisher set out to bring a handful of companies he ran together under one roof.

Today, The Fisher Group employs an estimated 250 people at a more than a dozen area businesses and has turned into a management company that has given area residents businesses they not only want but, in many ways, need.

“We want to be the best at what we do,” Fisher said. “We want to be the best in class.”

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Larger facility helps Stevensons grow: Moving into 20,000-square-foot building in September a big step for funeral home

Nic Stevenson, left, and his father, Jon Stevenson, are two of the owners of Stevenson Funeral Homes in Dickinson. The family business moved into a new 20,000-square foot facility in September, a building they say was built with the community and its families in mind. The Stevensons stand next to the fireplace in the funeral home’s entryway on Dec. 11.

Jon Stevenson remembers coming to the Mischel-Olson Funeral Home as a child.

His father, Dale, was a funeral director in Miles City, Mont., and they would sometimes visit Dickinson and his friend, Marlin Olson, one of the owners.

“We’d get together and tromp through the funeral home, never knowing one day I’d end up living here and purchasing that,” Jon said with a smile.

In 2000, Jon and Marlys Stevenson expanded their business from Baker, Mont., and bought the funeral home in downtown Dickinson. Within a decade, the building had become too small for the Stevensons’ needs, Jon said.

Their son, Nic, had joined the business in 2005 and the family had hired more funeral directors to fill the business’s needs. Eventually, the Stevensons began to wonder what their next step should be.

In September, the Stevensons took that step when they moved into a 20,000 square-foot funeral home at 2067 First St. W. The old building, which had stood since 1957, was purchased by Charbonneau Car Center for a new lot and was razed in November.

“We always looked at opportunities to expand our existing building or what we needed to do to grow,” Nic said.

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