BC Petrinex Inclusion Project Overview

Back to Petrinex Submissions          Back to Partner Operated Battery Balance     

Last Revised: June 1, 2018

As most of you are probably aware by now, British Columbia will be adopting the use of Petrinex, with a scheduled Go-Live date of November 5, 2018. Original plans were for Petrinex to be online in the October calendar month to accommodate infrastructure data changes, however, changes were announced at the second Change Leader meeting held January 24, 2018. Therefore, the Go-Live date for both infrastructure data and the reporting of October Production Month will now both be November 5, 2018.

The current BC Forms submitted to the British Columbia government will be replaced with submissions to Petrinex. The current BC Forms are not being replaced one-to-one with a Petrinex submission. For details regarding the current BC Forms and their counterparts within Petrinex see Table 1 below.

For those of you familiar with existing Petrinex functionality, the adoption of Petrinex by British Columbia should be relatively smooth, as they are adopting most of the same submissions and rules as either Alberta or Saskatchewan. For some submission types a hybrid of rules is being adopted, some from each existing province, and they are adding additional data elements and/or rules for some submissions. In addition, there is a new submission NGL/Sulphur Valuation RTP that is specific to British Columbia. We will provide a summary of differences in each of the Petrinex submissions that Qbyte Metrix supports between British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan based on the information known at this time. In addition, we will provide an overview of the Qbyte Metrix implementation to support the required functionality.

For more information on what you can do to prepare for the upcoming Petrinex implementation for British Columbia, see the What Can I do to Prepare for BC Petrinex Implementation? page for checklists that you can use to help you prepare.

General

• British Columbia will be adopting a 5-character Government Code for Owners. Existing Owner Government Codes will simply have a leading zero prepended.

• British Columbia will be adopting the Petrinex ID philosophy for well, units and facilities, with facilities having a 7-digit Government Code. Existing Facility Government Codes will simply have leading zeroes prepended up to the 7 digits.

Qbyte Metrix Implementation

To enable Petrinex functionality for British Columbia the client must activate a new Functional Implementation option within System Configuration called BC Petrinex Implementation, and provide the Start Date for the functionality.  

Activating this option will enable a lot of functionality, the details of which will be described (as appropriate), through the rest of this page. However, not only does activating this option enable the Petrinex functionality for British Columbia, but it will also disable functionality specific to the current BC Government Submissions for production dates after the BC Petrinex Implementation date.

• Well Maintenance: Crown fields (i.e. Marginal Well, Vintage) will no longer be displayed or maintained.  

• Facility Maintenance - Master (Battery/GGS/Plant/Injection Facility): The Government Reporting fields (i.e. BC08 Facility, Report S1/S2, etc.) will no longer be displayed or maintained.  

• Plant Maintenance - Production: Receipt Point Allocation Type and Production Sources will no longer be displayed or maintained.  

• Pre-Petrinex Submissions: S1/S2, BC08 and BC09 data will no longer be generated, and the creation of the submission files for the government will no longer be allowed.  

• BC Crown Estimate calculations will no longer be run as part of the Step processing.  

• BC Producer Price Maintenance, BC REN Master Maintenance and BC Electronic File Maintenance will no longer be allowed.  

• Westflo Upload screens (Upload Westflo, Adjust Westflo and Upload Adjusted) will no longer be allowed.  
  Note: Qbyte Metrix will not stop the importing of Westflo data for production dates after the BC Petrinex Implementation date, however, data imported for production dates after BC Petrinex Implementation will never be processed within Qbyte Metrix.

The client must specify the Directories (within System Configuration) that are used for Petrinex in British Columbia. These new directory types are: BC Petrinex Exports and BC Petrinex Imports.

Regions will maintain Petrinex Operators for British Columbia for production dates after the BC Petrinex Implementation date. Only those Regions with facilities within British Columbia will need to update the Petrinex Operators.

Facilities (Battery/GGS/Plant/Injection Facility) in British Columbia will maintain Petrinex fields (i.e. Petrinex Facility, Produce Pipeline Split, etc.) for production dates after the BC Petrinex Implementation date.

Facility Volumetric

For most activity types, British Columbia will be adopting the Alberta rules.

• There will be no requirement for Heat Content on GAS PROD activities at the Battery (like Alberta).

• They will be adopting the PURDISP/PURREC rules for OIL used for Load Injection in Saskatchewan. The PURREC will auto-populate the PURDISP.
  Note: Load Water is not reported in British Columbia. There is no injection of load water. All recovered water from a well should be reported as production.

• They will be adopting the PURDISP/PURREC rules for GAS used in Alberta. The PURDISP will auto-populate the PURREC.

• For Volumetric Reporting at Injection Facilities, there will be two new fields added: Temperature and Pressure. These new fields are required reporting for injection/disposal of ACID GAS or CO2.

• Cross-Border receipts between Alberta and British Columbia require Full Petrinex IDs used in the corresponding province. Generally, the REC will auto-populate the DISP.

• Cross-Border gas purchases for fuel between Alberta and British Columbia will be reported as DISP/REC activities instead of PURDISP/PURREC. PURDISP/PURREC activities are not valid on cross-border transactions.

Qbyte Metrix Implementation

• Volumetrics can be submitted for facilities in British Columbia for production dates after the BC Petrinex Implementation date.

• Modifications were made to ensure the correct activities reported for British Columbia facilities.

• The Purchased flag on the Battery Balance Oil screen will be enabled for British Columbia Batteries for production dates after the BC Petrinex Implementation date. 
  Note: This flag will be enabled as per the same rules as in Saskatchewan (only applicable to Load Injection deliveries and receipts).

• British Columbia batteries will not be prevented from using Load Water in Qbyte Metrix. However, a message will be added to the Message Centre during the generation of the battery Volumetric data if Load Water Injection/Recovery volumes are found for a battery in British Columbia, and the volumes will NOT be reported on the Volumetric submission to Petrinex.

• The means with which the user indicates a gas disposition/receipt was purchased has been modified. Instead of using a code 99 in the Disposition/Receipt Code, we have added a Purchased flag on all Balance screens that allow Gas/Raw Gas.  This field will default based on certain selections (for example, if the disposition type is Purchased Return Fuel, then the Purchased field will default to Yes and cannot be modified by the user), and in some circumstances, the user may modify it.

• Temperature was added to the Injection Facility Balance >  Injection tab. 
  Note: Although Temperature (and Pressure) are only required reporting for Injection Facilities in British Columbia, they can be entered for Injection Facilities in any province (for informational purposes only).

  • Temperature and Pressure will be reported on the Volumetric report for British Columbia Injection Facilities.

  • Temperature was also added to the INJWELL FDC layout for the CSV format, and to the applicable FDC Preview screen.

  • Note: While we were making changes to the INJWELL FDC functionality, we also enhanced the following for INJWELL record types (See Field Data Capture documentation on the Qbyte Metrix Wiki for additional details):

    • Additional products are now allowed in both the Fixed and CSV format.

    • When using the CSV format, the user can now use the Qbyte Metrix product code or its numeric code.

    • When importing an FDC file with INJWELL records using the numeric product code, the leading zero is no longer required. However, for Fixed format, the positioning cannot be impacted so the leading zero must be replaced with a blank.

  • A message will be added to the Message Centre during the generation of the Injection Facility Volumetric data if there is an injection for ACIDGAS or CO2 that is missing Temperature or Pressure.

• In addition to ensuring that full Petrinex IDs are used for Cross-Border transactions for production dates after the BC Petrinex Implementation date, we also addressed cross-border issues regarding GAS PURDISP/PURREC to be in-line with the rules provided to us.  Basically, any gas purchase that would typically be reported as PURDISP/PURREC that involves facilities in more than one province will be reported using the DISP/REC activity codes.

Oil Pipeline Split

British Columbia will be adopting most of the Saskatchewan rules.

• Oil Pipeline Splits are mandatory and must be Full splits (all owners).

• Unlike Saskatchewan, in British Columbia, Royalty Taken-In-Kind will not be reported separately.

• In British Columbia, all Gas wells are assumed to produce Condensate (Wellhead Condensate in Qbyte Metrix, sometimes called Field Condensate in Petrinex documentation). All Wellhead Condensate that is not recombined into the gas is to be reported on the Oil Pipeline Split (as Oil).
  
  

Qbyte Metrix Implementation

• Oil Pipeline Splits can be submitted for facilities in British Columbia for production dates after the BC Petrinex Implementation date.

  • Due to the possibility of cross-border transactions, we have also allowed for the Oil Pipeline Split process to be run on Alberta batteries in some specific situations.

    • If the production date is after the BC Petrinex Implementation date and the Alberta battery has at least one BC well being processed, then the Alberta battery can have the Oil Pipeline Split generated for the province of British Columbia.

    • If the Alberta battery has at least one SK well being processed, then the Alberta battery can have the Oil Pipeline Split generated for the province of Saskatchewan 
      Note: When an Alberta battery has wells from British Columbia or Saskatchewan, the appropriate cascade will be created even if the Alberta battery has Produce Pipeline Split = No, because the Oil Pipeline Split is mandatory in the other provinces. When a battery in British Columbia or Saskatchewan has wells from Alberta, the full volume from the Alberta well(s) is reported as a cascade, regardless of the Produce Pipeline Split option at the battery.

• Modifications were made to the Oil Pipeline Split process to ensure that BC oil/condensate is reported correctly.

  • Royalty Taken-In-Kind are not reported separately, they will be accumulated with the Royalty Owner's other volumes (if any).

Gas Pipeline Split

British Columbia will be adopting the Saskatchewan rules.

• Gas Pipeline Splits are optional.

Qbyte Metrix Implementation

• Other than allowing Gas Pipeline Splits to be submitted for British Columbia facilities, there were no changes made to this submission.
  

Oil Valuation RTP

British Columbia will be adopting most of the Saskatchewan rules.

• Unlike Saskatchewan, in British Columbia Royalty Taken-In-Kind volumes will require a value and submission using the Oil Valuation RTP.

• In British Columbia, all gas wells are assumed to produce Condensate (Wellhead Condensate in Qbyte Metrix, sometimes called Field Condensate in Petrinex documentation).  All Wellhead Condensate that is not recombined into the gas will require a value and submission using the Oil Valuation RTP.

  • When determining the Royalty Tax Payer for Wellhead Condensate, the GAS Royalty Tax Payers must be used, not the OIL Royalty Tax Payers.

• Gross Price will be calculated or entered to two decimal places only.

• Unlike Saskatchewan, waste oil must be submitted on the Oil Valuation RTP, but can have a Gross Price of zero.

Qbyte Metrix Implementation

• The Generate Oil Valuation Data process can be submitted for facilities in British Columbia for production dates after the BC Petrinex Implementation date.

• Due to the possibility of cross-border transactions, we have also allowed for the Generate Oil Valuation Data process to be run on Alberta batteries in some specific situations.

  • If the production date is after the BC Petrinex Implementation date, and the Alberta battery has at least one BC well being processed, then the Alberta battery can submit the Generate Oil Valuation Data process for the province of British Columbia.

  • If the Alberta battery has at least one SK well being processed, then the Alberta battery can run the Generate Oil Valuation Data process for the province of Saskatchewan.

• Modifications were made to the Generate Oil Valuation Data process to ensure that BC oil/condensate is reported correctly.

  • Gross Price is calculated/entered to two decimal places only.

  • Royalty Taken-In-Kind will be included in the Royalty Owner's other volumes (if any).

  • Waste Oil (i.e. Shipper Owner Contract of WO) must be reported but can have a Gross Price of zero.

  • Deliveries to a Custody Transfer Point of WP must be reported but can have a Gross Price of zero.

• Due to British Columbia treating Wellhead Condensate as Oil and requiring an Oil Pipeline Split but using the Gas RTP instead of the Oil RTP, we needed to enhance the capability of determining the Royalty Tax Payer.  
  Note: This functionality will also be used for the RTP required on the SAF/OAF and the NGL/Sulphur Valuation RTP. Since we were enhancing the Royalty Tax Payer functionality, we decided to open it up for Saskatchewan wells/units as well (used on the Oil Valuation RTP only). 

• Users can explicitly set the Royalty Tax Payer (RTP) for each owner in the DOI at a non-unit well level or at a unit level, for Saskatchewan or British Columbia entities only. Saskatchewan only uses Royalty Tax Payer on the Oil Valuation RTP, so only OIL Royalty Tax Payers will be allowed on Saskatchewan wells and/or units. British Columbia will be using Royalty Tax Payer on the Oil Valuation RTP, SAF/OAF and NGL/Sulphur Valuation RTP, so both OIL and GAS Royalty Tax Payers will be allowed on British Columbia wells and/or units.

  • Non-unit wells:

    • The Well Maintenance > Royalties > Crown tab will display an RTP Owners section for Saskatchewan wells and for British Columbia wells when the production date is greater than or equal to the BC Petrinex Implementation date. For additional details see Well Maintenance - Crown.

  • Units:

    • The Unit Maintenance > Crown tab (this is a new tab on the Unit Maintenance) will display an RTP Owners section for Saskatchewan units and for British Columbia units when the production date is greater than or equal to the BC Petrinex Implementation date.  For additional details see Unit Maintenance - Crown.

• For gas wells producing condensate in British Columbia the BC08 Reporting/RTP Override owner will be used as the Royalty Tax Payer, if entered, regardless of whether there are Royalty Tax Payers set up at the well.

• The Oil Valuation RTP screen can now be accessed for batteries and units in British Columbia for production dates after the BC Petrinex Implementation date.

• The Oil Pipeline Split Import can be used to import data into the Oil Valuation RTP screen for British Columbia batteries and units from Oil Pipeline Split reports downloaded from Petrinex.
  

Allocations (SAF/OAF)

This is the submission that British Columbia is varying from the existing Alberta and/or Saskatchewan rules the most. In general, they are adopting the Alberta rules, but with a few new trigger activities and a couple of new fields.

• All trigger activities require a Royalty Tax Payer in addition to the existing data.

• All GAS DISP activities require a Shipper in addition to the existing data.

• In addition to the existing Alberta royalty trigger activities (i.e. GAS DISP and NGL/Sulphur PROC), there are a few new trigger activities.

  • Raw Gas (Cost of Service) – Any gas disposition from an upstream facility to a gas plant or dry gas source.

  • Gas Field Sales (Royalty) – Any purchase disposition of gas upstream of the gas plant.

  • Return Fuel (Cost of Service Reduction/Royalty Volume Credit) – Receipt of gas at a facility upstream of the gas plant from a gas plant or meter station.
    Note: Qbyte Metrix will not be creating these trigger activities, see details below.

  • Deep Cut (Royalty) – This is a trigger for a one-off situation where the royalties in British Columbia are triggered on the inlet into a plant (Younger) instead of on the outlet like all other plants.

Qbyte Metrix Implementation

• SAF/OAF can be submitted for facilities in British Columbia for production dates after the BC Petrinex Implementation date.

• Due to the possibility of cross-border transactions, we have also allowed for the SAF/OAF process to be run for provinces other than the province the selected facility is in.

  • The SAF/OAF File Generation screen has been enhanced to consider when the submitting facility processes wells from another province, then the SAF/OAF can be generated for that province.

  • Oil SAF/OAF:

    • When cross-border entries are encountered, they will be reported as a cascade back to the producing battery.  
      Note: Qbyte Metrix will also automatically generate the entries for the producing battery responding to the cascade.

  • Gas & by-product SAF/OAF:

    • Existing cascade logic was modified to include a province change as a secondary trigger for a cascade. Cascade entries will be created when the operator changes or the province changes from one facility to the next. 

    • Existing cross-border logic was modified regarding GAS PURDISP/PURREC to be in-line with the rules provided to us. Basically, any gas purchase that would typically be reported as PURDISP that involves facilities in more than one province will be reported using the DISP activity code.

• Modifications were made to the SAF/OAF File Generation process to ensure that British Columbia facilities are reported correctly.
  Note: The Oil SAF/OAF is optional for British Columbia batteries and will only generate entries when Partner Reporting is turned on for the battery's control group.

• Gas & by-product SAF/OAF:

  • All British Columbia allocation triggers allocated down to a BC stream will include an RTP (Government Code). 
    Note: Cascade entries will not have RTP populated (just as they have no Owner populated). 

    • Users can explicitly set the Royalty Tax Payer (RTP) for each owner in the DOI at a non-unit well level for British Columbia entities only. The GAS RTP will be used.

      • Non-unit wells:

        • Well Maintenance >  Royalties > Crown tab will display an RTP Owners section for British Columbia wells when the production date is after the BC Petrinex Implementation date. For additional details see Well Maintenance - Crown.

    • Note: The same rules used to determine the Royalty Tax Payer for the NGL/Sulphur Valuation are used for the SAF/OAF.  For details as to how the Royalty Tax Payer is determined for the NGL/Sulphur Valuation can be found at B.C. NGL Valuation RTP under the Royalty Tax Payer section.

  • All GAS DISP transactions with a BC stream will include a Shipper (Government Code). 

• Cost  of Service Trigger (Inlet Volumes):

  • All batteries or gathering systems that are sending gas to a British Columbia plant (for processing) will report GAS DISP entries. These entries will have an RTP and Shipper but no GJs.
    Note: This includes Alberta facilities sending to a BC plant. 

  • Alberta plants that are processing BC wells must also have all facilities that send to them, even those with no BC wells, report GAS DISP entries. To capture this, we have added a new field at the Plant (only visible for Alberta plants for production dates after the BC Petrinex Implementation date), Processing BC Wells to indicate that the plant requires the BC Cost of Service trigger reported at all facilities sending to it.  
    Note: If we encounter BC wells sending gas to an Alberta plant that is not set up as Processing BC Wells = Yes then an ERROR will be generated.

  • Qbyte Metrix will generate GAS DISP entries from both Gas Flow and non-Gas Flow facilities.
    Note: Gas being sent from one plant to another for processing is not considered to be a Cost of Service trigger.

• Gas Field Sales Trigger (Fuel Sales):

  • All batteries or gathering systems with Fuel Sale dispositions will be reported as GAS PURDISP entries.  
    Note: The Fuel Sale disposition type, which is available only for British Columbia facilities, is one of those disposition types that will have the new Purchased field (mentioned above in the Facility Volumetric section) automatically set to Yes, and the user cannot modify it.

• Cost of  Service Reduction/Royalty Volume Credit Trigger (Return Fuel - not purchased):

• Deep Cut Trigger:

  • This is a special-case trigger that is required for all facilities sending gas (for processing) to the Younger plant (Government Code 0000932). The reason that this is a special trigger is that it is typically plant-to-plant deliveries (that would not have the Cost of Service trigger) and the Younger plant is special in that the royalties are paid on the Gas coming into Younger instead of on the Gas  & by-products leaving Younger.

  • To generate these trigger entries, the user must set up the plant representing Younger with a new field Royalty Paid at Inlet set to Yes. This is a new field at the Plant (only visible for British Columbia plants for production dates after the BC Petrinex Implementation date.

    • For these plants, all activities will be reported to the BC RP 9999 stream, indicating that they are Royalty Paid.
      Note: This means that any partners cannot use the Allocation data from Petrinex to determine their production or sales from these plants. There will be no volumes allocated down to producing streams and owners.

NGL/Sulphur Valuation RTP

This is a new submission being built by Petrinex specifically for British Columbia. This submission is used to value the NGL/Sulphur sales related to the production of liquids at each plant or gathering system. The NGL/Sulphur Valuation RTP is triggered by the existence of a PROC activity for an NGL product (C2 through C6, including all Mix, Spec, Iso, Normal variants, and C1MX, CO2MX and LITEMX) or Sulphur allocated to a BC Stream on the SAF/OAF at a Plant in either British Columbia or Alberta, or by the existence of a PROC activity for C5-SP at a Gathering System.

This submission will require the following information.

• Production Date

• Submitting Facility

• Product

• Royalty Tax Payer

• Sales Volume

• Sales Value

• No Sales flag - this flag should be set to Yes only when there is production but no sales. It is used to auto-trigger an NGL/Sulphur Valuation RTP requirement in the following month in case there are sales but no production (which is normally the trigger for the NGL/Sulphur Valuation) in the following month.

Qbyte Metrix Implementation

• The Step processing for operated facilities in British Columbia (or facilities in Alberta with BC wells flowing through) has been modified to generate the necessary data for the NGL Valuation RTP submission.

• As part of Step 2, the production and sales volumes are accumulated and where necessary tracked back to the producing facility.

• As part of Step 3, the sales value and any transportation costs are accumulated/allocated to the previously determined sales volume.

• The Step processing for Partner Operated batteries in British Columbia has been modified to generate the necessary data for the NGL Valuation RTP submission.  
  Note: Unlike the Oil Valuation RTP, there is no Petrinex report that can be used to import NGL/Sulphur Valuation data into Qbyte Metrix for Partner Operated properties.

  • To support the NGL/Sulphur Valuation RTP for Partner Operated properties, we needed to enhance our Partner Operated functionality. For more information on the functionality for Partner Operated batteries see Partner Operated Battery Balance.

    • To handle Partner Operated wells that swing to multiple facilities we have added the ability to specify a Plant ID on Production and Sales transactions for Gas & by-products. If the Plant ID is not specified, and the Partner Operated Battery has a Plant ID attached to it, then we will assume that is the facility to use for NGL/Sulphur Valuations.  Note: The changes to the Petrinex specifications to open the NGL Valuation RTP submission to allow for C5-SP at a Gathering System were not provided to us until very late in the development cycle so we were unable to modify the Partner Operated functionality to allow for Plants or Gathering Systems.  However, as a work-around a Metrix Plant ID can be set up with a Petrinex ID representing a Gathering System.
      Note: Although this functionality was added for the BC NGL/Sulphur Valuation RTP submission, we recognized that this may be useful for properties in other provinces, so we allow this in any province, with one exception: The ability to specify a Plant ID on Partner Operated transactions is NOT available for British Columbia batteries for production dates prior to the BC Petrinex Implementation date. The reason for this was the impact to the current BC08 process would have been significant, and since it is becoming obsolete with the implementation of Petrinex we decided not to include the functionality.

    • To handle all the products that can be reported on the NGL/Sulphur Valuation RTP we have added the ability to use Mix, Spec, Iso and Normal variants of products on Partner Operated batteries.  
      Note: Although this functionality was added for the BC NGL/Sulphur Valuation RTP submission, we recognized that this may be useful for properties in other provinces, so we allow this in any province.

• The details as to how the Royalty Tax Payer is determined for the NGL/Sulphur Valuation can be found at B.C. NGL Valuation RTP under the Royalty Tax Payer section. 

• A new NGL Valuation RTP screen has been added to Qbyte Metrix. This screen is like the Oil Valuation RTP screen in that it allows the user to review and update the NGL/Sulphur Valuation data, enter Transportation Rates and submit the process that creates the actual NGL/Sulphur Valuation RTP submission for Petrinex.  For additional details see B.C. NGL Valuation RTP.

  • To access this new screen, the user must have security access to the new component NglValuationRtp.  
    Note: As part of the Qbyte Metrix 1.10 Release, any Roles in Qbyte Metrix with the RoyaltiesCrownCreateBC08 component will be automatically given the same access to the new NglValuationRtp component.

Measurement Edits

British Columbia will NOT be implementing any EPAP validations for the Go-Live date. However, to help our clients get prepared for this happening at some point in the future, we have implemented the following for British Columbia batteries listed below.

Qbyte Metrix Implementation 

• British Columbia batteries for production dates after the BC Petrinex Implementation date must use a valid British Columbia Battery Subtype, instead of one of the generic Qbyte Metrix Subtypes (i.e. ME01, etc.). Prior to the BC Petrinex Implementation date, the existing functionality of using the generic Qbyte Metrix Subtypes will remain.

• The Subtype Load/Verification process can be used for British Columbia batteries for production dates after the BC Petrinex Implementation date.

• Measurement Edits have been pre-loaded for all valid British Columbia Subtypes based on their Alberta equivalent, where possible. However, none of these pre-loaded edits will generate an ERROR condition, the maximum severity that will be generated is a WARNING. The client can choose to customize these edits as they see fit.  
  Note: Similar to what occurred in Saskatchewan, once British Columbia publishes and implements their EPAP rules, Qbyte Metrix will have to modify the Measurement Edits associated with British Columbia Subtypes.

• For more information on Measurement Edits see Measurement Edits User Documentation EPAP.
  
  

Table 1. 

The following table is a subset of the table published in the PBCIP Industry Readiness Handbook, listing only those BC Forms that were supported by Qbyte Metrix.