C2C ADR Council 2008

In 2008, the C2C ADR Council still seeks to encourage the upstream Canadian oil and gas industry build better business relationships, to more clearly understand the problems, to train professionals in interest based negotiation and current conflict management skills, to influence industry organizations (associations, companies and regulatory bodies) to create better outcomes, reward those who engage proactively and to educate those who do not yet embrace our philosophy.

Our current goals include;

• connecting with and educating our industry
• working with associations to further upgrade dispute resolution provisions in industry agreements
  - currently PJVA, PASC and CAPL
• working with regulatory authorities to further upgrade dispute resolution provisions
• working with educational institutions such as Mount Royal College to train the new professionals, and
• creating a central contact at C2C for companies in conflict.

C2C does not engage in conflict resolution. C2C does provide industry with tools, contacts, documents and processes to create better proactive win/ win outcomes.

Our Executive is;

• Dave Savage, SEPAC and Savage Management Chair
  savagemanage@gmail.com
• Scott Nalder, CAPL and Nalder Consulting, Vice Chair
  scottern@aim.com
• Lynda MacNeill, PASC and EnCana, Treasurer
  lynda.macneill@encana.com
• Karla Reesor, National Energy Board, Past Chair
  kressor@neb-one.gc.ca

Our active members include;

• Gordon Tarnowski and Noel Rea, Fraser Milner Casgrain,
• Frank Terner, Shell / CAPL,
• Pat Forrest, PJVA and GPMI,
• Jim MacLean, MacLean Resource Management,
• Linda Chichak, Talisman,
• Tim Robillard, Certus,
• David Hill, ERCB,
• J.B. Isaacs, Sage,
• Gordon Dainard, CAPLA,
• Nick Rowe, webstart.ca,
• and others

C2C Backgrounder

The Company-to-Company Dispute Resolution Task Force ("C2C") finalized our Report and Recommendations in 2004. Since May 2002, the pre-Council Task Force made significant progress towards finding ways to empower the negotiator, align regulatory processes, create new contractual dispute resolution provisions and further encourage our industry towards interest based negotiation and appropriate dispute resolution. The C2C Task Force was a leader in Appropriate Dispute Resolution in North America by taking a business-focused leadership role in the development of industry productive ADR tools. With more than 70 industry professionals from land, engineering, law, accounting, administration, dispute resolution, planning and regulatory backgrounds, the C2C objective is to have a positive impact on the way our industry negotiates, manages and resolves our conflicts. Our tag lines include: "Transforming Conflict into Opportunity", "C2C Triage for Conflict" and "Change behaviors early and create better outcomes".

C2C Tool Box: What's In It For Me?

As a negotiator for your company, you often encounter roadblocks, difficult situations, obstinate people, demanding project teams and situations where you may appreciate additional options to understand, evaluate and resolve these problems. The C2C Let's Talk Handbook includes techniques, tools, clauses and recommendations that are useful to the negotiator.

For guidance, take a look at the 2007 CAPL Operating Procedure Dispute Resolution Article. This article provides a number of productive steps that can be taken to better understand the other party’s “position”, to seek common ground and to creatively resolve the conflict.
While we are driven to high paced achievement of our corporate objectives, old fashioned face-to-face, trustworthy and clear communication is the basis of the C2C recommendations. What the ERCB refers to as a Pre-ADR meeting (“PADR”), C2C also calls a Situation Assessment Meeting (“SAM”). The objective is to first understand the issues and the alternatives before jumping to solutions. The S.A.M. is the triage to reduce time in the operating room (i.e. reduce time in court and minimizing avoidance).

Another "tool" C2C created for the Canadian petroleum industry is the Problem Solving Planner. This P.S.P. assists the negotiator to answer questions including;

• where are we in this negotiation?
• what got us to this point of disagreement?
• what are the interests of the parties?
• what are the challenges, hindrances/ barriers?
• what's the appropriate process (es)?
• how can we quantify, risk and present value our various dispute resolution alternatives?
• what are the costs, time, personnel, big picture issues and likely outcomes involved in each?
• what are the opportunities from this conflict?
• what dispute resolution techniques, resources and processes are available to achieve success?
• And how may we measure success?

In the C2C Report, these and other tools are described in case studies and scenarios common to our daily work on operations, un-resolved audits, pooling, non-owner access to facilities and more.

The C2C Report also made recommendations to the ERCB (most of which were implemented) on improvements to their ADR Program, to reduce abuse of the regulatory process, toward making that process even more effective and efficient (time and money), to Enhanced Case Management and more.

Regarding non-owner/ owner access and usage disputes for production facilities. C2C led to the creation/ update to JP 05 with CAPP, SEPAC, PJVA, CGPA and the ERCB toward improving industry understanding and usage of the JP 05 Report and to create a new dispute resolution process. When owners and non-owners are not able to reach agreement on a timely and reasonable (for both parties) basis, the parties now request and participate in a Pre-ADR to fist understand the issues then most often proceed a neutral third party with expertise in the issues at hand and in ADR to resolve their conflict. The parties themselves control the process and the decision (unless they opt for arbitration).

The C2C ADR Council is a purely voluntary organization serving industry. We offer the Let's Talk Handbook in a printed binder for sale (cost recovery) and downloadable from our website.
We continue to look for ongoing opportunities to communicate the findings, processes, recommendations and tools to (and receive feedback from) industry. Will you engage?

Why?: because our industry can not afford to waste resources, divert staff, destroy business relationships, increase costs, extend timelines, lose opportunities and generally be less effective for our shareholders and stakeholders than they deserve and expect. We invite you to learn more.

Let's Talk Handbook: A comprehensive toolkit which allows industry representatives and their negotiators to select a process that meets the needs of all parties.

View online
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