Revolutionizing Firefighting: The Shift to Safer Foams

00:00:03 Ally Bourgeois
This episode of the Energy Pipeline is sponsored by Caterpillar Oil and gas. Since the 1930s, Caterpillar has manufactured engines for drilling, production, well service, and gas compression. With more than 2100 dealer locations worldwide, Caterpillar offers customers a dedicated support team to assist with their premier power solutions. 

00:00:28 Russell Stewart
Welcome to the Energy Pipeline Podcast. Your host, Russell Stewart. Tune in each week to learn more about industry issues, tools and resources to streamline and modernize the future of the industry. Whether you work in oil and gas or bring a unique perspective, this podcast is your knowledge transfer hub. Welcome to the Energy Pipeline. 

00:00:54 Lance Medlin
Hey, everybody. 

00:00:55 Russell Stewart
Thanks for listening as always. And I think you're going to really be glad that you listened today because this is actually a special show of. We're actually being videoed. And so all of us are sitting here worried about how our hair looks and all this sort of thing. But I am recording in Houston, Texas, from one of the offices of Red Post Energy. We're up on the 18th floor, and we're overlooking the Houston skyline. And there are a lot of trees in Houston. 

00:01:25 Lance Medlin
There are, if you look far enough. Yeah. 

00:01:28 Russell Stewart
And I have three guests on the show today. First one is Lance Medlin. Lance is the CEO, CEO and founder of Red Post Energy, and he's also the CEO of Vitelli Industrial. Lance, thanks for coming on. 

00:01:41 Lance Medlin
No, you're welcome. Thanks for having me, Russell. 

00:01:43 Russell Stewart
And then also Red Post EVP of HSE and organizational culture. 

00:01:51 Brant Butler
That's a whole lot to say. 

00:01:52 Russell Stewart
Well, not only is it a whole lot to say, folks, we're going to be talking about chemical fires today, but I got a. And brand. Thanks for coming on, but I got to. I got to get you back on. If you look at his resume on the Red Post Energy website, his background in hse, and you know, on this show, it's really H, little H, big S, E. You know, we're really into safety and everybody coming home safe. And I got to get you back on. We got to talk about. 

00:02:25 Brant Butler
Any time. 

00:02:25 Russell Stewart
We got to talk about pleasure, bbs, behavior based safety, behavior based specialties, and hseq. 

00:02:34 Brant Butler
Hseq. 

00:02:35 Russell Stewart
All right, all right. Well, that's. Okay. So, folks, there you go. We're gonna. We'll do that on another podcast. But then we also have got Ally Bourgeois. 

00:02:43 Ally Bourgeois
Yes. Perfect. 

00:02:44 Russell Stewart
Did my Texas accent get that right? 

00:02:46 Ally Bourgeois
You got it. 

00:02:46 Russell Stewart
Perfect. 

00:02:47 Lance Medlin
Okay. 

00:02:47 Russell Stewart
All right. And you are international. 

00:02:49 Ally Bourgeois
No. 

00:02:50 Russell Stewart
Yes, you are. Because. Because I. I happen to know that Bourgeois is a Cajun name. 

00:02:54 Ally Bourgeois
Yes. 

00:02:56 Russell Stewart
So you're from that other. That other country down there in the guts that's, that's exactly, that's another country. So Red Post Energy and, and Vitelli has a, a strategic partnership and I think that's going to be the basis of our discussion today. Tell me it. 

00:03:15 Lance Medlin
Well, it's a, it's, I wouldn't frame it as a strategic partnership as it's got a shared ownership. So when I founded Redstone, we founded it to, to address the growing power needs of Texas in the US So we're a domestic build, own, operate power, merchant power plant. When I founded Red Post Energy it was to, was the idea of generating first to market speed to market power generation and part of that is supply chain. So we looked out at who are the supply chain providers, who has a niche market in the industry, who can get equipment fastest, best commercial prizes. And Vitaly, I had known through other EPCs, through other large multi billion dollar developments. And so I reached out to Ali and made an offer for the company and I took over ownership and Ali still does all the work. 

00:04:11 Russell Stewart
Okay, so Ali, I had so much fun with your last name. Actually I was making fun of myself but so I forgot to say you actually are the vice president of operations for Vitale. So what is Vitale? Tell us what you do. 

00:04:26 Ally Bourgeois
Yes, sir. So Vitelli is a global distribution company and we supply industrial products to major projects and we have a specialty in safety products. We do basically anything that you can think of. Hard hats, gloves, safety goggles, you know, any, any of your procurement needs. Not just safety, but that's what we're focused on today. One of our most groundbreaking, innovative products is our NFFF product which is a firefighting foam. It's non toxic and that's what we're here to talk about today. 

00:04:57 Russell Stewart
Okay. And as I said, we are here to talk about chemical fire. So let's, let's, let's talk about chemical fires and then we'll get back to whatever nff, whatever you just said. Okay, so chemical fires. What's unique about chemical fires as far as putting them out, hard to put. 

00:05:17 Brant Butler
Out and put your men at great risk or put your men and women at great risk. So for decades they've been using a fluorinated fire foam and it does the job. It'll put out the fire, but it is highly hazardous. It is what they call a forever chemical. So it'll stay in your system and in the environment so it's not breaking down and it's cancerous. So it is nasty stuff. 

00:05:43 Russell Stewart
And that's what we're using. 

00:05:45 Brant Butler
That's what everybody's been using for decades. That's what everybody. 

00:05:49 Lance Medlin
I can tell you story Russell. So, you know, in, in my entire career has gone from, you know, pretty boots on the ground. So I joined the Marine Corps when I was 17, came out use the GI Bill to go to college. My first job was working offshore night shift offshore in Mexico. I kind of immigrated the other way around. My first job, I immigrated to Mexico, worked for the government there for five years. And we used to do a deluge test and you know, you deluge your, your firewater system, but also your afff and it's just like a big bubble show, you know, foam everywhere. And that was about the most fun we ever had. Offshore was every quarter we'd set off the deluge system and then make sure our fire suppression was good. We used to have afftis all over our coveralls and it wasn't worth going back to the, to the one, worth going back to your room and shower. And if you only had four or five hours left on your shift. So it just soak into your clothes and you'd, you just wear it. We didn't know any better. 

00:06:49 Brant Butler
Lance used to only be 4 foot 5, but after all that, look at him now, he's like six, two. 

00:06:56 Russell Stewart
Okay, so, so we're, we're fighting chemical fires with this thing called af. 

00:07:01 Brant Butler
Afff, okay. 

00:07:03 Russell Stewart
And that stands for what? 

00:07:04 Brant Butler
Aqueous film, fire foam. 

00:07:06 Russell Stewart
Okay. 

00:07:06 Brant Butler
And so, and that is the hazardous, that is the highly hazardous. 

 00:07:10 Russell Stewart
And that's the highly hazardous stuff that. 

00:07:13 Brant Butler
Lance used to get all over. 

00:07:14 Russell Stewart
And it's cancer causing and all that sort of stuff. 

00:07:17 Brant Butler
Cancer causing, all that. 

00:07:18 Russell Stewart
So why are we still using it? 

00:07:20 Brant Butler
There wasn't a good alternative. 

00:07:22 Lance Medlin
There wasn't a good alternative. And also I don't think there was a lot of focus on, on kind of what was happening to the environment. And it's the EPA that is forced to change on this. So there were a lot of windows where the EPA said okay, well you know, hey, in a year you probably ought to think about not having AFFF since there is now an alternative product. There's SFFF and nfff. Non fluoridated firefoam. And that's the N and F are the same thing. Synthetic or non fluoride. So this is, this is kind of regulatory and environmentally driven by the, by the government, by the federal government. And then the windows started getting shorter and shorter. Now it's down to July 4th. It's basically like a Monty Python movie. July 4th. If you have it, you get fined. If you dispose of it, you get fined. If you use it, you get fined. If you pretty much have anything to do with afff, you're in a pretty big commercial penalty. And for the downstream operating facilities, margins and economics downstream are tight. I mean it requires efficiency and it requires, you know, smooth operation. It requires avoiding being inked or having penalties. And especially when you've been warned about it or you've been notified by the government, hey, this is coming, here's your window. Now a lot of operators have already made the change but there's a, there's not a big market for it. There's not, you know, because it's not established. There's not 20 to 30. It's not like going out and getting a container or a pump or a 2 inch ball valve. There's limited suppliers and there is still an evolution of the product itself where some NFFs just don't work as good. And I'll give you an example. One of the issues with AFFF is that if you are a, if you're a first responder and you're fighting the fire and you've got say chemical on the ground, you dispatch the AFFF part of a venturi effect in the water system and you walk through the foam, the AFFF won't re expand, it won't close that up, which allows the chemical to reignite the fire. Well, the other, I guess our competitors, which we don't feel very competitive against, they have the same issue. So when a firefighter walks through the foam, there's a strong possibility and it does happen quite often with reignition of the chemical where his footprints had gone and the AFFF didn't re expand. We have the only product that will re expand behind the footprint. So it's just an added factor of safety. Our product is also the only completely biodegradable in triple F on the market. So the, the, the comment from the, from the chemists that, you know, our chemists that create this is that you can drink it but you shouldn't. So I think, well it's a good thing you clarified that because you said biodegradable. I was about to chug a gallon. So yeah, you're probably going to get pretty sick but you know, you're probably going to walk away from it as well. So biodegradable after five days. The other in triple S or not. Once you, just once you dispatch it into the ground, you need to do excavation, you need a cleanup. 

00:10:28 Brant Butler
So that's where the E comes in. In the HSE Yeah. So now you have the environmental side coming in and that's going to cost you because now not only do you got to clean up the mess that you made, you got to clean up the mess you made to clean it up. 

00:10:40 Lance Medlin
Yeah. 

00:10:40 Brant Butler
So now you just accumulated boatload of extra cost. Oh, and by the way, how do you get rid of this stuff? You got to incinerate it at high temperatures. 

00:10:50 Lance Medlin
Incinerated or even worse, you're doing deep well injection. So you're just passing the issue on to, I don't know, some later generation that you've just, you know, you've just injected into a deep well reservoir. 

00:11:03 Russell Stewart
They're injected and stuff. 

00:11:05 Lance Medlin
That is one of the approved ways to dispose of afff. Is there super ways you can incinerate it and then you can. 

00:11:12 Russell Stewart
That's gotta be some air quality issues. 

00:11:14 Lance Medlin
Well, the, the issue is with incineration, what's why the market's not really going to, that is economically it's much more expensive to incinerate than it is to just do deep well injection. So it's kind of a catch 22 in the fact that. Okay, well from an environmental perspective you're not helping the environment by just doing deep well injection, you're just displacing the issue by doing incineration. You are, because you can capture and flare off your, your emissions or your off gases from it. But it's, it's an economic impact, it's commercial impact to the facility. So they look at it, say well look, we're going to help the environment by changing from AFFF to nff. There's a limit to our economics. And so we're going to just do deep well injection. That is, that's where we're at. 

00:12:03 Brant Butler
You know, like Lance was talking about, when the firefighter steps on that foam, compresses that foam, those fires can reignite and the active chemicals in our product, there's something called drain time. And the drain time is, is when you spray that foam on, how long does it take for the active chemicals in that to dissipate where it's no longer active? So what this has is a 45 minute drain time. The competitors have at most 15 minutes. So your chances for reignition come back. Whereas with ours you have 45 minutes of protection there, over twice longer than what our competitors have. And it's biodegradable. 

00:12:46 Lance Medlin
Biodegradable in five days. So after five days you have no, you have no remediation efforts or you don't have no signs it's there. I guess the caveat to that is if you're using the NFFF fire foam, the Vitelli foam, to put out a chemical fire, it doesn't dispose of the chemical, it puts out the chemical fire. So you still have a cleanup effort on whatever loss of containment you had, but you don't have twice the cleanup effort because you're now cleaning up a hazardous foam. We're also working with the state of California to, to airdrop the foam onto the fire into the forest fires, which they. Wildfires, Forest fires, which they have. You know, if you ever watch the news, just in passing one time a year, it's probably about a wildfire in California. 

00:13:36 Russell Stewart
Sure. 

00:13:38 Lance Medlin
Our competitors participated in the, in the trial that we did with the state of California. And what happened is as they would drop the foam, it would just blow out like a kid's, the kid's birthday party going every. 

00:13:49 Brant Butler
Which. Well, what happened was the Santa Ana winds kicked in, which caused the fire, exacerbated the fire that they had. Our foam did not fly away with the Santa Ana. 

00:14:02 Ally Bourgeois
Really. 

00:14:02 Lance Medlin
The other foams hit on target. And it also. So when the, when the, when our, our lab coats were telling us, it, it dropped and it stuck on the trees and it grayed us like. Well, we use something like that in Vietnam. You're not telling me you've created napalm, right? They're like, no, this is biodegradable. Okay. 

00:14:21 Russell Stewart
I love the smell of napalm. 

00:14:22 Lance Medlin
I love the smell of NFF in the morning. 

00:14:25 Russell Stewart
Okay. And then you guys showed me a video. It also. 

00:14:29 Lance Medlin
Video speaks for itself. We took three. We did, we did a control burn in. Was it Baytown or Beaumont? Right here in Baytown. And we used our product. We use the next leading seller's product and then we use the other leading sellers product. So these are the three. These are the two most. I guess they're the, the highest volume sellers. And we put our little product next to them and we did a controlled burn, all with the same product, the same chemical, the same volume, the same test at the same time. And we put a stopwatch there and you can see the digital watch on the film. And we said, okay, we think we're better. Let's see. And the, the Baytown training facility that put it on, they're independent. They don't care if we win the bet or not. But the video speaks for itself. We put the, we extinguished the fire in about, I think it's around a minute and ten seconds. It's going to show it on Video, the next competitive number was over two and a half. 

00:15:27 Russell Stewart
It was over two minutes. 

00:15:28 Lance Medlin
And then I think the, the other one was three minutes. So what that means is all three put the fire out. So if your goal is to put a fire out, if your goal is only to put a fire out, all three put a fire out. Now let's talk about exposure to first respond, first responders. I've got a fire. 

00:15:45 Russell Stewart
The quicker you put it out, the. 

00:15:46 Lance Medlin
Quicker you put it out, the less exposure you put to that fireman or fireworks. That first responder that's sitting there next to a chemical fire, dispatching foam and a water mix, okay, I can put that individual in line of harm for one minute or three. I mean it doesn't take a whole lot of math to figure out which one's better. So you've got a safety impact by you reducing the exposure of your first responders. You've got an environmental impact in that these are both positive impacts, right? It's environmental delta, safety delta in that you've got a disposable, fully biodegradable product that in five days it's gone. You've got an additional safety delta, a positive delta in that if the chemicals on the ground, the fire, the firefighter walks through it, it re expands. You're not going to have a reignition of the fire behind the first responder. So we felt pretty good going into it. And then when, when you watch the video and there's the, the timing clock on it, you know, it just kind of, it is what it is after that point. It's like a, it's like a high schooler race in a fifth grader. You know, we finished first. 

00:16:56 Brant Butler
Now just imagine that next to 50 other tanks. 

00:17:00 Lance Medlin
Imagine that in a tank form or terminal where, you know, SEMA or just a PMAX facility in, in, in Port Arthur has over 400 tanks in their term. And Deer Park, 400 storage tanks, some of them 150,000 barrel tanks. These are, you know, that's a massive amount of volume and a massive amount of risk. And that's why, you know, in our, we are in, we are in exchange of terms with PMEX because they take it serious. And so we would expect a, a Mexican national company to be equal to US national companies, but we expect US national companies to lead the way. So this is the opportunity, especially before July 4, because come July 4, it is independence Day. But it's also break your checkbook out day for the owner operators who haven't already exchanged the AFFF out of their facility and brought the NFF in which Vitelli will do for you. 

00:17:59 Brant Butler
Okay now we can also provide the NFFF Vitelli's NFF in totes or drums or isotainers or rail cars. 

 00:18:08 Lance Medlin
So Brant makes a good point. One of the in there was a very large facility, a refinery that had a massive, massive fire and they were find I think their fine was around $800 million because of safety violations but also because of loss of containment of, of hydrocarbons and chemicals. And this was, this is public, this is public information and it's, there's been plenty of stories about it. And there was another company that intentionally disposed of chemicals into the water. They had a massive, massive penalty from the EPA and private civil lawsuits etc and criminal. 

00:18:53 Russell Stewart
There's actually a movie about that. 

00:18:55 Lance Medlin
There was a movie Dark Waters. Yeah and if you've seen the movie Dark Waters and I'm, I'm pretty, I'm pretty risk adverse and don't like litigation. So I'll say if you want to know who the players were, watch the movies to a good movie. The Incredible Hulk stars in it. Mark Ruffalo so this is the exact case, it's the exact chemical, it's the exact situation that we're talking about. CAFFF well, what the first responders, the firemen found out when they were putting out we're trying to extinguish a fire so large is that using the foam in these totes required one person to basically just change hoses from tote to tote during the entire, during the entire burn event. Well, we can give you the totes and we would advise that you're going to run it. You need a resource allocate so you have somebody to change hoses. He was pretty quick. 

00:19:46 Brant Butler
He was popping a tote every 30. 

00:19:48 Lance Medlin
Seconds to every 30 seconds basically. And that's just, I mean that's, you probably even need to have more than one person because that's a fatigue issue. What we suggest that you do is buy is use the 5000 gallon ISO tanks. And so that's going to give you a significant more time. We supply the ISO tanks as well. So if you have a fixed location for your foam, get the isotank, get the 5,000 gallon tank because you're not, you're going to have less, less loss of resources just changing hose while you've got a catastrophic event going on and. 

00:20:22 Brant Butler
Lower risk for your personnel, lower risk. 

00:20:24 Lance Medlin
On personnel, lower material handling, lower chemical exposure during the hose transfer event and more focus on what you're supposed to be doing right then, which is putting out a large hydrocarbon chemical fire. 

00:20:36 Russell Stewart
Okay, well there you have it folks. We're recording this in June. We're going to try to get it out before July 4th. But that is a drop dead date that's coming up with the epa. But Allie, all of these services in this product you can provide to. You guys are still, you're offering what, early bird discounts? 

00:21:01 Ally Bourgeois
Yes, if you, if you. 

00:21:05 Russell Stewart
Oh, wait a minute. 

00:21:07 Ally Bourgeois
The longer, the longer you wait to dispose of your afff, the harder it's going to be to get on a schedule to dispose of it and the more the price is going to go up and up and up as things do when there's, you know, a demand for a product or a service. If you wait till the last minute, then you're going to pay more. And if you are interested in our product, we highly suggest you reach out now because now is the time to get those discounts. 

00:21:34 Russell Stewart
Okay. And the way to do that is to reach out on, reach out to you on LinkedIn. 

00:21:40 Ally Bourgeois
Yes, we have LinkedIn. We have a website. You can email me at aliatelli-industrial.com actually. 

00:21:48 Lance Medlin
Our, our director of supply chain procurement, Wayne is, is right behind us. Oh, Wayne, can you, can Wayne come on camera real quick? And Wayne joined the company a few months ago and has done such a fantastic job. And it's, it's another case where I like to surround my people myself with people I would hang out with whether I was working with them or not. Like if we can't go get a beer and just hang out, why would I want to spend 13 hours a day with you or 8 hours a day? Wayne and our kids go to the same school and there's super good friends and I've got Josiah over at the house and my son Mason, his son Josiah. They spend every Saturday playing football and, and you know, they're, they're both 12, 13 years old, so half of it wrestling in the grass and playing football just being boys. But I got to know Wayne and his family and then we started talking about synergies in our industry. It's like, man, you got to come join us. And he has just knocked it out of the Clark. So a lot of the market response and marketing and everything is just the brainchild of Wayne. So super glad you're here, man. 

00:22:50 Wayne Leitch
Yeah, definitely. So I'm glad to be here as well, you know, and most of my responsibilities, which are kind of boring but fun at the same time, you know. You know, definitely bringing Together those synergies from different procurement teams who really don't know where to go. And it's not really more of like a regulatory thing for them. Right now what I'm hearing is more operational, like, how are we going to actually do this? How are we going to make this switch from, you know, this bad stuff that we're using to this better things that we heard about and just getting the, getting the word out there that hey, there's a company out there that can actually do this for us. And we, and they can do a one stop shop from, you know, from replacing to cleanup to whatever it is. And based on the public response as far as for what the industry has been saying back to Vitelli and, and what the industry leaders are saying for, you know, this whole phase out deal that's going on, what has been, I guess your major feedback coming back from industry leaders. 

00:23:50 Ally Bourgeois
So one of the things that we're finding is that a lot of companies that rush to replace their toxic AFFF product to meet the deadline have purchased foam that they're unhappy with. It doesn't test well, it doesn't perform like afff and they're kind of just shaking their heads like, now what? The last thing that you want at your facility is a fire to break out and to have to spend double the time to put it out and double the money to put it out. That's one of the things that makes our product superior, is that it performs just as well as afff. So we do have a few customers that are saying we've already purchased and now we're looking to have to purchase again. That's a very expensive purchase that you don't want to have to make twice. So do it right the first time. And if you need some more convincing, we are going to be putting on a controlled burn demo. You can come out, have some barbecue, have a beer, talk to our inventor of the product and watch it in real time how it performs up against our competitors and ask any questions that you want. We're happy to answer anything and help you make the right decision regarding replacing that toxic carcinogenic stuff that nobody wants anything to do with anymore. 

00:25:03 Lance Medlin
So do you have a date for this control Wayne? Can you tell us when, where, how to do it? 

00:25:09 Russell Stewart
Well, that's where, that's where it was coming to you. Okay. 

00:25:13 Ally Bourgeois
Wayne set all that up. So he's the. 

00:25:15 Russell Stewart
Sure, yeah. So how do you, how do they get in on this burnout thing? 

00:25:19 Wayne Leitch
So it's really easy. So right now, so we have A little, small, little poll slash survey on our LinkedIn page. 

00:25:27 Lance Medlin
I'm promoting it. 

00:25:28 Wayne Leitch
It's going to be all over our page, Lance's page, whoever's page connected to this. And so what we're really trying to figure out is, you know, with the leaders, who are agency leaders, procurement teams, whoever is involved in the, in the purchasing process, the decision making process, what are you guys looking for, you know, out of this, you know, if it's, you know, better for on weekends, during the weekdays, you know, what are, what are some constraints that are either holding you back from making the switch and just get gathering more feedback on what's really happening. So right now we have a little like again we have the poll online. You go to our LinkedIn page, fill it out. Very simple stuff. First name, last name, email, phone number, we'll give you a call. If not, we'll see you then. Right now the date is tentative so we're just want more people to give us some more feedback and then we'll be able to set a date and you know, knock back a few beers and drink some, eat some barbecue. 

00:26:28 Russell Stewart
So yeah, there you go folks. So hopefully you've been in the right place at the right time listening to this podcast. Again, I want to thank you guys. 

00:26:38 Lance Medlin
Lance, thanks for having joy. Brian, real joy out of the, out. 

00:26:43 Russell Stewart
Of the picture right now. But Wayne, glad to have you on there as always. Again, thanks for listening. Please post us on LinkedIn. We're probably going to get this video and Lance mentioned the video showing how fast you put the fire out. We're going to probably get that all incorporated in here and then that'll be on the LinkedIn site for Vitali and probably your website too I would say. Think so. Be looking for that. We'll put information about that in the show notes. Tell your friends to listen to us, post us on LinkedIn and we'll see you next time. 

00:27:23 Lance Medlin
Thanks for listening to oggn, the world's largest and most listened to podcast network for the oil and energy industry. If you like this show, leave us a review and then go to oggn.com. 

00:27:34 Russell Stewart
To learn about all our other shows. 

00:27:36 Lance Medlin
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00:27:40 Russell Stewart
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