Yangarra Seeing Gains From Uncommon Approach To Oilfield Ser
[url=https://]CEO Interview: Yangarra Seeing Gains From Uncommon Approach To Oilfield Services By Josh Skapin Monday, March 21, 2022, 8:34 AM MDT Print Some of the shrewdest opportunities to invest surface in a downturn. A chance Jim Evaskevich, president and chief executive officer of Yangarra Resources Ltd., took during the COVID-19 pandemic is giving the company a leg-up today. About five years ago, deciding it would be prudent for the company to move its own liquid, Yangarra took the first steps toward starting its own oilfield services group. “We added a few pieces [at that time],” Evaskevich told the DOB. “But two years ago, we really got into it.” “Given the circumstances around COVID, we saw an opportunity to buy a bunch of equipment at favourable prices,” said Evaskevich. “I think we went to 10 Ritchie Bros. sales in a row. And we were big purchasers, typically paying 15 to 25 cents on the dollar for the equipment. “The other half of it, just as important, was being able to hire high-quality operators,” he added. “The industry was so slow and so many people got laid off. Our operations are around Rocky Mountain House and we have a good -sized shop just out of town, so we knew that we were a pretty attractive employer. We just needed to get the word out to folks in the area.” The company bolstered its fleet considerably and upped its employee count in this area from about 35 to 60. It now runs about 30 big trucks and has approximately 130 pieces of related equipment. Eliminating the waiting period Yangarra works with a drilling contractor, fracking company, and cementing company. Largely, everything else is handled in-house. “Right now, you are seeing a lot of my peers waiting,” Evaskevich said. “I was out in the field three weeks ago and a steamer vac truck, you simply couldn’t get one. And the good news for my team was, we own two of them. “We are able to prioritize what’s most important, but we are always able to get services because they work for us.” The cost and time savings, going this route, are significant, said Evaskevich, adding Yangarra has always been a “low-cost operator.” “I called it two years ago when I saw this thing developing, when we come out the other side and try to run 250 to 300 rigs in Alberta, my opinion was: it wouldn’t just be about it costing you too much — which it will and is — it would be simply, could you get somebody to do the job that you needed done? We just don’t have those challenges.” In addition to improved access to services, Yangarra’s approach offers management relief. The company’s oilfield services group is exclusive to its own projects, making the personnel well-versed on every aspect of the job. “You don’t have to describe it to [them], they know exactly the task at hand,” Evaskevich said. “They are connected by radio and telephone, know everybody in the company, and so what we’re finding now, after a couple of years of a lot of work getting it organized, it’s really simple. “You don’t have to explain. Supervision is a lot less of an issue.” The company’s ability to add multi-skilled team members has been another advantage. “What we found was … having these quality employees that are really able to do a whole lot of different jobs,” Evaskevich said. “Not long ago, one of our fellows went from a combo truck in the morning to a winch truck in the afternoon and by the end of his day he was driving a Super-B hauling clean oil to a terminal.” Evaskevich, who has experience in the field, earlier in his career managing production for Penn West Petroleum Ltd., calls his company’s approach to oilfield services a “pretty unique situation.” “The outcome has been really good,” he added. If it wasn’t, Yangarra was set up to mitigate risk. “We had a lot of cover obviously by being able to buy the equipment so cheap,” said Evaskevich. “Our strategy was, if we didn’t really like the way it worked out, we could always just sell the equipment into a better market.”[/url]