Estevan– Not many people would get into the oilfield services business as the worst downturn in the industry in decades took hold, but the new owners of Pride Upkeep did just that last year, and are now preparing for their second year in the field.
Estevan-based Pride Upkeep had been owned by Nathan and Barb Dunford, and based on their farm just north of the city.
In May 2015, it was purchased by Dustin Ng and his brother-in-law Brant Kersey.
“We control vegetation on oilfield sites,” said Ng on Feb. 8. “We go lease-to-lease and spray herbicides. On organic land, we weed-whip and mow.”
Asked about buying into an oilfield business during the middle of a downturn, Ng said, “I was crazy enough to want to work on my own, for myself. We just felt like we were open to a change.”
Prior to that he had spent the last two years working with a local insurance firm. And before that, Ng spent several years day trading, something he still does during the off-season from spraying.
Both Ng and Kersey have long ties to the newspaper industry, as Ng’s family had owned and operated the Estevan Mercury for decades and continued to do so after its sale to Glacier Media. Ng has done a little bit of everything in that business, including layout for this newspaper for several years.
Kersey has spent most of his career in newspapers, and was publisher of Pipeline News and Estevan Mercury until the end of February 2016, when he left to pursue operation of Pride full-time. (He had taken several months off in 2015 during their summer spraying season.)
In keeping with Pride’s roots, it is still a family operation. Ng’s wife Mel, and his sister (and Kersey’s wife) Jennifer, are both involved in the administration aspect of the company. When it’s possible for a team of sprayers to visit nearly 100 wells in a day, there’s a lot of paperwork involved, tracking what work has been done for which company. “It’s quite extensive, actually,” he said.
“It’s a family business,” Ng said. Indeed, the previous owners are cousins of Dustin and Jennifer.
For their first year in operation, the Dunfords assisted and mentored the new owners.
“They stayed on for a full season, mentored and trained us on their method,” he said. “It was nice to have. They operated as a team. Now we will. We were very fortunate to have a great deal of training and expertise throughout the entire 2015 season. We learned a lot.”
Ng said their second year in business is “just getting rolling now.”
The very nature of the work is seasonal. But lining up work begins early in the year, long before spring breakup. “I’ll begin the process of contacting our customers in February and March,” he said.
Getting into the lease maintenance business was a big change for Ng, who had spent his entire working career in offices.
“I’ve always had a desire to work outside and be out and about, but life never took me in that direction,” he said. “I was always an office guy.”
So, when he started spraying for a living, he got bugged a bit about “Finally putting in an honest day’s work,” with muddy boots and rubber gloves at the end of the day.
The job itself is very physically demanding. Ng characterized it as “extremely long days, extremely weather-dependent, and naturally, seasonal.”
Sixteen-hour days are common. A typical day they are at the shop by 5 a.m. and head out to locations within a 200-kilometre drive of Estevan. They are out on sites until either wind or lack of sunlight shuts them down. If the wind dies down in the evening, they head out again.
Pride currently operates three units, each with two people. Most of the work is done by using very long hoses from their trucks and walking all over the lease, spraying. It’s a tremendous amount of walking, but it’s a lot quicker than loading and unloading a quad at every site. The net result is they literally can cover more ground in a day. Last year, Barb Dunford’s team visited a whopping 109 sites in one day. Ng’s highest was in the high 90s.
For the formerly office-bound Ng, “It was an eye-opener, for sure,” he said.
“Crazy hours were something I wasn’t used to, but I was excited for. After 12 days of great weather and 14-hour days, I found myself hoping for some wind.
“Last year, the weather was really good.”
The biggest challenge for Ng was in understanding the demands of oilfield work. “I didn’t have any background in labour,” he said.
But by the end of the season, he had lost at least 15 pounds.
With oil prices in February plumbing the lowest depths seen in 13 years, what impact will that have on Pride?
“We are affected like all the services have been. I try not to dwell on it, just do the best you can with what’s available. We always need to remember everyone’s in the same boat. This isn’t a Pride downturn. It’s an oil downturn. It’s the whole town. We’re in it together.
“Keep your head down and focus on quality. That’s all we can do,” he said.
