Estevan – Sun Country Well Servicing workers were busy in the shop getting another rig ready to go out into the field. But like pretty much every other service rig company Pipeline News has spoken to recently, the company could use a few more hands.
It’s a sign things are picking up a bit, as that had been parked for quite a while.
Phil Amosah is area manager at Sun Country Well Servicing in Estevan. On Oct. 24 he noted, “We’re doing well. As a company, we’ve been pretty fortunate over the past year. We’ve been doing okay. But as for finding good, quality people, yeah, it’s limited. People are kind of afraid to get back in the oil and gas industry.
The Estevan-based company has 11 service rigs. They should have ten operational, he said, but they have enough staff for eight. “We had a few pieces of equipment sitting around we couldn’t crew up,” he explained.
They’ve been advertising via different channels, including letting people know they are hiring during Estevan Bruins game intermissions. “That’s our ad. It’s all about hiring.”
“It’s still the entry-level people that we need, it’s the derrickhands and floorhands. And even some of the more experience people have turned. Maybe they’re going trucking, or something they can consistently count on, so they’re not coming back. They’re not coming back to service rigs, in general.”
“We haven’t had the opportunity to have as much equipment moving as we’ve had this past year. This past year, we’ve had the most strenuous portion because the opportunities are rising which oil companies who are settling in, knowing what they’re doing with oil prices. They know their lifting costs. So now they’re going to get into the portion where we’re going to do this amount of work.”
Their fleet is spread out between five different companies. “That’s why I think we’ve been a little more successful than some of the other guys who put all their eggs in one basket,” he said. If one company shuts down for a while, there can be opportunities with the other clients, as an example.
Drilling has been sporadic with the weather this past year, but they have been doing completions. As for workovers, he said, “If it makes sense, economically. I think the procurement groups are pretty good at figuring that out.”
“We’re hoping it freezes, and it freezes hard. We can’t get on half of these locations, still.”
Some areas had eight inches of rain. “It’s out of commission. You can’t get there. One of our major customers has a huge, huge amount of locations under water. You can’t get on there with a one-ton truck and a four-wheel drive. You can’t expect a service rig or a tank truck to get on there. They were shutting wells in, not being able to haul fluid.
“In November, we’ll have freeze-up, sooner or later.”
“I think a lot of our customers have a lot of wells they couldn’t get to. That’s going to cause a lot of urgency to get these wells online,” he said.
The downturn hit most oilfield service companies hard, with a substantial hit on the rates the charge the oil companies. Amosah said their vendor rates are coming back, a bit at a time, but they’re still down quite a bit. What gains they do get, they pass on to the workers’ salaries as they can.
You can still make a decent living on a service rig. “Absolutely. If you get on a rig that’s consistent, it’s still a good career. It’s a good profession.”
Typical hours
“Since the downturn, the oil companies are very accommodating,” he said. When oil was US$120 per barrel, there was a large push from the oil companies for long days. But now, he said, “It’s a lot more family friendly – 10 hours a day, five days a week, in some cases. Some of our oil companies had a 10 and 4 schedule for the entire summer. They organized that themselves. We got an email saying this rig will be down for this four day period, and they consistently got the other 10 days to go to work. It made it nice for the guys to enjoy their summer, and go on holidays.
“Maybe they’re not going to Hawaii, but they’re tenting with their families.”
Young men with good salaries often have eyes for big trucks and fast toys. But Amosah warns them, “Road bans are slow. Please don’t go buy anything fancy. Don’t buy a toy.”
It may not be a doctor’s salary, but you can make a nice living, and provide for your family and have a nice house. It might not be a $100,000 truck but you can have a nice vehicle in the driveway, he said.
Regarding additional hands, he said, “We probably need another half-dozen. We’re still trying to accommodate guys with the time off. Due to the standard of living people have been accustomed to, with scheduled time off, they want time off. They want time with their families. So we do try to accommodate that as much as possible. We try to have a sixth hand for every other rig. For us, that’s four extra guys to rotate through, from experienced guys to relief.
“Yeah, if we had half a dozen, we’d be in great shape.”
