Estevan– Turnbull Excavating of Estevan only has about one quarter of its business in the oilpatch, but it has still felt the downturn over the last year. As such, the company has done a few things to broaden its horizons.
The first was doing exactly that – broadening their horizons. “We’re working away from home, further than ever,” said Ed Turnbull, owner, on Oct. 8.
“We’re bidding 200 kilometres away,” he said. Before, that distance has never been over 100 kilometres.
That resulted in landing three rail projects, the third of which was expected to be completed Thanksgiving weekend. They involved earthwork, compaction, aggregate and ballast.
“We built some rail sidings right from scratch,” he said.
“We’ve worked for rail for 15 years, but never did siding jobs before.”
Overall, business has been slower than it was prior to 2008, he noted. Over the years they have been steady right through, but there was a spike in 2011-2013 when they were very busy.
“Last year started slowing down,” he said.
During that time, there’s been plenty of other companies coming to the region.
“We’re overrun with services,” he said. “We’re talking about heavy equipment, gravel, earth work. We’re just overrun. Every company has expanded as if there was always going to be a boom. All of a sudden, bang! It’s reality time.”
“Everyone went on a limb, thinking this boom’s really good. Let’s go out and expand our companies. All the new companies moved into this area because of our Bakken oil boom.”
Despite the downturn, Turnbull Excavating has been able to keep its staff. There was a layoff last winter, he noted, when things didn’t look good and they were slow. But they were called back. As for this winter, he said, “I don’t think it’ll be busy. Most of the stuff is seasonal. We’ll do whatever we need to to keep our employees.”
Rentals
With a slow year expected bringing with that, idle equipment, Turnbull started offering rentals last spring.
“We’ve had some dozers, rock trucks, compactors (rented out). There’s no point in having it sit,”
Those who are renting this equipment are often the small outfits that have work, but have light equipment, not heavy equipment. “Guys with a BobCat, they’re some of my best customers,” he said. “They take on work, and bigger things come their way, so they need some rental equipment, somebody to haul some gravel for them or do an excavation.
“When I started, all I had was a BobCat, so when I look at those guys, they’re making a living with their skid-steer. I don’t consider them competition. They’re customers, more than anything for us. We sell them some aggregate, rent them some stuff, and it works out as a win-win for both,” he said.
The venture has apparently been beneficial, as Turnbull said he was going to add a few items specifically for rental.
“We just got our feet into it,” he said.
Excited about the Estevan bypass: Turnbull
The need for a bypass around Estevan has been something Ed Turnbull of Turnbull Excavating has wanted for a long, long time. So much so, that a few years ago he “voted with his feet,” as it were, and relocated the entire operation from the west side of Estevan to the east side. A prime consideration in the move was reducing the amount of time his trucks would spend going back and forth through Estevan.
The new location is near the eastern end of the new bypass, just off Shand Road. That provides easy access.
“We’re pretty excited about it,” Turnbull said.
On average, they have more than 100 truck trips a day going through Estevan.
“Once we’re on the bypass, we can get west on Highway 39, saving time and being safer doing it.
“The biggest concern is the intersection at Highway 47,” he said, adding traffic lights would be the answer.
“We do go north a lot. It makes north and west an improvement for us, as well as traffic coming from the north.”
He personally lives on an acreage just off the northeast corner of the bypass. There’s been plenty of traffic over the years using the backroads past his place to avoid going through Estevan. In wet weather, they’d still go down those roads, despite the damage it caused. The bypass should hopefully put an end to that.
