Bonnyville – It was fitting that Timberwolf Environmental Services Ltd. featured a stress ball contest at its booth during the Bonnyville & District Oil Show.
Just about everyone who stopped by the booth squeezed a ball or two hoping to ease the pain of the downturn in the oilfield and win an iPad 3 mini by guessing the number of balls in the container.
For brothers Reg and Real Rivard who co-own Timberwolf, relief from the downturn is coming from their strategy to diversify.
“Diversify and provide more services,” is Reg’s answer to keeping busy.
Timberwolf, based in Bonnyville, specializes in secondary containment, lease cleanups and lease and well abandonments, but it is morphing into an A-to-Z lease services provider.
The company serves clients from Manitoba to British Columbia.
“We work all over the place,” said Reg who rattled off a full list of their lease maintenance offerings and activities for Pipeline News readers.
“We do secondary containment services, lease clean up, lease mowing, snow removal and sanding, hot shots and picker services, lease/well abandonments, vegetation spraying, Bobcat services, water pumping, gravel hauling, erosion control and labour crews.”
The company added vegetation lease spraying to its mix of services with spraying underway in the region the week of the oil show held June 17-18, at the Centennial Centre.
Previously, Timberwolf launched a lease mowing service as they continue on a deliberate diversification path.
“Absolutely, you can’t have all your eggs in one basket and you can’t always rely on new construction to keep your business going,” said Real.
“You have to diversify. We find that maintenance is the way to go there.”
“We’re getting into vegetation control and we’re hoping to do more of that in the years to come. It’s a good opportunity.
“There are not that many people who do it and we are pretty much the only local company that does it.”
Real explained that vegetation spraying prevents weeds that grow on lease sites from spreading onto farmer’s fields.
“It’s a relationship that oil companies have to develop and maintain with the agriculture side of it so the weeds do not spread and they are maintained,” he said.
Real signed up a time slot in the oilmen’s room, a reverse networking opportunity thatenables exhibitors to make face-to-face contacts with decision makers from the area’s top producing companies.
This year’s oilmen’s room participants were Husky Energy, Canadian Natural Resources, Devon, Osum Oil Sands and Imperial Oil.
“It was good. I was hoping to make different contacts with new companies and provide them with the services we provide, and, hopefully have a long term lasting relationship with them,” said Real.
“It’s tougher right now for sure. We’re hoping that the economy does come back up, but in times like this you have to go after every little chance you get.”
“We’ll get through it,” added Reg, who was glad to be a part of the oil show to generate new business.
“Maybe, there’s some people who aren’t aware of what we do – exposure, right? You never know who you might run into.”
Timberwolf was launched in 2011, and has grown to about 15 employers for year-round lease maintenance work.
“It’s been good. We’re four years in now so we’re still a young company, but we’ve come a long ways in four years and hope to continue to grow,” said Real.
Timberwolf has everything from dump trucks and Bobcats to tractors and mowers and water pumps for its lease work.
“We do road sanding, too. We’re just trying to get into more things that will keep us moving,” said Real, who gripped a stress ball in his hand for a photo op.
