What Makes Companies Succeed? The Waterford Energy Plan

Blair MacDougall is a Senior Consultant and Director of Waterford Energy. Having worked with companies such as ExxonMobil, Chevron, EnCana, Marathon and Devon on both development projects and exploration campaigns, Blair took the entrepreneurial plunge to create Waterford Energy Services. Having experience working around the globe Waterford Energy Services was a single person operation but has grown to a global consulting company specializing in well construction, geology, subsea and QAQC services in over a dozen countries. MacDougall was also a former accredited Surface and Subsea Well Control instructor with IADC.

MacDougall is inspired by growth and it’s challenges, he says, “Working with people and solving problems in a pragmatic and cost effective manner while minimizing environmental impact and ensuring safety of people involved, is what we live for. Our business has slowed thus far in 2015 compared to previous years. But rather than this being negative, it makes us focus on being more efficient, cut unnecessary costs, work with our clients to share the new reality and still meet our objectives of solving problems on the projects we work on. It’s also forcing us to be versatile, seeking innovative ways to do work and projects that we may not have tried to do a year or so ago.”

Waterford Energy, in addition to global projects, remains committed to projects in Eastern Canada with Suncor, Shell, Husky, Hebron, Emera Maritime Link and Nalcor. They have also expanded and diversified, providing services for organizations that are not traditional oil and gas operators such as government agencies.

MacDougall explains where he sees the opportunities in the future of Eastern Canada, “In Eastern Canada, the existing developments and infrastructure are aging and the maintenance and repairs required to keep them running safely offers opportunities to WESI to apply our broad knowledge and collaborate with clients. Whether its subsea interventions, well abandonments, hardware refurbishments or the like, these are exciting and challenging opportunities.

Blair MacDougall – Senior Consultant and Director, Waterford Energy

“For new developments to become a reality, especially in the current environment, a new level of cooperation between government, operators and the supply community is needed. Where existing facilities are in place, opportunities to add tie-backs and new developments must be embraced. Incentives from a royalty or tax perspective, encouraging facility expansion, should not be off the table. Once facilities are abandoned, they cannot be recovered and so the region loses an essential “enabler”. It’s up to stakeholders, such as industry associations for example, to be a strong voice in any discussion related to facility expansion or decommissioning
in particular.”

And then there is the exploration side. Likened to that of North West Africa Eastern Canada and North Atlantic could be the next big frontier. MacDougall says, “On the exploration side, initiatives such as those being undertaken by Nalcor to “de-risk” the subsurface should be applauded and encouraged. But we cannot be complacent. Combined with financial incentives to attract investment, activities such as these allow the region to put their best subsurface prospects forward, reducing front end screening work for oil and gas companies. It also allows the public a means to ensure that exploration licences are obtained at a price proportional to the prospectivity of the land.”

The process to bring in new drilling units, foreign flagged supply vessels and seismic vessels to the area should always be examined for improvements, eliminating steps that may not add value and making interfaces between government agencies and certifying authorities more efficient. This is an area where Waterford Energy has a great deal of experience and value to add to clients now and in the future.

Newfoundland and Labrador as well as Nova Scotia, have a highly skilled and trained workforce, a by-product of the last ten years of prosperity in the industry, in Newfoundland in particular. The workforce will not be a constant however if new projects can’t join the queue. So maintaining momentum with this in mind will be another key for continued future success.

MacDougall looks to the future, “When the current business climate improves, we hope to be very well positioned. We want to continue our base services in the region as well as our international projects. We have recently grown to add QAQC services in the last year and-a-half and have been very successful to date largely due to the very good people we have in this area, such as Peter Adams. We want to continue to grow our Subsea Division lead by David Day and Barry Boland which we are now three years into the formal establishment of Waterford Subsea. Our offices in Halifax and St. John’s have grown considerably over the last few years, led by General Manager Kerri Best.

We have very strong partnerships with a few global companies which complement our strengths and allow us to pursue work that we could not on our own. We have some new services for clients such as subsea equipment fabrication and Finite Element Analysis with a major project ongoing in that field for a client in Houston. New product and service announcements will be made in the next few months that will be very exciting as well.

“In the community, we try to be as active as we can. We have worked with organizations such as Choices for Youth, Momma Moments, Mya’s Mission, Hockey Heroes charity for the Heart and Stroke Foundation and have been a regular supporter of Minor Sport programs. This year we plan to participate in Coats for Kids. We have a strong relationship with universities in the area and have hired coop work term students from the engineering program at MUN and this year hired a graduate from the Dalhousie Engineering Program.”

In this era, it takes a savvy entrepreneurial spirit to succeed and a strong team to continue success, especially in today’s environment – One of resilience, creativity and openness to new and diverse opportunities. MacDougall says he owes it to his co-workers and his heritage, “My parents were small business owners, operating a plumbing and heating business from our front porch. My parent’s parents moved from their homes in the Codroy Valley and Inverness to the coal mining area of Cape Breton in order to work, so I feel strong connection to them and
I believe that spirit is in all of us.”