Company shares success with Aboriginal partners

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"This whole company is dedicated to the Aboriginal partnerships. We don't do anything else," said Eldon McDougald, president and CEO of Western Lakota Energy Services Ltd.

The Calgary-based company, which builds and operates drilling rigs, currently operates five rigs and will soon have two more up and running. Each of the rigs represents a partnership between Western Lakota and an Aboriginal community.

Ownership of four of the rigs is split 50/50 between Western Lakota and the Dene Tha' First Nation. The fifth is a 50/50 partnership with Saddle Lake First Nation. Partnership negotiations for the two new rigs have yet to been finalized, but those will also involve partnerships with Aboriginal communities or organizations.

The company operates another rig, owned 100 per cent by the Metis Nation of Alberta.

The main reason Western Lakota has chosen to partner with Aboriginal communities in all of its operations is to bring economic opportunities to those communities, McDougald explained.

"All our rigs are working out in northwest Alberta, northeast B.C. And we're working right in the communities. So there's no reason why the communities shouldn't benefit from ownership of the equipment and participating in the employment," he said.

"A lot of these drilling companies are owned by large investment companies, and the benefits of ownership are flowing to Chicago, New York, California, wherever. And what we've started is a locally owned company that partners with the communities, and the benefits of ownership, of course, flow directly back into the community. So they participate directly in the economic benefit of the drilling and exploration."

In turn, Western Lakota also reaps benefits from the partnerships.

"We get to do some profitable business and we access a tremendously capable and energetic workforce," he said.

"Part of the problem that the drilling industry has is a shortage of people, working people. And we've found the First Nations communities and the Aboriginal associations just to have a tremendous amount of young people that want to work on the rigs and are willing to take the training required and get the certificates and work up through the company. And it would be my vision that they would become managers and possibly owners down the road of an operation like this."

The oil companies involved with Western Lakota also benefit from the arrangements, McDougald said, pointing out a recent article in the Daily Oil Bulletin that stated that Western Lakota's rigs are drilling 40 per cent faster than other rigs in the oil patch.

"Our rigs are the leaders in the industry. So they're saving money on drilling wells. And they're also improving their community relations by these partnerships."

"When they go out there, they've got something to talk about and they can talk about the benefits that are flowing back into the community. So that really works for the oil company," Eldon McDougald.

Western Lakota has been operating since 1991, and in that time has done a lot of work to build relationships with Aboriginal communities.

Those communities, in turn, have responded very positively to the idea of partnering with the company.

"I find the leadership of the communities really want to do the right things for economic development and sustainability, and at the same time, they want to create employment and opportunities for their members. So the leadership overall is very positive and receptive to this sort of development," McDougald said.

While the company is currently concentrating on firming up partnership agreements for its sixth and seventh oil rigs, in the long term, McDougald expects Western Lakota will be building and operating many more rigs and developing many more successful partnerships.

"As long as there's partners out there that want to partner with us, and there's oil companies that see the benefits of these partnerships, we're going to keep builing more rigs."