The Company:
Edge Liability Risk Management, founded in 2016, is a firm that specializes in managing oil and gas environmental liabilities, with a focus on risk assessment. Edge’s industry-leading solutions allow operators to realize higher sale multiples on properties and unlock deals for properties that were once seen as unsellable.
The Achievement:
Edge Liability Risk Management was founded on one basic principle – how to incentivize oil and gas operators to do more abandonments and reclamations.
This was the question that CEO and co-founder Lex Ewen, P.Eng. asked himself while involved with his first company Entrack Consulting Ltd. Lex co-founded Entrack, a firm that specializes in turnkey abandonment solutions downhole work all the way through to the reclamation certificate.
The inventory of inactive wells was growing, but capital deployment to abandonment and reclamation activities was not following suit.
“With depressed commodity prices and no regulatory push, we needed to find a way to incentivize operators to accelerate the number of abandonments and reclamations they perform annually,” Ewen said.
With the large volume of inactive wells in Western Canada (more than 26,000 in Saskatchewan and more than 80,000 in Alberta, at the time), along with the pending Redwater Energy ruling, it was clear that an industry solution was needed. Thus, the Edge model was born.
The Edge model allows operators to transfer their liabilities to Edge for the cost of abandonment and reclamation. It can help clients shed environmental liability and provide cost certainty to abandonment and reclamation programs.
However, with such a specialized model comes an equally specialized challenge.
“We knew that if we were going to be a company that only owned inactive wells, we would need a robust risk management program – one that far exceeded anything seen in traditional oil and gas risk assessment,” Ewen said.
The Team:
Lex Ewen, P.Eng – CEO at Edge
A University of Regina graduate in petroleum engineering, Ewen is a former manager at Rand Oil where he consulted on a number of oil and water flood projects. His first company, Entrack Consulting Ltd., is a firm that specializes in turnkey abandonment solutions.
John Styles, P.Eng, FEC – Chairman
Styles is a professional engineer with more than 30 years experience in the oil and gas industry. Styles evaluates the model from a practical point of view. The two met at the University of Regina where Styles taught Evaluation of Oil and Gas Properties for 4th year engineering students.
Ed Dancsok, P.Eng., P.Geo.
Dansock boasts more than 37 years experience in the oil and gas sector. Ed is the former head regulator and Assistant Deputy Minister of the Saskatchewan Ministry of Energy and Resources. As the Energy Assistant Deputy Minister, Ed demonstrated leadership in the promotion, development and regulation of the oil and gas industry in Saskatchewan.
Bryan Sigurdson, FSA, FCIA – Chief Risk Officer
Sigurdson has more than 40 years experience in insurance and risk management. Bryan is the former Chief Actuary and Chief Risk Officer of Co-operators.
Greg Sawchenko, B.Comm – VP Business Development
Greg has more than 20 years of experience in oil and gas land management and negotiations. Prior to joining Edge, Greg was the VP of Land for Baytex Energy.