I’ve always liked to get into opportunities that weren’t obvious, but had sound business underpinning and a great model to it,” says Massimo Geremia, the President and CEO of Manitok Energy Inc. From his early career in the financial industry, through to real estate, and now the energy market, Geremia has an uncanny ability to see a lot of opportunity where others may not and then take the risk and cultivate its hidden value. “It doesn’t matter the industry. I understand the metrics that are required to drive the value and what is required to bring in the capital.” And in 2008, Geremia took his own risk, drove value, and brought in capital to start Manitok Energy. Starting out as a private company, producing only 250 barrels of oil per day (BOD), to going public in July 2010 and now producing over 5,000 BOD today, Geremia, along with his team, have seen their success in quiet opportunities not apparent to others.

Massimo Geremia,
President, CEO & Co-founder, Manitok Energy Inc.

We get a little bit ahead of the curve in the sense that

we’re trying to find the pool before everybody else wants to participate.



“Many companies like to buy an existing producing asset, then go develop it for additional production, whereas we prefer an exploration phase on lands that haven’t been fully explored or exploited. Being the grass roots, if we get in early, we create a lot of value as we did with our Stolberg Discovery. We get a little bit ahead of the curve in the sense that we’re trying to find the pool before everybody else wants to participate. And once you find the pool and get that first bit of production out of it and take the risk out of it, then there’s many groups that would like to buy that asset and develop it further.”

Geremia guides Manitok to explore land where there’s not a lot of competition and may not yet be popular. He evaluates, takes the smart risk, and then creates the conditions he wants with underexploited and underexplored land. He surrounds himself with the technical people who understand the land they’re going into who will properly evaluate it, and then cultivate it.

Seeing opportunity and taking a risk has kept Manitok growing and becoming a leader in the ex-ploration world. It’s Geremia’s willingness to take risk, see this risk through to the end, and make sure to reduce the volatility involved by always ensuring Manitok has enough capital for the project they are on.