It’s interesting how the current state of the patch can often be referred to as “trying” and “difficult” times. The fact is, like so many of the readers who are reading the beginning of this article and are emphatically saying aloud, “Yeah, no shit!,”

Many of us have unfortunately been through the industry downturns before. I don’t have the stats to support this thought, but to me, this one feels more negatively impactful right here in Alberta, particularly in Calgary, than the others seemed to be. This is why I wanted to share my thoughts in this Oilfield PULSE issue when I was approached by Oilfield HUB/ Leadstone Group to do so.

Despite the very sobering current reality of our industry, our group at Evolution Oil Tools is determined to make the most of the situation. Going into 2015, we came to the conclusion we had to focus on what can help us survive, and perhaps even thrive, in a tough market place. In addition to doing what every oil and gas industry related company has done in 2015, which is to control and limit our expenses, our focus became the question, “What are we able to do?” The answers to this question were:

• We are diversified in selling to both domestic and international markets. We can determine where there is activity/projects occurring, and it is within our typical business model to sell our products into those regions. Our customer base is vast, with a global footprint, so we needed to take advantage of that.

• We are diversified in the project stage our products can be utilized in, which is new completions and re-completions, enhancement/optimization of production, and well abandonments. This allows us to look for projects occurring in those different stages of the well and accommodate them.

• Prior to 2015, we had worked very hard at lowering our COG and strengthening our manufacturing and supply chain. This put us in a position to be very price competitive in this current market.

• We can and have further developed our product offering by adding larger and more market viable sizes to existing product lines and by designing and introducing new products to the industry. We are listening to the problems out there and offering product solutions.

I’m very pleased to report these strategy points have allowed us to gain market share this year! Although overall industry volumes are most certainly down, we have proven market share gain is possible. This has allowed us to not only survive but has positioned Evolution to achieve record revenues when activity levels return. And guess what? We’ll gladly take that!

For what it is worth, if I had any business advice to give to business owners and managers right now in this industry, it would be to simply break it down to what you can control within your own business. None of us can control the oil and gas industry activity levels, and we certainly can’t control the commodity prices, but we can, however, identify what our business is capable of doing and how that can pertain to finding work in the current market state. It might be focusing more intently on something we already do well, or it may be the willingness to be flexible with our business model. Perhaps, it is a change to how, where, or with whom we typically conduct our business that can be the solution.

I recently had a chat with our majority owner and I was informing him we had hired on a new sales representative in the U.S. I was also outlining some “outside of the box” thinking regarding contingency plans going forward. While I was presenting these business decisions and plans to him, he could see me almost questioning myself as I was sharing the information. His comment to me at that point was, “These decisions and contingency plans don’t bother me whatsoever. Doing nothing at all would really bother me!”