WEYBURN - Paul Cheung was born in Hong Kong, came to Canada at the age of 17 as a student and has become a leader for the southeast Saskatchewan oilpatch over the years.
Cheung was enshrined as a Southeast Sask Legend at the Saskatchewan Oil and Gas Show in Weyburn earlier this month.
According to his bio, in 1978, Cheung went to work for Gulf Oil in Calgary as a geologist. From there, he worked with two smaller oil companies before launching his own oil company, Grand Bow Petroleum, in 1984. The firm's wells were located in southeast Saskatchewan.
"I started the company in August 1984 with very little money – enough money to drill one well. I spread that money into a small percentage in many, many wells. The first well I drilled was in Halbrite," he said in his bio.
The late Merlin Skjonsby had a substantial influence on Cheung's future affairs, as Skjonsby handled Cheung's operations until 2006, when Cheung stopped drilling.
The second well was at Steelman, leading to many more Frobisher A wells in that area. After 30 years of operation, Grand Bow is in the process of abandoning its last wells.
In 1989, Cheung started a public oil company called Alliance Energy, which has been drilling wells in southeast Saskatchewan, with an occasional well in southwest Saskatchewan.
"I have either operated or participated in over 200 wells," he said.
In 1997, he went to China for the first time and wound up forming a company, Advance Drilling, with the Chinese National Petroleum Company (CNPC), Over the next six years it grew to a 10-rig company.
The CNPC and Cheung were 50/50 partners in Advance. CNPC wanted 100 per cent ownership, so they decided to split Advance, with the CNPC carrying on with five rigs through Great Wall Drilling and Cheung and Canadian shareholders forming a new company, Alliance Drilling, with the other five rigs.
By the end of 2001, Cheung was very well known in China's oilpatch as a result of the drilling rig company. Twice a year he travelled to China for board of directors meetings and financial reporting to the shareholders.
Six years after the start of Advance came the formation of a service rig company. Tim Huber, Brian Crossman and Jerry Mehler approached Cheung about partnering in the formation of a service rig company.
Cheung recalled that they had never met before, but the partners were familiar with his involvement in Advance and asked if he could help them set up this new service rig company.
Independent Well Servicing was launched in 2003 and grew to a fleet of 10 rigs. Cheung noted he's been the president of these two companies in Saskatchewan – Alliance and IWS – but "they are so efficient. I don't have to do anything. I just deal with things like, do we need to buy or build another rig?"
The two companies work side by side and share a yard and office in Estevan.
The Chinese introduced him to a new pumpjack, the HG jack, which uses 25 per cent less energy than a conventional straight walking beam jack. That was enough of a difference to be successful in this application.
Two such jacks were sent from China, and the late Mel Grimes with Grimes Sales and Service was dealing in used pumpjacks, so Cheung asked Grimes to inspect the pumpjacks.
"So, I got the two jacks, and put them on the wells at Carlyle with this little single-phase motor. We tripled our volume, our oil production with that same little motor. So that told us it does use less energy."
These days, Skjonsby's son Merlin is looking after Alliance Drilling and winding down Grand Bow, abandoning its last wells. IWS is going steady, with another generation coming into management there, as Tim Huber's son, Jason, is involved.
"I'm 70 years old, and three years ago I decided I will move back to Hong Kong where I was born. And so I'm living in Hong Kong, officially and I spend about little over half a year in Hong Kong. And I spent a little bit less than half a year in Canada," said Cheung.
