Estevan – Prairie Hot Shot Ltd. started operations in Estevan on Sept. 1.
The outfit is a three-way partnership of Alyshia Rae, Todd Adams and Dustin Mack. They have four trucks and five trailers.
Rae said she handles the office, but also drives hotshot and pulls trailers when she has to.
Hotshot services are “so competitive,” she noted on Oct. 31.
When the downturn really took hold in December 2014, hotshots some of the hardest hits to the rates oil companies were willing to pay.
There’s been a slight recovery in rates in the last year in the hotshot business, according to Rae. If oil hits US$60 per barrel, she’s hoping those rates will recover some more.
Asked if the time is right to launch a new business, she said, “I can’t say this is necessarily the right time to make money in the oilfield, but there’s still work out there. It’s a good time to get our name out.”
There are four main hotshot operations in town, Rae explained, and a number of one-man, one-truck outfits.
She’s worked several years with another hotshot company, managing it since 2014. This fall she decided to go on her own. She’s known Adams for many years. Adams once had his own trucking outfit, and he knew Mack, Rae explained. Adams and Rae are with it full-time, while Mack helps out when he’s not working with another oilfield company.
The work includes running items out to drilling rigs and service rigs, but they’ve also found work outside the oilpatch. That includes moving tractors for farmers or equipment for farm implement dealers. They have even picked up campers. “We’re going to Manitoba tomorrow,” she said in that regard.
“In this economy, you can’t just be for the oilfield. You have to open all doors, and do what you can to get the work.”
They started out with the trucks they had. “We all brought personal vehicles in,” she said. They added one used truck and picked up two new pintle-hitch trailers, necessary for service rig work.
Insurance, she said, is considerable, adding it was “more than I thought it would be.”
For 2018, she said, “I’m forecasting drilling will go up in January. We will hopefully be flat out with that.”
Rae said, “We will be hiring before January. We’re hoping we’re going to be busy.”
They store drilling tools for customers at their shop, just east of Estevan.
There’s always service rig work going on, as well.
