Brian Zinchuk is editor and owner of Pipeline Online
Andy Mah
Editor’s note: The Saskatchewan Oil and Gas Show is coming soon – and each event sees several people honoured for their contributions to the oilpatch. This year three people will be inducted into the Saskatchewan Oil and Gas Hall of Fame. Pipeline Online will be running biographies on each in the coming weeks. First up is Andy Mah. The oil show takes place June 3-4, with the Hall of Fame inductees being honoured at supper on June 3. You can register for the show and purchase tickets for meals at Oilshow.ca.
Andy Mah grew up in a family business, a quintessential Chinese restaurant in Kipling, Saskatchewan. There he learned to talk to people of all sorts, a skill that would come in handy in his career as an engineer and executive in the oilpatch.
His grandfather, who came to Canada in 1906, bought the Hub Café in Kipling in 1954, identifying the community for its location as divisional point for CN crews between Regina and Brandon. And soon thereafter, the Interprovincial Pipe Line was built through the town, with expansions every decade or so, meaning crews needed to be fed. Andy was born in 1959, and he grew up in that café, helping out from a young age.
Andy enjoyed meeting and talking to these people, from farmers to railwaymen to the pipeliners. “Living, working and growing up in the café was always a lot of fun for me, because I Ioved talking to people and finding out what they did.”
Andy attended the University of Saskatchewan College of Engineering and earned a double degree in chemical engineering and chemistry over the course of five years. He convocated in 1982 and promptly went to work for British Petroleum, or BP. He soon found himself doing field work in Drayton Valley, Fort St. John and Bonnyville. He went through the company’s training program for young engineers, working on drilling, reservoir engineering and production. “I spent a lot of time in the field. You’ve got to swing some wrenches to understand what the heck is going on,” he said.
He worked for BP for 11 Years. It was during this time he met and married Wendy Pallant, originally from Quebec, but now a teacher in Rocky Mountain House and then Calgary. They married in 1988 and had three children – Andrew, Emily and Nathaniel.
In 1983 he was headhunted by Sceptre Resources where he became a manager. There he met Grant Fagerheim, who would become a significant figure in Andy’s life.
“Grant and I left and went to Northrock Resources Ltd. in 1996,” he said. At Northrock he joined the executive team as vice president operations. That company had around 10,000 boepd of production in southeast Saskatchewan.
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In 2000, North Rock sold to Unocal Corporation. Andy stayed on another three years.
It was at that point Grant was putting together Ketch Resources Trust. He called Andy up and asked him to “get over here and help me run it.”
Ketch was a junior exploration company converted into an energy trust. Andy was its president.
But it was the 2006 “Halloween Massacre” that soon spelled the end of energy trusts. They had three years to adjust, and Ketch was merged into Advantage Energy Ltd.
Advantage had 30,000 boepd of production, including at one point about 10,000 boepd in southeast Saskatchewan around Estevan, Lampman, Carlyle and Wawota. It operated several rigs drilling in the region. Around 2016 the company sold its Saskatchewan assets, rolled into Longview Oil Corp., which eventually sold to Surge Energy.
Advantage is now focused principally in the Montney Play. In 2021, Andy retired as president and CEO after 12 years.
Andy loves hunting birds and big game whenever he can. He’s played on a lot of company hockey teams and enjoys cycling. Andy and Wendy’s three children have also found success. Andrew is a geologist with Whitecap. Emily specializes in marketing, and Nathaniel recently retired as a world cup Nordic athlete and now works with Cross Country Skiing Canada.
Andy is a member of the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta (APEGA) and is also a member of the Institute of Corporate Directors.
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