Brian Zinchuk is editor and owner of Pipeline Online
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 six people have been named as “Southeast Saskatchewan Legends,” including two posthumously. Pipeline Online will be running biographies on each in the coming weeks. Next up is Ken Cugnet, who passed away in 2014. The oil show takes place June 3-4, with the Legends being honoured at the noon luncheon on June 3. You can register for the show and purchase tickets for meals at Oilshow.ca.
Ken Cugnet’s love affair with the oil business began when he was 8 years old with the drilling of the Weyburn Unit discovery well on the neighbouring farm in 1954. The consultant on that rig became a bit of a hero to Ken and his twin brother, Dick, as he would drive into town to phone in the drilling reports to Calgary and Ken and his brother would wash his car while he did, and then get paid with a milkshake.
Ken was fascinated by the “technology” of the day and it was exciting to grow up in the midst of the development of the new oil field. Often rig personnel and their families camped in the Cugnet yard. Characters who were temporary neighbors are still part of family folklore today.
Ken’ first job in the oil patch was in the fall of 1962, at age 16. He was part of the crew tying steel for the Shell Plant in Midale. In December of that same year, he worked for nothing on a Regent rig on one hole west of the farm. He did this just so that he could say he was experienced. During 1963 to 1964, he worked on a service rig for Addison & Leyen. From then until 1967, he worked off season (from farming) on a series of drilling rigs from Weyburn to the Northwest Territories. In 1968, he went to work for Halliburton cementing and acidizing from Weyburn to Rainbow Lake.
He always showed up back in Weyburn each spring in time to farm. The next job closer to home was working part-time for Cardwell Supply. Gradually he evolved into land work, consulting, and investing.
Ken was a deal junkie, but he said the best deal he ever made was to marry his wife, JoAnne Bannatyne, in 1975. She was a public health nurse originally from Estevan. They would have four boys, Daniel, Craig, Tim and Matthew, all of whom ended up working in the various family businesses and farm.
In 1977, Ken became president of the family owned Cugnet Petroleums Inc. He formed his own company, Valleyview Petroleums Ltd., in March 1979.
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It was during this time that Ken took a geology class through the University of Regina. All the other students were female teachers trying to complete their Bachelor of Education degrees. They ended up teasing him that they wish they started an oil company instead.
He first started joint ventures in Alberta and in 1985 became a joint venture partner with Saskatchewan-based Tappit Resources. He went on to run their field operations and later became a company director in 1987 and then chairman of the board in 2000.
He served as director on Cypress Petroleum Corporation from 1989 to 1993. In 1987, Ken was appointed to the Saskatchewan Surface Rights Arbitration Board and served until 1992.
In 2003, Tappit Resources merged with Crescent Point Energy to form Crescent Point Energy Trust. The company became the dominant player in the Bakken boom. Ken was asked to serve on their board and did so until 2014. That year he was integral in the company’s donation, just a month before his death, of $4.5 million to the Weyburn and District Hospital Foundation. That donation put the community over the top in its efforts to trigger provincial funding for a new hospital which is now coming to completion. It also came in the wake of a $1 million donation from Ken and JoAnne on behalf of their family for the same initiative.
Star Point Energy was the additional spin-off from the Crescent Point merger. Ken served as a director from September 2003 to January 2005. The spin-off coming from the Star Point Energy merger led to him serving on Mission Oil & Gas from January 2005 to February 2007 when it merged with Crescent Point Energy Trust.
Cugnet also served as a director of Elkhorn Resources Inc. Formerly, he served as director of Tappit Resources Ltd., Starpoint Energy Inc., Mission Oil and Gas Inc., Medora Resources Inc. and Cypress Petroleum Corp.
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In 2002, Ken established an office for Valleyview Petroleums Ltd. in Weyburn. He was particularly proud to work with his four sons who are following in his footsteps making their livelihood in “cows and oil.”
In 2007 he was named Southeast Saskatchewan Oilman of the Year, along with Jim Boettcher.
Southeast Saskatchewan Oilmand of the Year, 2007.
Ken served on numerous boards, including Tappit Resources Ltd. as chairman, Mission Oil & Gas Inc., StarPoint Energy Inc., Medora Resources Inc, Elkhorn Resources, Cypress Petroleum Corp., Panther Drilling, Aaron Well Servicing, Petrotherm, Alchem Energy Services, Cugnet Petroleums, Weyburn Security, and the Saskatchewan Surface Rights Board.
Intellidrill and Panther Drilling operating on a Valleyview Petroleums site, just west of the Weyburn Unit, in 2019. Photo by Brian Zinchuk
In addition to continuously farming for over 45 years, Ken served on the Nickle Lake Regional Park Board for over 30 years, the Grace United Church Board and the Queen Elizabeth School Local Board while his boys attended school there.
Due to his own difficulties in school because of a learning disability, Ken has generously supported the Saskatchewan Learning Disabilities Association for many years. His corporate sponsorship tended to be “low key” – wheelchair ramps, bucking chutes for the local rodeo or hiring a landscape architect to design the first therapeutic park in the province (the brain child of Peter Boyle of the former Souris Valley Regional Care Centre). He did not seek acknowledgement.
Ken was always been proud to call Weyburn his home.
In 2014, as Dan said in his Ken’s eulogy, Ken often asked, “Did we increase shareholder value today?” Indeed, he did.
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