In Gear - Today's Trucking

Canada’s Top 100
continued from page 37
In the Ontario auto-manufacturing sector—as
reported by Marco Beghetto and
Duff McCutcheon elsewhere in this issue
(See “Backup on the 401” on page 52—a
small brigade of medium-sized oufits who
rely on the auto sector for their livelihood
are being forced to adapt to changes
brought about by the Big Three North
American automakers. And it’s actually
fomenting a bit of a price war—this after a
year during which most truckers across
the country were confidently boosting
rates and meting out surcharges.
As for looking toward the Maritimes
these days, as one trucker said recently,
“we used to worry about getting backhauls
from the U.S. to Quebec. No we
worry about getting the front hauls.”
It’s not just labor-hungry workers or oilhungry
politicians looking toward the oilsands.
Last year, Transforce’s Alain Bedard
turned his attention westward and purchased
two Calgary-based truckers, TST
Porter Trucking and Rebel Transport.
Then early in 2006, he announced another
Alberta buy, KOS Oilfield Corp., as well as
its associated companies. KOS is projected
to turn over about $77 million this year.
48 TODAY’S TRUCKING
Meanwhile, everbody’s watching the
team of regulators and bureaucrats who
will be combing that part of the country
over the next year to see if they should
give Imperial Oil Ltd., and its partners
permission to tap into the more than
three trillion cubic feet of natural gas
laying in what’s called the MacKenzie
Valley gas fields. Much of northwest
Canada is buzzing with anticipation of
the ensuing prosperity that might come
from the $7 billion project.
FROM MUD TO HUTS: For the first few years
at Formula, profits seemed remote.
It’ll come as no surprise that Peterson
mentioned to Today’s Ttrucking, ‘We’re
ready for MacKenzie.”
So inasmuch as the list of Top 100 forhire
fleets in Canada looks pretty much
the same as it did this time last year, with
a few disappearances due to mergers and
the arrival of a few clever upstarts—Uwe
Petroschke’s imaginative LTL outfit
Totalline out of Concord springs to
mind—it’s business as usual.
Unless you’re in the oil patch. Then it’s
business as unusual.
Producers Oilfield Services Inc., with
640 tractors, 1,700 trailers, 10 trucks, 80
owner-operators and 800 employees overall,
will be a natural fit for the Mullens,
dedicated as much of it will be to serving
the northernmost territory of the Mullen
empire. It is also somewhat of a homecoming
for Peterson.
In January 2001, the Mullens actually
started Producers Oilfield Services, albeit
under the name Moveitonline.
The Mullen brass felt they could supply
software and online logistic solutions
in a separate company and spun out
Movitonline.
At the time, Murray Mullen called it “a
logical step that allows Mullen to continue
to focus on serving our oilfield and trucking
companies while Moveitonline develops
software solutions to resolve many of the
transportation industry’s current challenges.”
Little did he know that the spinoff
FORMULA FOR SUCCESS: Peterson’s company grew up
serving the specialized heavy-duty needs of the oil patch.