LONG HAULER PIPELINERS MAKE 65 YEARS IN A DYNAMIC SECTOR by Rennay Craats
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or many people, 65 is the target age of retirement. But Arnett & Burgess Pipeliners celebrated its 65th year in business and has no thoughts of slowing down. Since it was established in 1957, A&B has been evolving along with the ever-changing industry while it helped shape the sector in Western Canada. The founders set out to do things differently and those values remain strong at all levels of the company. “The oil fields were booming in 1957 and my grandfather (Les) and Ray Burgess, his partner in the beginning, had a vision to add a more human element, a more customer service- and people-first focus,” says Carey Arnett, president of Arnett & Burgess. After 10 years in business, the two men had built a strong pipeline company, and Burgess decided to apply what he had learned to become a pioneer in the growing industry in Australia and New Zealand. Les Arnett scraped together enough money to buy Burgess’ shares and, along with key management, wished his ex-partner well Down Under.
Les Arnett, followed by his now semi-retired son, Tom, and then his granddaughter, Carey, focused on people and professionalism in order to create a company that would help its diverse clientele build the energy highway in Canada. “We’ve grown from a mom-and-pop shop, a one-office homestead, while building some of the first infrastructure in Alberta and continue to make connections underground so that our energy intensity is minimized and delivered safely to society,” says Arnett. Through its head office in Calgary and operations in Regina, Athabasca, Sedgewick, Blackfalds and Grande Prairie, A&B has become a go-to pipeline contractor specializing in construction and installation of smalland medium-diameter pipelines for upstream and midstream clients. Over the decades, A&B has forged strong relationships with Canada’s most established energy companies operating from southern Manitoba to 58
Northern British Columbia, completing everything from high-pressure natural gas lines to slurry lines in potash to gasifying coal plants to multi-line gathering systems and supporting liquids pipeline projects. “We serve a diverse array of clients transporting various commodities in multiple sectors. We aim to work for owners with the most stringent expectations and then we can work for everyone.” Arnett says. A&B specializes in pipeline construction and related services including facility construction, integrated fabrication-tofield module solutions, and the support systems that allow control of output. It is also a leader in pipeline integrity solutions, ensuring all components are working efficiently and safely to prevent loss of containment. “We’re one of the largest pipeline integrity contractors in our sector,” Carey says. “We do a lot of integrity maintenance work on the asset system, so that’s a key component of our business.” Les Arnett had a vision of greening the industry, employing an integrity engineering subsidiary back when that wasn’t the norm. The Arnetts insist that when A&B is finished a project, there should be no signs of them having been there to allow for regeneration, and they pride themselves on their history of maintaining pipelines.
