Business View Magazine September 2018

22 23 gas industry for her role of Perpetual Energy Inc. President & CEO. Perpetual Energy was one of two royalty trusts that were spun out of Para- mount Resources in the early 2000s. Rose reports, “In 2010, the company was incorporated and, as the technology evolution for natural gas devel- opment has evolved here, we’ve repositioned our assets to work within the asset base that is attractive to that new technology. I would call us a junior oil and gas producer - primarily, a natural gas company.” Perpetual Energy Inc. is 48 to 50 percent owned by inside management, the rest is publicly held and traded on the TSX under the symbol PMT. The company is focusing on four main strategic priorities for growth and business opportunities in 2018: Grow the value of the Edson area (west central Alberta Deep Basin natural gas asset with a small amount of liquids in the mix). Optimize the value of eastern Alberta assets (a legacy shallow gas property). The company has been more focused on developing heavy oil from other stratigraphic horizons. The heavy oil is PERPETUAL ENERGY INC. underwater flood, which is technically performing nicely. Advancing higher impact opportunities such as the Panny asset (very heavy oil and flash bitu- men). That asset can be moved along by adding heat and, potentially, solvent to extract it, as opposed to more energy-intensive extraction technologies. Managing the balance sheets to execute the big plan. For the last eight or nine years, the focus has been on bringing down the company debt and growing cash flow. That continues this year. According to Rose, “We produce a faceless mol- ecule. Natural gas and oil, generally, isn’t market- ed directly; it goes into a midstream and down- stream distribution system and the actual end use customer is fairly distant from the producer. We sell our gas at six producing hubs in North America: Manville in California; Chicago; Dawn and Empress in eastern Canada; ACO (our Alberta hub); and Michigan.” The natural gas exploration and development business is fairly competitive, but Perpetual Ener- gy has a very contiguous land position, amassed