Tyrel Kenmore
Claiming a desire to make the world a better place is not exactly rare amongst youth but what doesn’t happen nearly as often is someone making good on their promise before they hit 30.
However, for Tyrel Kenmore that’s exactly what is taking place, as technology he has helped develop is changing the oil and gas industry and its environmental effects forever.
It all began when he was 13 years old and started working alongside his father, who was the first person back then to recycle frac sand out of Brooks. Eventually his dad began another company with some local partners to take on the important task of solidifying drilling mud after cleanout using a very expensive mobile piece of equipment.
Essentially along for the ride anyway, a young Kenmore began researching the system his dad and company were using, leading
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him to discover a major inefficiency in how it all worked. The unit they used had limitations and due to specific clay formations in this area, the solidification process had to be enhanced with chemicals.
“I was playing around with all this stuff since I was there anyway,” says Kenmore. “I went to dad and said, ‘you know what? Chemicals are doing all the work. We can get rid of the million-dollar piece of equipment and we could do this much cheaper.”
His dad’s company eventually dissolved and the partners all went their separate ways. That’s when Kenmore approached his father, requesting they “partner up” and “figure out a better way to do this.”
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“I don’t know how I conned him into it,” laughs the now 27-year-old, who founded Kenmore Holdings Ltd. in Medicine Hat with his father in 2006. “But working with my dad was absolutely the best idea in the world, especially 50-50 partners, it was a big learning curve for me.
“So we had to basically come up with a whole new way of doing this.”
When gas wells have been used for a certain period of time, they build up with various substances that need to be cleaned out. The old-fashioned process is to suck up all of this ‘mud’ with a vacuum truck, before transporting it to a large plant where it can be cleaned and disposed of properly.
Through several trials and errors, the new partners developed a process that eliminates both the vacuum truck and the $30-million plant.
“We go out with a semi truck and a pickup truck and we suck up the mud, put it into our semi truck and then when we’re done, it all goes to the landfill,” says Kenmore.
The basis of their company is that in the past oil and gas companies had to choose between economics and the environment. Kenmore Holdings offers a chance to have both.
“We are 30-per-cent cheaper than the alternative and we are a lot more environmentally friendly,” Kenmore says. “We’re trying to find that happy medium and it has worked out real well for us.”
In fact, not only is Kenmore Holdings making a big name for itself in Alberta, current clients have been so pleased they are starting to spread the word about what a great service they offer and the business is now generating interest south of the border.
“I don’t call myself an economist and I don’t call myself an environmentalist,” he says. “I’m an entrepreneur and when environmental concerns came to the forefront, my generation had to really jump on it and say, ‘you know what? We can do things better.’”
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