Roger Edgecombe on moving to a new role at RPS in Perth

Q What prompted your move to RPS in Australia?

RPS has a favourable global mobility policy, supporting international moves that further employees’ careers and connect our teams.

The notion of my move goes back some 13 years. John Stanton, General Manager, Energy Services – Perth, was impressed with our Calgary business model and wanted to bring something like that into our Australian business.

Over the years, the notion of a relocation was discussed periodically, but it wasn't the right time for me to leave the Canadian business, although the possibility was always there! With the senior leadership continuing to focus on succession planning and with things picking up in the energy sector, the move became a priority.

Q What are you most looking forward to in Perth, and what are your family looking forward to?

Professionally, I've always thought that the Calgary office really represents all aspects of the subsurface expertise within RPS; often labelling ourselves as an oil company in a box, we offer exploration and development services ranging from survey design to project oversight to geology and geophysics, to all aspects of reservoir and production engineering. Conversely, based on our visit in 2019, for me, the Perth office represents a great example of everything RPS does; safety, infrastructure, and metocean, as well as all the different touchpoints of energy.

Within RPS, I'll be working closely with Gavin Pattison, Global Operations MD – Energy as well as Murray Burling, Managing Director Energy AAP.

From the family perspective, when we visited the city in 2019, we were blown away by the people and how friendly it was. We always joke that Canadians are so friendly, but we can't hold a candle to the people in Perth! As a family, we tend to eat outside as much as possible and so the outdoor lifestyle is important to us too. Growing up on an island in eastern Canada, I have always been drawn to the water. Being near the ocean, in a temperate climate, is the one of biggest things that we’re looking forward to. Oh, and not shovelling snow!

Q You've talked about the business model of the team you previously led in Canada. Please tell us about this.

We're involved from the beginning, right to the very end, switching modes to match the lifecycle of a project – so from advisor to oversight, overseeing field operations, supplying our people for Quality Assurance and Quality Control. We also oversee data processing, then do the geology, geophysics, interpretation of the data and reporting and ultimately providing advice to our clients, whether it be where to drill or where not to mine!

In my former business unit, we take on the prime contracting role. It's very unique in how we handle contracts and interact with our clients – essentially a 'soup to nuts' , i.e. start to finish, type of service. It’s a model that’s almost unique to Canada, but will benefit our clients in Australia too.

Q How will your Canadian experience translate to Australia?

Really, the biggest thing is the mindset of always delivering value to a client. I have always openly stated that in Canada, there are plenty of companies that shoot seismic data, but RPS is one that will spend a client's money wisely. Doing so helps maintain our strong relationships. With our Canadian potash mining clients, we've really become the face of that field. It takes a long time to build that sort of expertise and level of trust, but our team has achieved this, and this is key to good landowner and stakeholder relationships.

Transitioning into the Australian business, I'll be looking at how we can continue to be a trusted advisor across broad touchpoints in our evolving industry. RPS has the unique ability and experience of working across the life cycle of a project – and a given asset. I'm excited to think about how we can connect more dots for clients.

Q What did you enjoy most about your Calgary role?

It's about building trust – respect for how you do the work and your work ethic. I really think I got there with peers, colleagues and clients at RPS and in Canada, which is rewarding to hear. It's obviously down to a lot of hard work and time, but I've really enjoyed building and maintaining that long-standing relationship.

We have a strong, cohesive team who knows each other's skills and which skills offset each other.We've also had some significant wins, such as when one of our clients was having an end of mine life issue. We pulled off this project in about six weeks by leveraging our relationships with the government – which came down to our reputation and the trust they had in us.

Q In the context of energy transition, how do transferable skills feature in your industry?

As I mentioned earlier, collecting seismic data used for planning potash mines is a big part of our business in Canada. We have a long-standing reputation as the pre-eminent consultancy in this field. Fundamentally, this is oil and gas technology being applied to a different industry.

You may look at, analyze and use the data differently, but over the last couple of years, I've spoken a lot about the idea of transferring knowledge because we've shown that it works. Globally, we're involved in geothermal, helium, lithium, carbon capture and storage – some nascent or nonconventional industries to which seismic and subsurface expertise can be applied. In Australia, going into a different part of the energy business, I'm looking at how RPS' collective knowledge can support any given client.

Q What role does your role play in fighting climate change and benefitting the local community?

Regarding my Canadian role, the industry has constantly evolved, pushing towards environmental best practices or those with a low environmental impact. In terms of social aspects, I don't think people are always aware of the work the industry puts into meeting – or exceeding – regulatory standards that are defined and put in place by the government, not by the industry.

From a community engagement aspect, one of the reasons we've been successful is the way we interact. We understand that the stakeholders on a given project are our clients’ neighbours. When we've gone to work in new areas, we've tried to get local content as much as possible. There's a ripple effect from positive interaction and from engaging the community at the start of a project, to getting social license to do the work.

Hydrocarbon-based energy sources are going to be part of the ongoing energy mix, but I'm excited about the direction we're taking: helping our current client base make inroads into renewables and using those transferable skills. The application of subsurface expertise to helium, geothermal and CCS are burgeoning industries about to take off, or in the case of offshore wind in Australia, about to grow, which is really exciting for me!