Inside Enerplus, by Shannon Smith, Calgary Herald
May 13, 2008 - Inside Enerplus; Waking the Sleeping Giant (PDF, 116KB)

Enerplus' Garry Tanner, Executive V.P. and COO interview with BNN
May 9, 2008

Inside Enerplus, by Shannon Smith, Calgary Herald
May 7, 2008 - Inside Enerplus; Great People and Great Careers (PDF, 112KB)

Inside Enerplus, by Shannon Smith, Calgary Herald
April 30, 2008 - Inside Enerplus; A Leader in Shallow Gas Production (PDF, 101KB)

Inside Enerplus, by Shannon Smith, Calgary Herald
April 25, 2008 - Inside Enerplus; A Future Rich With Resource Plays and Growth Potential (PDF, 103KB)

Inside Enerplus, by Shannon Smith, Calgary Herald
April 17, 2008 - Inside Enerplus; Putting the spotlight on oils sands development (PDF, 628KB)

Enerplus Buys Focus for $1.7B, boosts asset base (PDF, 975KB)
December 4, 2007, Lisa Schmidt, Calgary Herald

Deal makes sense, but no one saw it coming (PDF, 19.8KB)
December 4, 2007, Deborah Yedlin, Calgary Herald

Inside Enerplus, by Shannon Smith, Calgary Herald
November 23, 2007 - Inside Enerplus; Growing to Meet the Demand for Income (PDF, 213KB)

Inside Enerplus, by Shannon Smith, Calgary Herald
November 12, 2007 - Inside Enerplus; Securing a Future in the Athabasca Oil Sands (PDF, 178KB)

Inside Enerplus, by Shannon Smith, Calgary Herald
November 7, 2007 - Inside Enerplus; Committed to Health, Safety and the Environment (PDF, 90.8KB)

Inside Enerplus, by Shannon Smith, Calgary Herald
November 1, 2007 - Inside Enerplus; Investing Time and Resources into the Community (PDF, 1.29MB)

Inside Enerplus, by Shannon Smith, Calgary Herald
October 23, 2007 - Inside Enerplus; Thriving on Creativity and Teamwork (PDF, 433KB)

SAIT Polytechnic Announces Enerplus Resources Fund Named SAIT's 2007 President’s Partnership Award Recipient

Enerplus Resources Fund is the recipient of SAIT’s 2007 President’s Partnership Award. Through their support of students, Enerplus Resources Fund epitomizes the spirit and power of partnerships in education.

Established in 1986, Enerplus was the first oil and natural gas income fund in Canada. Twenty-one years later, their focus on leadership and innovation has enabled them to achieve unprecedented business growth and, at the same time, make our community a better place to live, work and learn.

Enerplus demonstrates their firm belief in the value of post-secondary education by sharing their successes with SAIT students. Their generous contributions to entrance awards enable students in SAIT’s MacPhail School of Energy to pursue their education and career goals. More than 100 of our graduates are now Enerplus employees.

Enerplus will be an important part of SAIT’s planned Trades and Technology Complex. In recognition of their five-million-dollar investment, SAIT will name an area of the complex the Enerplus Innovation Centre. This Centre will advance applied research and help ensure a steady supply of highly-skilled employees for the energy industry.

We are honoured to call Enerplus Resources Fund our partner in education and we are pleased to present them with the SAIT Polytechnic 2007 President’s Partnership Award.

President’s Reception and Partnership Award Presentation - Tuesday,  November 6, 2007

Join us as we celebrate this partnership at the 2007 President’s Reception – an opulent masquerade gala. More than 500 of Calgary’s business leaders will gather at this premier networking event to enjoy fanciful entertainment and scrumptious delights served by SAIT’s award-winning culinary arts students.

Click here to view entire SAIT announcement.

Enerplus Legends of the Oil Patch Texas Hold'em Charity Poker Tournament

On September 13, 2007, Enerplus hosted its second annual Legends of the Oil Patch Texas Hold’em Charity Poker Tournament in support of the Alberta Children’s Hospital Foundation.

A room full of senior executives from Calgary’s oil and gas community including income trusts, producing and service companies, investment banks, accounting firms and law firms, each of whom sponsored the event or paid $1,500 to register, and most of who had little or no experience at playing poker. Experience playing poker did not seem to matter as the purpose was to raise money for a very special cause and the night involved more catching up with colleagues they rarely see, rather than serious poker playing. 

Seventeen legends (well known long-standing or retired executives in the patch) and 104 current executives vied for the grand prize of $40,000 which in part included $25,000 to be donated to a charity of the winner’s choice.  Part of the fun included winning the hand that took out a legend – which meant the legend must then give the winner of that hand his medallion.

For those unfortunate enough to lose all their chips early in the evening, they were able to buy-back in within the first hour for $500.  They could also purchase ‘red cards’ for $20 which bought them advise from one of the poker experts on what to do with their hand. Not only did that keep the tournament interesting and moving along, it raised an additional $24,000 for the Foundation.

Given the participants in the room there was no shortage of competitive spirit, but all in good fun – right up to the last game.  The winner was John Miller of EnCana who immediately donated his $25,000 to the Alberta Children’s Hospital Foundation.  Thanks to John and all the participants and legends the donation is in excess of $200,000.

Click here to view the video clip of this event as filmed by Theenergynews.com

Community Kitchen gets moving again with help from Enerplus

Sarah Chapman
Calgary Herald

August 24, 2007

After a charity van was stolen, leaving the summer Community Kitchen program immobilized, two local companies stepped in to get it moving again.

Gordon Kerr, President and CEO of Enerplus Resources Fund, was moved to help after reading about the theft of the van, which was used by the non-profit agency to serve 200 donated meals and 400 snacks each day to disadvantaged children.

He approached others in the company and the decision was made to donate 16,000 for a new van.

"When we saw this opportunity, we thought, 'We can react to this,' " said Paula Leslie, a communications analyst with Enerplus.

"They're just in heaven," she said of the Community Kitchen workers.

And when Gary Giesbrecht at Ryder Truck Rental Canada Ltd. heard he offered a five-ton van instead of a one-ton.

"It brought tears to my eyes when I got the phone call.  It's so wonderful because with that, we are able to complete our program." said Marilyn Gunn of the Community Kitchen.

"We never skipped one beat in feeding our children."

schapman@theherald.canwest.com

Energy trusts working on Plan B for 2011

Lisa Schmidt
Calgary Herald

June 19, 2007

New model for investors wanted

Energy trusts plan to stay the course until a new tax takes hold in four years, but are starting to ponder future shifts to other business structures, an oilpatch invesment conference heard Monday.

A number of royalty trusts presenting at the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers annual investment forum said they plan to maintain the trust structure until at least 2011, when the sector will start being taxed similar to corporations.

After that, trust officals said the door is open to several options, such as converting back to a corporation, or even pursuing a master limited partnership, or MLP, a U.S. based tax efficient structure that shares some similarities to the Canadian trust sector.

"We're going to be patient in terms of taking advantage of the three to four years here within the time frame of taxation here in Canada," said Gord Kerr, chief executive of Enerplus Resources Fund.

"Having said that, we are certainly looking to see if there is a rationale for us to look at creating an MLP structure with the assets that we have," he added.

"There is an opportunity there and I think it is something we have to pay close attention to."

There would be plenty of work to examine how such a conversion would take place, Kerr noted, and Enerplus has no definitive plans to pursue such a model.

Other trusts noted that existing tax pools would allow some firms to maintain their current structure and payouts beyond 2011.

Bill Andrew, chief executive of Penn West Energy Trust, said the company's tax pools should allow the company to continue business as usual until 2014, giving the firm more time to assess its options.

"We think we're a little while away from thinking about that," he said.

The trust tax changes, announced last October by Ottawa, were fiercely opposed by the energy trust sector. A coalition continues to lobby against the tax, and some executives noted that changes could still happen to the legislation, making it unwise to rush ahead.

"There may be a new structure that's allowed - there will be an election, how does that change things?" said Michael Culbert chief executive of Progress Energy Trust.

"What we feel is, there is enough value from a unitholder perspective to stay as a trust until the 11th hour and what we'll do is we'll look at all sorts of different structures that might make sense under different scenarios."

"The underlying business has to be strong...if you're a good explorer and producer and paying dividends or a trust and paying distributions - you can still be effective."

Paul Charron, chief executive of Canetic Resources Trust, said investors still have a lot of questions but now also appear to recognize that the sector can adapt.

"Generally speaking I believe this model will continue in some form whether it be some high-paying dividend corp., or a distributing trust,"
he said.

"Of all our biggest disappointments and objections to the change is that the model just made sense for the western Canadian sedimentary basin."

"What's clear is that investors want yield, but the yield is very good for companies, it imposes that capital discipline," added John Zahary, chief executive of Harvest Energy Trust.

"Whether we call ourselves a Canadian corporate, a foreign corporate, a foreign MLP, we're not going to change the way we do our business," he said.

"It's just how do we structure ourselves to be most advantageous for our investors and our other stakeholders - our employees and local communities."

lschmidt@theherald.canwest.com