Bassett Petroleum Distributors. Fuelling a Family Enterprise
By Bill Braden
It’s a classic family business success story: three brothers grow up with their dad’s small-town enterprise and ramp it into a venture spanning four markets across northwestern Canada. That’s Bassett Petroleum, founded 28 years ago in Hay River by Steve Bassett and his late wife, Georgina. They raised four sons, three of them now co-owners with their dad in the diverse fuel and energy supplier still headquartered in Hay River. Nick is the second Bassett brother and joined the Yellowknife branch soon after it opened 20 years ago. “Everything I learned about business, except for a few college commerce courses, was at the University of Steve Bassett,” he says. The ambitious family, with Katlodeeche First Nations Dene heritage, also built branches in Edmonton and Fort McMurray. Nick quips that having some distance between the boys helped build the business. “It’s kind of nice to have a family presence at each branch. Things run a little differently when they’re family owned… in a good way,” he says. That sense of family is reflected in how Bassett helps the Yellowknife community, including donating all the gas for Food Rescue’s delivery van and helping the SPCA animal shelter with its heating fuel.
The 38-year old father of three is hard pressed to say just what his job is at the Yellowknife branch (each satellite has its own general manager), but takes credit for launching Bassett into the propane supply business in Yellowknife five years ago. It’s a complement to Bassett’s already diverse product line: heating oil, gasoline, diesel, aviation gas and lubricants, as agents for Bluewave Energy, the nation-wide fuel distributor of Shell petroleum products. Propane and wood pellets are increasingly popular alternative fuel choices in Yellowknife, he says. New homes and apartment blocks choose them over fuel oil to comply with stringent Energuide emission standards while wood pellet boilers for large buildings have displaced a lot of oil sales, Nick says. “Consumption of heating oil in Yellowknife has gone down… not everyone is dependent on fossil fuel so much,” he says. The expense and spill liability of oil tanks is also driving customers away. Replacing a household tank alone can be more expensive than buying and installing an entirely new propane system, he says. Instead of taking a hit on a diminishing share of a changing oil market, Bassett added propane and successfully bid for wood pellet supply contracts. It now hauls from mills in La Crete, Alberta, to Yellowknife and even Norman Wells.
Bassett’s fleet of 48 trucks and tankers brings bulk fuels into virtually every community on the NWT’s highway system, including resupply on winter roads into the North Slave and Mackenzie Valley regions. Bassett also hauls products as diverse as road salt, airport sand, asphalt oil and dust suppressant. Along with propane and wood pellets, and watching the emerging market for LNG (liquid natural gas) energy systems, Bassett Petroleum is not just hauling fuel. It’s hauling heat and energy in many forms. “We’re adapting as the market changes all over the North. You have to adapt to stay afloat,” says Bassett. YKCI
