RoydadNaft –  Perched high in Banff’s evergreen embrace — a world away from Calgary’s humming refineries and dealmakers’ dens — Adam Waterous is plotting nothing less than a seismic shift in Canada’s energy fortunes. The 64-year-old financier, who traded Scotiabank boardrooms for Rocky Mountain vistas, envisions Strathcona Resources exploding onto the North American stage as a growth juggernaut, more than doubling crude output to 300,000 barrels per day by 2035.

It’s a high-octane gambit from the self-styled outsider, fresh off a bruising six-month proxy war for MEG Energy that ended in a tactical pivot rather than outright conquest. Undeterred, Waterous is calling on Canada — the globe’s fourth-largest oil exporter — to crank up production twofold, a bold antidote to looming U.S. trade skirmishes under President Donald Trump.

“Preach to the nation about doubling down? Fine — watch us lead the charge,” Waterous declared in his debut interview since dropping the expansion bombshell. As Strathcona’s executive chairman, he’s channeling his inner trailblazer, betting against the industry’s post-downturn caution in favor of raw ambition.

Revival in the Sands: From Fire Sales to Fast Lane

The oil sands, long battered by price plunges, pipeline gridlock, and green-thumbed regulators, are stirring back to life. While behemoths like Canadian Natural Resources and Suncor Energy hunkered down — trimming fat and showering shareholders with buybacks — Waterous scooped up bargain-bin producers since 2017, bootstrapping Strathcona into Canada’s fifth-biggest oil player.

His war chest: A C$6.5 billion ($4.69 billion) stake through his Waterous Energy Fund, fueled by a dealmaker’s eye for undervalued gems in the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin. The MEG melee was his gutsiest swing yet — a hostile bid that devolved into a corporate cage match with heavyweight Cenovus Energy. Cenovus snagged the prize in October, but Strathcona emerged with a sweetener: A bundle of Cenovus heavy-oil holdings, traded for its vote of confidence. Those assets now anchor the 10% annual growth trajectory, vaulting output from 125,000 bpd in 2026 to triple digits by decade’s end.

No grand conspiracy, Waterous insists — just street-smart opportunism. “We didn’t map every alley, but victory had multiple exits,” he said with a grin. “Fortune favors the bold, and we weren’t afraid to lunge.”

The timing couldn’t be sharper. Public winds are gusting toward fossil fuels, with Prime Minister Mark Carney leaning on oil and gas as a tariff shield against Trump’s cross-border barbs. Carney’s recent rollback of select climate mandates signals Ottawa’s green light for growth, a far cry from the regulatory chill of yesteryear.

The Banff Maverick: Harvard Smarts Meet Oil Patch Grit

Ontario-bred and Harvard-burnished, Waterous stormed Calgary’s cloistered energy club in 1991 with banker blinders: “Oil gushes, refines, and powers your drive — that’s the sum of it.” Today, he’s flipped the establishment on its head, shunning the city’s skyline for Banff’s powder runs. There, alongside his wife, he helms a ski outfit and pitches a C$2.6 billion, 150-km hydrogen-fueled rail artery linking Calgary commuters and Banff-bound adventurers.

That maverick streak? It’s his edge, he argues, slicing through the sector’s echo-chamber haze. “Groupthink’s baked in — but fresh eyes spot what insiders miss,” Waterous said. His banking ledger, etched with decades of Basin deals, lends credence, according to Brian Porter, his ex-Scotiabank CEO collaborator. “Adam charts those plays — Basin to beyond — like no one else. It irks the old guard, but it’s gospel.”

Verbal Fireworks and a Contrarian Code

In Canada’s buttoned-up corporate culture, Waterous cut a swashbuckling figure during the MEG donnybrook. He torched Cenovus for “fear tactics to muzzle the new kid” and exploiting MEG’s “feeble” directors, escalating the spat to “circus” levels, as Cenovus’s Jon McKenzie griped.

No apologies from the provocateur: “I’m no wrecker, but bad governance? I’ll call it every time.” It’s that fierce autonomy fueling his heresy — growth over gospel buybacks. “The chorus chants ‘shareholder yields first.’ Baloney. This blueprint wins.”

As global demand simmers and export hoses unclog, Waterous’s vision could ignite a broader thaw. Doubling Canada’s crude torrent? It’s the stuff of tycoon dreams — but from his Banff aerie, it feels like destiny’s next chapter.

($1 = 1.3848 Canadian dollars)