Trican Announces First Half 2018 Capital Program, Updates the Status of Its Normal Course Issuer Bid and Provides an Operational Update

CALGARY, ALBERTA--(Marketwired - Dec. 11, 2017) - Trican Well Service Ltd. (TSX:TCW) ("Trican" or the "Company") is pleased to announce its Capital Program of $44 million for the first half of 2018, update the status of the Company's Normal Course Issuer Bid ("NCIB"), and provide an operational update.

FIRST HALF 2018 CAPITAL PROGRAM

Trican expects a modest first half 2018 capital program with an allocation of $22 million for major components, $4 million for maintenance and replacement capital, $11 million for growth initiatives, $4 million for infrastructure and support projects, and $3 million to reactivate our remaining idle hydraulic fracturing capacity for second half of 2018 operations.

Growth and Reactivation Capital

We are not planning to build or grow our hydraulic horsepower (HHP) beyond our current total footprint of 680,000 HHP. Growth initiatives relate to a number of small projects to support hydraulic fracturing, fluid management and coil tubing operations that will: (1) directly increase our activity; (2) reduce our costs; and/or (3) increase our revenue rates. The investments are primarily focused on items supporting our 2018 equipment reactivations and items which improve our ability to handle the increased well service intensity. Planned reactivations, previously disclosed in our Management's Discussion and Analysis dated November 1, 2017, include the activation of all of our hydraulic fracturing equipment by the end of 2018.

NCIB PROGRAM UPDATE

The NCIB program commenced on October 3, 2017, and as at the date hereof, Trican has invested $25.8 million repurchasing an aggregate of 5,693,956 common shares at an average cost of $4.54 per share. Trican may still purchase an additional 28,580,419 common shares over the next 10 months of the program and expects to continue to do so, subject to available excess cash flow and trading restrictions that may arise due to ongoing corporate activities.

OPERATIONAL UPDATE

Q3 strong activity levels continued into the first half of Q4. However, late in November through early December, a number of our customers finalized their 2017 capital programs. We expect that this factor, combined with the typical December holiday slowdown, will result in lower overall proppant volumes for Q4 2017 when compared to the third quarter 2017 proppant volumes of 563,000 tonnes. During October and November Trican proppant volumes were approximately 310,000 tonnes. The expected reduction in Q4 sequential proppant volumes is not indicative of our anticipated first quarter activity levels nor has the fourth quarter slowdown in activity resulted in changes to our services pricing levels. We continue to have visibility for significant first half 2018 demand for our services and are currently working with our customers to commence Q1 2018 well completion activities in late December to ensure we are able to meet our customers' service requirements.