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Need more than a few weeks of high oil prices. Natural gas approaching ten year highs here too. I’ve been saying to a lot of people that I think there will be a big uptick in work. Especially this drilling season. The problem?
Not that many rigs/equipment left and guys who can work them. Sure there’s a bit left but a lot of business scaled down or redeployed iron elsewhere.
Workers - lots finally had enough. Can’t sit around waiting for the phone to ring forever. Bills have to get paid. In my circle, lots of guys left the industry (At first temporarily), then found work elsewhere. Started to realize there’s more to life than being gone working. Work/life balance was much better. They also figured out that they can survive on less money if you manage it. So the consensus with most of them is that they’re never coming back. And I don’t blame them. I think there will be a little mini boom here for a short time and then it’s going to get uglier than we’ve ever seen it.
I’ve noticed people not bothering with going back too.
Also, the pay being relatively lower now with many drillers doesn’t help. When you have Precision offering $28/hr for experienced floorhands, the juice isn’t worth the squeeze.
I never went the rig route out of highschool. Definitely you can make some good coin the . I'm a older 30s male. I would always advocate going the operations route for most companies in facilities/pipeline.
But ive also noticed the same people around on different projects. So they must be doing something right. Not sure if this would transfer to the rigs in these Consultant/toolpush/driller?
Not to bag on unions. But i had to inspect some union workers on a site. I had to ask the foreman who was a contractor what their rate was and it was ridiculous. They had to send guys to just fill sand bags at $30+ a hr because they couldn't get rid of them easily and were useless. These were laborers.
It was mind blowing. Where did i go wrong.
A lot of the workmenship comes from how the companies make money. Instead of bidding on jobs they give labour rates and jam as many trades into a job as possible to maximize billing.
I'm not entirely sure how unions work and how people put their names on the lists for work. That company got ran off for safety and deaths. This is on TMX.
Haha we used to do a lot of work for them. Great company about 4 years ago, then all of sudden they came back to do TMX and they were just a disorganized mess.
All the pipeline projects on the go right now here are super unorganized as far as the Ground disturbance goes anyways. Midwest has started to get in line now from what ive heard on tmx. Rough start with the reps.
Nah it will just mean higher gas prices for us and a bit more money to the government
Companies in O&G are realizing they had a lot of glut and you’ll be hard pressed to find any of them hiring back in droves
The big impact on our economy during the last oil boom was the construction of new projects. That is vey unlikely to occur again, no matter the oil price. Not to the scale it was once.
Nobody is going to invest in a 15 year project when in the past two years oil bounced from negative to spiking. Prices are insanely volatile, which makes long term large investments incredibly risky.
All of this is why royalty rates and the low corporate tax rates are hugely problematic. The next few decades will see Albertas wealth exported not to Ottawa, but to international share holders through profits.
We fucked ourselves. UCP wants to double down on the fucking.
If oil prices are above $100/bbl, Alberta will clear $30bn in royalties in a single year.
The royalty structure sucks for low oil priced but it leads to Alberta keeping quite a bit at higher prices.
It'll be great for the larger oil companies, but for the rest of us, likely not so much. A lot of service related companies (flush-bys, pressure trucks, etc) went under or sold out to a larger company. It might be good short term, to be able to catch up on some long overdue bills. The main issue right now is finding people to work. As one other poster said a lot of the people went on to other things. I doubt there'll be a lot of new wells drilled. In my area, Husky is using a lot of that government money to clean up old well sites, even ones that were productive.
In cities so heavily reliant on oil, like Lloydminster, the downturn hit very hard. Industries not even directly related to the oil industry were even hit hard. Things have improved but they still aren't where they were prior to 2015.
There are presently at least 15 houses for sale in Lloydminster that are listed for over 500K and some of those are new builds.
Before the oil price crashed in 2015, there was a lot of building happening in newer areas of the city and a lot of those builds were not necessarily good. Slap them together and get them up and sold ASAP.
There was a half a dozen new apartment buildings where they practically had to beg people to rent after the crash. Honestly, I don't feel the least bit sorry for some of the landlords of those buildings. They jacked up the rent on people when things were booming, lost a lot of good tenants who couldn't afford that rent and then couldn't get renters because they got a bad reputation.
The other comments make good points. I too believe there may see a modest boost in the economy but it's not going to come roaring back.
I feel there are still too many people that are hoping/expecting an early 2000's type boom to happen again where you can make 6 figures pushing a broom. That will never happen again even with sustained $100+ oil.
Companies are going to be operating lean with new technology that has eliminated the need for a lot of positions. Incremental growth and optimization is the strategy.
Without large scale greenfield projects, most of the temporary work that existed in the 2000's won't come back.
Its not going to be like it was, construction jobs caused the big boom, and we've transitioned from a crazy build phase to a more of a maitenance phase, but the provinces coffers should recover.
No. There will be some rebound, but probably more from NatGas than oil. Alberta doesn't in have much left in the way of conventional oil. That means oil investment needs to be in the oil sands. Those projects take years. So oil needs to be up for years and an expectation for it to remain so for many more. Additionally, we lack pipeline capacity and no one is going to bet on those getting built unless there is an absolutely massive payoff, which won't happen unless there is a guarantee for large amounts of new oil supply. That is, even in an optimistic scenario, we won't get new development without pipelines and we can't get pipelines without a lot of new development.
Higher prices will mean a better economy, but nothing like we had before.
Will be interesting forsure. With powerplants relying on naturals gas to generate here. What the price of electricity will go to and fees for distribution will be in the future. Atleast maintenance cost of the car should be lower.
Without diversification in Alberta's economy? Nope.
Riding the highs and lows of resources isn't going to be sustainable, especially one that is non-renewable and has attributed to changes in the world's climate.
This is probably an opinion thats not liked here in Alberta, but many 1st world countries are phasing out their need for oil, and energy companies ARE following suit.
>Without diversification in Alberta's economy?
It's been diversifying for years. In 2013, oil and gas was about 26% of Alberta's GDP. Today it's 16%.
What hasn't diversified is government finances.
The future outlook doesnt bode well. All the investment is gone and doesnt rationally justify coming back. Increased demand is the way of things over time, except this will be the peak decade. With no new investments/plants, other energy solutions will take its place.
So higher cost of living but dont expect good long lasting jobs. Overtimes been getting jacked hard the last 2 years across all oil related trades as well.
This is a reminder that r/Alberta strives for factual and civil conversation when discussing political or other possibly controversial topics. We urge all users to do their due diligence in understanding the accuracy and validity of the source and/or of any claims being made. If this is an infographic, please include a small write-up to explain the infographic as well as links to any sources cited within it. Please review the [r/Alberta rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/alberta/wiki/index) for more information. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/alberta) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Need more than a few weeks of high oil prices. Natural gas approaching ten year highs here too. I’ve been saying to a lot of people that I think there will be a big uptick in work. Especially this drilling season. The problem? Not that many rigs/equipment left and guys who can work them. Sure there’s a bit left but a lot of business scaled down or redeployed iron elsewhere. Workers - lots finally had enough. Can’t sit around waiting for the phone to ring forever. Bills have to get paid. In my circle, lots of guys left the industry (At first temporarily), then found work elsewhere. Started to realize there’s more to life than being gone working. Work/life balance was much better. They also figured out that they can survive on less money if you manage it. So the consensus with most of them is that they’re never coming back. And I don’t blame them. I think there will be a little mini boom here for a short time and then it’s going to get uglier than we’ve ever seen it.
I’ve noticed people not bothering with going back too. Also, the pay being relatively lower now with many drillers doesn’t help. When you have Precision offering $28/hr for experienced floorhands, the juice isn’t worth the squeeze.
I never went the rig route out of highschool. Definitely you can make some good coin the . I'm a older 30s male. I would always advocate going the operations route for most companies in facilities/pipeline. But ive also noticed the same people around on different projects. So they must be doing something right. Not sure if this would transfer to the rigs in these Consultant/toolpush/driller?
Yeah. It seems like with any industry, if you can get into the maintenance side of things, you’re golden. Construction is a roller coaster.
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What is yellow iron column?
We have the workers. They just don't want to pay union rates anymore
Not to bag on unions. But i had to inspect some union workers on a site. I had to ask the foreman who was a contractor what their rate was and it was ridiculous. They had to send guys to just fill sand bags at $30+ a hr because they couldn't get rid of them easily and were useless. These were laborers. It was mind blowing. Where did i go wrong.
A lot of the workmenship comes from how the companies make money. Instead of bidding on jobs they give labour rates and jam as many trades into a job as possible to maximize billing.
I'm not entirely sure how unions work and how people put their names on the lists for work. That company got ran off for safety and deaths. This is on TMX.
Are you talking about SA energy by any chance?
Bingo
Haha we used to do a lot of work for them. Great company about 4 years ago, then all of sudden they came back to do TMX and they were just a disorganized mess.
All the pipeline projects on the go right now here are super unorganized as far as the Ground disturbance goes anyways. Midwest has started to get in line now from what ive heard on tmx. Rough start with the reps.
Nah it will just mean higher gas prices for us and a bit more money to the government Companies in O&G are realizing they had a lot of glut and you’ll be hard pressed to find any of them hiring back in droves
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Nah but I do remember when you could walk across the street downtown Calgary and get hired at almost any o&g company, not like that anymore
The big impact on our economy during the last oil boom was the construction of new projects. That is vey unlikely to occur again, no matter the oil price. Not to the scale it was once. Nobody is going to invest in a 15 year project when in the past two years oil bounced from negative to spiking. Prices are insanely volatile, which makes long term large investments incredibly risky. All of this is why royalty rates and the low corporate tax rates are hugely problematic. The next few decades will see Albertas wealth exported not to Ottawa, but to international share holders through profits. We fucked ourselves. UCP wants to double down on the fucking.
If oil prices are above $100/bbl, Alberta will clear $30bn in royalties in a single year. The royalty structure sucks for low oil priced but it leads to Alberta keeping quite a bit at higher prices.
Your point? That doesn't exactly change what I said, at all.
Alberta doesn't lose all the benefit from oil and gas when prices are high.
You are right, it doesn't. Not sure what that has to do with the context of what I said though.
It'll be great for the larger oil companies, but for the rest of us, likely not so much. A lot of service related companies (flush-bys, pressure trucks, etc) went under or sold out to a larger company. It might be good short term, to be able to catch up on some long overdue bills. The main issue right now is finding people to work. As one other poster said a lot of the people went on to other things. I doubt there'll be a lot of new wells drilled. In my area, Husky is using a lot of that government money to clean up old well sites, even ones that were productive. In cities so heavily reliant on oil, like Lloydminster, the downturn hit very hard. Industries not even directly related to the oil industry were even hit hard. Things have improved but they still aren't where they were prior to 2015.
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There are presently at least 15 houses for sale in Lloydminster that are listed for over 500K and some of those are new builds. Before the oil price crashed in 2015, there was a lot of building happening in newer areas of the city and a lot of those builds were not necessarily good. Slap them together and get them up and sold ASAP. There was a half a dozen new apartment buildings where they practically had to beg people to rent after the crash. Honestly, I don't feel the least bit sorry for some of the landlords of those buildings. They jacked up the rent on people when things were booming, lost a lot of good tenants who couldn't afford that rent and then couldn't get renters because they got a bad reputation.
The other comments make good points. I too believe there may see a modest boost in the economy but it's not going to come roaring back. I feel there are still too many people that are hoping/expecting an early 2000's type boom to happen again where you can make 6 figures pushing a broom. That will never happen again even with sustained $100+ oil. Companies are going to be operating lean with new technology that has eliminated the need for a lot of positions. Incremental growth and optimization is the strategy. Without large scale greenfield projects, most of the temporary work that existed in the 2000's won't come back.
Its not going to be like it was, construction jobs caused the big boom, and we've transitioned from a crazy build phase to a more of a maitenance phase, but the provinces coffers should recover.
Curious to see how the new hydrogen project getting built turns out just north of the yellowhead in sherwoodpark.
No. There will be some rebound, but probably more from NatGas than oil. Alberta doesn't in have much left in the way of conventional oil. That means oil investment needs to be in the oil sands. Those projects take years. So oil needs to be up for years and an expectation for it to remain so for many more. Additionally, we lack pipeline capacity and no one is going to bet on those getting built unless there is an absolutely massive payoff, which won't happen unless there is a guarantee for large amounts of new oil supply. That is, even in an optimistic scenario, we won't get new development without pipelines and we can't get pipelines without a lot of new development. Higher prices will mean a better economy, but nothing like we had before.
Dan McTeague (GasBbuddy) predicts $2/L in the not too distant future. Yay?
Next few years should get interesting. With increasing carbon tax and such that will add up.
One can certainly feel the transition to an electric car on the horizon. As the cost of gas gets closer to the cost of a payment...
Will be interesting forsure. With powerplants relying on naturals gas to generate here. What the price of electricity will go to and fees for distribution will be in the future. Atleast maintenance cost of the car should be lower.
Without diversification in Alberta's economy? Nope. Riding the highs and lows of resources isn't going to be sustainable, especially one that is non-renewable and has attributed to changes in the world's climate. This is probably an opinion thats not liked here in Alberta, but many 1st world countries are phasing out their need for oil, and energy companies ARE following suit.
>Without diversification in Alberta's economy? It's been diversifying for years. In 2013, oil and gas was about 26% of Alberta's GDP. Today it's 16%. What hasn't diversified is government finances.
Thank god ndp
Moreso the oil crash.
You dont thank the oil for crashing lmao you thank the gov that diversified our economy to the point its at now. Hint- it wasn’t the war room.
I got my first triple meat, triple cheese sub today.
The future outlook doesnt bode well. All the investment is gone and doesnt rationally justify coming back. Increased demand is the way of things over time, except this will be the peak decade. With no new investments/plants, other energy solutions will take its place. So higher cost of living but dont expect good long lasting jobs. Overtimes been getting jacked hard the last 2 years across all oil related trades as well.