Calgary & Alberta Economy

[Surrealplaces]

Here's another story relating to the news.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/alberta-bmo-employment-rebound-jobless-gains-jobs-1.4474767
UPDATED
Alberta employment rebounds to pre-oil slump levels, BMO report says

 

[Surrealplaces]

November to December is the first month over month growth in employment for the Calgary CMA since June to July. The dropping participation rate was also arrested. Hopefully this is a legitimate turning of the corner and not just a speed bump on the way down. Some reason for positivity though.

It feels like we are on the upswing for sure.

And on a more minor note, my company has been increasing headcount. We increased headcount for the third straight quarter, after 8 straight quarters of downsizing.

 

[UrbanWarrior]

I survived the Great Alberta Recession! *prints on T-shirt*

 

[Habanero]

Statistically things are getting better. Unemployment is down 2% from a year ago. Numbers can be deceiving, but a 2% drop is significant. Also the price of oil WTI has been on a slow steady rise, and how now been over $60.00 for 32 straight days. That's also a good sign. It would be nice if it hit around $70 and stayed there for a while. That's high enough for oil companies to keep their employees + hire a few extras. It's low enough to give non O&G companies a shot at some office space and the labour pool.

 

[darwink]

WCS is in the shutter though. And AECO. And the C$ is higher.

 

[Always_Biking]

WCS is in the shutter though. And AECO. And the C$ is higher.

I'm not much of an expert, but isn't WCS usually lower than WTI? The latest graph I could find shows WCS following WTI through the ups and downs, and is almost triple $45 to what it was at its low point of Jan 2016 $16. That's gotta be pretty good no?

 

[Oddball]

Apparently WCS is really getting hammered right now because of capacity issues. There isn't even enough rail capacity right now apparently.

 

[MichaelS]

And I don't think this will help things either:
http://calgaryherald.com/commoditie...line/wcm/9c5acf8b-cf25-4d98-b8d2-8144d6eb6c5c

 

[Oddball]

And I don't think this will help things either:
http://calgaryherald.com/commoditie...line/wcm/9c5acf8b-cf25-4d98-b8d2-8144d6eb6c5c

Can we just invade them already?

 

[darwink]

I'm not much of an expert, but isn't WCS usually lower than WTI? The latest graph I could find shows WCS following WTI through the ups and downs, and is almost triple $45 to what it was at its low point of Jan 2016 $16.

That's gotta be pretty good no?

Lower is ok. Accounts for the quality difference and cost of transport. Right now it is lower than that.

For the oil sands the province gets almost nothing in royalties below $55 or so. And oil sands royalties collapsing are why we have a budget deficit.

Here is a site to track the daily price: https://www.psac.ca/business/gmpfirstenergy/

 

[UrbanWarrior]

BC restricting the transport of bitumin is really just a dick move. It actually isn't constitutionally enforceable, as the feds have control over that stuff. So hopefully nothing really comes of it.

 

[JonnyCanuck]

And I don't think this will help things either:
http://calgaryherald.com/commoditie...line/wcm/9c5acf8b-cf25-4d98-b8d2-8144d6eb6c5c

I am appalled at the lack of leadership and urgency at the federal level on getting pipelines built. Trudeau is saying 'we approved Trans Mountain ... we did our jobs' and yet we have provinces and cities continuing to throw up roadblocks. If the U.S decides to be energy independent and Canada is still 'dicking around' getting pipelines built in our own country, then we are screwed. We will have oil & gas to sell but we just lost our largest (some would say virtually only) customer. Who else are we going to be able to sell & ship as much of this product to? If that happens it will put a gigantic hole in our economy and Canadians will only have Canadians to blame for it.

 

[UrbanWarrior]

We're literally the only country on the planet that fights against our own resources, and therefore, our own economic prosperity.

It's pretty absurd, but hilarious to watch the Quebecers and British Columbians all rah rah rah up in arms about the environment, when their cities are constantly dumping tens of billions of litres of raw sewage into the ecosystem yearly, when Calgary dumps no less than triple treated water back into the environment. All while their governments accept vast shipments of slave produced oil from the gulf on supertankers. People just have no perspective.

 

[Oddball]

BC restricting the transport of bitumin is really just a dick move. It actually isn't constitutionally enforceable, as the feds have control over that stuff. So hopefully nothing really comes of it.

Don Braid gave a pretty good rundown of the situation in the Herald this morning. The only "optimistic" way of reading the situation in his view is that the BC NDP is going to unconstitutional lengths precisely so the federal government has to step in. That way they when the feds overrule them they can save face with their Green coalition partners. It's a dangerous game though. Here's hoping Trudeau has the stones to play it out the way it needs to be played for the nation's sake.

I am appalled at the lack of leadership and urgency at the federal level on getting pipelines built. Trudeau is saying 'we approved Trans Mountain ... we did our jobs' and yet we have provinces and cities continuing to throw up roadblocks. If the U.S decides to be energy independent and Canada is still 'dicking around' getting pipelines built in our own country, then we are screwed. We will have oil & gas to sell but we just lost our largest (some would say virtually only) customer. Who else are we going to be able to sell & ship as much of this product to? If that happens it will put a gigantic hole in our economy and Canadians will only have Canadians to blame for it.

I wonder how long it will be before someone seriously proposes a pipeline to and tanker terminal at Churchill, MB. It's the last coastline left that isn't deadlocked by parochialism. York Factory 2.0

The North certainly isn't an option either. Literally half the museum up in Yellowknife is a preachy exhibit devoted to how they sabotaged their own prosperity by killing the MacKenzie Valley pipeline in the 70s.

 

[JonnyCanuck]

.. or the plan of NDP's in B.C. is to tie things up even further in federal courts, as is being done in municipal courts; so that Kinder Morgan can't wait any longer and cancels the project. Just like Trans Canada did with Energy East.
The world will continue to consume fossil fuels for decades to come but Canada will not capitalize on this because of our constant need to 'navel-gaze'.