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Calgary & Alberta Economy

Don't know if you guys saw my post in the Green Line thread, but Calgary's back to being the fastest growing economy in the country. 49 000 new jobs added since Stampede 2016 apparently.
 
Interesting article on the local manufacturing sector bouncing back.

http://businessincalgary.com/november-2017/alberta-manufacturing-sector-back-solid-ground/

Alberta Manufacturing Sector Back on Solid Ground

iStock-544678168WEB-640x427.jpg
 
Don't know if you guys saw my post in the Green Line thread, but Calgary's back to being the fastest growing economy in the country. 49 000 new jobs added since Stampede 2016 apparently.

Not to be too nit-picky about good news, but this is a fairly cherry picked statistic. If you extend the time frame back to June 2015 rather than June 2016, you'd find that the grow was more like 4,000. You'd also find that October is the 3rd month in a row with declining employment and that recent improvements in the unemployment rate have more to do with the declining participation rate. It's not to say that things haven't largely been getting better over the past year or so, it just isn't time to break out the campaign and foie gras. Source

EDIT: I'm also trying to find the CANSIM table that has full-time vs. part-time split again. I have the suspicion that the part time proportion isn't as favourable as we would want. (Found it! It is worse, but it doesn't appear to be super material as far as I can tell. It was 83.2% full time in June 2014, 82.9% in June 2015, 82.4% in June 2016, 81.3% in June 2017 and 81.8% in October. So that's not soooo bad.)
 
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Hi All,
There was a Topic in the Metro Newspaper (Monday Nov 6th) About Calgary's Economy Growing and Population Figures etc. Interesting Topic worth reading about,

Tnx,
Operater,
 
Not to be too nit-picky about good news, but this is a fairly cherry picked statistic. If you extend the time frame back to June 2015 rather than June 2016, you'd find that the grow was more like 4,000. You'd also find that October is the 3rd month in a row with declining employment and that recent improvements in the unemployment rate have more to do with the declining participation rate. It's not to say that things haven't largely been getting better over the past year or so, it just isn't time to break out the campaign and foie gras. Source

EDIT: I'm also trying to find the CANSIM table that has full-time vs. part-time split again. I have the suspicion that the part time proportion isn't as favourable as we would want. (Found it! It is worse, but it doesn't appear to be super material as far as I can tell. It was 83.2% full time in June 2014, 82.9% in June 2015, 82.4% in June 2016, 81.3% in June 2017 and 81.8% in October. So that's not soooo bad.)

That's actually not too bad, with a bit of bounce back from last year too :)


Apparently there is a forecast surge in oil prices imminent due to a correction on the overstatement of EIA production estimates.

Also, WTI is now higher than it's been since June 2015. Optimism.
 
WTI is at $57.70 as of my posting. That's a damn sight better than $26 or whatever it got to.

There have been a few analysts calling for a long term price spike caused by extended periods of under-investment. I guess we'll see where that goes. My understanding is that the recent price support is largely due to Russia and Saudi Arabia's collusion on reduced production. But then there's US shale which really kicks in when the price rebounds. It's a complex market. There's room for hope though. I think the best thing going in Calgary, Alberta and Canada's favours is the cost cutting in the Oil Sands. Apparently they're getting it down close to $20 a barrel. So much for needing $80/B to be profitable.

Now if only we could get some pipelines...
 
That means we're going to be a LOT more profitable than the US shale for the foreseeable future, if I'm not mistaken? That is great news.

Also, on pipelines, Trump's second executive order was to approve KXL while circumventing further review process... so maybe there's hope for it? I mean, we've got another 3 years with President Rapesalot in office.
 
I heard on the radio this morning that Alberta is supposed to lead the nation in growth next year. If so, that's welcome news for sure.

I'm glad the price of oil is going up, but you know, I'm kinda liking it hovering in the middle somewhere. I'm not sure a crazy boom is good for Calgary. It would be nice to have oil sit at a price that would sustain current jobs, but also allow room for other industries to grow in Calgary.
 
Absolutely. I'd imagine $70-80 per barrel would be perfect for Alberta's long-term stability. Good growth, good tax income, allowing diversification to continue full force, while not overpowering the economy with the energy sector as is historically characteristic.
 
WTI is at $57.70 as of my posting. That's a damn sight better than $26 or whatever it got to.

There have been a few analysts calling for a long term price spike caused by extended periods of under-investment. I guess we'll see where that goes. My understanding is that the recent price support is largely due to Russia and Saudi Arabia's collusion on reduced production. But then there's US shale which really kicks in when the price rebounds. It's a complex market. There's room for hope though. I think the best thing going in Calgary, Alberta and Canada's favours is the cost cutting in the Oil Sands. Apparently they're getting it down close to $20 a barrel. So much for needing $80/B to be profitable.

Now if only we could get some pipelines...
Yeah one outage and the WCS spread gets insane.
 
KXL just passed through the Nebraska legislature with a reroute. That was billed as the "last obstacle." I guess we'll see if shovels hit the ground soon.

It would be really nice if we could get some market diversification though. Energy East and Norhern Gateway really made me sad. I feel like the best hope we have of every have getting a new all Canadian route would be if they could ever reliably ship out of the port of Churchill.
 
Energy East was so long, and the potential toll so high, that it only made sense if all other expansion routes were blocked. From what I heard it was barely cost competitive with rail to the Gulf Coast.
 

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