A pause, but not panic, in Fort McMurray
Residents in Alberta town get a chance to take stock during oil’s tumble
FORT MCMURRAY, Alta. — The city at the heart of Canada’s oilsands is no ghost town, but things have slowed down a bit in Fort McMurray, Alta.
And that’s not necessarily a bad thing, according to the president of the local chamber of commerce.
“Do you know what? To me — for us — this is nice,” Nick Sanders said at a downtown café that had a smattering of customers in the middle of a weekday morning.
“We have a chance to sit back and say ‘OK, let’s figure out what we need to get ready for the next increase in oil production.’ ”
Oil prices are the lowest since the Great Recession hit about six years ago, hovering below $50 US a barrel throughout much of January after having plunged from a summer high of $107 US.
But Fort Mac has not ground to a halt.
According to the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, the oilsands churned out 1.9 million barrels a day of crude at the end of 2013. That’s projected to rise to 2.3 million this year thanks to projects that are already in the hopper.
So most of those who call Fort McMurray home continue to have stable jobs, whether it’s driving trucks at mines north of town or pouring pints for those workers when the day is done.
It’s the expansions and new projects that are up in the air, as companies try to get a handle on where prices are heading long term. Bearing the brunt of the downturn so far have been contractors from elsewhere who rely on those temporary construction jobs, often flying directly to and from site and residing in work camps for weeks at a time.
Suncor Energy, which has massive mining operations north of town, is cutting its companywide workforce by 1,000 — mostly contractor jobs. Shell Canada is cutting up to 300 jobs at its mining operations in the area. Across the sector billions have been pared from 2015 budgets.
The uncertainty has made it difficult for authorities in Fort McMurray to make sure they have enough housing, infrastructure and services to match whatever size population is needed for the next growth spurt. If anything, Sanders is worried about how the community will be able to respond if oil swings as sharply upward as it has downward.
“Very little needs to change globally for the price of oil to jump up,” he said. “That would be our biggest worry — is that, have we slowed it down too much?”
There was little gloom evident in downtown Fort McMurray during an unseasonably warm spell in late January.
It was tough to find a parking spot amid the throngs of mudsplattered pickups outside Peter Pond Mall. A steady stream of trucks rumbled down Highway 63 as rush hour approached.
The local brew pub on the main drag was crammed on a weeknight.
Mayor Melissa Blake has had to manage the municipality’s resources through many ups and downs during the past decade.
If there’s one thing outsiders get wrong about Fort Mac, it’s the degree to which the “drama” over oil prices matters to day-today life, she said.
“We’ve been through cycles like this in the past,” she said. Blake recalls in 1998, when she was on city council, encountering a budget squeeze when crude tanked to $10 US a barrel.
“Within two years, we were already saying ‘oh my gosh, how are we going to handle the growth?’ ”
“We have a chance to sit back and say ‘OK, let’s figure out what we need to get ready for the next increase in oil production.’ NICK SANDERS CHAMBER OF COMMERCE