The oil flurry in Fort McMurray (oil sand)

dallas ^ | September 23, 2005 | Jim Landers

[-=[_Super_Secret_Agent_]=-]

Jim Landers: The oil flurry in McMurray

Canadian boomtown is full of cash, short of workers and housing

FORT McMURRAY, Alberta – Wal-Mart manager Ed Wirun has vacancies for 60 employees. Bob Simpson copes with 400 percent annual turnover at the four McDonald's restaurants he runs. Mike Allen recalls his exasperated Campbell's Music store manager declaring, "That's it, boss. Just give me some warm bodies."

This small city that services Canada's oil sands boom is a happy-days economy pushed past the ideal. There are far more jobs than workers, more renters than rental properties, more buyers than homes and more capital pouring into new industrial projects than the Mounties or the local roads, sewers, hospitals and schools can handle. Practically every store is begging for help. Rents go up whenever an oil company announces a new project – three times so far this year for some of Mr. Wirun's workers. A single-family home costs more than almost anywhere else in Canada. Texas has a rich history of oil booms, but it hasn't seen anything like this since Midland was swimming in money in the late 1970s. If oil went back below $20 a barrel, Fort McMurray would go bust. But with more than 175 billion barrels of thick oil oozing through the surrounding sandy soils, this well won't run dry for a long, long time. The city got its name as a fur-trading outpost in the far, often frozen north of the province of Alberta, more than 600 miles above the border with Montana. Oil extraction began in 1967.

[John Jamieson]

Tar Sands, Shale oil, and Coal Liquefaction all in North America, Hundreds of years worth.

" I believe we have but awakened a sleeping giant, Abdul"

[ASOC]

So I guess driving down there with RV looking for a HPJITOP* is out, 'eh?


(*High Paying Job In The Oil Patch - qv A mythical thing that exists in the minds of people who think prices will stay low when the payroll explodes))

[goodnesswins]

Yeah, and the Chinese are buying it.....I'm surprised the Chinese haven't sent cheap labor (or maybe they have...I really don't know.)

[Flightdeck]

Darn. Off to the trash can with my cold fusion device.

[hinckley buzzard]

Yeah, and the Chinese are buying it..

What they can. And why not. It's a free market. But we buy a bit of it ourselves you know. Canada is The United States' largest foreign supplier of oil, in the world. More than Saudi, more than Venezuela, more than Mexico, or anyone else.

[goodnesswins]

I'm not saying the Chinese cannot....just that it means possibly less for us....<:)

[aquila48]

Practically every store is begging for help.

Well, there goes our illegal immigrants problem....

[thackney]

additional information at

The oil sands of Alberta
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1563837/posts

{Candian Oil} Sands in shake out year
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1561667/posts