XPost: can.politics, ab.politics, bc.politics   
   XPost: ont.politics, edm.general   
   From: Panca@nyet.ca   
      
   Good for you . . . . you're about to get a taste of what happens when you tie   
   your boat to a sinking ship.  A stinkin', polluting, environment-destroying   
   ship.   
   _____________________________________________   
   Boom and Bust in Alberta   
      
      
   An oil boom creates scores of multi-millionaires but then the party ends   
      
   In the 1970s, Alberta was hit by a modern-day gold rush. Oil prices soared and   
   adventurers flooded into the province in a frenzied hunt to strike it rich.   
      
   For geologist Jim Gray, these were the glory days in Alberta when the pioneer   
   spirit was alive and well.   
      
   "Lets drill that well.  Lets take that land.  Lets not talk about this for the   
   rest of the day.  And lets not have a bloody committee.  And if we fail, well   
   fail big.  But if we win, were gonna win big."   
      
   Gray did win big.  He and his partner, John Masters, discovered Elmworth Deep   
   Basin, a gas field west of Grande Prairie, Alberta, which turned out to be the   
   second largest in North America.   
      
   "It was a great moment of self-satisfaction, especially when you find it where   
   everyone else said not to go," said Gray, who formed the company Canadian   
   Hunter.   
      
   Gray - a devout Mormon from Kirkland Lake, Ontario - quickly joined the wild   
   pace of Calgarys oil world.   
      
   "There are over seven hundred oil and gas companies here," Gray said.  "Its   
   heavy competition.  Some people can't keep up with it.  We've got a high   
   incidence of social stress. Divorce, drinking, suicide.  But there's a lot of   
   us who thrive on it."   
      
   Imperial Oil lay claim to Alberta's first big oil strike in 1947.  But the oil   
   frenzy more than two decades later would be touched off by an event half way   
   around the world.   
   In Alberta, the oil boom was creating more multi-millionaires than anytime   
   before in Canadian history.  Alberta's Bible belt image was replaced by the   
   notion of oil wealth, with all its attendant perks and vices.   
      
   For a while, it seems as if money really did grow on trees. And everyone wanted   
   a piece of the action.   
      
   During the 1970s, the provinces population increased by a third. Four thousand   
   people a month flood into the province, looking for a share of this modern-day   
   gold rush.   
      
   "We would work seven days a week, sixteen, twenty hours a day," said oil rig   
   worker Dwayne Mather. "I was young) and full of all kinds of ambition and it   
   was great, a great time."   
      
   The Alberta oil industry boomed, transforming the cities of Calgary and   
   Edmonton   
      
   At the height of the boom, Calgary issued more than $1 billion worth of   
   construction permits annually, more than Chicago or New York.  Apartment   
   vacancy rates approached zero as Ontarians and Maritimers arrived daily in   
   search of high-paying jobs.   
      
   The housing market boomed, oil stocks rose, and an entrepreneurial spirit, once   
   exclusive to businessmen, was awakened in professors, lawyers, and dentists,   
   who began speculating in real estate and experimenting with oil ventures.   
      
   At Calgary's Petroleum Club, new Canadian millionaires rubbed shoulders with   
   American oil company presidents.  The big players swap tales and make deals.   
   Jim Gray thrived on the competition:   
      
   "Everybody wanted to be in a big building.  Everybody wanted to have a   
   corporate airplane.  Young people with two or three or four years experience   
   were getting together with some other friends and starting their own little oil   
   and gas company."   
      
   But the frenzied greed of the Alberta oil boom would take its toll.  By the   
   early 1980s, too rapid expansion and a world-wide economic recession hit the   
   industry hard.   
      
   As unpredictably as it began, the Alberta oil boom was over.   
      
   In 1982, Dome Petroleum, the country's largest oil company, avoided collapse   
   with a last-minute bailout package with Ottawa and the banks.   
      
   Within two years, mirroring trends elsewhere in the country, unemployment in   
   the province rose from 4 to 10 per cent.  For the first time in more than a   
   decade, Alberta had more people leaving the province than coming in.  The   
   province led the nation in housing foreclosures, bankruptcies and suicides.   
      
   The Calgary Heralds classified section bulged with homes for sale, sometimes   
   including the contents and cars.  The city had 2.3 million square metres of   
   vacant office space, and its real estate speculators and oil investors had   
   reverted to their former careers as teachers, dentists, and taxi drivers.   
      
   In 1986, Alberta received another economic blow when world oil price declined   
   steeply.   
      
   Alberta's economic woes began to turn around in the late 1980s.  The provincial   
   government used enormous royalty revenues generated from oil and gas sales to   
   diversify into the forestry sector.   
      
   By the mid-1990s, Alberta's fortunes were on the rise again, thanks to the   
   fiscally responsible Ralph Klein government and higher world prices for oil and   
   natural gas.   
   _________________________________   
      
   And today:   
      
   OTTAWA — The Globe and Mail - Thursday, Dec. 04 2014   
      
   Saudi oil-price cut prompts Canadian energy stock slide   
   Alberta energy firms face harsh new reality as oil's slide steepens   
      
   Canada's energy sector faces the prospect of a lengthy downturn in oil prices   
   and broad spending cuts after OPEC said it does not intend to cut production   
   –   
   a move that sent crude prices and energy shares plunging.   
      
   Investors immediately punished Canadian energy companies in reaction to the   
   Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries' decision Thursday to stand   
   firm on its production plans, defying industry hopes for a cut. The S&P/TSX   
   Capped Energy Index sank 7 per cent, hitting its lowest point since April,   
   2013. The price for Brent oil, the global benchmark, dropped $5.17 (U.S.) a   
   barrel to close at $72.58, a four-year low. West Texas Intermediate oil, the   
   North American standard, dropped $4.64 a barrel to $69.05.   
      
   Oil prices have been skidding since June, reflecting a global oversupply of   
   crude resulting from surging U.S. production and slack demand growth.   
      
   Now, Canada's energy producers, along with the Alberta government, must   
   reconsider their financial future. Oil firms must prepare for pinched profits,   
   and may have to shelve expansion aspirations.   
      
   So far, the energy industry has taken few major steps in reaction to plunging   
   oil prices, showing a reluctance to pull back production and give up revenue.   
   But analysts say any sustained downturn will force action to face the new   
   reality.   
      
   "I think we're probably still in a state of denial. The producing industry, not   
   just here in Calgary but in North America, is still thinking that these prices   
   aren't going to be here for long, so no one's wanting to react yet," said Randy   
   Ollenberger, a Bank of Montreal analyst.   
      
   "But I think if we see these prices for a couple of months more – and I think   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)