Pour travailler sur les sables bitumineux, il faut faire du porte a porte auprès des compagnies pétrolières d'Edmonton. C'est eux qui te diront dans quel camps tu vas travailler. Ils t'enverront direct sur place.
Euh....tu te rends compte que le prix du baril est à 50$ en ce moment ?
Toi tu es a Edmonton déjà, donc tu es surement plus au courant que nous en ce qui concerne le marché de l'emploi dans ce secteur.
Pour info : un gars de 26 ans est mort sur un chantier de forage pétrolier cette semaine et ce n'est pas le premier (ni le dernier malheureusement).
--source
Mar 27, 2009 3:33:00 PM MST
Oilfield worker, 26, killed at Encana well site in central Alberta (Alta-Drilling-Fatal)
RIMBEY, Alta. _ Safety officers are investigating the death of an oilfield worker southwest of Edmonton.
The 26-year-old man was killed in an accident at an Encana well site, about 15 kilometres west of Rimbey.
Alberta Employment and Immigration says the death occurred when some pipe being lowered by workers hit an obstruction.
Department spokesman Chris Chodan says it´s unclear exactly how the man died because no one saw what happened.
The man´s name has not been released but he was an employee of Precision Drilling.
Work at the site has been halted during the investigation. (CHUB)
fin source ----
Pour info (bis) : on parle de 20.000 personnes licenciées (officiellement, car certaines sources plus proches de la réalité parlent de deux fois plus)
SOURCE : -----
Oil and gas slump freezes Western drilling
Article Comments (48) NATHAN VANDERKLIPPE
From Tuesday's Globe and Mail
March 31, 2009 at 4:14 AM EDT
CALGARY — A harsh spring has descended early on the Canadian oil patch, as drilling rigs have gone almost completely silent nearly three weeks before they normally break for the mid-April thaw.
Only 12 per cent of the Western Canadian drilling fleet is currently working, a third the normal percentage at this time of year, and the number could fall to historic lows in coming weeks.
"The general consensus is that over the next month or so, it will average 10 per cent and it may go into the mid-single digits toward the end of April," said UBS Securities analyst Chad Friess.
Drilling rigs are most active in the winter because they depend on the cold to freeze routes over rivers and muskeg into areas that would not otherwise be easily accessible. "Breakup," the season when the weather begins to warm, traditionally marks the end of that highly profitable season.
This year, breakup has come early - not because of a surprise thaw, but because companies don't have the work to keep going. Only in British Columbia is a substantial number of rigs still operating.
"It's similar to the downturn that we saw in the '80s," said Joe Bruce, chief operating officer at Nabors Canada, one of the biggest drillers in the country. Because of its position in the industry, Nabors expects to run 15 per cent of its fleet during breakup. It is currently at 21 per cent.
But the broader industry is not expected to do nearly so well.
Industry rig count numbers go back more than 25 years, and the lowest utilization rate in that period was 6.8 per cent, in 1986, Mr. Friess said.
"If we do go down to, say, 5 per cent, it would be a record in terms of recorded history," he said.
A 5-per-cent utilization would mean a staggering 819 rigs - enough to employ more than 20,000 people, based on industry averages - would be parked on forestry concessions and farmers' fields.
And in an early indication of the impact the slowdown is having on Canadian petroleum production, natural gas output in March actually declined in a month where it has traditionally grown. This month's gas production is on track to fall 1.3 per cent from February. Canadian natural gas exports in March are down more than 13 per cent from last year.
Natural gas production has been slipping since late 2006, but the dramatic drop-off in drilling activity is expected to hasten its slide. Western Canada's gas output fell 2.4 per cent in 2007, and 3.9 per cent in 2008. Judith Dwarkin, the chief economist at Calgary-based Ross Smith Energy Group, said it could tumble as much as 8 per cent this year.
"It will most likely be appreciably more severe this year," she said.
As gas prices continue to flounder, production is also likely to be hurt when producing companies turn off, or shut in, wells that are no longer covering cash costs, she said.
Much of the pain is currently being felt by oil field services companies, however. Analysts estimate that they will drill anywhere between 10,000 to 12,000 wells this year, about 40 per cent fewer than last year. So few rigs were turning in the first quarter that "we never really even had a drilling season," said Tristone Capital analyst John Tasdemir.
Rig rates have also fallen anywhere from 10 to 40 per cent, with shallow rigs hit much harder than deep drills. That has clobbered profit margins and pounded companies in the market. Three years ago, Mr. Tasdemir calculated that of publicly traded Canadian service companies, 10 had market capitalizations above $1-billion, 12 were less than $150-million and 13 were in between.
"Today there's five with market caps greater than $500-million and 23 with market caps less than $150-million," he said. "So the market has really shrunk quickly."
To survive, companies need to consolidate, "but part of the problem is the market's so bad that no one wants to lose their job. So who is the motivated buyer and seller?" he said. "It's a bit of a conundrum."
Another conundrum concerns manpower: Faced with the traditional slack spring season, companies must decide how many workers will receive the traditional $140-a-day subsistence pay during annual training.
It's a calculation that requires looking into the gloomy future and paring down staff levels to the bare minimum needed.
FIN SOURCE ----
Donc avant tout, ne risquez pas de venir en Alberta sans savoir vraiment ce qui se passe sur le terrain. Il y a du boulot certes, mais attendez le meilleur moment pour foncer sous peine de voir ses (petites) économies fondre comme neige au soleil.
Ensuite pour le gars du Caces, il ne sera pas reconnu en Alberta par contre, tu as tes chances pour qu'il le soit au Québec et même une fois la qualification reconnue au Québec, c'est la croix et la bannière pour le faire valider en Alberta. Donc renseignes toi bien auprès des organismes institutionnels qui délivrent les certifications équivalentes au canada (souvent un email suffit pour avoir la réponse à sa question).
